Where has the world-building creativity in games gone?

[Clash957]

I think there is wide range of creative settings in the world of miniatures games. We have dozens of sci-fi settings of both ground based and space based games. There is a whole mess o’ fantasy settings from the generic D&D/Tolkien to some weirder stuff. We even have a bunch of retro-future/alt-history stuff like War of the Worlds and Wild West Exodus. There are a couple of steampunk settings of various flavors out there just like their a couple of post-apocalypse miniatures games now. Heck, there is even a Jules Verne style underwater game as well as a not-Ghostbusters game out there. And that’s on top of just about every historical war era in some manner.

However, I will agree that there are some genres that I think are over represented (generic fantasy and sci-fi) and some genres that I think could use a little more (or any) attention. Personally, I want to see a Weird West setting get a good 28mm-1:48scale skirmish game happen. However, not nearly so gonzo as Wild West Exodus but not nearly as tame as Knuckleduster miniatures. I’m thinking more along the lines of Deadlands from Pinnacle. Actually, exactly Deadlands is what I want. A full range and game, not dozen miniatures to pick from. However, I recognize that Westerns don’t have geek appeal like fantasy and sci-fi and aren’t going to be all that profitable to develop.

That’s the real crux of it. The well trodden path is that way because it is safer financially. I appreciate designers, creators, and developers who make stuff off the beaten path, but I (like everyone) have limited time, money, and willing players to to get into new games. I’m guilty of not straying to far off the path myself, so I don’t think it is right for me to get too bent out shape for a game company making yet another zombie or Cthulhu miniatures game.

[Universal Head]

You’re right, we certainly have a lot of variety, though I do wonder how much of it isn’t just surface-level popular culture trope recycling. The well trodden path may be safer, but it’s when people veer off it that the really successful stuff can happen, and a look at the history of films, books and games shows us lots of examples. Copycat dross is churned out by the bucketload, but innovators and creatives take things to the next level.

[Universal Head]

Funny how the internet has made our cultural history so comprehensively dug up and warmed up. When I was growing up things like Lovecraft and old scifi movies and pulp fantasy were obscure and weird; now it sometimes seems like every single fantasy and scifi idea that’s ever been realised has been re-heated and combined with everything other idea!

[CK Lai]

UH: Bushido and Okko seem identical precisely because they are drawing from the same well of Japanese mythology. So if you like Okko, Bushido is more of the same.

Maybe Lovecraft is popping up everywhere because (and this is me being cynical) he’s gone out of copyright so anybody and anyone is free to mine his stuff for ideas?

[Clash957]

I think you are partly right CK Lai on the Lovecraft being open to use. However, I also think it is more so that Lovecraftain monsters have finally hit critical mass in terms of popularity in geek culture that it has become a comfortable setting for games to be created from. Which is all the more weird given that it is supposed to be a strange and inherently disorienting setting.

I am still amazing that there is such a thing as generic fantasy. I mean it is fantasy which is supposed to be about the fantastic, but when we talk about books, games, and other media it almost always means a European-ish medieval place with wizards, elves, dwarves, etc. all of which conform to fairly narrow guidelines set down by works more than 30 years ago.

Universal Head is correct much of these fantasy settings are largely superficial in the differences. It is like a dozen different flavors of vanilla ice cream. There is nothing wrong with vanilla ice cream and everyone is going to have their own favorite brand of vanilla ice cream. Many are even likely to have vanilla ice cream as their favorite ice cream. Oh, and sci-fi would be like chocolate ice cream.

I still think there are a bunch of flavors to choose from, though; I also, as a customer, think their could be more variety in flavors rather than more variations on vanilla and chocolate.

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