Gregory Weir, not to be confused with the kid from Freaks and Geeks, has come out with another masterpiece-lite. After giving us the inside view on hacking for liberty and the psychology of Cthulhu, Gregory slings us the childhood dream of being a dragon. You get to be a dragon people! A dragon!
You get to grow from a hatchling to an adolescant to an adult and then a god! You get to change your colors based on what you eat! You can cultivate different kinds of breaths and use them in different ways! Interact with people! The people are at least as interactive as the people in Black and White, mas o menos!!! Then you get to be a hero and take yourself on!! Soooo meta! Multiple endings! Dragon!
After returning from a mental regression to the 6th grade, you may notice this game, despite its charms and limited flower bud of choices, is actually just another paper folding pie like Bemergui´s stuff or Colors. The writing around each sort of outcome is a give-away that you´re dealing with a tree structure, which in terms of trying to provide deep choices is like trying to lift a sofa with a tooth pick (nod to Craig Perko). The game does a better job and others of its kind in rectifying the apparent paradox between novelty and shallowness, the algorithmic approach to color change, while ultimately inconsequential, feels like it means something when you first see it. And the platforming vehicle that allows the games options to be chosen gives it a sense of interaction. You can even get wounded when you fight the dragon, just like in a real boss fight.
Ultimately however I want more than boolean variables and fixed outcomes, I want an RPG world complete with procedural content and highly nuanced systems for chroma, genetics, gestation, population. I want the depth Dwarf Fortress with the presentation and accessibility of this game. However unlike Black and White its free and nobody has been hyping it up with greater expectations than it can possibly deliver, and for that I say all is forgiven! Dragons!
Hyping it up...
Personally, I think Spore was a much bigger victim of this than Black and White. Not that your comment isn't perfectly valid - that's why I still play RPGs round a table with other people; I never seem to run into that "fixed tree" problem there... :)
Princess maker-type..
We need something the depth of Princess Maker, except that you're be raising a dragon. It would be so awesome.
Awww, neato
Yes, this could definitely be a lot better and more in-depth, but as it is it's kind of cute. I like how you can "unlock" different options and go back and try different combinations, rather than starting up a new hatchling every time. On the plus side, that also makes you think about your choices a little more. "Hmm, so I was a necromancer there. Would I rather be a tyrant or a watcher?" There's a lot of possibilities to uncover, and it's just cute enough, as I said, to make me want to bother.
I'd be curious to see how this might be developed further, along such lines as you suggest. Fingers crossed for a sequel, or for someone to take this and run with it a bit.