As in: Design , Game Journal , Games , Science Fiction

I just started playing Fallout, the "post-nuclear role playing game" in the vein of Balder's Gate—though I don't know if I'll pick up any group-mates. I haven't played much of it so far, but I'd like to comment a bit on the interface and the opening sequence.

The game opens with a sequence meant to evoke a sort-of nostalgic future. A television in a blasted-out building displays an advertisement for "Vault 13", an under-mountain refuge from atomic war. Then it shows an add for a new car, a "Cryslus." Both ads look like they're straight from the fifties. They use stylized drawings of Dennis-the-Menace-like figures and the car has fins like a classic automobile. At the same time, they evoke the 'prosperous future' the fifties imagined, by adding to the mix an advertisement for a robot and by charging 199,999 for the car.

The interface for the game, similarly, has the look of an old-school science fiction film. Rather than using a digital display like we might expect today, Fallout builds its futuristic machinery from buttons and dials. These clanking, clicking buttons mimic the fifties sci-fi feel, but they also give a tangibility to the game's experience. I've long thought that buttons, levers, and dials make machines feel more 'real' because their very nature (as analog devices) links them physically to the objects they're measuring, or at least it seems to.

These stylistic choices give Fallout the curious effect of being a science-fiction game about the future as conceived by the past. The 1950s-era looks give the game an air of whimsey that offsets the disturbing storyline. I'm keen to see whether these whimsical elements will continue to pop-up throughout the game, or if the dark tone set by the narrative (The future of Earth is a wasteland in the wake of a worldwide atomic war.) will override. The best outcome, I think, would be a mix of the two.

Posted by briley at February 7, 2006 8:06 AM