I play primarily single player story based video games, in particular platformers and action-adeventure. I have never really gotten much into the online multi-player games like Call of Duty, Fortnite, etc. The lone exception to this being Splinterlands which I have played quite a bit.
I am going to explain how I would go about creating my idea of a perfect video game and will be thinking solely in terms of the single player type.
The way I see it to create my perfect game I would need to nail the following three components perfectly. (These are in no particular order)
1) Play Control That Feels Just Right
Controlling your character should be so natural and effortless that you don’t even think about it. You can focus 100% of your effort on what you are doing rather than also having to deal with the control of your character. This is one of the main reasons that I ended up quitting The Witcher 3. I could never get used to the play control that felt clumsy and weird to me. It just always felt like a chore to play. There were also some NES games that were pretty bad too as well as Red Dead Redemption II.
Games that got the controls just right for me include just about every Mario game, the Uncharted series, Skyrim, and Resident Evil 4.
2) A Sense of Fun
Picking up and playing the game has to feel enjoyable and compelling. This can be accomplished in several ways. For example completing a mission, objective, or task.
My personal favorite is the type of game where you collect stuff which is required to progress through the game which is known as a collectathon. So my perfect game would definitely use this as the way of making the game compelling and addictive.
Take the 3D platformer Mario games such as Mario 64. The primary goal of the game is to collect stars. They are earned in a variety of ways, from racing a rabbit to reaching the end of a level. As you collect more stars, you can access more and more of the games worlds. You beat the game when you reach 80 stars and fully beat it when you get 120 stars. Of course along the way there are other things such as coins to collect as well.
Other collectathon style favorites of mine include the Pac-Man World games and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.
3) An Engrossing Environment
I want to feel like I have been to an actual far away land that seems real at least in my mind. Here are two examples of the type of immersion that I am after:
First, Mario 64 was the first 3D game that I ever owned. I remember when I played it for the first time it felt like a totally new experience being able to run around and explore the environment.
Second, often times when playing Skyrim I would be traveling on a journey at night and everything would feel so serene. I would find myself stopping and just looking at the starry sky and taking in the moment. Other times I would climb to the top of a mountain just to enjoy the panoramic view.
Two things that were NOT taken into account in creating my perfect video game that other people often find important were:
1) Story
I have noticed that for many people a deep story is crucial to them liking a game. For me the story does not have to be the greatest story of all time. It can just be simple and have some humor thrown in every once in a while. That is good enough for me.
2) Graphics
The way I look at it graphics are relative to the time era anyway. Our brain does a good job of making the environments seem realistic even if they are a little cartoony and have exposed polygons. Many times when a game is remastered for a newer system, the graphics often look how we remember them looking even though they have been greatly improved.
Conclusion
The easiest way for me to create my game would simply be to combine a 3D Mario style game with an Elder Scrolls game preferebly Skyrim. This would combine platforming and collectathon elements with a rugged, vast, and picturesque landscape. By combing the best elements of these games with flawless play control, I would be able to complete my perfect video game.
Thanks for reading
NinjaMike
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, let me say that the title of your post gave me a lot of fun, but I find your idea absolutely extraordinary, I feel it's very unique and it's a great combination!
HaHa One of the rules said make a unique title so I figured that I might as well go all out. Thanks for the compliments.
You're disqualified from the contest for this statement. Get out. Jokes aside, did you play it with a controller or keyboard & mouse? It's totally a controller game.
This is a great point and one of the reasons I love Super Mario games so much. I love collecting stuff, like you do, and Super Mario has just a simple story with some great humor and it's a full on collectathon.
Have you tried games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Immortals Fenyx Rising? The latter is probably closer to the game you want to create. It has a lot of platforming elements with a vast open world to collect stuff from.
I played it on my PS4 with a controller and Geralt was always lunging all over the place. At least the bathtub scenes were memorable.
Breath of the Wild isn't currently an option for me. I only have a PS4. I've never purchased a Switch because it has always felt like I would be buying it just to play two games, Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey.
I've never heard of Immortals Fenyx Rising but I just checked and it looks like its available for PS4 so I'll look more into it.
Thanks for the recommendations!
I think Immortals Fenyx Rising has a free demo available for all platforms. Enjoy!