Game Design: Atelier Iris 3, Solar Jetman, and Motherload

Three game elements that are particularly fun for me are:

1. collecting things
2. becoming richer and/or more powerful by collecting those things
3. exploring deeper and deeper, where the depth you can explore is bounded by a combination of skill and resource limit

I’ll talk about some games that exemplify some of these elements.

Atelier Iris 3 definitely has 1, and sort of has 2 and 3. It has a rich crafting system wherein you collect things directly as well as collecting crafted items. Technically you do become richer and more powerful, but it’s more by leveling than by collecting, and you’re pretty overpowered anyway. It does have a system of exploring deeper and deeper — the Alterworlds each have a time limit, so if you piddle around instead of heading straight for the deepest part of the Alterworld, you’ll run out of time and be forced back outside. That would be a really cool and engaging element if it were more difficult to reach the ends of the Alterworlds and if there were more skill involved.

Solar Jetman is a pretty good example of all three. The game’s goal is to collect things, each of which makes you either richer or more powerful. Exploring deeper and deeper into each planet is bounded mainly by skill; you always start off with enough fuel to reach anywhere in the planet. There are a few items that are useful to get past certain areas on certain planets, but other than that it’s not resource limited in that way.

Motherload is the best example I’ve seen of all three. You start out only able to penetrate into the upper layers of the planet, but you collect minerals and sell them for money to upgrade your ship so you can mine deeper and get more valuable minerals so you can sell them for more money to buy more upgrades… It’s very addictive and compelling to me. There are only two things it lacks. One is a lot of skill. The depth to which you can mine is bounded mainly by fuel (resource limit), not skill. The second lack is interesting changes as you go deeper. More valuable minerals appear, boulders appear, then lava pockets appear, but that’s it. It’s exciting to see the more valuable minerals and to watch your fuel to make sure you have enough to get back to the surface, but there isn’t really a lot of exploration per se since there aren’t many interesting features to discover. Despite this lack, however, I find myself drawn to play through Motherload once a year or so.

What other games do you know of that have two or more of these features? Do you find these elements as appealing as I do?

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