Oblivion said:
What? No, no, no. I love SotC, but aside from its ultra slick presentation I can't really think of something that displays its 'out of the box' game design.
The way Ueda approaches his game design, he shaves away (or doesnt even consider) a lot of mainstays of design.
Whereas, most designers only consider the fringes of "what just quite hasn't been done yet." You will see plenty of games come out all the time that take tried and true formulas, add some minor adjustment or improvement, and call it a day. Rarely does anyone look back and try and simplify or reinvent a mechanic. Ueda is rare in that he is one of the few "completely ground up" type of designers in the industry.
I could see it justified that someone describes him as being out of the box. He is one of the few designers out there who understands how destructive the normal "gamey" elements, which are all but universally accepted, can be. What improves you health are actual fruits that you shoot down from trees, not a hovering spinning box, or even an otherwise contextual looking item that shimmers unnaturally every few seconds. I think there is something to appreciate in actually taking the time to look up into a tree in SOTC, and have to discern fruits without any false assistance from a contextually destructive element. It is details like this which makes his games so engrossing. He understand that there is a significant difference between a fruit that looks like a fruit, and a fruit that "glows." On the surface its subtle, and seemingly insignificant, but it makes all the difference.
Another example is the indicator. Its not some hovering rotating arrow, but a contextual action: holding your sword up to the light to see where it shines. This doesn't work in areas where the sun does not reach, and the simple fact that this system fits into the universe of the game, adds a lot to a players acceptance of it, rather than their tolerance of it. Even the horse carries levels of realistic and perfectly believable personality that is way beyond the standard of the day. He does a good job at blurring the lines of what many gamers come to understand as pre-determined systems. Agro is the horse in the game. Not the vehicle in the game, and not the NPC either. I think a lot of gamers think of things within a game based purely on their function, but for someone to break through that wall, and convince you to think of something for what it is, not what purpose it serves you in the game I think is a truly rare and admirable level of design.
That is just a few examples, but I think that philosophy permeates many other aspects of his design. Such as the fact that there aren't dozens of enemies around every corner, but an otherwise naturally existing world, full of non threatening plants and wildlife, where the concentration of gameplay is put into a few limited number of encounters makes me really appreciate and take to heart the "fantasy" of the game, without it being mired by the same old tolkien-esque fantasy cliches that almost every other fantasy game has.
That how I see him as "out of the box."
but then that would require way too long of a wait...
