When Games Make Me Rethink Game Design

I would like to think that I’ve played more games than the average person. Therefore, it would make sense that I would gradually grow used to the way games within specific genres are designed so that I can easily expect what type of game I’m about to play. However, there are times when I come across a game whose game design catches me off-guard. Depending on the game, this can either be a good thing or a bad thing but, in the situations where it’s good, they can cause me to look at the individual elements within a game in a brand new way. Given that, I thought I might share some of the times where games have made me rethink game design and what those elements were.

I’m going to skip the early years when I was discovering video games for the first time as the key word in this article is “rethink”, something which requires a basic understanding before it can happen. I spent many years playing games with some of my fondest memories being when I first discovered JRPGs, a Christmas morning with a new console and game and meeting my best friend because I overheard her talking about a game I had played. However, I think the first time I ever had to reexamine how games were designed was when I played a game called Dark Souls.

I had heard tales of the Souls games although I now realise that it was both Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls I was hearing about, not a single game. Regardless, all I heard about Dark Souls made me hunger to try it out and I even picked up a controller to use on PC for the very first time, that being back in the winter of 2015. I will admit that my very first time playing Dark Souls was not the most pleasant experience but I look back now with the realisation that it was because it was so different compared to everything else I’d played to that point. To break it down, I was used to RPGs being highly reliant on levels in order to stand a chance at victory. While leveling can certainly contribute to an easier experience, the combat system is highly skill-based, meaning that it was ultimately up to the players ability to observe and react in order to succeed. However, the combat alone wouldn’t be enough to make me rethink how game design is applied to video games with perhaps the most shocking thing to me being the worldbuilding. I will admit that the story of Dark Souls seemed obtuse during my first playthrough but multiple playthroughs as well as watching other people play the game made me realise how truly incredible it was. The way that everything was interconnected while providing the player with just enough information to provide some truly shocking revelations. The fact that I had to work hard to understand lent these revelations a gravitas that I’ve hardly ever experienced elsewhere and I would go back to other games with a completely new mindset, these reexaminations leading me to realise how much I took granted.

While there have been a few cases since then where I was surprised and fascinated by the way a game was designed, the inspiration for this article is actually because I’ve been playing Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition recently and, while I haven’t completed the game yet as of the time I write this, there’s already enough game design that I’ve experienced that has completely thrown me, in a good way, that I felt compelled to talk about it. Like Dark Souls, I’d been hearing about the games that Larian Studios had been making for years but it was only this year that I got around to trying one. I’m already shocked by how much I have to say about the game even though I suspect that I’m not even halfway through and, while I have some criticisms that I suspect will be rectified in later games from the studio, it’s also been one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had in a while.

The first shock I had was that I had access to all of my combat abilities outside of combat! While it would be logical for this to be the case, years upon years of only a restricted, if any at all, pool of abilities outside of combat has trained me to believe the opposite. This has opened a variety of options as I play such as being able to destroy doors with my weapons and magic, solve quests by using healing or environmental spells and initiating combat by stacking buffs beforehand and opening with an attack. This much was already interesting by itself but I came across a quest concerning what the game called “Twin Dungeons”. As I examined one of the two dungeons, I spoke to a rat which mentioned that the pillars in this area might be affecting the other dungeon. I ran back and forth for a while before coming to a realisation. See, the game taught me early on that I could separate my party into smaller groups that could act independently of each other. While I had made use of this before for stealing as parts of quests, having one of my characters talk to someone while another snuck around behind them, I hadn’t tested if my group could go into separate dungeons. I was truly surprised to see that this was the legitimate way to complete the quest, managing two parties in two instances of the dungeon. I’ve had games do stuff like this before but only because the game told me I had to. I’d never seen a case where I could order my party to split up at any time and control them potentially far away from each other. The final thing I want to draw attention to, and this is quite funny, is mistaking certain objects for consumables. You see, I’m used to items disappearing once you they’re used such as a lockpick, a tent, a key etc. I picked up some repair hammers and identifying glasses with the expectation that I’d only use them when necessary. It wasn’t until the past few days that I learned that they don’t get consumed upon use. I can use an identifying glass as many times as I want! The same thing applied to the repair hammer, keys, lockpicks, shovels etc.! I found it hilarious that my first assumption was that these would disappear upon use but that’s because I’ve had years of gaming experience tell me that this was the case!

It’s always fascinating to come across a game that makes you rethink how games are constructed but, even if they can be confusing at first, I appreciate games pushing the boundaries when it comes to game design and it’s something that I can only hope we see in the future. Let me know your thoughts on these games, the impact they’ve had or should have on the way games are designed, what games you’ve experienced that have caused you to rethink game design and how they are made and any additional information you might have on the topic.

Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.