I'd just like to say right now that I'm a little unsure where I intend to go with this article so it is very much borderline danger zone. If you've enjoyed my other musing articles like Destroying Planets then you might enjoy it but there is a high chance I might break into ramble-mode which I do a lot.

I'll try and keep it to the point.

So I'm staring it this blank screen thinking about what to write and the first thing that comes to mind is obviously Game Design. I'm unprepared, it's unplanned and it hasn't been addressed on the site in great detail. I also have a ONE-HOUR deadline to finish this article... It's not just an article now, it's an adventure.

When I look at my rack of recent game purchases the things that really jump out at me are first person shooters, Orange Box, Bioshock, Halo 3. And if they're not first person they're almost a sub-category of it, (see gears of war.) I enjoy them but the concepts of the games are starting to get stale and I don't want to talk about FPS games. This leaves my plan of picking apart a genre of games into game design basics in the lurch because I'm not touching FPS with a barge pole on that front.

Let's stay Safe! Let's talk RPG.

I think RPG is a dying genre and I think it's been slowly flushed down the pan over a LONG period of time. Sure developers are still pumping out the odd RPG but I challenge you to name one that hasn't been filtered down, adjusted to suit the fast-paced action demographic or really compares at all to the RPG's of ye olden days.

The RPG's that DO get released are generally a) not that good, b) outsold by all the FPS games anyway or c) re-hashes of old game series', remakes and bad sequels. And on the point of RPG's being butchered to cater for the fast-paced action demographic I heard Fallout 3 was an RPG-FPS hybrid. (I don't want to get into this debate, I'm looking forward to Fallout 3 but come on, prove my point more?)

On a game development basis I think there's a few reasons for this.

• 1. Audience. The Audience for RPG games is dwindling over time or have simply adapted themselves to the MMORPG genre. Maybe some of us are left who enjoy RPG's but we're growing up and when we're gone who's going to buy them?
• 2. Time and Resources. I feel that it takes a lot more time and effort to make an RPG than it does to make an FPS and the FPS gets better results overall. RPG's rely on talented scriptwriters as well as the programmers and artists whereas an FPS can be built off concept alone. (Maybe not greatly but enough to outsell an RPG in this day and age.)
• 3. Turn Based Combat is Dead. I honestly can't remember the last game I played with it. I'm not saying it's not out there but even something like Final Fantasy XII had upgraded itself to pseudo-realtime battles and it's filtering the genre down slowly.

So you're working on an RPG? I wouldn't say give up, keep plugging away! Hell I still make ADVENTURE GAMES for christs sake, I'm really beating a dead horse. But what attracted us to RPG's in the first place way back when? What's going wrong now that made RPG's one of the biggest selling game genres of all time?

I blame it on the switch from 2D to 3D graphics. I love things that look beautiful don't get me wrong but  I think flOw looks beautiful and that's just vectored circles. I think that when games couldn't be summed up by screenshots it was down to great storytelling, interactivity and gameplay to really carry a game. Text adventures and early gaming were the height of storytelling in games and that's why I think RPG's were so succesful.

Nowadays it's almost Taboo to mention the word RPG in public in case somebody mistakes you for a D&D player or... one of those nerds right? After all when someone mentions RPG what's the first thing that comes to mind? Elves, Swords, Dungeons, Magic...d, Dwarves??? I think one of the great things about the RPG genre is that it was only ever confined by it's name. ROLE PLAYING. Taking charge of a character or in many cases even creating him/her yourself. RPG's were never restricted to just dungeons and dragons and I think if you're a fan of RPG's then you're sitting there yelling "GUY STOP TELLING US OBVIOUS STUFF."

I loved RPG's for their ability to tell a story in what appeared to be a pretty open environment. (we of course know this is all fake now but we could dream.) Character creation was an emmersive process for me and developing (and briefly BECOMING) that character was a fantastic experience. Interacting with characters in the game and being presented with MULTIPLE CHOICE options of dialogue was mindblowing for the time and sometimes situations even having multiple outcomes... It's astounding these things are possible!

But we're passed that now. That stuff is EXPECTED from a game. We had the genre and it broke from the thread of linearity and now what direction is left for RPG's to go? Apparently were in the era of MMORPG's... God help us all.

So these things are expected now. But there's another thing we take for granted these days that really seperated RPG's from previous games like PONG and PAC MAN and that's atmosphere. RPG's weren't the only game of the time to carry them but they definitely contended for the best when it came to creating a sense of location. RPG's gave you worlds and scenery that were impressive and interesting to explore. (Except for the original Breath of Fire game which had the most frustrating and boring world ever.)

So the majority of you are game designers yourselves, or at least claim to be. I'm not judging you, I just don't know you! Maybe you're sitting their stroking your own ego and saying "Heh, yeah I do create good atmosphere in my own RPG's that I make." or maybe you are sitting there thinking "I wonder how I could create a good atmosphere in my RPG?"

Guy Number Two, I think we'll get along well.

I'm not going to tell you how to create atmosphere however because it's a product of vision and I can't teach you how to imagine things! You need to know what you want to create and you need to invest the time into the details that will turn your vision into something that is interesting. By details I don't mean tiny things like the ability to interact with a painting on the wall that has no relevance to the story whatsoever but provides for CRACKING INTERACTION. What I mean is take the time to find out what kind of mood you are trying to create and work towards that. Don't use Final Fantasy music because it's available, for the love of god please find/create/hire a musician to create the music that you want. Create the graphical style that suits your atmosphere, that CREATES your atmosphere even.

I think I've dodged and sidetracked and rambled enough for one more article so I'll close this off for now and give my musing articles a little break for a while, they've been fun.

I really think RPG's were great but I'm unconvinced that they are accessible for the future, or that developers will even keep making them. (Except for Square-Enix who will be churning out Final Fantasy games 'til long after we're all dead...) If you are creating an RPG I hope you can take something from my opinions on where it all went wrong. I don't have advice for you but good luck!