^^ While I mostly agree with what you suggest...
I'd say there's more to this
Take DOTA for example, where you have a really powerful core and never needed a very expansive set of features. It works because the game was built around that core, and the core is powerful.
But. If as opposed to thinking of the core first and the complementary features later, when the core of a game comes from the reduced scope of the (quite larger) experience, it's hard to imagine it would be as interesting.
If you take TES: Oblivion and only leave the Imperial City's Arena fights, well just that alone is kinda lackluster because the game wasn't built around it - because one could say that Oblivion/Skyrim has a lot of features that are not that great by themselves but contribute to give shape to a greater experience
And that's why I was mentioning the feature creep before: it happened to me when I downscaled because while [for me] the core was good enough, just the core alone is not enough to make a game unless it's a really powerful and fun core.
In my case the core (challenging skill-based swordfighting with a responsive AI) needed some complementary features, so I had to introduce some stuff around it [with goals still matching the reduced scope], to at least complete the experience so the player wouldn't get bored after 2 hours and never touch it again. And this brought random dungeons, stealth mechanics, companion AIs, and a some physics-based gameplay
Originally posted by Oakwarrior
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Take DOTA for example, where you have a really powerful core and never needed a very expansive set of features. It works because the game was built around that core, and the core is powerful.
But. If as opposed to thinking of the core first and the complementary features later, when the core of a game comes from the reduced scope of the (quite larger) experience, it's hard to imagine it would be as interesting.
If you take TES: Oblivion and only leave the Imperial City's Arena fights, well just that alone is kinda lackluster because the game wasn't built around it - because one could say that Oblivion/Skyrim has a lot of features that are not that great by themselves but contribute to give shape to a greater experience
And that's why I was mentioning the feature creep before: it happened to me when I downscaled because while [for me] the core was good enough, just the core alone is not enough to make a game unless it's a really powerful and fun core.
In my case the core (challenging skill-based swordfighting with a responsive AI) needed some complementary features, so I had to introduce some stuff around it [with goals still matching the reduced scope], to at least complete the experience so the player wouldn't get bored after 2 hours and never touch it again. And this brought random dungeons, stealth mechanics, companion AIs, and a some physics-based gameplay
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