Monday, July 2, 2012

The Value of Accuracy

Video Games are, by design, a series of simplified obstacles. The player chooses to overlook generalizations and simplified mechanics in order to have fun playing the game. The degree to which a game chooses to simplify itself runs a wide range, from the airplane simulators which require custom screens and flight controls, to Mario Kart, where go-karts can be driven with a single stick and button. For an educational game, finding the right balance between simplicity and accuracy can be a challenge.

The degree of accuracy a player accepts for any given game has a lot to do with how that game is presented. The best example I can give is by looking at racing games. Racing games have a varying degree of accuracy depending on which one you decide to look at. At one end of the spectrum, you have the Kart racing games popularized by Nintendo, where characters race around fantastical tracks while lobbing cartoonish weapons at one another. Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing, and a slew of others fall into this category, where all it takes to do well is an understanding of right and left. At the other end, you have games such as the Gran Turismo, which features realistic physics and cars which require a great deal more skill to drive. In Gran Turismo 5, the player needs to understand the effects of under braking, how to find a good line through a turn, and how driving changes under adverse weather. The rest of the spectrum is filled with games which find niches at some balance between the two ends. Blur has powerups and weapon pickups, but requires more precision driving. Need for Speed uses advanced physics and cars, but driving them is significantly easier than in true sim racing games.

But even with this vast array of games playing loose with the idea of accuracy, you can still find a successful game at any point in the spectrum. As long as the game is consistent and up front about the degree of accuracy it holds onto from the real world, someone will play it if it is an interesting game.

Sometimes educational games get too caught up in the battle for accurate representations of the problem at hand and forget that it really doesn't matter how true to form the content is, as long as the game is engaging to the player. The games that Neural Energy Games will develop are meant to educate, which means they will attempt to be as accurate as possible, but that doesn't mean the game can't also be engaging to the audience.

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