Legend of Grimrock - Jeff Vogel on Design Space

Well, for me "design space" indicates the number of dimensions or aspects to gameplay or presentation or any other aspect of a CRPG in this context.

Limiting movement of a blob to a grid and along discrete turns may seem somewhat restrictive, but I think you can do a lot with it. But perhaps less than what Vogel can do with his engine, but it is first person perspective. Different but not necessarily repetitive…

Many of Vogel's blogs have been real good, but this one comes off a bit peevish. Not good.
 
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Another point: story telling is constrained by the game design. Since telling stories was made a central point in gaming and not just decorum to magnify the gameplay, the studios have struggled to find the proper formula to convey efficiently the much wanted story.
They have spent some money on it though. No success. They have adapted the gaming structure to fit better narrative telling.

One element I add to the list that must be present: the future games must happen in close environment, underground, tunnels, sowers, towers, temples, dungeons, space ships etc… If they go for outdoors, they will find that their niche can not provide enough to match the efforts of others'studios.

And developping a narrative technique while being constrained to the limitations of corridor exploration meets limitations too. No developpers have found the right formula to tell a story in a game, despite spending so much on adapting the gaming structure, any studio relying on limited game desing wont make it either.

I remember Arcana, a SNES rpg of all things having an interesting way of handling storylines. It would focus the story around npcs and pcs appearing on the screen in conversation mode, with little narrative. It wasn't exceptional by any means, but it certainly showed the possibilities for further evolution.
 
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