Patrick Curry's Snow Day 41
Patrick Curry, currently working on the next-gen John Woo title Stranglehold has a blog where he posts short, interesting idea kernels for games. His most recent post, entitled Snow Day, really grabbed my attention. From the post: "Snow Day is an open-world game where you play as a kid in a small town that's been completely snowed in. The schools and businesses are all closed, so for this one day the kids can do whatever they want! You can have a snowball fight, make a snowman, make snow-angels, or build a fort. As you explore the town you find items that unlock new activities, like sledding, skiing, snowboarding, and ice-skating ... Snow Day gets really interesting when you start thinking of it as a multiplayer game. Suddenly the casual activities turn into a tournament, a sort of Winter Olympics for kids. Snow Day has most of the classic gameplay archetypes... exploring, racing, and some very light combat. But it also has creative gameplay, in building forts, snowmen, and all of the other ways you could manipulate the environment." Some of his other game idea posts include Oval Office, a president sim, and Freelance Foto, an on-the-run photojournalist game.
Re:World simulation vs. active participation (Score:4, Insightful)
>...pasty kids who don't want...
>...sweaty and gross...
>...interact with actual people who you can't block with the click of a button.
Part of growing in life is leaving your comfort zone, and that comfort zone can be defined physically, emotionally, intellectually, and even culinarily.
IMHO:
If we stay too far inside our comfort zone, too much of the time, we're missing too much of the value of life. For that matter, everyone (that dread "everyone") moans about the lack of civility in modern discourse, public and politic. I see part of the reason being in cable TV. Once upon a time, we all got our news feeds from the same 3 networks, 4 if you include PBS. Maybe some of us weren't in our comfort zones when watching the news, but we all shared a core zone. Now with cable diversity, we can stay in our comfort zone when watching the news - Fox, CNN, PBS, conventional network, etc. The same is now true on radio, as well. But our shared core is gone, and our world-views based on the news have diverged, as well.
In addition, getting more of our interaction online can be damaging, too. We could seek out a more diverse group of people to interact with - people who would normally be kept far beyond our reach by simple geography and today's tendancy not to write letters. But instead we have an understandable tendancy to seek out like-minded people for discourse - regardless of geography. This bypasses important lessons in how to cope with disagreements and the downright ornery.
Besides, part of the fun of going outside to play in the snow was coming in after, sitting in front of the vent (forced hot-air heat) and drinking a cup of hot chocolate and eating Graham crackers while watching a little TV.
Re:"Snow Day" wouldn't sell. (Score:3, Insightful)