Nostalgia

I'm currently on the train down to London with my sister (Bel) and her boyfriend (Chris, yes same as me) and we have our mobile devices on hand to keep us entertained for hour and half journey. So what's our choice of game to play?

Me and Chris start of with a Bluetooth game of Ticket to Ride, a mobile adaptation of the classic board game. It's not a bad representation although I find a lot of appeal of that game is placing the physical trains down on the board and the obligatory train noises that go with it. Card management is however much simpler!

Bel however opts to find something new to play, or I guess something... Old. "Dizzy, Prince of the Yolkfolk" is her choice. Both me and Bel used to play Dizzy on the Amiga we had as kids. It has very special memories for us and it got me thinking about Nostalgia and how it adds to a game.

The new iPad version of Dizzy is very similar to it older counterpart. They've updated some of the references so that instead of a Walkman you pick up an MP3 player, but essentially the game is just a prettier version of the twenty something game.

However getting nostalgia into a game doesn't just mean rehashing and old idea. I recently saw a first look at a game called Stardrive. It's a 4X space game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate) and it very much reminds me of Masters of Orion 2, which was a very big game from my early gaming days. While the game is as good as any other modern 4X, it has some nice little nods to MoO2 in some of its races and even the design a race mechanic (allowing you to design your own race based on certain positive or negative traits).

There is however a downside to Nostalgia. If you don't get the references then its simply lost on you. Worst still, if the references are an important part of the game then it can actually put people who don't "get it" off the game entirely. Careful balance is definitely in order.

Even if your not directly referencing a game, learning from what has gone before you is always a good idea. Copying verbatim is generally not the best plan, but the idea a spiritual sequel to older games certainly has a lot of appeal to many gamers, me included.

Till next time...