Though all of the praise for Civ IV<\/i> is well-deserved, little of it is as merited as the kind words directed at Soren Johnson’s afterword in the manual. It is a beautiful little essay that gives some insight into the game design process, specifically how to adapt a classic game and make it better. Potential pitfalls are mentioned, justifications for design decisions are made and the whole thing is written in a familiar style.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It made me wonder why more games don’t have a “designer’s note” or “afterword” in their manuals. It’s certainly not new for Meier and co. Brian Reynolds wrote two excellent concluding essays for Civilization II<\/i> and Alpha Centauri.<\/i> Of the latter, Reynolds writes:<\/p>\n
“…in spite of the industry’s headlong rush to get on the real time bandwagon, [we believed] a strong market still existed for turn-based strategy games. Gamers wanted a new sweeping, epic of a turn based game, and they wanted us to design it.<\/i>“<\/p>\n
He goes on to talk about the challenge of sci-fi settings, the important role of Bing Gordon and how the entire Firaxis team made the game come to pass. Curiously, Civ 3<\/i> had no such commentary from Jeff Briggs.<\/p>\n
Back in 1990, Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley wrote an afterword for the Railroad Tycoon<\/i> manual that paid homage to the classic board game 1830<\/i>. They go into how the design changed as the game developed and what had to be done to keep the whole thing accessible.<\/p>\n
As I rifled through my shelf, though, I found few other designer’s notes in strategy manuals to compare to the Meier-esque oeuvre. Caesar III<\/i> has a note from David Lester that reveals that C3<\/i> was originally going to be city building in space. (Maybe someone should try that…) None of the Paradox games have great notes, though Hearts of Iron II<\/i> has a great one from the manual author. Imperialism<\/i>‘s manual has one of the great first pages in game history, but nothing from the Frog City developers. Many wargames have designer notes, but they are rarely very insightful into game design or development. None of the Age of Empires<\/i> games have notes at all.<\/p>\n
Why so few? The growth of design by committee could have something to do with it. There is little sense of “authorship” in many games, though I suspect this would change if we gamers got a little more of a feeling for the developers. Good designer notes also let us look a little at how the design process moves in fits and starts.<\/p>\n
The decline of manuals in general is an issue. In-game help and interfaces have evolved to the point where thick manuals are mostly unnecessary and this is a good thing. Whatever manual there is will tend to be short, full of pictures, and with no room for “fluff.”<\/p>\n
Still, I like designers’ notes and want to see more of them. Even a bad note lets us understand something about the anonymous people who make our fun. There are lots of great things to imitate in Civ IV<\/i>. I ask developers to imitate the afterword first.
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