The Power of the Atom

October 30th, 2008Blog0 comments

Fallout 3 is my new BFF. I am playing as a “good” character right now, currently at level 7. I’m just starting to get good with small guns, and the VATS combat system is getting really, really fun. Especially with the Bloody Mess perk.

I tried to make my character look like me, but he ended up looking like Chad Hugo from N*E*R*D.

What I really like about Fallout 3 is that it emphasizes the importance of constraints. The level cap is 20, meaning that you can’t max out every attribute and build a jack-of-all-trades character. You have to make a choice as to whether you’re going to be strong, fast, dexterous, smart, or a smooth talker. You can choose maybe two of those things, but you can’t have them all.

Likewise, the gameplay requires you to search every nook and cranny for useful stuff. It takes place in a destroyed wasteland where ammunition, food, etc. is scarce, so anything can be useful or sellable. Plus some items that might seem useless at first glance — motorcycle fuel tanks, lawnmower blades, steam gauges — can be used as parts to build homemade weapons. So every item you find can be potentially useful.

However, you are constrained by how much weight you can carry. So you’re always picking through the wreckage, weighing whether it’s worth it to take something with you.

I really like that — how constraints force you to be creative in the game, just like they do in real life.

It’s like the old saying — “Better, Faster, Cheaper: Pick Two.” That goes for almost everything, from engineering projects to restaurants. We are always constrained by quality, time, and available resources. But the beauty of constraints is that it forces creative choices.

Constraints force us to focus, to create something that may be even better than a product formed from unlimited resources. I think it does this because it makes us work for it.