Does anyone here like, or used to like, Lego? I sure did – the fun building, later destroying and remixing Lego sets, and creating my personal adventures between different themes of pirates, castles, and towns stayed with me for a long time. I was my own personal designer, artist, architect, storyteller and inventor! I was also a massive giant who destroyed at will, broke poor peoples homes and ships, and blew up (not literally!) many pieces of work. Fun times!

It overlapped, of course, with the advent of me playing videogames, and would you know it the prevalence of the same creation and destruction theme present in Lego is in many exceedingly good games? It can’t be by chance!

Creating your own stuff!

A prime example of creation-based games, and the earliest one I remember myself, is Sim City 2000. This really set a high standard personally for those games which you can build and personalise, making them your own. The newspapers especially were a great touch, since your expanding city always had it’s own (pretty randomised) tale to tell. Oh, Miss Sim, how you tease me so!

Second to this, and one that entices me still today, is Transport Tycoon, allowing you to build a transport empire on a huge map against AI opponents. I note this because it’s still seriously played today, in the form of Open Transport Tycoon. Give it a shot if you want an idea about a totally creation-based game!

In many games there are also at least the theme of creation in the story or setting, such as creating a barrier against evil, or creating some powerful artefact to do good. A plot hook could be creating a potion to heal the deadly disease conflicting the kings daughter, for instance, and this can crop up in tons of games regardless of the overall theme.

There are of course countless other construction and creation games, created well after 1994 (and many before of course…but I’m too young to know a lot about them 🙂 ). A whole realm of Sim-tagged games generally relies on creating or constructing a world of some kind. I must note however, many do contain destruction. All the Sim City games have natural and unnatural disasters, which can be toggled by the player if they want to go on the path of destruction, and all the games need a nice destruction tool to correct mistakes! But of course, these are limited, and there is not a lot of wholesale destruction which is much fun, especially since you are destroying what you created.

Destruction! Boom! Bam! Blammo!

So, what about games based solely around destruction? There are plenty that have it as a theme. Most games with a sole antagonist, which includes the majority of roleplaying and shooting, and fighting games, is entirely about self-preservation (usually of health or lives) and the destruction of enemies, leading up to the final destruction of the final boss (which, funnily enough, in many games is followed by the base exploding. Do we see a pattern here?). Many more contain the main aim is to destroy some artefact of power – it’s a staple of videogame stories!

Some games specialise in destroying stuff, an example being Red Faction which was an early game which allowed near total destruction of walls to create passages (called Geomod technology). Although the game fails to allow bypassing anything useful like boss fights, it is one of the first first person games with a proper destructible environment. It goes beyond destroying enemies, allowing you to wreck havoc on innocent rocks and walls!

Destruction based games have basically been around since the very early game Spacewar!, which was based on destroying asteroids, or even a second player. They’ve evolved, and are a common theme amongst many games which include a way to harm others. Some do contain minor creation elements – perhaps the customisation of equipment (or creation of spells or equipment), to outfit yourself. Generally, it’s more a case of shoot everything that moves.

I personally do enjoy the theme of destruction as long as I generally feel the destruction is warranted. There’s a reason I usually play the moral character in games, and usually never play as pure chaotic evil, since the destruction for the sake of it is utterly unappealing. I usually say chaotic evil, that is, evil that is out to destroy everything and tries to break all the laws, is stupid evil. I will be willing to play a megalomaniac supervillain, but only if he is a clever one who doesn’t indiscriminately kill of course!

The hybrid approach!

There are plenty of games which take the two extremes of creation and destruction and really put them together well. Of course, they can do it in many different ways. Example genres of course are usually strategy games, both turn based and real time. Usually you create your army/base/city/civilization and attempt to destroy your enemies army/base/city/civilization. Of course, destruction is not always the only answer, but in many games it is.

The middle ground, of course, includes other varieties. The construction of something, then destruction of that something can be brought up in games. The best example I can think of, since I don’t know any full games which implement it, is when you construct a huge, beautiful city in Civilization, just to have it captured by the enemy…so you must destroy that what you first owned. This can also happen in some turn based games if a unit or place revolts from your rule or command, meaning you now have to fight them.

This hybrid approach is very appealing to me, allowing me to compete against rivals and usually fight it in skirmishes, or parley with small bouts of peace, all the while constructing a force that is enough to crush them, the fools! MuahaHAHA!

Conclusion

The themes of creation (construction) and destruction are very strong ones. Many games are based solely around the one theme, and many others use it as a secondary theme to or to provide a core aim. Since games have used this since the dawn of arcades, it’s easy to put the theme in almost any genre and have it easily understood. Just remember when something is highlighted as red; it’s bad! shoot it!

I find both themes appealing for entirely different reasons, as I’ve said, and together form one of the main themes which keep me engaged in games. Creating things is always the most fun for me since it provides a creative outlet, especially when I can make something which really works well. Destruction of stuff (and no doubt the simple power of being able to destroy things) is really appealing too, since I don’t do much demolition work in real life, nor would I want to even pick up a real gun, and if the purpose of the destruction is a good one, there is no real reason why I’d not enjoy it. These are escapist fantasies, allowing me to do things which are impossible in real life!

Finally, just like Lego, the core themes can lead to many more exciting possibilities. I’m waiting for the game where I can construct up a brilliant world in one mode, then use that to power my own adventures by leaping into the same world in avatar form! At the moment, only game modders or creators get to do this, but who knows what might appear in the future, although I might be told Second Life already is this in part. The Lego player within me demands it, so sooner or later I’ll have to try and make this game myself if no one else does!

This was part of the Blogs of the Round Table for April. There’s a ton of good ones this month, check them out!