in your (probably very humble) opinion, what themes have been done to death, and which would you liked to have seen more often in classic titles?
Let me start:
Severely overdone:
- Generic treasure hunts
- Cave exploration/dungeon crawl (I know, I know, it's the one that started it all, but most authors seem to have relied on the same formula)
- Medieval settings. I think Graham Nelson's term "lazy medieval" is spot on:
- Science fiction. I deeply love sci-fi, but apart from a few golden oldies such as Starcross and Planetfall, very few games have known what to do with the infinite possibilities of space and really made you feel like you were in a new and wondrous world. A spaceship and a few aliens do not by themselves a great game make)anything prior to the invention of gunpowder goes, all at once, everything from Greek gods to the longbow (a span of about two thousand years)
What I would like to have seen more of:
- Satires (I think a classic like Hampstead had an excellent theme that could have been used far more often)
- "Serious" games with a eerie touch: The world could have had a few more Trinity and Mindwheel-like titles.
- Thrillers (especially political ones).