It's been 12 perilous hours since you set off on your quest to find an ancient artifact deep within a vast forest. You've met an interesting cast of characters, navigated treacherous caverns, slain countless demons and rested a total of 4 minutes and 28 seconds. While walking through the woods, you spot what looks to be a secret path off the main trail. You tread slowly as you ready your sword for the potential foes around the bend and... hit an invisible wall. Oh that's right, you're playing a game.
Being an interactive medium, games offer a personal type of experience no other medium can replicate. Freedom, control, choice, interactivity are all words that distinguish games from movies, books and other media forms. But due to the complexity of the medium, difficult decisions and compromises must be made as the reality of designing a game sets in. Like the invisible walls present in our journey into the woods, there are walls developers hit that cannot be broken, as least not at the moment. Luckily, developers are finding ways to scale these walls, crawl below them or avoid them altogether. And if the player cannot see these walls, the magic of the experience is never broken.
I've been gaming for a long time now and have always had an interest in the industry and development of games. I've decided to create this blog to share my thoughts on what I love about games and how I think the medium can progress. I'll also look at the industry as a whole, from both the player and developer perspectives. I am not a game designer however, so please forgive me if I run into a couple of walls along the way. They are invisible after all.
