Congratulations to my old sidekick and co-worker Mads Rydahl of The Planet who has just won Billboard’s award Web/Downloadable Game of the Year for the game Shroomz!
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My name is Jesper Juul, and I am a Ludologist [researcher of the design, meaning, culture, and politics of games]. This is my blog on game research and other important things.
It’s a really nice game and all, but it is VERY similar to Mr. Driller (an original Dreamcast game I believe). I hope the prize wasn’t awarded for originality, but other factors.
The amount of game concepts I’ve come up with, whicha re almost exact duplicates of other games, without coming into contact with those games first is becoming more than a coincedence. God knows how many people have had the idea of Liquid War before and after me.
There’s a strong chance that Mads created the game in isolation from any inspiration from Mr Driller. I’ve played neither of these games, so I can’t comment on whether the gameplay is a pretty natural solution to come to with working on something quite grid-based, but that could easily be the case. Actually making games (or finding solutions for problems in any avenue) is a game in of itself, and as such, there are likely to be degenerate strategies – common approaches which work well, given the problem area.
There was a game awarded at the IGF a few years ago which was basically the same as Pokemon snap. It’s the same deal there – another natural metaphor for a first person perspective is a camera.
So, I’m not saying the game is or isn’t original, and does or doesn’t deserve an award. I’m just saying that sometimes, as much as we’d love to feel like we can break out, we’re a product of our environment. Fatalism, blah blah.
I just read on Computerworld.dk that their main target group was women in their 30’s. I’m really curious about if this was this was incorporated into the game design or if it had to do with the marketing of the game after it had been created.
Do you know if this is a trade secret, Jesper, or would you happen to have a chance to interrogate Mads?
I’ll ask Mads, see if he wants to comment.