Amy Hennig, game director at Naughty Dog for the Playstation 3 game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
When we're conducting an interview with a
developer, the bulk of our time is spent discussing their current
project. But after the voice recorder is turned off and the liquor is
flowing, the conversation almost inevitably shifts to videogames made
by other teams working in the same genre as that developer. For us,
it's always fascinating to look at games through the eyes of those who
make them, because they often see things through a different set of
eyes than the typical gamer; the same can be said of reviewers who are
particularly knowledgeable about a certain genre. As part of our
ongoing quest to take the best conversations that are occurring in the
shadows and bring them to light, we offer you the new occasional series
Make or Break, which asks prominent developers and reviewers to share
with us the five key features, details, methods or flaws that they look
for from games in the same genre.
Our newest contributor is Naughty Dog creative
director Amy Hennig, whose resume includes stints at Electronic Arts
(as an artist/animator and game designer), Eidos (as director for
several acclaimed titles like Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2, and Legacy of
Kain: Defiance) before joining Naughty Dog in 2003, where she directed
Jak 3. Her most recent title, the Playstation 3 game Uncharted: Drake's
Fortune, launched last month to strong reviews. In today's
installment, Hennig explains what she looks for in an action/adventure
game.
The first adventure game I ever played was (appropriately) Adventure
on the Atari 2600, almost thirty years ago. It completely hooked me,
and I've been a fan of the genre ever since. As a gamer, I'm always
looking for an immersive, story-driven action/adventure game--finding a
good one is like losing yourself in a really great book. And as a
developer, this is the kind of game I'm most passionate about making.
There's no greater reward for a designer or storyteller than knowing
that you've transported the player out of the mundane and into the
world that you've created.
So all that being said, here are some of the features I look for in
the action/adventure games I play--and the qualities I've hoped to
achieve in the games I've worked on.
1. The Urge to Explore
From the moment the player steps into the game
world, the environment should ignite the imagination and inspire our
natural human instinct to investigate and explore. Obviously this urge
is driven by a lot of factors, including story and character. But even
in the absence of any plot motivations, the environment--taken all by
itself--should inspire exploration.
This doesn't mean that an adventure game has to have wide-open levels like GTA or Assassin's Creed--in
fact, some of the best adventure games are pretty linear, with only an
illusion of open-endedness, but you still feel compelled to find your
path through the space, figure out a way to reach a landmark in the
distance, or just see what's around the next corner. So why do some
games succeed at this, while other games fail to inspire?
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