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Average Accommodation - Printable Version

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Average Accommodation - Angroth - 01-22-2009

Average Accommodation
by Angroth


What is accommodation? And how can it help me?
Basically, making a game appeal to someone is one thing but making a game appeal to many people can be harder. Firstly your game will need to be a good game which people can enjoy but somethings you include will certainly make some people play, complete and replay or maybe even not play at all. I am going to try and help you know how to include as many things as possible and variations you might have which will make an appealing game to as many people as possible.



Good examples of games which accommodate a variety and ones which don't
1 - My first game is.... please don't bash me for using it, Final Fantasy VII. You'd have to admit that (if you like it) there are many reasons to like it for. If someone is a fan of traditional medieval hack and slash, they won't be too dissapointed with Cloud using his buster sword and the other medievalish things which are in the game. However only slightly tipped towards that direction (if you look closely) its basically just a big futuristic sci-fi game. Barret's gun, Weapon, the airship etc. So already you are getting futuristic fans and some medieval fans who can accept its strange twist. It also blends in a good bunch of monsters and beasts, which would suggest it's more of a fantasy game (hence its name!!) and neither futuristic (with dragons) nor medieval (with soldiers wielding guns). So this brings yet more things through and accommodates for an even larger group. As you can see, barely talking about the game and there is quite a wide group being aimed at here (I mean, aren't medieval fantasy and sci-fi almost opposites?).

2 - Another game which takes a familiar route to Final Fantasy VII is Final Fantasy X. Once again, it has elements of sci-fi and fantasy. I think this game is broader as a whole and is considered the best FF game only because it has things which appeal to so many different people that there are more people buying and playing it to say it's good.

3 - A game which is probably (if a film) considered a cult would be Vagrant Story. Now, there reason people either think this was good but slightly flawed or completely dreadful is because of a few things. Firstly the combat system but here I'm not debating on those game aspects. Secondly it would have to be its narrow accommodation. It is more of a dark and traditional medieval game which opens little liking for anyone but fans of this.



Expanding your accommodations
Expanding your player types can be difficult. It would be obvious to suggest that you should include swords and guns, aliens and beasts, gold and credit cards. But how can this be done without spoiling the game?

You need to be able to have good reason for the introduction of either swordplay or futuristic machinery, ghouls or robots. This can be done in a few ways, here are some examples:

1 - A portal has been open to a new realm.
2 - The future technology is arcane and has been recently found.
3 - Post-Apocalyptic planet.
4 - New technologies are being created.

But who's to say that because you have some castles and guns it makes the game good? Perhaps hardest of all it needs to be done in contrast. Would castles really stand against a laser pistol? It needs to be feasably done and all in good contrast. To decide this you need to decide which kind of genre you are overall leaning towards, which would mean you only need to delve slightly into the expanses of other genres. And this really is the key, to make a simple comprimise and only indulge briefly but richly into the realm of a different class. Too much will frustrate fans of the main genre and just a little will keep them playing but attract the other players who like the slightly implemented genre.



Have I learnt something?
Hopefully you have learnt about how you might go about including multiple genres. You should also know more about how it works if you do so. If so, you win, if not, press X button for another continue ^_^