arcade shooter. Certain types of stories just will not fit with certain types of gameplay,
such as the Greek mythology in a flight simulator example discussed previously. Simi-
larly, a romantic story might not fit with a strategy game, and a tale about diplomacy
would not fit so well with a fast-action first-person shooter. Since you made the choice
to come up with your gameplay style first, you need to ask yourself what sort of story is
best suited to that gameplay, and try to tell that tale. Sometimes a designer will have
both a story she wants to tell and a type of gameplay she wants to explore, and will
attempt to do both in the same game, even if the two do not go well together. Do not try
to cobble an inappropriate story, either in terms of complexity or subject matter, around
gameplay that is ill-suited to that type of narrative. Save the story for a later date when
you are working on a title with gameplay that will support that story better. And while
your technology is limited by what your team is capable of accomplishing in the time
allotted, the story is limited only by your own ability to tell it. You should pick the story
best suited to your gameplay and go with it.
Starting with Technology.........................
Going into a project with a large portion of the game’s technology already developed is
also a fairly common occurrence. If this is not the development team’s first project
together at a new company, then it is likely that there will be an existing technology
base that the project is supposed to build from. Even if the project is to use a “new”
engine, this often only means an older engine updated, and as a result, the style of game
best suited to the engine will not change significantly. Even if an engine is being written
from scratch for the project, it is likely that the lead programmer and her team are best
equipped to create a certain type of engine, be it indoor or outdoor, real-time or
pre-rendered, 3D or 2D, with a complex physics system for object movement or some-
thing more simple. The programmers may be interested in experimenting with certain
special lighting or rendering effects, and will create an engine that excels at these
objectives. The designer is then presented with this new technology and tasked with
coming up with a game that will exploit the sophisticated technology to full effect.
Other times it is predetermined that the project will be using an engine licensed
from some other source, either from another game developer or a technology-only
company. Though some of these licensed engines are becoming more and more robust
and as a result can allow for a fairly broad number of games to be made with them (Cri-
terion’s RenderWare is certainly a good example of this), many licensed engines are
still developed with one game genre in mind, and no engine is without its fundamental
limitations. Sometimes the project leaders have enough foresight to consider the type
of game they want to make first and then pick an engine well suited to that. Sometimes
the engine licensing deal that seems to deliver the most “bang for the buck” will be the
one chosen. Then, with an engine choice decided, the team is tasked with creating a
game and story that will fit together well using that technology.
Just as starting with a desired sort of gameplay dictates what type of engine should
be created, starting with set technology requires that the game designer consider pri-
marily gameplay that will work with that sort of technology. If the engine is 3D, the
designer will need to create a game that takes place in a 3D world and uses that world to
create interesting 3D gameplay. If the engine is only 2D, a first-person shooter is out of
the question. If the engine has a sophisticated physics system, a game should be
Chapter 3: Brainstorming a Game Idea 43