Posts Tagged design
Super Mario Bros 3 Level Design Lessons, Part 3
Posted by The Management in design, games on June 26, 2011
For my second SMB 3 post, I took a look at worlds 2 through 8 and picked out 30 stages that exemplified clever level design. World 8 is the last standard zone in the game, but I decided to write one more article detailing SMB 3′s hubs.
The unique piranha nodes lead to stages filled with venus fly traps and an end-level treasure.
Hubs are an old videogame trope, but in SMB 3 they are much more involved than in previous incarnations.
Each hub in the game has its own visual theme and unique layout, e.g., World 7 is a scrolling archipelago, while World 8 comprises multiple skull-filled maps. These areas are not only littered with standard level nodes, but also contain unique stage-icons such as quicksand pits, tanks, and piranha plants. Offsetting these challenges are shops and sporadic minigames that provide bonus rewards.
All these elements — and plenty of additional ones — turn the overworlds into individual mini-levels that are also connected to the main gameplay stages. Here are 10 examples of how that’s done:
Design Roundup #6
Posted by The Management in design on March 28, 2011
- Skynet meets the Swarm: how the Berkeley Overmind won the 2010 StarCraft AI competition – A fantastic writeup about a Starcraft tournament that pitted custom AI’s against each other.
- Misadventures in Roleplaying – The anti-walkthroughs of IT-HE are about as fun as QA nightmares can get. They’re great at exposing how games work under the hood, but they also tell some great game-stories (such as building a bridge out of corpses to reach a typically inaccessible area).
- Applying the Elements of Design and Principles of Design in Level Art – A quick, visual-aid filled tour of various level design lessons.
Infinity Blade Bits
Posted by The Management in games on March 4, 2011
With the recently announced Deathless Kings update, I figured I’d take a quick look at the extremely popular Infinity Blade.
The bits:
— The entire game consist of only about a dozen or so “pit-stops” along a short but branching path. Each stop can include any of the following: a one-on-one battle, a treasure, a fork in the road, or any combination of the above.
Moving from environment to environment is done automatically, allowing the player to appreciate the vistas while hunting down optional loot.
— Traversing the environment is automatic, with the player’s avatar walking along a rail from one pit-stop to another. These segments can be fast-forwarded, although they represent opportunities to collect extra loot via a hidden object minigame. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of randomization to the placement of objects, resulting in the player quickly memorizing all the potential treasure spots.
— Combat is timing-based and includes dodging (pressing either the lower left or lower right area of the screen), blocking (pressing the lower middle area of the screen), parrying (swiping in the opposite direction of an incoming attack), casting spells (tracing magic runes on the screen), and attacking (tapping/swiping the enemy itself).
— Although blocking is the easiest of the defensive maneuvers, each subsequent attack degrades the equipped shield and can eventually destroy it.
— In order to score hits reliably, the player must create openings by successfully dodging/blocking/parrying incoming attacks. The player can even stun the enemy with a well-placed counter, initiating a slow-motion effect complete with a hotspot that can be stabbed for extra damage.
It’s a small feature, but it works well as it prevents the player from swiping around as quickly as possible in order not to miss any opportunities to deal bonus damage. The only downside to this is that some enemies have ridiculously long wind-up periods that seem like slow motion, suckering the player into attacking at the wrong time.
Enemies are usually much larger than the player, but it's still fairly easy to deflect their blows with the proper timing.
— Occasional segments where the combatants’ weapons clash add further variety. These result in a tug-of-war that has the player rapidly tapping the screen in an effort to overpower the enemy and score a few free hits.
— The battles progress through phases accompanied by cinematic transitions, e.g., an en enemy retreating over a bridge and away from the player’s onslaught. When an enemy is defeated, it goes into a stunned phase that allows the player to score a bunch of free hits (each one granting an extra bit of experience) before being dispatched with an auto-executed fatality.
— Infinity Blade has a bit of a Demon’s Souls vibe, both in aesthetics and gameplay. The visuals and the God King’s speech are somewhat similar, as is the ability to retain one’s stats/equipment after dying (admittedly, though, Infinity Blade is much more forgiving than Demon’s Souls).
— The enemies level up with the main character, and although the encounters are always the same, the opponents’ armaments change with each subsequent playthrough.
Each piece of equipment has its own experience counter that -- when leveled up -- adds to the player's base stats.
— One final note of interest is that each equipable item gains experience along with the player. This not only encourages equipment-swapping for visual and physical improvements, but also to maximize the rate of advancement. In a game that’s largely loot-based, this works great as an additional motivator for seeking out extra treasures.
I had a few issues with Chair’s breakout hit Shadow Complex and its plethora of mechanics, but I found Infinity Blade a very focused and enjoyable experience.
Designing Trudy’s AI
Posted by The Management in design, projects on February 19, 2011
When I initially sat down to design Trudy’s combat, I wanted each unit to have a unique feel. Different attributes and abilities were a good start, but to truly achieve this, all entities had to behave in a distinct fashion.
To begin, I brainstormed a variety of scenarios I wanted to see in-game. These ranged from the somewhat common (an area-effect unit preferring to target foes clumped together) to the more original (a Steampunk robot trying to activate random machinery and only attacking when provoked).
Once I had a list of these, I came up with some character types that would facilitate each case.
Below are three examples of our finalized units, along with a short description and their AI routines. The AI is a bit simplified from the code, but shows a sorted priority of possible behaviours.
The Corsair
The Corsair is quick and agile, preferring to take out enemies from afar. Due to his mercenary nature, he has a tendency of sidetracking to grab extra treasure and retreat from a fight if it gets too dangerous.
- If badly wounded, randomly alternate between the following actions:
- Retreat to closest exit.
- Head for a healing station, if available.
- Take pot-shots at closest enemy in range.
- If defending, take pot-shots at first enemy that approaches.
- Grab any nearby treasures.
- Man any nearby turrets.
- Use saw-blade if upgraded and surrounded by 2 or more enemies.
- Attack closest enemy that’s weak to the flintlock rifle.
- Attack closest enemy that’s low on health.
- Pursue closest enemy until in flintlock range.
The Bruiser
The big and burly Bruiser is slow to act, but capable of travelling great distances once he’s rolled up into a ball. As the muscle of the Underworld, the Bruisers pride themselves on their reputation and never run away from a fight.
- If badly wounded, randomly alternate between the following actions:
- Put up defenses and wait.
- Retreat to closest alarm station to call for backup.
- Don’t move if current position blocks projectile attackers from hitting team members.
- Roll into closest enemy by a wall in order to push them back and cause extra damage.
- Roll into any nearby enemy.
- If upgraded, follow up a rolling attack with a ground slam for extra damage.
- Activate closest alarm station if requiring backup.
- Retreat from flying units that can’t be targeted with the roll attack.
- Pursue non-flying enemies out of range until adjacent to them.
The Sewer Slug
The Sewer Slugs mutated in the slop cocktails of the Underworld, slowly filling with acid and becoming living batteries. Although they’re naturally docile, they’re considered a dangerous nuisance as they don’t avoid human habitats.
- If dying, explode in an acidic burst that showers the surrounding enemies in corrosive fluids.
- If badly wounded, randomly alternate between the following actions:
- Retreat to closest nest if flying-charge is ready.
- Use self-healing ability.
- If not attacked, simply move between closest nest and hatchery.
- Fire electric goo on closest enemy to damage and stun them for one turn.
- If flying-charge is ready, move toward closest enemy.
- If flying-charge is not ready, pass to regain it.
This highly autonomous behaviour means that there’s no “field general” controlling the entirety of the opposing force. Instead, the combat takes on a gang-skirmish feel where each unit follows its own whims.
For quick, small scale battles where the units are all predefined, we found this to be a generally more fun approach.
Super Mario Bros 3 Level Design Lessons, Part 2
Posted by The Management in design, games on February 18, 2011
In my previous post, I took a look at the various level designs lessons gleaned from Super Mario Bros. 3′s first world. A lot of them naturally dealt with introductory tutorials, but I wanted to take a slightly different approach with this article.
The elegant introduction of new mechanics is still present throughout SMB 3. In this example, the first appearance of a Chain Chomp is marked by two columns that indicate its range and allow the player to safely observe its behaviour.
SMB 3 is filled with great levels, so I decided to pick out a bunch of clever, fun or simply unique moments from the game that originated with its architecture. I skipped over a lot of possible examples trying to keep the list down to 30, but I think I came up with a good collection that complements the original post.
About
Hi, my name’s Radek Koncewicz, and I'm the Creative Lead of Incubator Games, a small development studio I started with a few former coworkers.
I think a lot about videogames, and when I find the time, I post those thoughts here on this blog.
