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Progressive

Progressive style games are often based on elements that need to be used as part of the player’s experience and strategy. The environments are often set up to be visually themed or repetitive, which allows the player to abstract what they are looking at. To give an example: if you are inside a maze and all the walls look the same, then you stop caring which particular walls you are looking at and deal with the maze as a maze. Conversely, the more unique elements in a maze, the more the player will be concentrated on the elements instead of the maze itself.

By keeping the environments more abstract, the player doesn’t focus on the individual areas of the game and instead focuses on the game elements they are presented with. This creates an environment such as in Quake where the player thinks of the environment as a map or maze to be used to fight the other player, instead of something to be looked at for its own sake.

Another aspect of progressive games is that they keep elements balanced so that their values are not strictly linear. In Quake the player has a number of weapons available and most of them are useful at different times due to different conditions. In contrast, the RPG Fallout has a linear progression of weapons. The later and more advanced weapons are clearly better than the earlier weapons, so the player has no reason to use the early weapons later in the game. Quake’s rocket launcher may have the most damage potential, but in close corridors it’s too dangerous to fire forcing the player to turn to other options. Therefore Quake encourages the players to make use of all the weapons by using a strategy based on when those weapons are most appropriate.

Experience

Experience style games focus on giving the player a powerful and unique experience as they play through the game. Experience games are often based on playing through a story or event as opposed to being in a short, repeated event. They use elements such as unique environments, stories, characters and items to interest and entertain the player. In addition to enjoying the gameplay, players are enticed to continue to see more of the environment, or to discover the conclusion of the story.

Where users who play Quake initially are very impressed with the graphics, they soon start breaking down the images into only the elements they need to play the game. After seeing a corridor several times, no matter how interesting the image looks, the player will eventually see it as part of the map layout, ignoring it as an individual element.

In Myst, the game is essentially a series of puzzles connected with audio and visual "wow factor" elements. After experiencing the content for the first time, it becomes mundane quickly and the player’s interest lies with getting to the next area, with its new sights and sounds to explore.

An interesting example of an experience game that is directly based on a progressive game is Kingpin, which is a first person shooter using the Quake 2 engine. Kingpin has the same gameplay as Quake, where you have to fight opponents with a variety of weapons, but due to the detailed environment the players are more interested in exploring and seeing the next environment than playing the current level over and over. It’s an interesting case that points out how two games that are almost identical can give the player totally different gaming experiences.

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