Lost Garden - Three False Constraints

Once again, a call goes out to make games more culturally meaningful. I agree very much with the sentiment, but I’ve always been frustrated with how designers set themselves up for failure due to the constraints placed on the problem.

What I find silly is that everyone assumes videogames’ Citizen Kane will look like Citizen Kane, i.e. a movie, and not like Mario 3 or Tetris. The most effective political game of all time was SimCity. Why? Did it have cut scenes about class struggle? No, but to win you had to learn your way through a world where tax cuts spur growth at the cost of revenue. That’s a game with a message.