Game designers spend a lot of time complaining about what sucks in computer gaming, so I've decided to devote a column to discuss my favorite game designs from 1997.  These are the games that I feel all designers can learn from, and which represent the best of our art form.  Keep in mind that I'm limiting myself to Macintosh games here (these would still be my favorites on any platform, though I might add the wonderful Interstate '76 and Sid Meier's Gettysburg!) and that I certainly have not played all of the games that came out in the past year.  These are simply the titles that found their way onto my computer one way or another, and which I found to expertly designed. In the journalistic disclosure department I should mention the following:  I'm on pretty friendly terms with James Hague (designer of Bumbler) and we hope to someday work on a project together; I'm pretty chummy with the folks at Bungie (developers of Myth) too, to the point where I doubt I could be exactly objective about their games; and MacSoft (the publishers of Civilization on the Mac) also publish my two games, Damage Incorporated and Odyssey.  Like I said, this is just stuff I liked this year, and is not intended to be some sort of completely unbiased journalistic treatise. The Last Express Designed by Jordan Mechner. Developed by Smoking Car Productions.  Published by Brøderbund In many ways one could compare Jordan Mechner's computer game The Last Express with James Cameron's movie Titanic:  both are set in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century; both feature never-to-be-used-again means of mass transportation as their settings; both use never-before-used technologies to help recreate historical detail and period flavor; and both blew their projected budgets nearly by factors of two (Express went from $2 to $5 million, while Titanic ballooned from $100 to $200 million) as well as their release schedules (Express taking two years longer than they expected, with Titanic's release being delayed by at least half a year).  In the end, though, Mechner's Express is a much better computer game than Cameron's Titanic is a movie.  I should point out that I loved Titanic a great deal; it's just that Express stands alone among computer games, especially in the way it tells a great, believable, reality-based story.  Whereas Cameron used established film techniques (indeed, evoking a storytelling mode that was perfected by D.W. Griffith just about eighty years ago) to tell a riveting story with great emotional force, Mechner had to create his own storytelling techniques as he went, bringing new life to the often tiresome adventure game genre, and telling a story of unprecedented (in a computer game) historical accuracy and emotional complexity. But whereas film-goers have swarmed to Titanic in unprecedented numbers - thereby justifying to the bankers its massive expense - the opposite seems to have happened with The Last Express, with gamers really not purchasing it in the quantities they did Mechner's previous mega-hits (Karateka, Prince of Persia, and Prince of Persia 2).  Given my previous declaration that Express is a better game than Titanic is a film, readers might wonder why it hasn't reached a similar level of financial success.  Indeed, I think it is Mechner's experimentation with new methods of telling an "interactive" story that has turned some gamers off.  Whereas Cameron uses the storytelling devices movie audiences are used to - but which they don't usually get to see utilized so expertly - Mechner's use of new techniques probably threw gamers expecting a "Sierra-style" or "Myst-a-like" adventure game for a loop.  A good example is Last Express' brilliant and innovative save-game system which so confused one critic that he complained in his review that the game had no save game system at all.  (Perhaps if Brøderbund had advertised Last Express as a "real-time adventure" as Westwood has done with Blade Runner they could have sold more "units" to consumers who currently seem to think everything is better in real-time.  Westwood went so far as to claim Blade Runner was the "first" such "real-time" adventure, which the existence of Last Express, released some eight months earlier, pretty much disproves.)  I think gamers who find Last Express initially confusing and not what they expected should stick with the game just a little longer, as the rewards are well worth the effort. Bumbler Bee-Luxe Designed by James Hague. Developed & published by Dadgum Games. The "classic arcade game" is a form in computer gaming just as haiku is a form of poetry or death metal is a form of music.  Though all three of these forms encompass an enormous number of disparate pieces of art, they each have formal rules which determine whether a given sample fits in the form or not.  Though the beat pattern found in haiku and the guttural vocals found in death metal help the discerning audience member decide whether a given sample fits in the classification or not, what exactly are the rules that determine whether something is a classic arcade game or not? Whatever the criteria are, designer James Hague demonstrates that he completely comprehends them in his masterful, wholly-original arcade game Bumbler Bee-Luxe.  To list a few:  the action is constrained to one screen; the player faces enemies in "waves" more than the "levels" found in modern commercial games; the game mechanics are obvious and uncomplicated, though challenging to pick up; the game fits into a well thought-out and consistent theme (bugs); all adversaries in the game fit into that theme in one way or another though each type has unique movement patterns; gameplay goes on forever, with the game only ending when the player dies; the game is bursting with originality and creativity; success at the game is not due so much to luck but rather with how honed the player's skills are; and the game relies more on razor-sharp gameplay as its selling point, rather than fancy-dancy technology or graphics.  Not only is the game-world of Bumbler not three dimensional, but the sprites aren't even 3D rendered.  Can you imagine, in this day and age?  The finely hand-rendered graphics - by Jessica Hague - are a pleasant respite from the soulless 3D models which are so omni-present these days,  and they certainly help to add to Bumbler's "classic" feel.  I like to think of Bumbler as a cross between Eugene Jarvis' Robotron and Ed Logg's Centipede with a significant dose of originality thrown in for good measure.  Bumbler Bee-Luxe certainly makes it into my pantheon of excellent Macintosh classic arcade games along with Solarian II and PegLeg;  all three are indisputably great examples of the form.  (And, wonder of wonders, you can only play them on a Mac.). Myth - The Fallen Lords Designed by Jason Jones. Developed & published by Bungie Software I've liked every game Jason Jones has ever made, but Myth marks his most innovative effort since his network-only-game-before-there-were-network-only-games Minotaur (way back in 1992).  Though Pathways into Darkness and Marathon took a game (Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, respectively) and successfully refined it into something all the more intellectually stimulating (I think Marathon can safely be called the "thinking man's Doom") Myth takes the "real-time strategy" game and transmogrifies it to such an extent that it's an entirely new type of game.  Just wait until next year when you'll be seeing plenty of "Myth Too" games from the competition, and I'll bet you even money none of them will be nearly as good as Myth.  Here is a game aimed squarely at the fanboys (certainly the most fanboy oriented of my four favorites);  the extremely vivid carnage, the gameplay's near-exclusive focus on killing, the complex and hard to learn interface (though it's a thing of beauty once you master it), and the incredible difficulty of the game itself all make Myth something I really can't see non-gamers picking up.  But for a fanboy such as myself, this is paradise. One thing that I like so much about Myth is how Jones manages to tell a story within the game itself, not just through mission briefings or cut-scenes.  Pathways into Darkness told a story through the dead German soldiers the player found lying about the pyramid.  In the Marathon series the soldiers were replaced with artificial intelligences stuck in computer terminals found on the spaceships and alien worlds.  But both of these story-telling devices were somehow divorced from the gameplay proper:  pull up a terminal or talk to a dead guy and a separate game-state takes over and the game-world you "play" in temporarily disappears.  But in Myth not only does the player see the storyline through mission briefings and cut-scenes, but in the middle of gameplay itself enemies will start to talk to you.  Or better yet, as your troops approach an insurmountable mass of Myrmidons in one mission, the mage you've been guarding steps forward and proclaims "Let me handle this."  He begins a conversation with the head-baddie and the storyline unfolds right there in the game-world during game-time.  This is the type of elegant storyline and gameplay integration that all designers should strive for. Civilization II Designed by Brian Reynolds, based on "Civilization" designed by Sid Meier with Bruce Shelley. Developed by Microprose.  Published by MacSoft. What more can really be said about Civilization and it's exemplary sequel?  Every computer game fanboy who isn't living under a rock knows it's a fabulous game and, if they have any interest in strategy gaming whatsoever, has purchased their copy by now.  But what is it, from a design standpoint, that makes it such a great game?  Indeed, Civilization is a game that stands almost entirely on the strength of its gameplay and design, as the graphics and sound in both the original and its sequel have been fairly lackluster (though perfectly functional) compared to other commercial hits. I think the key to the game's addictive nature is the fact that you're always on the verge of accomplishing something:  whether it's gaining another technology, constructing another Wonder of the World, building another city, or squashing another enemy.  And once you've completed that goal, there's always a new one that's now on the verge of completion.  And so the cycle continues, and games stretch from hours into days into weeks.  (This depends on your level of self-discipline; I have a friend who once spent the entirety of spring break playing the original Civilization.  He's wake up, start playing, eat things as he got hungry, and go to bed when he was exhausted.  Then he'd wake up and start playing the game again.)   I also think that the game's break-through popularity - appealing to many "non-gamers" - has something to do with it's reality-based setting, as well as the way players can start playing knowing very little, and continue learning new features as they play.  The game comes with a plenty thick manual which is very informative and well written, yet you don't really need to read it to learn how to play.  As you play the game, however, its fabulous complexity reveals itself, ensuring many an hour of replay value and a vast variety of ways you can win a game.  Further contributing to the game's mainstream appeal, Civilization doesn't just model military pursuits, nor does it make them the centerpiece of the game, as so many other strategy games have done.  And Civilization II is certainly an example of how sequels should be done; expanding on what was great in the first game, yet not adding useless fluff around the edges but rather well thought out improvements, all while maintaining the game's legendary balance. This column was originally printed in Inside Mac Games.