True Non-Linearity

A couple of days ago, I watched a video of Rev Rant's (someone who works for Destructoid) that argued a very interesting point. Which games are truly non-linear? Most games that we associate with non-linearity are just set in huge worlds and they give you one or two ways to complete a mission. There really aren't enough choices left up to the player on how to play throughout the game. Usually games have linear gameplay wrapped around in a tortilla (as Rev Rant puts it) within a huge world that give an illusion of non-linearity. They are all pretty much scripted. And this is the biggest reason why they are not truly non-linear. So games like GTA, Infamous, and many others are not really non-linear at all.

If you want to hear more points made about non-linearity, check out Rev Rant's video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1rWkqTzOJ4

Then, after you're done watching, you can really put together your thoughts on what to expect from games, in terms of non-linearity.

He's completely right.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms games.

Those are truly non-linear.

Linear (video games): Allowing completion of the game only through one set sequence of player actions. Non-linear: Not linear; able to achieve the same or similar outcomes via multiple exclusive inputs. If a game has two or more possible paths for the player to take, then it is non-linear.NBSRDan

I guess FFVII was non-linear game then.

At beginning of the game, you can choose your path. Either take the stairs or take the elevator.

Anyone remember that?

[QUOTE="NBSRDan"]Linear (video games): Allowing completion of the game only through one set sequence of player actions. Non-linear: Not linear; able to achieve the same or similar outcomes via multiple exclusive inputs. If a game has two or more possible paths for the player to take, then it is non-linear.TriangleHard

I guess FFVII was non-linear game then.

At beginning of the game, you can choose your path. Either take the stairs or take the elevator.

Anyone remember that?

[QUOTE="TriangleHard"]

[QUOTE="NBSRDan"]Linear (video games): Allowing completion of the game only through one set sequence of player actions. Non-linear: Not linear; able to achieve the same or similar outcomes via multiple exclusive inputs. If a game has two or more possible paths for the player to take, then it is non-linear.NBSRDan

I guess FFVII was non-linear game then.

At beginning of the game, you can choose your path. Either take the stairs or take the elevator.

Anyone remember that?

I think the question is how far people really want to go with the non-linear thing. To go truly, completely non-linear is to risk the elimination of any story line. Personally, at times I want a linear game that I can just march through and have fun, like watching a movie.muthsera666

I am not sure completely non-linear would work well with people. You really nees kinda this glowing arrow saying "Major plot this way". I wonder what is the most non-linear game is and what a completely nonlinear game would be like. Endless Ocean is fairly nonlinear. Go explore, if you want do A,B, or C but it doesn't matter if you don't. But then it also seems to run into a being more of a pointless game rather than non-linear... Now there is a fine line to walk.

True non-linearity does not exist in video games, and I'm not sure it can ever exist. At any given time there are certain actions you can perform, and the game reacts to those actions in a preset fashion. Plenty of games pretend to offer non-linearity, but they are still quite linear.LordAndrew

Play Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Or Civilization.

civilization, age of empires, halo wars, all RTS games are non linear

civilization, age of empires, halo wars, all RTS games are non linear

yohomes

[QUOTE="NBSRDan"][QUOTE="TriangleHard"]

I guess FFVII was non-linear game then.

At beginning of the game, you can choose your path. Either take the stairs or take the elevator.

Anyone remember that?

Ngakor

You might be right, Deadly_Fatalis, but then again, you might be wrong. There is a game being developed by David Braben's (creator of Elite) game developer Frontier Developments that is called The Outsider. It promises to truly be a next-gen game and to take games to a whole new direction by pushing procedurally-generated content to the next level, making an unscripted storyline possible (without any cut scenes at all), along with perhaps the most unscripted AI and animations that you have ever seen. It will also be an open-world game, except that it is more of a fugitive style game rather than a game like GTA.

As for whether or not games should be non-linear, I really like this direction. It would be nice for games to finally be able to tell a story without cut scenes at all, making games take a step forward just like movies did after the silent film era, which contained no voice-overs and text for people to read to understand what was going on.