Is he a tortured artist trying to realize a grand vision, or does he simply not have a vision? If you're borrowing mechanics from the latest thing you've played it may be the latter, done in an...
Is he a tortured artist trying to realize a grand vision, or does he simply not have a vision? If you're borrowing mechanics from the latest thing you've played it may be the latter, done in an effort to try to find that spark. I say this speaking from experience as a musician, grasping at straws to squeeze any little bit of inspiration from some new music I've heard, when I'm simply not creative enough at the time.
He needs a deadline, in a way, especially since Levine even admits to scrapping a shit ton of content, and scrambling to put a game together in the 11th hour.
This might be the core of it: As a huge fan of System Shock 2, Bioshock and, more recently, Prey (which I consider to be System Shock 3 in all but name) it pains me to make that realization but it...
This might be the core of it:
A persistent tension at Ghost Story, employees say, is between the type of game they set out to make and the kind Levine was used to directing. He wanted to see every moment of the story unfold on screen and fine-tune each one. But the narrative Lego concept made Levine’s cinematic approach impossible to apply because stories would change so much based on player decisions.
As a huge fan of System Shock 2, Bioshock and, more recently, Prey (which I consider to be System Shock 3 in all but name) it pains me to make that realization but it seems Ken Levine is joining a group of famous 90s game designers who just can't handle where game design is going.
I remember that 2014 talk about "narrative legos". Cool, I thought, he's doing something out of his comfort zone! Maybe a story-focused game that's all about dialogue set in a medieval town? But now I read:
It was supposed to be a sci-fi shooter like BioShock set on a mysterious space station inhabited by three factions.
Excuse me, what? All the "narrative legos" stuff is used on a shooter on a space station? They also go into how he wanted, apparently, fully animated 3D cut scenes and AAA graphics. But also a smaller team so he could "focus". Focus on what? Making a AAA game?
It must be hard to be a 90s-famous game designer in 2021. It used to be that all it took was really, really wanting to simulate some cool shit and waiting a few years for hardware to catch up. But that doesn't work anymore. Indie devs run circles around established studios when it comes to creativity and design and AAA studios set impossible standards for what a "big" game is supposed to look like. If Levine was serious about his narrative lego thing, he would have had to have the guts to basically do a text-adventure (or, indeed, something like Wildermyth). But he just... couldn't.
Is it ego? Is it just a lack of experience working with a smaller budget? All I know is that he isn't alone in this situation. Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, Warren Spector, Richard Garriott... it's a big list of failures. I mean, all those people probably live a very fine live with the money they made and the knowledge that they shaped gaming history. It's just that game design doesn't seem to work as a lifelong career.
Here's a recap of the article without a paywall: https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/3/22865129/ken-levine-ghost-story-games-development-direction-problems
Is he a tortured artist trying to realize a grand vision, or does he simply not have a vision? If you're borrowing mechanics from the latest thing you've played it may be the latter, done in an effort to try to find that spark. I say this speaking from experience as a musician, grasping at straws to squeeze any little bit of inspiration from some new music I've heard, when I'm simply not creative enough at the time.
He needs a deadline, in a way, especially since Levine even admits to scrapping a shit ton of content, and scrambling to put a game together in the 11th hour.
This might be the core of it:
As a huge fan of System Shock 2, Bioshock and, more recently, Prey (which I consider to be System Shock 3 in all but name) it pains me to make that realization but it seems Ken Levine is joining a group of famous 90s game designers who just can't handle where game design is going.
I remember that 2014 talk about "narrative legos". Cool, I thought, he's doing something out of his comfort zone! Maybe a story-focused game that's all about dialogue set in a medieval town? But now I read:
Excuse me, what? All the "narrative legos" stuff is used on a shooter on a space station? They also go into how he wanted, apparently, fully animated 3D cut scenes and AAA graphics. But also a smaller team so he could "focus". Focus on what? Making a AAA game?
It must be hard to be a 90s-famous game designer in 2021. It used to be that all it took was really, really wanting to simulate some cool shit and waiting a few years for hardware to catch up. But that doesn't work anymore. Indie devs run circles around established studios when it comes to creativity and design and AAA studios set impossible standards for what a "big" game is supposed to look like. If Levine was serious about his narrative lego thing, he would have had to have the guts to basically do a text-adventure (or, indeed, something like Wildermyth). But he just... couldn't.
Is it ego? Is it just a lack of experience working with a smaller budget? All I know is that he isn't alone in this situation. Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, Warren Spector, Richard Garriott... it's a big list of failures. I mean, all those people probably live a very fine live with the money they made and the knowledge that they shaped gaming history. It's just that game design doesn't seem to work as a lifelong career.
Here's a recap of the article without a paywall: https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/3/22865129/ken-levine-ghost-story-games-development-direction-problems
Archived version (no paywall):
https://archive.md/45Z6Y