Almost all games rely on spatial navigation with a small set of verbs for moving through a space. They then populate the game’s space with all sorts of interesting, complex elements that provide the game with richness. This is fine-it works well. But game designers are stuck in this approach-they just can’t see beyond spatial navigation. Why does every game on the market have to have a map? What’s so all-encompassing about spatial reasoning?

Last year I was bored at home, recovering from an unexpected illness, when I decided I wanted to at least start developing a small RPG. I did that several times before, always failing when having to do the massive level design typical of a classic RPG. Not to mention the amount of art maps need.

Since laziness is one of creativity’s booster (the other one is desperation), I came up with a way to avoid most of the grudgery of level design: to take away spatial navigation completely.

Hunter RPG has all the elements of an RPG like questing, leveling, fighting and looting. But your character is not at a particular location at any time. You are not anywhere, you don’t walk anywhere. The game is about revealing opportunities.

Jonathan Blow described it as a sort of Progress Quest but with actual choices during GDC ’06 Experimental Gameplay Sessions.

Even tough the demo is just a concept, I’m sure a full-fledged RPG could be developed with Hunter’s mechanics. If you can’t imagine how an RPG could be done without any concept of space, get the Hunter RPG Demo.

Almost all games rely on spatial navigation with a small set of verbs for moving through a space. They then populate the game’s space with all sorts of interesting, complex elements that provide the game with richness. This is fine-it works well. But game designers are stuck in this approach-they just can’t see beyond spatial navigation. Why does every game on the market have to have a map? What’s so all-encompassing about spatial reasoning?

Last year I was bored at home, recovering from an unexpected illness, when I decided I wanted to at least start developing a small RPG. I did that several times before, always failing when having to do the massive level design typical of a classic RPG. Not to mention the amount of art maps need.

Since laziness is one of creativity’s booster (the other one is desperation), I came up with a way to avoid most of the grudgery of level design: to take away spatial navigation completely.

Hunter RPG has all the elements of an RPG like questing, leveling, fighting and looting. But your character is not at a particular location at any time. You are not anywhere, you don’t walk anywhere. The game is about revealing opportunities.

Jonathan Blow described it as a sort of Progress Quest but with actual choices during GDC ’06 Experimental Gameplay Sessions.

Even though the demo is just a concept, I’m sure a full-fledged RPG could be developed with Hunter’s mechanics. If you can’t imagine how an RPG could be done without any concept of space, get the Hunter RPG Demo.

zungo zungo!

To be honest though, I don’t know what Chris Crawford is complaining about. One important aspect of RPGs is exploration. It’s pretty difficult to have exploration without space to explore. I realize Hunter RPG is fun without having space, but clicking on a bar that says “Infernal Cave” or whatever until it’s % reaches 100 is not enjoyable exploration. This is probably the reason why most RPGs have space. Anyways, his complaining leads me to believe he’s one of those people who I would consider “artsy-fartsy”. I’ve been playing video games all my life and not once wished to have a RPG without space.

So… do text RPGs have space? You could say there is space, just not graphically depicted. However… If you argue that, then it is my opinion that Hunter RPG has space. Considering this… it is also in my opinion that it is impossible to have a RPG (Why does “an RPG” sound more grammatically correct than “a RPG”?) with absolutely no space. Maybe even any genre at all.

Regardless… this game is good. I can’t wait for more.