Videogames Have A Creativity Problem (and it's not the one you think)

Comments · 864

• AR

  @ArchitectofGames · 3 years ago · pinned

  A dumb special prize I just came up with of getting mentioned on the next Architect Address for whoever correctly guesses the number of rickroll references in this video!: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames">https://www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames</a><br>Twitter, the place where creativity, art and originality goes to die: <a href="https://twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot">https://twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot</a>

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• KH

  @KhionePheonix · 3 years ago (edited)

  On the topic of Terraria, they recently have disincentivized making massive condos by making npcs have favorite biomes, teleport crystals that only work with a number of NPCs nearby for each biome, and negatives for overcrowding them, leading you to create biome specific towns across the world. And since the nearest available construction materials will be native to that biome - most often these towns match the theme of the area they&apos;re in! It&apos;s a truly ingenious addition that really gets your creative juices flowing.

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• DR

  @dragonmaster1500 · 3 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlmU7bHynPE&amp;t=390">6:30</a> I find that playing Minecraft with friends usually tends to encourage creativity with builds. Because you know that another human being is going to be looking at something you made. Collaborations with other people to build cool stuff is also a way to encourage it.

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• AW

  @awintory · 3 years ago

  As a composer, I can tell DIRECTLY gameifying music is a dicey proposition. Every time I introduce it in a project it runs counter to core game loop or at best a novel toy. Highly agree with your conclusions here.<br><br>I think making music a proxy to players&apos; actions is often far more compelling for them. IE, a strong feedback interactive score.<br><br>That said, you may be interested in Stray Gods coming soon. 😇 Though in fairness it&apos;s about using music to roleplay, not purely creative expression

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• LA

  @Laezar1 · 3 years ago (edited)

  Fundamentally creativity is about doing things of your own volition not following an assignement. People making dicks with bullet hole in fps are being creative. But a game that judges your creativity isn&apos;t about creativity, it&apos;s about figuring out the right things to do to please the underlying algorithm. I think for a game to have creative element in it you need to have the freedom to not engage with them, otherwise they&apos;re just tasks, not a creative endeavour.

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• TH

  @The-Anathema · 3 years ago

  Sometimes creativity is its own reward, especially since we are hitting hard limits on what you can and can&apos;t do.

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• TH

  @thomrade · 3 years ago

  There was a playstation 1 game that let you build songs from a huge sample library, with a basic music tracker, and do some rudimentary custom stuff too. &nbsp;You could save the songs out to a memory card. &nbsp;I <b>think</b> it was called Music 2000? Aol the songs you made were very much of that late-90s early 2000s era jungle, DnB style that I still love to this day.

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• FI

  @firelordeliteast6750 · 1 year ago

  Counterpoint: A video game about making music is basically just any music-creation software.

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• ZA

  @ZarHakkar · 3 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlmU7bHynPE&amp;t=360">6:00</a><br>I actually really like Valheim&apos;s building system because it averts this.<br>Normally I also don&apos;t progress past the dirt house or cave home state in Minecraft, but Valheim has a slew of mechanics that strongly encourage it.<br>First is the reason you might need to build a house in the first place- you need a roof over your head. Crafting stations need a roof to function, sure, but also when you get wet from the rain you get a stamina penalty.<br>However, once you start building that roof, a bunch of other things start kicking in. All the roof pieces are slanted, so your house is going to actually have a house-like shape. Basic structural integrity is also a thing, meaning you can only build things so high with the basic materials you have.<br>And then it comes to sleeping and beds, which require a lit fire nearby to function. Rain puts out fires, so you think you&apos;ll kill two birds and put the fire in the house. Not so fast, now you gotta think about <i>smoke inhalation,</i> and have to actually design a part of the house around the firepit so that you can 1. Benefit from a nearby fire 2. Have the fire be properly covered as to not get extinguished by rain, and 3. Properly vent the fire&apos;s smoke so you don&apos;t get smoked out. Legit the only game I&apos;ve ever seen where you&apos;re encouraged to build a functional chimney.<br>And it doesn&apos;t stop there. Workstations are upgraded by building little expansion near them. You can have a crafting bench in the house, but a chopping block out back. As you progress throughout the game and defeat more bosses and gather stuff from harder biomes you have access to better materials to make an even bigger and better house. And not to mention the comfort and resting mechanic. <br>You can technically rest anywhere if you&apos;re dry and sitting by a fire, but things like having a roof over your head, a bed nearby, fur rugs on the ground, chairs and tables all increase the bonus buff you get from being rested. The game encourages you to build a cozy little space to rest in when you return from a long adventure that is not only mechanically reinvigorating but also emotionally invested into.<br><br>And then the game sends a wave of trolls to smash your little house down lol<br>Sorry I really like what Valheim did with it&apos;s building system.

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• OL

  @oldvlognewtricks · 3 years ago

  Conversely: if you <b>don’t</b> tie a game to concrete, measurable outcomes, how would a player improve their performance? A game with no obvious mechanism for progression is a pretty hard sell.<br><br>Unless a game can eventually simulate a really good music teacher, where you are simultaneously encouraged to improve technically while being rewarded for your creativity and effort as you go… And that’s hard enough for a human for whom that’s their chosen profession 😅

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• GU

  @guiorgy · 3 years ago

  Just like you showed at the end, sandbox games and games with level editors are great for creativity, especially so if user generated content is the key focus. In Super Mario Maker there are all sort of levels, like music level and levels dedicated to art, and ones that exist only to display silly and funny mechanics and glitches. I think something like that, where the public judges your work, is the best way to encourage creativity. You could say mods are similar, but they require special knowledge and skills to create.

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• SI

  @sihplak · 3 years ago

  One thing on the notion of creativity is also the social component. I&apos;ve seen the most creativity-features in multiplayer-centric games. What stands out the most to me are the Forza franchise, wherein you have a pretty sophisticated art designer for customizing cars, which people use for all kinds of purposes from making realistic looking sponsor decals to abstract patterns to anime art to whole dedicated portraits of people (nearly a decade ago I remember seeing a highly intricate portrait of Bruce Lee put onto a car that someone put a video of on YouTube).<br><br>Another game like this, though currently (if its still around) is not in a great state, is APB: Reloaded. It was like a kind of &quot;GTA Online before GTA Online&quot; kinda MMO: you make a character in either the &quot;criminals&quot; or &quot;enforcers&quot; faction, and in instanced &quot;districts&quot; can queue up for team-based PvP missions. However, pretty much the central important feature of the game was creativity and self-expression; it basically had Forza&apos;s art designer, but for cars, tattoos, and clothing, allowing for endless possibilities in styles and designs. And even further, it had its own music maker to create songs and also &quot;themes&quot; which were 5-second songs that a player heard when you killed them in the game.<br><br>Further, with the in-game player market, people could sell their art, music, cars, etc. to others, which gave an incentive for players to make art and music since they could use that money to then buy better weapons, cars, or otherwise.<br><br>I also remember the game ArcheAge had a music feature where you could basically input MIDI code and play that on any instrument. I remember making music in a notation software, exporting the XML (I think?), then importing that into the game and playing that in a lute, and the whole appeal is doing that for other people (there was an area with a dedicated concert hall for this very purpose basically).<br><br>Its also kind of similar in Minecraft; of course building in vanilla survival or creative mode by yourself is boring; being creative with no intention to show it to other real people isn&apos;t satisfying at all. But the people who make these gigantic, life-scale cities in Minecraft, or any other number of designs? They&apos;re using a mix of modded tools and teamwork to create these massive structures, and the entire purpose of creating them is to show other people. Creativity in games, IMO, necessarily has to be centered on the social component.

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