What’s a Macguffin?
“One man says, ‘What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?’ And the other answers, ‘Oh that’s a MacGuffin.’ The first one asks ‘What’s a MacGuffin?’ ‘Well’ the other man says, ‘It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ The first man says, ‘But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,’ and the other one answers ‘Well, then that’s no MacGuffin!’ So you see, a MacGuffin is nothing at all.”
- Alfred Hitchcock
The Macguffin is a term Hitchcock used for a plot device – the thing that got the plot going, but didn’t really matter to the real action of the movie. In Psycho, the Macguffin was the money Marion Crane’s character stole. In Star Wars, it was the Death Star plans hidden in R2-D2’s databanks. Somehow, this throwaway “nothing” is at the center of some of the best movies and literature in the world.
What is Macguffin Games?
For us, the Macguffin means finding that special something that brings stories to life in video games.
Macguffin Games was founded by Scott Macmillan in late 2008. We make games centered around stories – these may be traditional computer RPGs, more of what some designers call emergent storytelling, or something completely wonky – we’re interested in all of it.
Storytelling in games has always been a passion of Scott’s, springing from his love of tabletop role playing, live action games, and video games like Zork, Wasteland, and Darklands. As computer and console gaming has begun to mature, we’re starting to see more and varied takes on stories in games; as far as we’re concerned, this is great! In a medium with as much potential as games have, there is room enough for all of it. Our task will be to add the best games we can to the list.