David Cage, the lead designer and director behind Omikron: The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy, to US readers) gave a talk in France recently and outlined what he thinks the biggest barrier is for games in the future; emotion.
Gamasutra were on hand at the Museum of Science and Industry in France to report on Cage's talk about emotions and how these are tackled in games.
"The more subtle, social emotions such as love, empathy, joy, sadness, jealousy, anger, and shame are frequently addressed in literature and cinema, Cage pointed out, but are rarely successfully tackled by games," said Cage.
Cage reckoned that as technology continues to make advances in regards to animation and puppeteering that this would become less of a problem and that designers would be able to use sophisticated motion capture technologies to create a more evocative experience for gamers.
Cage's new game, Heavy Rain is looking to use such techniques already and Quantic Dream has invested heavily in recruiting actors and motion capture technology in an attempt to shatter the uncanny valley.
Speaking briefly about Heavy Rain in particular, Cage said that he was most interested in developing real-time interactions between the player and NPCs, but that he is currently limited by technology and therefore Heavy Rain will use more traditional dialog trees and a more linear presentation.
If you're interested in hearing more of David's thoughts then you can check out our last spotlight feature on adventure games, where we quiz David on what he thinks about the genre and how it will change in the future.
What did you think to Fahrenheit? What was the last game which really moved you? Let us know in the forums.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
David Cage: Emotions are hard to tackle in games
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