Level Design & Minimaps

There's always something new going on with the Game Design crew.

Lately we've been discussing level design and the use of minimaps. More specifically, we've been debating whether or not our game should be open-world or if it should be more linear. And how we design our levles will play into how we implement the minimap.

We know that, since the game takes place at our college, TCNJ, the actual campus will serve as the overworld. From here the players will go into the various buildings, where they will find the missions, objectives, etc. But what we need to decide on is whether or not players will move from building to building as the game tells them to, or if they will have the freedom to visit whatever building they want. The central storyline will move in specific directions, of course, but we are debating whether or not the game should include side quests and stories.

One of the guys in the group is really pushing for a Grand Theft Auto style game. I think we've settled now on a compromise, whereby the initial stages of the game will be linear and the later stages will be a sandbox setup. Once the player starts to learn some Spanish they should be able to handle more unique scenarios that side quests can provide. This will also allow them to get more reinforcement of the material.

To handle our sandboxing, we are enlisting the help of an Interactive Storytelling class to come up with sidestories and quests.

To help us in analyzing the issues of map and level design, we used the traditional Game Design method of bringing in sample games. I brought in some GameCube games like Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime and P.N. 03 to look at some of the best (and worst) of the industry.

Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4 are both somewhat linear games, in terms of level design. Prime allows for a lot of exploration in gameplay, but the actual rooms are quite small and restricted. But the player never realizes how small these rooms are because of the brilliantly done graphics and level design. You really feel like you are in part of a massive canyon, you don't realize it's actually just a hallway with a cleverly designed skybox and such.

Resident Evil does the same thing, by turning a simple hallway into what looks like part of a huge forest area. The developers didn't have to actually make massive areas, but they still gave the impression of large explorable areas. Part of the success here was in the limited use of the minimaps. If players could see blatantly that they were in a hallway, they would not get the impression that they were exploring a large, vibrant world. They would know they were boxed in.

In this case, ignorance is bliss. If a developer doesn't have the time or resources to make a massive open world like in an MMO, I want to at least feel like I am in one of these. In these instances, heavy use of a minimap would be detrimental.

P.N.o3 was an example of a badly done game. The levels are all tightly made corridors that suffocate the player. And the setup of these different hallways and rooms is completely confusing and disorienting, creating the feeling that you are lost in a massive maze. In this instance, a minimap would have been very welcome.

We will probably end up using some kind of minimap in our game, but we will try to avoid ruining the open world feeling. Time will only tell if we suceed.

- Scott

Fable & Choice

So we had another awesome day of Game Design II today. It was a day in which we were encouraged to bring in games that would demonstrate points we were trying to achieve.

One of the cooler of the games we looked at was Fable, from the original XBox. We looked at it for its usage of dialogue and choice. In Fable, almost every decision you make affects the game somehow. Whether it is choosing whether or not to keep an affair a secret, or whether or not to burn a village, you get a lot of freedom to do what you want.

And more importantly, the game is set up to reflect the consequences of your actions. If you tell the wife that her husband is having an affair, the husband will get angry at you. If you commit evil actions like burning villages and killing citizens, you will gradually become a darker-looking more evil character. And the ending of the game also depends on choices you make.

For the purposes of our class, we just looked at the opening level of the game, in which the young boy is running around trying to do good deeds to collect money. But man, there is a lot of opportunities to do mean stuff as well in that town. I couldn't count how many times the player got yelled at my the town guard for being a bad kid. It was pretty cool to see a system set up that could deal with consequences though, it really helped to make the town and game come alive.

We also looked at some other games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) for their use of dialogue as well. KotOR was shown as a good example of dialogue usage, but I feel like the multiple choice menu system breaks up the action a lot. It'd be nice to see a game that could make a more fluid system for choice and dialogue.

Mass Effect, the newest game out from BioWare (who made KotOR), is supposed to have a very good choice and dialogue mechanic. When I get my X-Box 360 in about a month Mass Effect will be at the top of my list of games to get, so I'll be able to see for myself.

- Scott

RTS/RPG Fusion

Whew!

I just beat the Battle for Middle-earth good campaign, talk about an awesome game. The campaign started out like the other RTS games I've played, where it alternated between some small levels where you control a few characters and some bigger levels where you built up armies.

But unlike most RTS games, BFME is like an RPG as well: All of your units can rank up and be re-used in the next missions! Certain key units, aka the Fellowship, got a ridiculous amount of experience by the end of the campaign. For the final level I had Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, etc. all up to lvl. 10, the maximum. Not only does their attack and defense go up, they learn some sweet new abilities too (sounds just like an RPG doesn't it?). Gandalf's powers are displayed in some of the screens here, as is Aragorn's ability to summon a small group of ghost warriors.

While this RPG style application was really sweet, I was even more excited to see that my general units could level up, get upgrades and be re-used as well. Towards the beginning of the campaign I built up a shock-force of well-armored, well-armed Rohirrim Cavalry, which could pretty much roll over anything in its past. Later in the game I formed my massive Gondor army, to which the Fellowship members would later be ended. Units could be upgraded with things such as Heavy Armor, Forged Blades, Fire Arrows, etc. (see this screen for some decked-out cavalry).

I was worried for a while though, because the game would only let me play so many missions of my choosing (like pick which part of Rohan to defend with Eromer) before it made me do required missions (like defending Helm's Deep or the path of Cirith Ungol). But after I had defended Minas Tirith (which was an insanely awesome mission btw) it let me play as many battles as I wanted before I moved on to the final mission. The more missions I played, the more I could level up my units, so I conquered the entire world before finally moving against Mordor itself (I had even come up into southern Mordor, to the Lake of Nurn). By the time I went up against the Black Gates of Mordor (the final mission) I had crafted quite an imposing army.

To take on all the hosts of Mordor, I moved to the Black Gates with my Gondor army and the Fellowship. I had about 50 veteran cavalry, fully equipped with Heavy Armor & Forged Blades. I also had 2 divisions of archers, which were also maxed out. Add the members of the Fellowship and all of my ally summons, and Mordor didn't stand a chance.

This was a fantastic campaign for a fantastic game. I really think that this is the evolution of strategy games, to let you build up & train your forces throughout the game. Now I get to go and play the dark-side campaign :)

- Scott

ROCK BAND!

WOA!

So I just played this game today for the first time (yeah I know I'm behind the times) and it rocks!

I had been skeptical about all of these music games, but Rock Band is remarkably well-designed. We played it during our Game Design II class today, and I have to say it was addicing. We were politely fighting over the guitars and the microphone all morning (people were afraid of how difficult the drums were). This is an awesome party game, unless you have more than 4 people, then it becomes a war over the spotlight :P

I hadn't played the guitar before, and I sucked. I had to play bass on easy on a couple of songs to get the hang of the keys, but even after that I couldn't do to well. And I didn't get a chance yet to play the drums. But on the mic, I shone.

I only knew the lyrics to a handful of songs, but the ones I knew, I knew. I've sung along to Dani California so many times that I could have sang for that song without the words scrolling across the top. It really felt like being the signer in a band, it was quite a rush. Plus, most of the instrument players were sitting down always, so I felt like I was at the center of attention in the room too.

Letting loose during the Star Power sequences was a bit embarassing at first, but I started to get into it at the end. I decided that, hey, this was an awesome game, and I shouldn't be afraid to get into it and start really rocking out. The last couple of songs I did I really kicked ass on, and I can't wait for the chance to play this again.

Until then... I'll have to stick to the shower for my rock-star-wannabe moments.

- Scott

MMO Opinion Feedback

So I just published my opinion piece about MMORPG's last week, and the feedback has been great.

I had argued that Guild Wars was a better game and a better deal than WoW, and that WoW has a reputation that is bigger than it deserves. I am arguing against the grain, that's for sure. See the Articles section for the full story, it's a pretty quick read (the screens in this post accompanied my article, to show the difference in the 2 games' graphics).

But I couldn't believe how many people I heard from about the article. There was the usual comments, friends of mine that said they saw it and liked it. But there were a lot more meaningful responses as well. I got text messages from a couple of friends I hadn't talked to in a while, saying that they liked the article and were playing Guild Wars again. When someone takes a slug at WoW, all the closet-Guild Wars players come out of hiding and show themselves. I also got a couple of new Facebook friend requests from other Guild Wars players.

But of course, not everything was rainbows and sunshine. I had a lot of WoW fans coming up to me to argue the merits of their game, and many of them made good points. I had lunch today with an aquaintence while we discussed MMO's. He has played quite a few, including WoW, Everquest and Guild Wars, so his insight was welcome. He brought up some good points against Guild Wars, but also just as many against WoW.

Whether the responses were positive or negative, I was happy to get the topics out in public. I don't think we've ever had gaming related opinion pieces in the paper before, and I've never had so many conversations about online gaming in such a short amount of time. I'm just trying to do my part to bring this little hobby of ours to mainstream :)

Check out the article, and let me know what you think!

- Scott

P.N.03 - Fighting with Flair

So I just started playing PN o3, the unique third-person shooter from Capcom that came out exclusively on GameCube a few years back.

The game was part of the Campcom Five, a group of five high-profile Capcom games that were to come out exclusively on GameCube. Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7 and Resident Evil 4 were also part of this group, but those 3 all came out on PS2 later, making PN 03 the ONLY game from the Campcom Five to stay exclusive. The fifth game (dubbed Red Pheonix or something like that) was never completed.

The game is pretty crazy compared to most shooters. It does not focus much on your accuracy, as the auto-targetting is so strong there really is no skill involved there. It also doesn't allow for many changes in attack weaponry, so the skill doesn't lie there either. The tricky part is in learning how to dodge.

The girl in the game, Vanessa, moves around as if she is in the middle of some kind of techno-dance competition, but in a good way. Her jumps are exagerated and acrobatic, and make platform jumping actually kind of fun to watch. You will rely heavily on the L and R buttons, which dodge in the respective directions. These dodges go from shrugging to the side, to spinning out of the way, to doing sideways cartwheels. It can be fun for a while to dance back and forth, watching as your robotic enemies fire shot after shot without touching you. Capcom obviously put a lot of time into perfecting this dodging/acrobatic effect, and it turned out great.

Unfortunately, it seems from what time I've spent so far that this is the only mechanic that they delved into deeply. The level designs are repetitive squeaky-clean labs, the enemies are all some variety of security robot (they are cool robots, but still get boring after a while), which as a creative choice isn't bad, but as an AI choice is awful. The enemy AI is something you would have expected from an old computer game like Duke Nukem or something, its not even as engaging as shooters on the 64. The music is a bass-heavy techno mix, which pumps you up for about the first half hour of playing, but takes you no where after that.

Fortunately, the RPG elements and scoring system add a bit of challenge and reward to the mix. While the bots are sometimes painfully simplistic, this makes racing through a level for a time bonus more feasible. And building up points to buy new suits and power-ups adds a bit of excitement to keep you interested.

This game does some interesting things with the concept and the dodging mechanics. But at the end of the day, it is a slightly-below average game with only a few novel ideas to save it. This game is best in small doses, and at a cheap price.

- Scott