What makes a game a classic? [10 bullet points]

_{Cover image is from "Ahoy - The Secret of Monkey Island" youtube video.}

Early 2000's

When I was a kid, not many of my friends used to have a home computer back on late 90's-early 2000's in Costa Rica. We did have one, because of my father job. He was a researcher at some NGO. At the time, being 6 or 7 years old, I would wake up at 5 a.m in the morning all Saturdays to be first to jump on the computer. Oh, god. Those were the sweet days, guys. It was just different from everything else. The house invaded by the silence of the sleepers. That early morning cold. Some birds signing in the background and then... Click! ✨

_{Actual footage of a computer being turned on. circa 2001.}

And then the CPU will start running to disrupts the silence, and by one second I would feel a small lapse of something, that today I would describe as anxiety, being afraid of waking up someone else in the house and then I would have to share the time with them in the computer.

I remember playing a lot of games. From small generic games in which you are a motorcyclist that slaps their opponents with chains, to great games like The Sims, Road To El Dorado or The Prince of Persia.

I would spend hours and hours of entertainment playing videogames for the following years. From 2004 to 2006 it was the time of strategic games. Games like Age of Empires or Starcraft. But I did suck at those. So I played games like Warcraft III campaigns, and Word of Warcraft and basically any piece of garbage Blizzard kept publishing.

The Secret Of Monkey Island

I found this video (check it out is really good!) the other day. And the opening line is "What makes a game a classic?". That's quite an interesting question, in fact. What makes anything a classic? How do we agree as a group, sometimes unanimously, that certain thing is considered "a classic"? Sometimes is very easy to agree that certain game is a classic. And why is that? In the video, the narrator consideres the following:

Is it the number of copies sold? Or the reviews scores it receives. Maybe is something not quantifiable, something special, something magic".

Whatever it is, I have to admit that, in my life, I had never heard of, or references to The Secret Of Monkey Island. And a minute after the video introduced me to the game, I was already considering a classic, even without ever playing it.

That's an interesting phenomena. So here, I just share ten thoughts on what for me it makes a game a classic.

The list

1. Low bit rate does not make a game a classic, but definitely helps.
2. The story behind the game is more important than the graphics.
3. Music is as important as the story. Music and story should match.
4. The process behind the story matters as much as the story itself.
5. Let your characters be. Don't force them into the story, let them interact with it.
6. A sense of humor embedded into the characters and the story is crucial.
7. Soothing scenarios. (use torches) lol.
8. Memorable puzzles that appeals to feelings more than intelligence.
9. Mysterious universal themes: the universe, deserts, archeology, etc.
10. Have a hell of luck to success in the game space. (This one is hard, but true).

This are just some points that I believe makes a game a classic. And even myself disagree with this list. Because it cannot embrace all games for good. Games are so rich and infinite that a 10 points list cannot describe what makes a game a classic, or good or bad.

Literature in game design

Art is a representation of reality. Or better said, art is a representation of our interpretation of reality. It doesn't matter if it's an abstract painting or a photo-realistic landscape. It somehow, represents our interpretation of the world.

Games themselves are not that far from being literature. And I truly believe some of them can qualify as works of literature. Most of games have what is known in narratology as the "Hero's Journey". The main character goes through a series of events that change him and change the world around him, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. It is all designed in the big scheme of things to be that way, to represent dilemmas, to make people relate to the character and each other, to entertain, to enforce moral views about the world. Games are really game changers for a new whole generation of storytellers that don't relate that much writing plays for the stage. Game development is just another form of art. Development itself is just another form of art.

Kurt Vonnegut is a master storyteller, and I think that if you are trying to develop a game you should watch this video as well. Vonnegut says:

"Stories have very simple shapes. Ones that computers can understand".