De Engelstalige Gamasutra heeft deel 2 online gezet van hun serie over De Sims. Ging deel 1 over het vertellen van verhalen, zie dit bericht op onze site, deel 2 probeert de vraag te beantwoorden waarom De Sims zo leuk is om te spelen. Een van de antwoorden die wordt gegeven is de enorme vrijheid die het spel geeft.
Helaas is dit meteen het laatste deel; ik had graag nog wat meer achtergrond artikelen gezien van Christopher Aaby over De Sims.
I don’t want to go on forever about this, so I’ll wrap up here. The main points that I wanted to get across are that the Sims is not fun in a challenging way, and that the game gives the player a lot of freedom (which can be intimidating to new players), but structures this freedom in such a way that it becomes easy to handle, without forcing the player’s hand.
Consider how inelegant MMORPG’s often handle this, giving the illusion of freedom (you can go anywhere you want!) but constraining the player severely at the same time (…except in areas above your level!). Of course, games like that face some very different design challenges, being multiplayer and competitive (not to mention subscription-paid!), but I still think the Sims approach is food for thought, and is far from limited to a casual, non-competitive design model.
| Gamasutra: The Sims – Part 2: Intimidating freedom, and how to avoid it |
