5. Second Genesis? - EvE Online: Trinity

There are only two reasons why successful MMOs die out: either they become too complicated – and thus become inaccessible to new users – or they just start to look dated.  CCP, the creators of EvE-Online have figured out a solution to the second problem, patch in a new graphics engine.

While this may not seem like a design innovation, it opens up an important new possibility for gaming: the perpetual game. There is no reason why, if you are willing to give away major technological overhauls, you can’t create a world that lasts for decades, perhaps centuries.

Imagine having thirty years development time. Imagine what a world could be like after a quarter century of additional content and art. Imagine a living world filled not only with myth cycles and lore but history!

For letting us dream EvE earns its place at number five.

4. *Oh My Jesus God* – Line Rider

As a game designer there are some games that just make you want to weep…the simplicity, the elegance, the grace: why didn’t you think of that.  Line rider was one of those games.  The first time I saw it I thought to myself “I could make forty beautiful games out of this”.  The first time I played it I thought to myself “this is a beautiful game”.

When I last checked there were more Line Rider videos on YouTube than Gears of War.  To put that popularity in perspective let me just say this: making line rider cost less than buying a retail copy of Gears and I can tell you all of the rules of Line Rider in under a minute...

It’s simple toys like this that serve to remind us that all the mechanics have not been found, that there are still activities which are engaging and fun that don’t require a multi-million dollar budget to execute, and that’s why line rider earns it’s place on our list.

3. Reinventing the Wheel – Mass Effect

I can’t remember the last time I saw a dialogue tree in a major release game...but you know what I can remember?  I can remember having a conversation with a group of game designers who said that dialogue trees were dead, that a modern audience wouldn’t sit through that amount of reading.  Bioware blew this line of reasoning out of the water with the dialogue wheel in Mass Effect.

Moreover they did it on a console...

The dialogue wheel not only allows players to quickly assimilate their choices but also adds an intriguing uncertainty to the game play.  The wheel allows the player to choose the tenor of their responses but not the responses themselves.  Surprisingly this leads to a feeling of greater choice rather than a restrictive gimmick thus earning Mass Effect its place at number three.

2.  Not Just for Your Grandma Anymore - Puzzle Quest

Puzzle games hold my attention for all of twenty minutes. Once I figure out the core mechanics I’m usually pretty done...

I’ve played at least 150 hours of Puzzle Quest.

Puzzle Quest deserves to be on the top ten most innovative games of 2007 for a myriad of reasons.  First off it combined puzzle games and rpgs. That in and of itself would deserve a mention, but Puzzle Quest did so much more. It successfully bridged the gap between casual and hardcore players. Most of the attempts I’ve seen try to do this by separating out the “hardcore game” and the “casual game” and simply package them together in the same application, not so with Puzzle Quest.  In Puzzle Quest it all depends on how you play. If you are the type of player who just cares about doing a neat puzzle every once in a while the game certainly has that, but if you are the type of player who wants to Min/Max your 1337 skziills and see how much you could pwn, well that was there too…in the exact same activity the casual player was doing!

Moreover, Puzzle Quest finds unique answers for several questions which have plagued the design community for years.  Most obvious: how do we make combat in an RPG fun?   Puzzle Quest managed to avoid stale menu based combat without blundering into the “action-rpg” brier.  Also, like the next title on the list, Puzzle Quest demonstrates how much you can do with a single play mechanic, creating a crafting, taming, capturing and training system all out of the same color matching rule set.

I hope you all ended this year with a new found respect for bejeweled...

1. Sine Qua Non – Portal

Portal takes the cake.  

What else can I say?  It reminded me why I design games.  It’s simple, it’s beautiful, it’s elegant.  All the touches are just right.  More than that, it’s innovative, it allowed us to step into a new gamespace, to play with a mechanic that’s never before been done.  Who knows if we’ll see this mechanic used again (probably not to this extent) but it doesn’t matter, they pushed the mechanic to the limit.  The game itself was just a deep exploration of the mechanic.  It gently unfolded all of the ramifications of the rules, ushered the player through a complete examination of the emergent properties of the ruleset and forced them to think in a new way.  Thus to me it is the designer’s game of the year and the most refreshing piece of gaming I’ve experienced in a long time.

Of course none of those things are why it’s on this list.  Actually the reason it’s on the list has almost nothing directly to do with design.  Portal is actually on this list because Valve hired the entire team that made Narbacular Drop.

Allowing students to innovate and incubate in the safe environment of school and then, if their ideas have exceptional potential, to provide them with the guidance and resources necessary to fully realize their vision is something that I believe will revitalize game design.  My hat’s off to you Valve for your bravery and your forward thinking.  You well deserve this year’s Greatest Innovation Award.

James Portnow is an ardent dreamer, a hopeless romantic, a “master of entertainment technology” and a game designer working at Activision's Underground Development.

You can read Next-Gen's 50 Greatest Game Design Innovations ever here.