Gameception: A Game Within a Game

Si Donbavand, Development Director at Fabrik Games talked about what he learned through his journey in the games industry. Si also talked about how different players interpret the same game in different ways, and how they sometimes create their own game within a game. The Forge tool in Halo 3 or the vast open world sandbox of Grand Theft Auto V give players the tools to spend hours making their own game within a game.

Halo 3 is a game released September 25th, 2007 and follows the story of the protagonist called Master Chief, as he battles the invading enemy alien species. Upon completion of the story, the player can either play against other players online or they can create and share custom made levels by using the Forge tool. This allows the player to choose a map and place assets available in that map. Through this, players created their own mini-games within halo, one of which is called ‘Fat Man’. One player is randomly chosen to be the Fat Man, a slow but near invincible character wielding the powerful melee weapon, the gravity hammer. The Fat man is tasked with chasing the other players through a maze, trying to catch up to them as they break through the puzzle. For such a simple map creation tool, this was a very popular custom map and was created by simply changing the health and movement parameters and creating a maze. These innovative maps lead to a much more advanced level creation system in future Halo games.” Forge is two things: a robust mapmaking tool with new controls for the mouse and keyboard, and a custom game mode for playing on Halo 5’s official multiplayer maps and player creations.”(Fenlon, 2016).

One of the more popular games players play within games, is speedrunning. A Speedrunner is someone who plays a game from start to finish as fast as possible, going as far as to set a world record. Speedrunnig has become so popular that it is almost an e-sports as players continuously battle for the fastest time, it’s rare to find a popular release within the last few years that hasn’t been completed in less than two hours. “There's a whole science behind speedruns. Players spend weeks and sometimes years chiselling a perfect path through a game.”(Prescott, 2015). From creating popular game modes with a simple tool, to competitively finishing Dark Souls in 40 minutes, gamers will always play games how they are intended, in their own way.

Fenlon, W. (2016) Halo 5: Forge multilplayer on PC is going to explode. PCGamer. [Online] Available from: http://www.pcgamer.com/halo-5-forge-multiplayer-on-pc-is-going-to-explode/. [Accessed 28 February 2017]

Prescott, S. (2015) In praise of the speedrun: 14 impeccable playthroughs. PCGamer [Online] Available from: http://www.pcgamer.com/in-praise-of-the-speedrun-14-impeccable-playthroughs/. [Accessed 28 February 2017]