By Linda Kim
Alex Mayhew reminds us of the greatly creative aspects of video game
development with his proposed game of the future, "Dreamer."
As a designer
instead of an engineer or programmer, Mayhew is building on the idea
that game design could be a true art form.
Mayhew claims that "Dreamer" will be a game of high action
and emotional
drama. Where the mainstream video game industry has been working hard
to
develop more complex graphics, sophisticated visuals, faster and more
flexible
interactions for more satisfying action and adventure, Mayhew seems
to be
working toward a game that allows the player to build a narrative
and become
emotionally involved in it. In Mayhew's words, "Dreamer"
is "gaming for
grown-ups."
In "Dreamer," the player is given an interactive fictional
world in which he
must make choices and navigate to control the direction of the plot.
The game
takes place in the head of Max Reno, a character who has been asleep
since he was in a car crash. Although he had no head injuries, he
refuses to wake up,
perhaps due to psychological reasons. In the game, the player meets
the people important to Max and helps him overcome his psychological
problems so he can wake up and be reunited with his loved ones. The
characters in the game are of two categories, Max's friends and family
who are shown as butterflies and Max's enemies who are represented
by wasps. The player inhabits and controls various characters (butterflies,
wasps, and even Max himself) at different times. Certain things and
people trigger sequences in the dream, and the player is gradually
shown why Max refuses to awake. Discovery in the game is reached through
experimentation and exploration with the various situations and characters
involved in the game. By playing the game, one is not only "winning"
but also creating a story. The focus of this game is interaction to
achieve emotional engagement, so the players will care about Max and
his life, not just have a rush from a violent battle like in many
common video games.
Drawing emotion in a video game is not an entirely new concept. Mario,
Donkey Kong, and Zelda designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, emphasizes emotion
in his designs as well: "When I create games, my priority is
on the emotional feeling I can get through the controller while playing.
So, by focusing on a human's emotion, which has nothing to do with
age, I hope to appeal to a wide range of people." (http://www.feedmag.com/vgs/remiya.html)
Miyamoto expresses the value of rhythm and emotional stimuli in successful
games in his interview with FEED magazine in 1999.
The noteworthy innovation with Alex Mayhew's "Dreamer"
is the creation of a
player-driven narrative through the game. By participating in the
game, not
only do the players "win" or get emotionally involved, but
they develop a
unique story. Where most games only have two possible plots, win and
save the princess (or whatever the prize may be) or fail to do it,
"Dreamer" can have
any number of different plot lines regardless of the player's "winning"
or
"losing" the game. This is where the emphasis of emotional
involvement by the
player becomes unique in the video game medium with the "Dreamer."
With the award-winning artistic talents of Mayhew, "Dreamer"
could potentially be quite an ingenious game.