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Hitman Go was released in 2014 and was applauded for it’s innovative visuals, simple mechanics, and engaging gameplay. Eidos was able to take a franchise involving stealth, action, and assassination and translate it into a digital board game. In a year Eidos continued this formula by releasing Lara Croft Go. By modifying the visuals and tweaking the mechanics, Eidos was able to take another brand with decidedly different goals and create a uniquely different “digital board game” using the same structure. Just this past year Eidos released it’s third “Go” game using the franchise Deus Ex as the foundation. With the “Go” games now a trilogy, I thought it would be interesting to compare and discuss the differences between the Go games. How modifying mechanics and visuals can create a decidedly different atmosphere even within the same structure. Today I’ll be discussing Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go, and Deus Ex Go. This will be mainly about visuals and mechanics, yet if you’re concerned about seeing potentially spoiling visuals for these games… turn back now! The BrandsTo start with I thought it would be best to briefly discuss these three franchises, their goals, and how are they different. Hitman is traditionally a stealth game, that has players exploring flexible levels that allow players to accomplish missions their own way. The games feel organized, strategic, and almost “James Bond-esque.” Lara Croft has players exploring ancient ruins and tombs, solving puzzles, and encountering hostile creatures along the way. Typically these games are filled with a sense of discovery, ancient environments, and a very “Indiana Jones” feel. Finally there’s Deus Ex, an action role-playing game that places the player in a dystopian, cyberpunk future. In this future the world has developed “human augmentations,” technology that can increase human attributes… run faster, jump higher, etc. These games typically center around conflicts between factions who do and do not believe in human augmentation. Deus Ex typically feels gritty, futuristic, and an almost “Film Noire” feel to it. The VisualsVisually these games change as drastically as they are different from each other. Hitman Go features an extremely elegant maquette styled environment. The environments feel small and look assembled, and the characters feel like board game pieces. Each level feels like a unique set piece, and the players are even able to rotate the level around to look at all of it’s details. A combination of expertly rendered ambient lighting, shading, and easily recognized materials (plastic feels like plastic, etc) helps create this effect. It’s also worth noting that while the set designs have extensive detail, the player set pieces are actually pretty simplistic. When you move your “hitman” over an enemy, there’s no combat animation… The piece just knocks over the other piece. It’s simple, elegant, and plays with our own innate understanding of board games. Lara Croft Go has a shockingly different artistic direction. Whereas most of the Lara Croft franchise goes for a realistic visual style, Lara Croft Go goes for a geometric, highly saturated, almost cel shaded feel. In many ways the environments feel illustrative, almost like modern graphic design. This style feels like the polar opposite from the recent AAA Lara Croft games, yet works surprisingly well. Lara Croft Go sacrifices the rotation feature that Hitman Go had, and utilizes full character animations. In this way, while the mechanics still feel similar to a board game, the visual style pulls further away. Deus Ex Go continues a step further by creating a visual style that’s simplistic, modern, and “low poly.” The franchise also makes heavy use of tessellated triangular patterns, stark black and white environments, and uses colors to pop important information. Using low poly geometry lends itself towards feeling “high tech” or futuristic. Deus Ex Go continues the same trend as Lara Croft Go and features full character animations. To top off the detective/Film Noir feel, Deus Ex Go has an extra layer of story added through character dialogue. While in a level, characters from the series will communicate with the protagonist. The style of writing and character dialogue, completes the Deus Ex feel. The MechanicsPotentially the most interesting difference between these games are how the mechanics change between them. As you might have imagined, Hitman Go focuses on human type enemies for the player to overcome. Each enemy has it’s own unique behavior, that coupled with the level design, creates puzzles for the player to overcome. I noted that Hitman Go has eight different types of enemies…
While there are some bonus objectives, Hitman Go relies on the player to safely navigate their environment and eliminate their target. Lara Croft Go modifies this formula slightly, to create a different game feeling for the player. Within Lara Croft go, I noticed fewer enemies but also the addition of other obstacles or traps. Lara Croft Go has 4 different types of enemy:
While mechanically every “Go” level is a puzzle, the traps introduced in Lara Croft Go really adds to the feeling that you’re exploring and solving ancient ruins. In many ways Deus Ex Go follows a similar formula to Lara Croft Go having fewer enemy types, but instead of having “Traps” Deus Ex Go introduces “abilities. Deus Ex Go has 4 different types of enemies:
Deus Ex Go has two different types of ability tiles, each with two varying functions:
The Rule of EightWhile it may be a bit of a stretch in regards to Deus Ex Go, I think it’s interesting that relatively speaking there’s a rule of 8 for the “Go” games. There are 8 enemy types in Hitman Go, there are 4 types of enemies and 4 types of traps in Lara Croft Go, and there are 4 types of enemies and 2 abilities with 2 functions in Deus Ex Go. I wonder if there’s a correlation for how we as players understand levels. If for this type of game, having 8 elements to learn and navigate is optimal? I wonder if other board games or puzzle games like this have similar rule sets. It must certainly be optimal from a production standpoint to manage only 8 different kinds of obstacles, and allow design flexibility to create levels of varying complexity. Final ThoughtsWhile creating massively different artistic directions is important for emphasizing each brand respectively, modifying the equation of obstacles is paramount to creating a gameplay feel that respects the brand. Hitman is about taking out your target and navigating your enemies, so it makes sense that it emphasizes on human type obstacles. Lara Croft is about exploring dangerous ruins and solving ancient puzzles… having a balance between enemies and ancient traps aids to this feel. At the end of the day Deus Ex is about using abilities to overcome your enemies, whether they be human or technological. For this having the appropriate balance between enemies and using your character’s abilities, makes the player feel like a powerfully augmented agent… instead of an assassin or tomb raider.
I’ll be curious to see if Eidos continues this trend with a fourth “Go” game? Thief maybe? We’ll have to wait and see what direction they take. In any case I hope this was interesting! I strongly believe that simple and easy to understand mechanics, in a structure that’s very familiar to most players… is a really effective formula. Often games tend to rely on complexity and at times can under deliver on the experience.
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This is it! We’re coming to the end of my first full year of doing this blog thing! To finish off the year I thought it might be interesting to take a look back at 2016, and discuss my top 5 innovative games. I’ve discussed a lot of games over the course of this year, but there have been a few gems in the list that I think deserve a little more special recognition. So in no specific order, here’s my list of the top 5 innovative games of 2016! Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.apk The Mr. Robot app was really a surprise hit. This app received some minor media coverage, but really it snuck it’s way out onto the app store with very little fan fair. In “Mr.Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.apk” you’ve found a hacker’s phone, and the app itself pretends to be a sort of chat software. Over the course of the next couple days, you’re introduced to different characters, conversations, and interesting moral choices. While simplistic in it’s approach, the Mr. Robot app leverages simple mechanics with a player’s pre-existing understanding of social media. On top of that having to wait in real time for a character to respond to you, gave the game a dynamically different feel… truly integrating itself into your daily habits. If you haven’t had the chance, and even if you haven’t watched the show, I assure you that this is a real treat. Virginia Virginia was another game that surprised me this year. Within Virginia you play as a young FBI Recruit on their first real assignment. While you’re investigating a missing persons case, really the game establishes itself in the relationship between you, your partner, and the agency. Virginia stood out on so many different levels… first of all having a young non-white female protagonist, no dialogue in the game, unique visual style, and cinematic transitions that we would normally associate with a movie or television… all add up to a truly unique and memorable experience. The Division I know that my next choice is a pretty stark contrast to my other selections this year, but The Division is definitely worth noting on this list for one reason… the Dark Zone. While many of the shooting mechanics of the Division can be attributed to other shooters, where I see the Division as being innovate was in the creation of the “Dark Zone.” If you’re unfamiliar, the Dark Zone is a full PVP zone. Where players can cooperate or compete for loot, that they then have to “extract” in order to own in the main game. The fact that players are always unsure of how other players are going to respond, if people are going to attack them to try to steal their loot or actually cooperate, creates many tense situations. I’ve been in many unsure moments where you have two groups of players looking at eachother, weapons drawn, waiting for someone to make the first move. These moments are unique, and completely player driven...which is pretty special. No Man’s Sky Love or Hate No Man’s Sky, it deserves to be on a list like this one. While other games include many of the same elements, No Man’s Sky is one of the first to combine these experiences together. The ability to jump into a procedurally generated solar system, seamlessly land on a planet, explore, and take back off into space is a pretty awesome experience. While the game may still be lacking in some areas, it continues to improve and build upon itself. I can’t help but wonder what the game will look like in another 6 months, but for now No Man’s Sky is definitely one of my top innovative games of 2016. Dishonored 2 I really had a hard time picking my final entry into this list, and Dishonored 2 really came as a late addition. Dishonored 2 is an action/stealth game, taking place in a Victorian-esque steam punk world. You play as a supernatural assassin, and players have the choice of playing as one of two protagonists. Dishonored has always been known for providing it's players with a variety of gameplay options and scenarios, but Dishonored 2 has gone above and beyond in creating massively different feeling levels as well. While every level allows for a lot of player choice, I've found that every level feels decidedly different. There are different enemies, items, and at times mechanics change drastically... and I have to adapt. In games like these it's very easy to fall into a routine, and Dishonored 2 really breaks it's players out of their comfort zones. Dishonored 2 teaches it's players to become as flexible as their chosen protagist, and it's a truely rewarding experience. I really don't want to give anything away, but I would highly encourage a playthrough. It’s also worth giving both We Happy Few and The Long Dark are honorable mention on this list. While I didn’t add these games, because they are still in mid-development, I think they should be on everyone’s radar in the coming year.
Thanks again to everyone who's been reading this year and for all of your support! I hope that this blog was able to add something special to your year, and we will continue to looking interesting gaming trends in 2017!! Happy Holidays and Happy New years! Originally my plan was to go into this blog post discussing “Survival Games,” an analysis of commonalities and traits that make up good survival games. For this I had started playing quite a bit of "The Long Dark," a game that's still in alpha but strands it's user in a cold alpine wilderness. Meanwhile, to everyone's surprise, No Man's Sky dropped a massive update. In the "Foundation Update" No Man's Sky released a ton of new features, including base building, updated UI, the ability to own freighters, and more. Considering my previous post titled "Player Defined Goals," where I reviewed the first release of No Man's Sky, I think it only makes sense for me to return to it and explore it in today's post about Survival Games. While I'll be discussing these games at length, there's really no plot implications here and so you shouldn't be too worried about spoilers. When it comes to talking about "Survival Games" it's really hard to not talk about "Survival Horror," yet for this post I really wanted to evaluate games that focus purely on survival. Survival games tend to have 3 main characteristics; resource management, exploration , and crafting... with some slight variations to each. I'll be using these characteristics to help frame this analysis, in regards to different games and how they use these elements. The Long Dark is a really structurally interesting game. While it's in Alpha, you can see how these mechanics are beginning to work really nicely with one another. What I played of The Long Dark, is that you're dropped into a random location and time of day. Your first thoughts are, as they should be, to look for shelter. The game forces the player to learn quick that they cannot stay outside for very long, without building a fire to keep warm. In my first moments of the game I stumbled upon a large branch, that I could break down for resources. I went ahead and did so but was shocked to find that doing actions like these have a cost. It costs time, calories (which is how they manage hunger in the game), exhaustion, and depending on just how cold it is... you become chilled quite fast. As you can imagine my first playthrough didn't have me lasting much longer than a day. While the learning curve feels steep, I found myself to be invested fairly early on. After dying in several different ways, The Long Dark taught me caution in all my decisions. Mechanically speaking there are many resources to manage in The Long Dark, yet the way this information is illustrated for the user allows for easy on boarding. Unless something terrible happens, the player is slowly introduced to different aspects of your character. While there are many things to manage, I never felt overwhelmed… although I was often overburdened by trying to have my character carry as much as possible. My initial experience felt very much like my playthrough of Far Cry Primal, which I discussed in an earlier post where I turned off the HUD while playing. I felt the same way due to the lack of information, while I was slowly introduced to more info, intially I felt like a newborn in a world that I didn’t comprehend. I appreciated the fact that I couldn’t hunt in the game right off the bat. On my fourth playthrough, on the 10th day, I finally found a rifle with four bullets. It was an incredible brief change of pace, and showed off the game’s breadth drastically.
The Long Dark does very well is to have a lot of depth to every aspect. I guess my biggest take away is that while every game has costs associated with actions, never did they feel as relevant as they did in The Long Dark. The best example for me was when I was finally able to track down a bear, shoot, and kill it. It took so much time to skin, and harvest the bear, that I had to first build a fire to stay warm while doing so. Even then I quickly became over encumbered and had to return to my shelter to unload and rest… yet when I returned to finish harvesting the bear, he had gone completely frozen and I didn’t have the tools required to finish. It was so disappointing knowing how many more resources literally lay in front of me, and yet the elements had beaten me again. It was a truly interesting learning experience. I’m still surprised to be returning to No Man’s Sky, but I found myself playing a considerable amount of the Foundation Update. If you haven’t read, I would recommend checking out my first impressions of the game here . It feels very interesting to see some of my initial critiques of the game being addressed in this update. I had mentioned earlier that No Man’s Sky struggled with satisfying both the productivity and creativity itch that Minecraft is able to accomplish. Yet in this update has certainly addressed this, with the implementation of customizable homesteads, npc quests for your home, new tech and resources… there’s suddenly a lot more to discover. In all fairness I’m still only part way into this update and have yet to even touch the elements of the game related to owning a Freighter. Which is exciting considering I’ve already sunk a ton of additional hours into this update. The Foundation Update has really breathed new life into what was a pretty dead game, there’s clear enhancements and changes to worlds, I’ve seen more unique fauna, and with the introduction of new resources and technology there’s a lot of stuff to learn. The game has definitely been rebalanced as well, where I find certain resources to be much harder to find than they previously used to be. Also while many of the NPC quests are glorified fetch quests, I’m very happy to do it and overall I find myself excited to progress. From a Survival Game standpoint, No Man’s Sky is pretty interesting. There’s really a lot of breadth, a huge number of different biomes and resources that all accumulate to a many unique scenarios. While I have to be conscientious of my survivability in No Man’s Sky, the game feels less personal than The Long Dark. While exploring is an aspect of The Long Dark, I feel more concerned about my well being… it feels so much more about me. While No Man’s Sky, I feel as though my primary concerns are related to my spaceship, exploring the stars, and inventory management. That’s not to say that it isn’t incredibly engaging, it just feels as though the driving factors feel very different between these games. I feel as though I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Don’t Starve in an evaluation of Survival Games. This game has definitely become a staple of my previous year, as you may have noticed me mention it in a few different posts now. Don’t Starve is certainly a dynamic jaunt into the genre, most known for it’s illustrative visuals. While Don’t Starve maintains a lot of similar Survival Game tropes, survival based resource management and exploration, I believe Don’t Starve stands on it’s own for it’s unique visuals and content. So much of the game is driven by exploration and discovering unknown elements. Having something like magic certainly has it stand out against it’s competitors, and I can honestly say that even after the countless hours I’ve sunk into this game… I’m positive there are things that I still don’t comprehend. Another element worth noting is that while other games have had “Sanity” as a resource, most of those games have been more horror based genres, rather than a purely survival game. As a Darksouls fan I can confidently say that Don’t Starve stands well on it’s own as being one of the most unforgiving games out there. That being said the playfulness of the game’s visuals and variety of environments strongly encourage players to explore the worlds that Klei Entertainment has created. Thinking about the driving factors of both No Man’s Sky and The Long Dark… I somehow feel like Don’t Starve falls somewhere in the middle. While I’m very conscientious of my character and their well being, it’s more in an effort to get more game time to explore the world further. I REALLY wanted to do an evaluation on We Happy Few, unfortunately it ran very poorly on my laptop and I got limited game time. That being said I really felt as though it was worth mentioning in this post, for it’s unique stance on the survival genre. (I’ll try to be as factual as possible, but I apologize if I get some elements wrong.) While We Happy Few is still in it’s Alpha, much like The Long Dark, we can see a lot of the mechanics at work already. What stuck out for me was it’s use of both the traditional survival elements, as well as a social component. We Happy Few takes place in an alternative 1960’s London, where there’s this pill that instill “joy” in it’s citizens. It becomes a large part of both social norms and the law. In the few moments of gameplay that I experienced, I was thrown into a more desperate part of town. I noticed my character was wearing “tattered” clothes, and my first instinct was to actually repair this. Yet it had a negative effect on how people viewed me in town. As this was a poor neighborhood, people began to mock me and be more suspicious of me. I thought this was a truly interesting element to add to this genre. So often do we think of survival games in the same context as The Long Dark and being alone in the wilderness… when it can be a very different struggle in a city. We Happy Few maintains many of the same elements as other survival genres, yet puts an interesting spin on these by injecting a both a social and puzzle dynamic into the game. Survival games mainly use the same key elements of resource management, exploration, and crafting… yet the driving factors of these games can feel massively different. Overall I believe it’s how these elements are balanced, the setting, and the visual direction of the game that determines what ends up being a player’s driving influence. In the examples I’ve provided, I don’t necessarily believe that one game is more successful than the other… merely it’s interesting to see such dynamically different takes on the same key elements. Orwell is a game developed by Osmotic Studio, which plays with the idea of social networking and the power of information. Much like the games I reviewed the blog post “Implied Knowledge”, Orwell is a game that heavily leverages the player’s understanding of social media and application norms. In today’s post I’ll be exploring Orwell and elements of the game that were very strong, as well as areas that could have been improved. If you haven’t played and would like to, I’d stop reading here… from here on out we’ll be entering some heavy spoiler territory. The premise of Orwell is that you’re a recruit trying out a new type of surveillance software called Orwell. Your job is to use Orwell to investigate suspects of a terrorist bombings in a place called “The Nation.” Orwell allows you to snoop on these individuals, find data fragments, and add these to the suspect’s file. The key point of the game is that you can choose what elements you add to the file, and what to not include. There are times where pieces of information could be out of context and paint the individual in a false light. The main way Orwell allows the players to gather this information is either through web based searches (finding user profiles and social media), listening in to phone calls and chat logs, and in some cases you’re able to hack into their phones and computer files. Orwell is also an episodic game, releasing itself once a week over the course of five weeks. Orwell is truly master of the user experience. If there’s anything that could be said about this game, it’s that it knows how to present itself. Upon first entering the game, there’s a really convincing boot sequence where the player is praised for being the first applicant, and they have to agree to a fake terms of use. There’s a lot emphasis on how your choices have big impacts to the game. As you drag data fragments onto case files there’s warnings, telling the player that what they are about to do cannot be undone, etc. Overall I found the interface and communication to the player to be very rewarding. I felt like a new recruit working with this strange new surveillance software, I was pretty invested early on. They go a step further to even have a character from the game e-mail you when the next episode is ready, asking for you to return to work. While the writing is well done and overall presentation is superb, there are a few things mechanically that I felt made this game lacking. It was interesting to have data fragments be highlighted information, that the player drags and drop to collect, but in doing so the player can quickly adopt the habit of skimming through the information in search of the highlighted areas. Perhaps this was intentional because there’s a lot of reading material, but it made so much of what the player is doing feel unimportant… which was contradictory to the story’s message. I remember in the first episode I was really paranoid about what I was doing, because of all of the messages telling me how strongly I was impacting people’s lives, and yet in later episodes I felt very disconnected. To be fair I think the episode frequency also negatively impacted the experience. At first I thought it was a cool idea to have this be released weekly, but I quickly found myself falling out of the game’s rhythm. Orwell didn’t have a strong enough story to keep me invested for that long. In game time, the story plays out in a matter of days… It would have been more interesting for the game to be released daily, sort of like your character attending their first week at work. Mr. Robot had the me wait as well, but the game only ever had me waiting for 8 to 12 hours at most. Another element that I felt was lacking from Orwell was a real sense of involvement. In other games like Mr. Robot, or even Her Story, I felt much more part of the experience. Orwell was much more of a voyeur experience. While Orwell offered more depth and variety of tools than it’s competitors, the fact that the players couldn’t truly participate in what was happening made the player really feel more removed from the experience. In many ways Orwell over compensated for this by engaging the player in different ways, i.e. the out of game e-mails. Yet overall I still was left wishing I could actually communicate with the people I was stalking or maybe even able to enter a “search” query into the database, sort of like Her Story. I was pretty surprised to find the final chapter of Orwell to be the strongest for me. Orwell was able to bring back the pressure I felt in the first episode by introducing a new mechanic where the player is limited to the amount of data fragments they could collect. There’s literally a count down in the final episode, and it forces the player to really care about their choices and sift through the information… think critically… and choose which information was relevant. This really brought the game back for me, and made the player’s choices feel impactful. Overall Orwell is still a superb experience and I think adds quite a bit to the recent trends of games using social media as part of a way to tell it’s story. Orwell will certainly be praised for it’s social commentary of “Big Brother” and the dangers of social media. For me this still feels very much like an experimental game and if you’re interested in that sort of thing, definitely check it out! Although I will say that I still yearn for a similar experience to the Mr. Robot app…
Hey guys! For this post I wanted to get into something a bit more analytical. I thought it might be interesting to dig into some side scrolling games and do a competative analysis of their visual strategies. What are their common elements? What ways do they facilitate the player’s understanding of themselves in the playspace? What strategies do they use to aid in the game’s narrative? For this analysis I took a look at the following games; Broforce, Fez, Inside, Little Big Planet, Never Alone, Oddworld, Oxenfree, Rayman Legends, Salt and Sanctuary, and Super Meat Boy. I know that Oxenfree might be a little outside the normal side scrolling spectrum, yet there are a couple of elements I wanted to include. You shouldn’t have to worry about spoilers below, I’ll be including imagery from these different titles but won’t be discussing game narrative. How do I understand the gameworld? |
Generally in all side scrolling games, there are the same rules for differentiating the foreground from the background. It’s all about large areas of contrast, where the background has implied atmospheric perspective, simulated with less value contrasts or lighter hues. Games like Super Meat Boy, Broforce, and Oddworld use | |
these similar strategies. Detail and definition go a long way to aid in the player’s understanding of the place space. By having clear differentiation between the foreground and the background, the player understands the avenues available to them. To that end the foreground elements also tend to be simplified shapes or tileable textures in these instances. Just as it’s important for the background and foreground to be separated, it’s equally
| important for the foreground to not compete with the game character or interactable elements. Little Big Planet uses these same methods, but goes one step further to add a blurring depth of field effect to the background. By blurring the backdrop the foreground/background differentiation is more defined, it also helps add to the general theme of the game and the feeling of being a small character in a big world. |
How do I understand where I am in the gameworld?
While looking through these games, I noticed some different strategies being used to help aid in the player’s comprehension of their character and placement within the game scene. First and foremost is the use of the camera. In many cases the camera remains fixed on the character as they jump and move through the environment. Games like Fez, Little Big Planet, and Salt and Sanctuary typically keep the character fixed at the center of the screen. In some other cases the camera is more fixed on the level and moves with the player when | |
they transition to a new area. Games like Oxenfree, Inside, and Never Alone use this type of camera in most cases. I find it’s very situational and depends on goals of the game. In scenes where the player has to complete a puzzle, having a static screen where your character navigates the pieces of the puzzle might make more sense. In other games like Rayman Legends, speed and flow are very important and in order to not lose your character, it’s beneficial to have the camera follow your avatar through the game space. Yet in some levels of Rayman Legends, I found that the camera would actually switch to the static model when the player is introduced to a puzzle.
Beyond the use of the camera, I found these games had a variety of other visual ques used to focus the player’s attention to their avatar. In the game “Inside” I believe it was a very intentional choice to have the protagonist wearing a red shirt. Most of “Inside’s” levels feature a very cold and dark atmosphere, which allows the warm hued player to stand out. I also found that Fez was a curious case, as it used color value in a slightly different way than many of it’s competitors. I noticed that in many games we use a wide range of dark and light values to make up the character, and differentiate it from the background. Yet in Fez, by maintaining the character as a singular solid and giving it the brightest value in the scene, it accomplishes the same effect. While Backgrounds are created in a very similar method to games like super meat boy, broforce, etc where we differentiate the foreground from the background via large tonal and value differences. The character still maintains the brightest value and grabs the user’s attention.
Super Meat Boy makes use of a deep and dark red “smear” where you’ve bounced the avatar around, this gives the player a quick indication of where they’ve been. Doing so helps ground the player and also aids in quickly identifying where they are in the level. Super Meat boy runs off of the idea that players will attempt levels multiple times and so this mechanic facilitates a quick and easy visual que of the player’s history. As players attempt the same level, over and over, this gives sense of progression as layers of “blood” accumulate along the walls of the level. | |
In Rayman Legends the characters and the environment can be very close in hue, and yet we can still identify them off of the backdrop. What I noticed is that when you take screenshots from the game and remove their hue, you can more easily see their strategy. The characters have a more drastic contrast of dark to light areas than the landscape behind them. These characters maintain the darkest shadows and the brightest highlights, while the background and foreground elements are more muted. By maintaining larger value contrasts for the characters and interactable items, these elements pop themselves off of the landscape. Even by maintaining similar hues, we can still identify our characters and navigate our way through each level.
What Visual strategies can I use to supplement the game’s narrative?
Something that I noticed while reviewing Rayman Legends is how important flow is for their level design. The player is encouraged to speed through levels, time their jumps precisely, and the general feeling is meant to be rhythmic and exciting. I began to map out the flow of player movement through different levels and discovered something pretty interesting. Through areas that are meant to feel easy or rewarding, the levels have the players going downhill. Conversely when levels are meant to be hard or stressful, the levels pitch upward… forcing the player to go uphill. This is a really subtle but interesting mechanic, that works within our own affordance of the world… Downhill is easy and feels good, while going uphill is hard. Whether this was intentional or not, could be open to debate, but interesting to note.
Inside makes clever use of perspective and drawing the user’s attention to important areas. In most cases our eyes are being drawn to something in the background that facilitates the game story. In other cases this same trick is used to grab the player’s attention to obstacles or something dangerous. In the reference, our eye is being drawn to a pack of dogs… that the player needs to understand is coming their way. | |
Perhaps Oxenfree’s strongest mechanic is it’s dialogue system. Not only is it well written and voice acted, but the controls are intuitive and easy to learn. While reviewing the game, I noticed that all of the dialogue boxes actually had the same value… even when they had different colors. This is a really interesting trick, as it made sure that each box has the same level of clarity and one does not stand out above the rest.
If you were to start working on a side scrolling game, I hope that this brief analysis of different strategies gave some insight into possible directions to take. In these games the player’s understand of the game space, and their location in it, is paramount. There’s a lot of different ways that we can facilitate this understanding through visuals ques. Not only that, but we can emphasize the narrative structure of the game through choices in level design and layout.
Thanks for reading! Hope this was an interesting segway from the typical posts. Looking ahead I may be looking into a post regarding a game I’m currently playing called “Orwell.” If you haven’t heard about it, I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot. Until next time!
Thanks for reading! Hope this was an interesting segway from the typical posts. Looking ahead I may be looking into a post regarding a game I’m currently playing called “Orwell.” If you haven’t heard about it, I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot. Until next time!
We can all agree that it’s more interesting to have multiple routes to your objectives in gaming. It’s become pretty standard now to not only have one option to reach your mission goals. Games like Dishonored, Fallout, and Hitman all make use of different paths and diverse strategies players can use to complete their mission. While playing the new Deus Ex I’ve begun to wonder how many paths are too many? Are we starting to over design? With every obstacle, I’m faced with up to 5 or 6 different routes… is this interesting or even a challenge? While I’m not a level designer, I’m going to try my best to dig into this and more in today’s post. I’ll be having some minor visual spoilers from “Deus Ex : Mankind Divided” so you’ve been warned!
During my playthrough of Deus Ex, which I am enjoying by the way, I’ve started to notice just how many paths there are in every environment. While doing my stealth playthough, it seems that wherever I look there’s a hidden vent, a hole hiding behind a heavy box, or secret ladder leading around obstacles. I heard a friend of mine was playing on the “hard” difficulty setting, and so I figured I’d give that a shot as well. While I essentially can’t take any damage, with the number of different routes and shortcuts… I find that navigating around hostiles to be a breeze. Looking back at games like Splinter Cell, I never felt it to be quite this easy… Splinter Cell definitely didn’t have the amount of path diversity as Deus Ex maintains, and yet with having fewer options each felt more polished. In an effort to explain my meaning, I tried to analyze a few scenarios from Deus Ex.
During my playthrough of Deus Ex, which I am enjoying by the way, I’ve started to notice just how many paths there are in every environment. While doing my stealth playthough, it seems that wherever I look there’s a hidden vent, a hole hiding behind a heavy box, or secret ladder leading around obstacles. I heard a friend of mine was playing on the “hard” difficulty setting, and so I figured I’d give that a shot as well. While I essentially can’t take any damage, with the number of different routes and shortcuts… I find that navigating around hostiles to be a breeze. Looking back at games like Splinter Cell, I never felt it to be quite this easy… Splinter Cell definitely didn’t have the amount of path diversity as Deus Ex maintains, and yet with having fewer options each felt more polished. In an effort to explain my meaning, I tried to analyze a few scenarios from Deus Ex.
In the above example, you’re tasked with infiltrating an area full of heavily armed hostiles. The player can identify five potential routes at first glance, and this is without turning on the character’s augmented eyes would would highlight interactable objects (ladders, openable windows, and doors). Most cases feel like variations on this for the player… we can clearly see the “hostile” route with the enemies, and several other paths of least resistance.
Once you climb up the left ladder, and turn the corner you’re presented with this scene. Here we can jump down to a lower level, cross a catwalk, open a vent and enter an adjoining room, or go up and bypass a laser grid. Again we can quickly note the “hostile” route, and then side paths.
I started doing some additional research into level design, honestly it was hard to not find things that were not specifically multiplayer references. While some sources were less academic than others, I found a lot of great material. I found this forum at “Game Development Stack Exchange” where a contributer “Sean James” added the following :
“...carefully limit the number of paths available to a player. While it is common these days to advertise that there are multiple paths through the game, this is frustrating to players who want to ensure that they are seeing everything the game has to offer...”
Over at Pentaduct.com there’s a really interesting write up on level design from the previous game from Deus Ex, “Deus Ex : Revolution.” Writer Tom Francis, has a pretty thorough breakdown of the strategies used by the developers… and honestly… they feel quite similar to what we’re seeing in the newest game as well. Francis does a great job breaking down the multiple pathing routes, and player cost for either, in a really interesting way.
Yet, to really explain my point… I think I’d like to share some things I’ve learned from a retrospective I found from Iowa State University called : “Design patterns in level design: common practices in simulated environment construction.” Mainly I’d like to cover different patterns and strategies used by level designers, and then compare these to what I find to be what’s happening in Deus Ex : Mankind Divided.
I started doing some additional research into level design, honestly it was hard to not find things that were not specifically multiplayer references. While some sources were less academic than others, I found a lot of great material. I found this forum at “Game Development Stack Exchange” where a contributer “Sean James” added the following :
“...carefully limit the number of paths available to a player. While it is common these days to advertise that there are multiple paths through the game, this is frustrating to players who want to ensure that they are seeing everything the game has to offer...”
Over at Pentaduct.com there’s a really interesting write up on level design from the previous game from Deus Ex, “Deus Ex : Revolution.” Writer Tom Francis, has a pretty thorough breakdown of the strategies used by the developers… and honestly… they feel quite similar to what we’re seeing in the newest game as well. Francis does a great job breaking down the multiple pathing routes, and player cost for either, in a really interesting way.
Yet, to really explain my point… I think I’d like to share some things I’ve learned from a retrospective I found from Iowa State University called : “Design patterns in level design: common practices in simulated environment construction.” Mainly I’d like to cover different patterns and strategies used by level designers, and then compare these to what I find to be what’s happening in Deus Ex : Mankind Divided.
To start with, let’s talk about “Linear Paths.” These are pretty straightforward and easy to understand, the player as an objective from A to B along a straight path. These are probably the most common pathing options we see in gaming and can be quite boring depending on the content.
Next we have “Bottlenecking Paths,” similarly to “Linear” we have at least one straight path to the objective, with optional side paths for the player. Something that author Denise Bacher cautions is “be aware of is that a level's bottleneck needs to be clearly defined so players do not accidentally end up backtracking down another path instead of proceeding to the next area.” Which may be an element that’s currently lacking from the current Deus Ex.
There’s also “Open Ended,” these are often referred to sandbox levels and allows players to do the objectives in the order they choose. I think at times Deus Ex could be referred to this style on certain levels, yet the structure of many of the environments don’t always allocate for this style.
Now we come to the style of my own creation, “Spaghetti Style.” Within Deus Ex we’re provided with multiple branching paths on top of other branching paths and yet there’s a sever lack of direction. These path’s don’t converge into a bottleneck style, instead they weave and merge into one another. While exploring, I’ve allowed myself to naturally go from one route to another... Only to find myself aimless and back at the beginning. In earlier posts I’ve talked about visual priority and understanding where I should be looking as a player. I think that’s one of the things lacking from the branching choices of Deus Ex, there’s no real visual ques for where I should be going as a player. I find it quite odd that in all my augmentations, my character doesn’t actually have a GPS similar to Dead Space. As Bacher cautioned above, Deus Ex does not clearly define where the player is intended to go in most cases. Leaving the player to open a clumsy blueprint, and attempt to navigate their way. While it could be argued that the game is more realistic in this regard, we have to keep in mind that at the end of the day we’re playing a video game. While I’m still enjoying my play through of the game, I still can’t shake the feeling that some of these areas could have a bit more structure. Sid Meyer once said that “a game is a series of interesting choices,” and I’m worried that many of the choices in Deus Ex aren’t interesting enough.
I hope this was another interesting read! While this isn’t exactly my field, I tried my best to supplement it with more research. Thanks again for reading!
I hope this was another interesting read! While this isn’t exactly my field, I tried my best to supplement it with more research. Thanks again for reading!
Have you ever found yourself more emotionally invested into a cartoon character than a realistic one? Discovered more value in a scene with implied meaning, versus one that’s narrated? I started playing a delightful game recently called “Virgina.” Virgina is a first person mystery thriller, where you play as FBI Agent Anne Tarver, and your investigation into a missing persons case. While playing I found myself deeply invested into the characters and the events happening within the game… even though so much of the game is represented in a simplistic and conservative way. This really got me thinking about other games that encouraged heavy player investment into characters or stories, even though they are done in a minimalistic way. For this post I’ll be exploring this concept and the games “Inside” and “Virginia”... I don’t want to give away too much this early into the blog post, so if you think you might be interested in playing these games PLEASE STOP here and go give them a shot… as we’re entering spoiler territory from here on out.
I honestly knew very little of Virginia before I started the game. I had seen some articles, and heard it referred to shows like Twin Peaks and Xfiles. I knew so little about the game, that I was shocked by the opening scene. You’re standing in front of a mirror, staring at yourself. Which initially caught my attention as quite odd, as most games don’t allow me to actually use a mirror. I had a brief moment of… “Oh! Huh… so this is me!” With the intro cinematic being so artfully done, I was almost | |
disappointed about how simplistic my character was. It took me a bit of time until I realized that this game has absolutely no dialogue. NONE! I was shocked! I was confused about how this game would continue with me being an FBI agent and supposedly working a case of a missing child. As the game progressed, I found myself in increasingly puzzling tableaus. Virginia transitions it’s scenes seamlessly and so abrupt that it can be jarring for the player. In one moment you'll be walking out of your apartment, then suddenly you're at your first day of work. This can be so disorienting, but also really added to the mystique of this game. I was always unsure of when a scene would abruptly change, so in every transition I would immediately search for interactive objects or understanding in my new surroundings. Only now do I realize that in this subtle way, the game forces the player to become the FBI agent and investigate every scene.
| Virginia also leverages dreams of your character to give us more insight into what's on the young FBI agent's mind. I can't stress enough how well done these sequences are. Dream sequences seem to recount earlier events from the same day, as well as deep seated concerns of your character. In one of the initial sequences, you find yourself walking up to a podium and accepting your new FBI badge in a graduation scene… then immediately the lights cut out, and you’re alone on stage. Not only does |
this dream help establish the background of your character, but also highlights some of the anxieties of graduation and moving on. The transitions between dreams and reality can be so seemless at times I found myself wondering if what I was experiencing was “real life” or my character was dreaming again. In this way, the developers are really able to toy with the player, and their perceptions of what’s happening within the game.
Early in the game you realize that you're a new FBI recruit and that you're about to undergo your first case. When you're being assigned your new partner, the FBI director also instructs you to keep an eye on her… You soon meet your veteran partner who seems to be less than impressed to be working with you. This really reminded me of Skully first meeting Mulder in the Xfiles… where her superiors were already suspicious of him and we then watch as the two come to trust each other. The game | |
progresses on through scenes of the investigation, strange dreams, and montages of our character getting to know her new partner better. Inevitably drama unfolds as case progresses and your partner finds out that you’ve been instructed to keep tabs on them. Virginia does a really good job at establishing us into a routine, how we have coffee with our partner every morning before driving out to investigate the case… the game then takes a hard turn where we’re now having coffee alone and have to take a cab. The sudden loss of our partner is poignant and resonated higher for me in the story than the case itself. What follows is a pursuit of redemption for our character, and a moment where our character actually considers giving up dirt on our partner. This moment plays out like a montage of how your character sees the rest of her life playing out after this decision. A sequence of distrust, moving up in ranks in the FBI, backstabbing your friends, and ending up being the Director of the FBI asking a new recruit to do the exact same thing you did. This sequence really had me believing this was the end of the game, i was upset and confused if this was just a dream or not… until my character “woke up” and I was relieved. While there were many moments of emotional attachment in this game, this was the climax and the moment where I realize just how attached I was to these characters. These characters who had never spoken a word, were rendered in a minimalistic way, and yet I found myself deeply invested into their story.
Inside is another recent game that had a minimalistic art style, no dialogue, and yet caused me to be emotionally invested. Inside is a puzzle-platform adventure where you’re playing as a young boy, in a dark monochromatic landscape. While beautifully rendered, the characters and environments in the game are simplistic… the boy is even faceless… we have no idea what his motivations are or why he’s being pursued. For having such a grim and dark atmosphere, the
game is also quite playful. In one of the early areas of the game you’re at a farm with dead pigs laying around, it’s raining and sad, and all the while these little baby chicks start flocking around and following you… which we learn is foreshadowing a mechanic the game uses later on. That being said the game leaves much of it’s context a mystery, providing really no additional information into it’s backstory. We find ourselves infiltrating some sort of facility, mind controlling zombie like adults, dying and | |
being reincarnated, and eventually in the heart of the lab we become one with an abomination type creature. The end game consists of a rampaging romp to get out of the facility, as this new “creature,” until we finally escape and the game ends with the creature lying motionless… bathing in sunlight. It’s a very grim ending, where we’re all hoping to be the boy again and yet the end credits roll. Inside leaves us with more questions than answers… with so many lacking details, Inside has opened the door for players to find their own interpretations as to what’s happening.
In college I did a lot of research into visual design, and part of that research was reading a book called “Understanding Comics.” Authored by Scott McCloud, “Understanding Comics” dissects the facets of comics and their impacts on the reader. Within Understanding Comics, McCloud talks at length about how people attribute meaning and definition into imagery. He explains that “by stripping down an image to it’s essential “meaning,” an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can’t.” McCloud goes on to explain that by stripping details away, our brain begins to focus more onan idea, rather than a subject… for example the more realistic a face is, the more our brains attributes the image to a specific person or subject; instead of the idea of “face.” In the same way, characters that are less defined | |
can also be more globally personified, no matter your background. In intentional ways or not, both Virginia and Inside are leveraging this concept. Through their minimalistic art styles and stripping away of narrative details, these games allocate room for more emotional feedback. By stripping away details, the players are left to infer their own meaning into the narrative. When the player is participating in the narrative in such a way, it’s very easy to become emotionally invested… as the narrative and characterization is being fueled by their own creativity.
I hope this was interesting! I know I dived a little deep into the narrative of Virginia, yet I think it was important to highlight how the game establishes itself. If you haven’t already, I would again recommend giving Virgina and Inside a playthrough! Also check out Scott McCloud’s book on Understanding Comics! Even though I’m not working in comics, it has some really great insights into visual theory. Also I’m now finally giving the new Deus Ex game a chance, and it’ll be likely that the next post may be fueled by this playthrough….
Thanks again for reading!
I hope this was interesting! I know I dived a little deep into the narrative of Virginia, yet I think it was important to highlight how the game establishes itself. If you haven’t already, I would again recommend giving Virgina and Inside a playthrough! Also check out Scott McCloud’s book on Understanding Comics! Even though I’m not working in comics, it has some really great insights into visual theory. Also I’m now finally giving the new Deus Ex game a chance, and it’ll be likely that the next post may be fueled by this playthrough….
Thanks again for reading!
Recently I stumbled upon this article from Polygon talking about this new “Mr. Robot” App. Up until this point I hadn’t actually heard of it, and yet it made me pretty curious. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a uniquely engaging interactive experience that quickly infiltrated my day to day life. The Mr. Robot app takes advantage of the user’s pre-existing knowledge of social media, and leverages the same types of interactions that we have on our phones on a daily basis. This got me thinking about other games that are not only optimized for the mobile device you’re playing on but also takes advantage of the player’s pre-existing knowledge in interesting ways. This is really an extension of my original blog post on Visual Affordance, where I examined this concept and how it’s used globally in video games. In today’s post we’ll be taking a much closer look at mobile games and our inherent knowledge of technology. In this blog post we’ll be talking about Her Story, LifeLine, The Heist, and Mr. Robot.
The first game that comes to mind for me is Her Story. If you haven’t had a chance to pick it up, I would highly suggest giving it a go. When you first load the game you’re introduced to a simulated computer desktop, with a search engine like software running. Within the search prompt is the word “MURDER.” Yet there’s really no type of onboarding at this point, there’s no instructions given to the user beyond what’s in front of them. If the player hits “search,” they are then presented with the search results for the keyword “MURDER,” and given several videos. These videos are police interrogations of a | |
woman’s testimony for some murder. From here the player can then think of keywords based off of the video they just watched and search for more clips. There’s a “README” file on the fake desktop, that the player can read for additional information. From here the player is free to search for more videos, and try to piece together what may have actually happened. There are a few different “cinematic moments” that occur after finding certain videos, but other than that there’s no real facilitated conclusions. Her story really relies on players to find their own endings to the story, and infer what they will from the videos they've watched.. While Her Story could be criticized as being too cryptic, I find this level of player trust is pretty intriguing… and encourages player dialogue outside of the game.
Lifeline is an app that simulates a real time messaging software. In Lineline you’re receiving mysterious messages from an astronaut that’s stranded on a far moon. Within the course of these messages, the player is asked for their opinions on how “Taylor” should proceed. These prompts feel like a “choose your own adventure” game, where the player is prompted with two choices on how to respond… then Taylor will proceed accordingly. What is neat about this game is the aspect of time and having to wait to see what will happen. The timing element of these games is something I’ll go into more detail below when discussing Mr. Robot, yet I will say that it lends itself well to the general feeling of realism and anticipation. An interesting aspect of Lifeline is it’s use of notifications, which makes it unique compared to other games. Using the notifications, the game shows the player the dialogue options available… doing so makes it so that players do not need to open the app to proceed and can instead select an option directly in the notification. It’s pretty neat and provides for more casual interactions. |
Another game that uses player’s knowledge of modern interfaces is a game called “The Heist.” While I’ve never played this, apparently “The Heist” makes use of fake phone calls made to the user by a character named Sophia. The Heist uses a realistic phone interface, with both audio and video calls, to facilitate the player through different puzzles and a bit of the storyline. Also there’s a game called Komrad, that I was JUST barely introduced to before finishing this blog post. In Komrad you’re communicating with a Soviet AI from 1985, and your conversation choices help determine the fate of the world. On initial glance it’s pretty interesting and feels very similar to Lifeline, in it’s use of notifications. Yet fits very well into the theme of this blog post. |
The Mr. Robot’s app, “1.51exfiltrati0n.ipa,” begins with the premise that you’ve found a phone. Upon “booting up” the phone, the app goes through a realistic boot sequence where it pretends to wipe the phone’s SD card and reset. From here the game launches a chat app style interface. Shortly after you start receiving messages from the angry owner of said phone. While you may offer to give the phone back, for some reason, the previous owner is unable to meet you to retrieve the phone… yet they need a file off of the phone that can still be recovered, even though the phone was wiped. The game proceeds from here at real time, where you’ll start receiving messages periodically. At times the messages are story related, and at times it’s the library messaging you to return some books or a confirmation of a pizza delivery. Relatively early on in the experience you’re added to a group chat, where they all believe you’re someone named Karen. Try as you may to tell them that you’re not Karen, they won’t believe you… Initially this group chat felt like a nuisance and later felt like a small treat whenever they would start messaging me. I found myself engaged in their group drama relatively quick, and following along with this “Karen” |
persona… contributing to the dialogue and giving my two cents into their decisions. As the game progresses, you’re soon asked to do some unscrupulous activities. Mainly this entails impersonating other people, or even blackmailing them to find out specific information for the owner of the phone… and someone named “E.” If you’re a fan of the show you begin to realize who you’re messaging pretty quickly, but even if you haven’t watched an episode, it’s still a highly engaging experience.
One of the first things that struck me about this app, was the sense of anticipation. Initially I thought that the app was expecting me to do something in order to progress the story, yet at times the only thing the player can do is actually wait. Having to wait for characters to get back to me because they were “busy,” really added to the sense of realism and kept me on the edge of my seat. This, coupled with the overall believability of this being another chat software, integrated itself seamlessly into my natural social media habits. This is one of the few games that I didn’t think I was playing through an avatar. Genuinely it was more about me being a character within the story. Even after I completed the story arch of the game, I found myself wondering how the characters were doing… and even missing our interactions.
Using elements from our day to day lives, and leveraging them in such a way really creates an interesting and rewarding experience. While I’ve played other games that break the fourth wall or simulate technologies we’re used to interacting with (i.e. Her Story), I found the Mr. Robot app to be the most realistic and engaging experience out of all of them. This only left me wondering how much more we could be doing. Imagine this idea expanding outward and using simulated snapchats, tweets, or e-mails… If something like this had been released while Breaking Bad was on air, I would have LOVED to have received messages from iconic characters from that show. While Mr. Robot lends itself well to these sorts of interactions, considering their overarching hacking themes, these puzzles and interactions are based off of social dynamics and could translate very well into other franchises.
Hope you enjoyed the post! This one was a bit of a struggle because I really wanted to talk about the Mr. Robot app, but I wasn’t sure from which angle I wanted to attack this one… not to mention there are not many apps that are similar to this experience. In any case, that’s it for today’s post! Looking ahead I may try to do a post related to a game that I’m horribly addicted to right now called “Sheltered.” If you’re a fan of the Fallout Shelter and/or The Sims… I’d recommend giving it a shot! Thanks again for reading!
What drives us to establish personal goals in gaming? When you’re dropped into a game with little to no direction, what keeps you motivated? How do games get away with providing little to no direction, while other games just become frustrating? Recently I’ve started playing the game “No Man’s Sky,” and I’ve been thinking about this question and others. Upon loading No Man’s Sky, the player just appears on a random planet next to a crashed starship… there’s no loading screens, no tutorials, no intro cinematic. You turn the game on and you’re suddenly marooned on a planet. What comes next is the player attempting to discover the game around them and learn how to live in this new universe. This setting is certainly not new to gaming, there have been many other games in the past that start the player off with little to no direction… and part of the fun has been discovering the world around them. Yet No Man’s Sky is different on some levels, it’s challenging in ways that feel unlike other games of similar genres. What is it about other games that makes it easier to accept and learn more about the world around them? How do we establish personal goals, outside the game objectives, and why? I’ll be exploring this and more in today’s post about player goals in gaming.
Have you ever fought the same enemy over and over again hoping for a specific piece of equipment to “drop,” or perhaps repeated an action to gain XP? Within all types of games we, as players, inherently develop our own personal goals. Personal goals are anything you’ve ever wanted outside of the established mission goals. Games like Borderlands and Diablo facilitate these really well. Often the players are encouraged in the pursuit of rare loot or additional character levels. Personal goals can | |
vary drastically by the style of the game or the player themselves. I touched upon this idea once before in a post titled “Gamifying your Play Experience,” where I explore the idea of establishing your own constraints in gaming. Yet today I want to dive deeper into games that make establishing personal goals a much larger piece of the narrative. Games that encourage the player to find their own path within the game world and how they are or are not effective at doing so.
| Thinking about other games that drop the players off to explore on their own, I couldn’t help but think about Don’t Starve. In Don’t Starve, the player is “summoned” into a procedurally generated landscape and has to survive. Very quickly the player has to learn to attend to basic needs like hunger, health, and sanity… yes sanity… The game is unforgiving and the player will most likely die quickly in their first attempts. Yet there’s an unmistakable charm about Don’t Starve that keeps players coming back |
for more. This game encourages exploration and evolution of your character, even if you’re resistant to it. In my time playing the game, I was always trying to find a “safe place” for my character. I would inevitably create a type of shelter, quickly establish crops for myself, and try to make a home. Yet resources in the surrounding areas always run dry, and with the passing of time and climate change… something would always go wrong and force me to uproot. With the procedurally generated worlds, inherent mystery to the game, and the “next time will be different” feeling you get after every time you die, makes Don’t Starve a really enticing game to play… and keep playing.
In the same vein it’s hard not to recognize Minecraft as another one of those games that leave players to their own devices. While Don’t Starve doesn’t provide many details to players, Minecraft provides even less direction. Players are similarly dropped into a procedurally generated world and are encouraged to fend for themselves. While in Minecraft survival is definitely part of the equation, it has much less emphasis than it does in Don’t Starve. Arguably one of the main driving factors for | |
Minecraft is building and creating. There’s a quality about Minecraft that instills players with a sense of productivity. Players can easily sink countless hours into mining for resources or building a new home, and leave the game feeling like they’ve had a “productive work day.” Minecraft’s sandbox styled environment facilitates the player’s creativity and through this it’s natural for players to develop their own personal goals. Anything from building a new home to a crazy large Cathedral, Minecraft’s freedom of creation is the driving factor for player established goals.
When starting my playthrough of No Man’s Sky, I found myself really interested in being a simple miner. I spent quite a bit of time on the first planet, a bit confused as to what I was “supposed” to be doing. In the first moments of the game, I felt like it was throwing a lot of different mechanics at me. I had to quickly learn what minerals I should be collecting in order to keep my suits life support systems online and fend off extreme temperatures. I eventually was able to repair my crashed starship and jump into orbit. I will say that No Man’s Sky does a really good job at having these “special” moments in the game. It really feels impactful to take off into the stars, or land on a foreign planet, even with the procedurally generated nature of the whole thing. Jumping ahead I found myself quickly obsessed with inventory space, if you’ve been following No Man’s Sky you’ll know this is a common problem. I found myself soon mining rare minerals and trying to gain enough currency to buy a new starship at one of the orbiting space stations. I eventually had enough currency and was able to buy my first ship, and I couldn’t have been more excited. At first my feelings were like… YES! Look at all this inventory space, imagine how much more I’ll be able to hold on my journey. Up until this point I had not engaged into ship to ship combat, and I didn’t even know about the concept of pirates in the game.Yet I began to wonder… with all of this extra inventory space, I could really boost my ship with combat upgrades. This was definitely a turning point for me within my No Man’s Sky play experience. My beautiful “mining freighter” soon became something quite different.
I quickly discovered how profitable it could be to attack the cargo containers on larger civilian vessels. I was able to swoop in, target one of their containers, steal the supplies, and jump out into subspace before their reinforcements could come. At first I used a lot of these hit and run tactics, as I was still pretty afraid of the combat mechanics. Eventually I became quite surgical, I would jump into a new star system and review their economy to see what buys/sells for higher. I would then | |
proceed to target the cargo containers of civilian vessels like before, only this time I realized that as long as I didn’t destroy the first “reinforcement” ship, others wouldn’t be called in. Upon destroying a cargo container you are granted a substantial amount of Iron, which if you’re quick about, you can use to refill your shields. With my upgraded shields, this lone starship would never pose a real threat… just as long as I keep my inventory in line. So I would then slowly take out a container, keep a bit of iron for my shields, and then sort the valuables. If they sell high in this system I keep, if they sell low I throw away. When my inventory is full, I kill the lone star ship and jump away. On a good run of this, I would easily earn 1 million credits of in game currency… which could take quite a bit more time to mine.
I found it interesting just how quickly I went from peaceful space faring miner, to ruthless pirate. This got me curious to hear more about how other people were playing. I started talking to some of my friends to learn more about how they were playing the game. The first person I talked to explained to me how invested they were in fully exploring a solar system, and was really interested in learning more about the species and languages in the game. There are three main sentient species, and within No Man’s Sky you can find artifacts and ruins that will grant you words in each species’ language. This way when you communicate with them next, you may understand more of what they are saying or looking for. I have another friend who spends as much time as he can on a single planet. He thoroughly explores the flora and fauna of a world, and not in a “gotta collect them all” type mindset… in a genuine sense of discovery and exploration. “It is something that I can invest my time in, relax, go to a planet and sort of explore. If it's an interesting planet, really delve in and scan all the creatures, look for cool or beautiful landscapes, and be rewarded for all of that with more language and understanding, and resources.” (He’s taken some great shots of the game and would recommend you check out his tumblr here )
That’s not to say that all my friends are super into this game, I have another friend who dived into the game pretty quickly and was pretty turned off by it. He felt as though No Man’s Sky lended itself to highly repetitive gameplay and quickly compared it to an app game called “Out There,” which has a lot of striking similarities. Within Out There you explore different star systems and mine/explore for minerals, you encounter different life forms that speak in an unknown language that you can slowly learn over time, and inventory management is a | |
huge aspect to the play experience… sounds a bit familiar right? This app was released in 2014 and while I haven’t played it, this video provides insight into the play experience.
Something that we all have in common, even with the people who do enjoy playing, is that we’re all hesitant to recommend it to others. Which I found pretty curious, considering that we were enjoying the game and yet we can recognize that there’s a certain barrier to entry with No Man’s Sky that isn’t so apparent in other games. At it’s core, No Man’s Sky has many similarities with other survival games and while we develop personal goals in all of these… No Man’s Sky can feel purely self driven at times. There are vague threads to a story or objective within No Man’s Sky, yet players can be left feeling unsure of what to do or what they “should” be doing. No Man’s Sky doesn’t satisfy the same productivity “itch” that Minecraft seems to. While there’s a bit of it, without an actual sandbox environment, there’s no real room for creative goal setting for the player. Minecraft can get away with having zero story, because it can make up for it with pure player creativity. While Don’t Starve is relatively vague, the title alone gives the player a goal.Within Don’t Starve’s crafting mechanic players can see most, if not all, crafting possibilities within the first moments of gameplay. This creates a sense of yearning for something that isn’t immediately attainable, and therefore player goals from the onset. Out There seems to excel more in the same genre due to it’s pacing and sharing the same feeling of “next time will be different” that Don’t Starve is also able to produce. Honestly if No Man’s Sky was a bit more difficult, that could be more alluring. If there was permanent death and a sense of starting over upon each iteration, it could be potentially more exciting for it’s users. Instead players can be left feeling lost or alone with their character… aimless in a galaxy full of worlds.
Through this sort of review, I can infer the following.. I believe it’s more fun to establish your own goals, when you understand the game goals and can play with them, or go outside of them on your own. There’s a real sense of fulfillment when you feel as though you’re “gaming the system,” and working on the fringes of the game’s overarching goals. Yet when the game is purely based off of your own goals, and without the appropriate depth to make it creatively driven, players can be left feeling aimless. Players need structures/game goals to fall back onto within the play experience. In those moments where the players become lost within their own goals, they should be able to fall more easily into what the game is expecting of them. Without that security net, it can become aimless and frustrating. While I continue to enjoy my experiences with No Man’s Sky, I can identify with the game’s faults and understand how it’s not meeting the needs of many players. For this reason, it’s still hard for me to recommend this game to others… you really have to be willing to jump into the void with this one.
Hope you enjoyed this post! I know it was a bit lengthy, for that I apologize! It’s also been a while since I put up a post but I’m hoping to get more back into the swing of things now that the summer months are nearly over. That being said I can forecast that my next blog post will definitely entail something related to the “Mr. Robot” app, which I HIGHLY encourage you all the play. Until then, thanks for reading!
Hope you enjoyed this post! I know it was a bit lengthy, for that I apologize! It’s also been a while since I put up a post but I’m hoping to get more back into the swing of things now that the summer months are nearly over. That being said I can forecast that my next blog post will definitely entail something related to the “Mr. Robot” app, which I HIGHLY encourage you all the play. Until then, thanks for reading!
How are Video Games using dialog to reinforce the player’s understanding of the game mechanics? It’s not something I’ve often thought about, but most modern games use dialog to facilitate the player’s understanding to some extent. More often than not, games are using dialog to explain quest objectives, give hints to the player, or remind players of game mechanics. In today’s blog post I’m going to be exploring this a bit, and showing some different dialog examples that I’ve found interesting. I’ll be showing examples from Alien Isolation, Bastion, The Curse of Monkey Island, and The Witcher 3, and so if you’re concerned about potential spoilers for any of these titles… you may want to turn back.
I’d like to start with the game that got me thinking about this topic, The Witcher 3. I know this game came out in May of last year, but I only returned to it just recently. While on a couple of missions I started to recognize that within the playful banter between characters, they were actually discussing game mechanics. Yet they were discussing them in ways that didn’t fully remove me from the play experience. What was important was that, contextually, the reminders all made sense in the situation. Little things like a character reminding me that there are more bombs in barrels near the wall, as enemies flooded the front gate of the fortress we were protecting. What the Witcher 3 does extremely well is that they are able to introduce new game mechanics, and typically it’s only for one mission. It’s interesting to change up the game play a bit (even past 30 hours into a game), where it forces the player to modify their play style. The best example I can think of within the Witcher 3 is the mission “Battle of Kaer Morhen.” The premise of this mission is that you’re trying to essentially protect your base from an attacking army. Right away new mechanics are introduced to the player, Geralt (the protagonist) is given an item where he and his comrades are invisible and is tasked with using guerrilla tactics in the forest near the castle. The enemy army is using portals and so you have to use your “bombs” to close the portals, and your invisibility to take them by surprise. This is all explained to the player right away, and then later right as the mission starts there’s some banter between Geralt and an NPC where he’s reminding the NPC (and really the player) :
“Hounds could sniff you out, so don’t get too close. And you’ll be visible as soon as you start fighting, remember that.”
Out of context, it’s super obvious what they are doing here with this dialog, but within the cutscene I found that it worked. Within the same cut scene, they also provide more useful information for the players :
Out of context, it’s super obvious what they are doing here with this dialog, but within the cutscene I found that it worked. Within the same cut scene, they also provide more useful information for the players :
“Yen mentioned casting Yrden at the rifts, Said the sign could seal them.”
Yrden is one of the spells that the player has in their arsenal, and again another good reminder for the player of what to do in the mission if they run out of bombs. This is really what kicked off my curiosity about how often games are using dialog in these ways. I started to think back on previous games to try to remember other examples of dialog. I think one of the most iconic examples I can remember is “Use the Boost to get through” from the original Starfox 64. I was looking for a youtube link to include in this post and stumbled upon a video that shows every word that “Peppy” says from Starfox, and it’s literally riddled with player information.
Yrden is one of the spells that the player has in their arsenal, and again another good reminder for the player of what to do in the mission if they run out of bombs. This is really what kicked off my curiosity about how often games are using dialog in these ways. I started to think back on previous games to try to remember other examples of dialog. I think one of the most iconic examples I can remember is “Use the Boost to get through” from the original Starfox 64. I was looking for a youtube link to include in this post and stumbled upon a video that shows every word that “Peppy” says from Starfox, and it’s literally riddled with player information.
Unfortunately we probably only recognize dialog like this, when it's done poorly and it becomes obvious. While searching for bad examples of dialog, it was hard to differentiate ones that have become meme worthy, because they are used too often in video games, and those that are poorly written instructional dialog. I think we all recognize ones like “I can smell
he river from here” (Thief 4) and “I used to be an adventurer like you, until I took an arrow to the knee” (Skyrim). The “arrow to the knee” became so iconic that even other games started referencing it, I was shocked to hear about a similar situation in The Witcher. I did find more dialog references closer to what I was looking for. One notable example was from Metal Gear 1, where a character was talking to the game’s protagonist and instructed him to use “the action button” to go down ladders. I think it can be very easy to fall into this trap in gaming, where we have to sometimes haphazardly put instructional dialog in and it doesn’t always fit. Another fun example I found was in Resident Evil : “Jill, here’s a lockpick. It might come in handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you.” While this example isn’t referencing mechanics, it is attempting to instruct the player that “Hey you’re really good at unlocking stuff and now you can.” After finding these examples, I turned my attention back towards games that are using ways that both facilitate the story and the player’s understanding of the world around them. | |
Alien Isolation uses dialog quite heavily to explain puzzles and quest objectives to the player. While playing the game I remember my character was often receiving instructions from other characters. At times it’s mechanics based but upon further investigation I found that much of the dialog was meant to aid the player in understanding where to go, and what they should be doing. Sometimes it’s little things like “...you should take that flashlight…” and additional dialog that tells you that if you wave the light around, enemies will notice. This is important game information explained to the player in the appropriate context. I had a hard time finding imagery for this, yet I have a lot of memories of Samuels (another character in the game) providing me with information on how to complete puzzles, and what to do next. Alien Isolation is all about player immersion and expertly uses dialog to keep the player in the world, and still provide them with all the gaming knowledge they’ll need.
I’ve never played the game Bastion, but a friend turned me onto it while I was thinking about this blog post. I think Bastion’s narrator is pretty well known within the gaming community but I wasn’t aware about how broadly narration is used within the game. Upon entering the game, the narrator is describing everything that’s happening around the protagonist, and even narrating his failures. It was a really nice touch. What I found really interesting is that the narrator is not only helping the player understand quest objectives, but also providing | |
clues to game mechanics as well. When the player finds a bow the narrator adds “He knows he should draw the string all the way back,” essentially informing the player that they need to press and hold the attack button before releasing. This was a really fun strategy for narration, providing player context into the world, and a stylized way of keeping them immersed while they do it.
Looking back to The Curse of Monkey Island, I really thought that I would find more literal examples of instructional dialog… similar to Peppy in Starfox 64. Instead I found that the dialog used was more about providing hints and possible direction for the player. Things like “I’m too low,” allows the player to infer that maybe they need to be higher… or “He’s not going for the flower just by itself,” so maybe I need to combine the flower with something else. I really appreciated going back through these kinds of dialog, often in modern gaming we are too afraid of having elements be cryptic to our users… so we don’t trust them and provide an abundance of information. While in The Curse of Monkey Island, they are trusting their players to think things through.
While I’d like to be able to provide more analysis on specific strategies used for dialog, and how to appropriately illustrate game mechanics, it’s really not my field and I wouldn’t know where to start. In any case I hope that this look into how games use dialog in different ways to aid players was interesting. I’m sure that there are many more examples out there, and that while playing we can take a moment to recognize when dialog is done really well… and maybe chuckle when it’s not.
While I’d like to be able to provide more analysis on specific strategies used for dialog, and how to appropriately illustrate game mechanics, it’s really not my field and I wouldn’t know where to start. In any case I hope that this look into how games use dialog in different ways to aid players was interesting. I’m sure that there are many more examples out there, and that while playing we can take a moment to recognize when dialog is done really well… and maybe chuckle when it’s not.
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I make games, I play games... and sometimes I have some thoughts about that.
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