The Nonlinear Game I Want to Play #2

Player Driven Design
In my last game design post, I talked about a nonlinear game with an environment which allowed emergent gameplay through the creation of many different elements which all interacted with each other in different ways. However, a sandbox world does not make a game by itself, although it provides the basis for nonlinear gameplay.

I also talked about taking out the boring quest/mission mechanic found in many open world games, which basically make you perform a linear mission in an open world. Some of these missions aren't totally linear. They might be something like "kill 10 henchmen", and require you to explore the open world a little and find the henchmen you need to kill. Sure, its not really linear, but this is usually fairly boring because the game designers are just shoving their open world down your throat. You're not really exploring it because you want to.

To truly create an open world, you shouldn't have such boring and linear goals at all. Many simulation type games do this. In the Sims, your only long-term goals are to make a family and retire. Even these are optional, depending on how you want to play. However, there are a lot of short term goals: buy some food, read a book, flirt with another sim, etc...

Another example is the fantasy simulation Dwarf Fortress, where you control a bunch of dwarfs in a randomly generated world. Your only long term goal is to make your fortress survive and prosper. Short term goals might be to harvest enough food to live off of, or to fight off any goblins who might be attacking you. As you progress, more and more challenges present themselves. Satisfy the various nobles who come to live in your fortress. Fight bigger and more powerful creatures like titans and dragons.

In both of these games, almost all of the goals are created by the player. The game never tells you what to do. Instead you think "Hm, I think I want to cover the ground outside my fortress with so many traps goblins won't want to come within two miles of my walls." I think this is the kind of attitude which needs to be taken when creating nonlinear games in a more "standard" genre, such as a shooter or action game.