by Alex
And so the Hero of Spielberg and Prince of Shapeir’s journey to Tarna begins!
As Chet eloquently described in his initial Quest for Glory III post, this entire series is “tight.” Chet stole my thunder a little bit, as this is an aspect of game design I wanted to save for the final rating, but now is just as good a time as any to discuss it here, since I completely agree with him.
My preferred term is
well-crafted. Playing a well-crafted game provides an experience that feels satisfying and complete. The polish put into games like this speaks of additional effort beyond the 90 percent required to make the game at all. It’s this last 10 percent that separates the decent from the good to great games.
Here are some characteristics of well-crafted games; feel free to add additional characteristics in the comments below:
- There are few, or no, wasted screens or moments: every character and scene provides some kind of information to the player or something to do.
- Characters don’t act in ways that contradict everything that has come before.
- The game’s mechanics and game-world rules are well-explained and consistent throughout, both to the player and to the other characters.
- The game’s story hangs together on its own internal logic.
- There are few, if any, plot holes.
- There is no deus ex machina.
- Villains don’t just appear out of the blue.
- The explanation for each puzzle can be found within the game as opposed to the use of brute force inventory testing.
- The player is rarely, if ever, left wandering around bereft of direction.
There are more, but I think it’s safe to say that the
Quest for Glory games meet these criteria. From personal experience, I contend that
The Secret of Monkey Island provides an equally well-crafted experience.
Conquests of the Longbow and
King’s Quest VI are other games I can think of that uphold this ideal. Please let me know of others in the comments.
