Posts Tagged game
Segues
Posted by The Management in design on November 20, 2010
Videogames are filled with transitions: loading new levels, initiating scripted sequences, obtaining special powerups, etc. These are often accompanied by the familiar wipes, fades and cuts of the film industry.
The effects themselves mask pit-stops necessary for resource (re)allocation. The segmentation also creates a natural variety and lets developers work on separate parts of the game that are only later stitched together.
In short, these transitions are functional. However, they are not smooth.
segue, n.
- A quick and uninterrupted change to the player’s avatar or surroundings that often facilitates new gameplay.
The above definition is rather nebulous, but it’s based on a simple concept: a smooth flow keeps the player immersed. Segues do this by removing the awkward parts of transitions that break immersion, namely disorientation and helplessness.
Some of GTA IV's more hyperbolic praises were attributed to its seamless world and the ability to carjack any vehicle...
Disorientation can take place quite easily as the camera cuts to a different point of view, or a different scene entirely. All of a sudden the player is expected to parse the change — to keep up with the fast-forwarding presentation — while filling in the gaps. Humans are quite good at this, but it’s a somewhat taxing effort that’s easy to get wrong.
Helplessness is strictly rooted in ignoring player input. Videogames are inherently interactive, and taking away control to show a transition strips the player of engagement. Plus, it’s never fun to wait on a loading screen.
Of course many videogames are quite abstract, but for the most part the medium tries to simulate various facets of the real world. There are no “bumpy” transitions in everyday life — aside from maybe losing consciousness — so it makes sense to limit them in videogames as well. That’s not always possible, but if the choice is there, it should be an easy one to make.
...while Fable 3's most common criticism seems to be its anything-but-smooth hand-shaking minigame.
As hardware, technical design, and production methodologies have advanced, so has our ability to implement segues. Vehicle sections now take place in the same maps as on-foot action, level geometry gets dynamically streamed in, scripted sequences play out as the player explores the environment, etc. These are almost universally praised as they make for some very memorable moments, but smooth transitions have been around for a long while.
Here are just a few of my favourite examples:
1). Spy Hunter’s Boat Segments
Spy Hunter was famous for giving players the ability to drive into the back of a moving truck. This was done at full speed without any camera wipes, but it wasn’t even the game’s greatest segue. No, that honour goes to the car-to-boat segments.
These had the player race through a dockside garage only to emerge in a different vehicle without slowing down for a second. It wasn’t the most realistic transition, but like many moments in Spy Hunter, it perfectly emulated the craziness of action-movie sequences.
2). Metroid’s Morph Ball
The Morph Ball has been a staple of the Metroid series since the inaugural title, and has always been an excellent example a segue.
Turning Samus into a diminutive sphere is effortless and presents the player with an all new moveset. The morph ball’s abilities also grant the player new options for combat and exploration, and switching between the two modes is quick and easy (even in the somewhat underrated 3D sequels).
3). Lost Odyssey’s Intro
Lost Odyssey’s FMV opening depicts a dark and epic battle. As the presumed hero fights his way through the ranks of bizarrely armed soldiers, there’s a brief pause in the action. The camera pans around, and a menu pops up! All of a sudden the player is in the game, and it’s waiting for his input!
There’s a slight hitch here, but it’s barely noticeable and makes for a fantastic intro. Sadly, the rest of Lost Odyssey is a veritable catalogue of awkward segues.
What are some of your favourite examples of smooth (or bumpy) transitions?
Design Roundup #5
Posted by The Management in design on October 31, 2010
- Valve Publications – I’ve raved about Valve’s design tips in the past, and there’s more to be found here.
- Bow Before The Worm Slayer – Will Hindmarch’s Escapist post on how low-cost, text-based achievements in Lord of the Rings Online facilitate player communication.
- Evaluating Game Mechanics For Depth – Mike Stout’s article on gameplay depth, what it really means, and how it can be increased without relying on aesthetic tricks or worrying about redundancy.
Design Roundup #4
Posted by The Management in design on July 23, 2010
- The Psychology of Randomness – People tend to be terrible at accepting randomness for what it is, and it’s a very important trait to accommodate for in game design.
- Testosterone and Competitive Play – Danc’s essay on playing against friends, playing against strangers, the perception of luck and skill, and pro-social/pro-dominance tendencies.
- Groundhog Day and Video Games – Groundhog Day is a fantastic movie with a surprisingly wide-spread appeal, and I always thought its concepts were perfect for a videogame.
Nelson Tethers – Puzzle Agent Bits
Posted by The Management in art, games on July 12, 2010
Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent cribs quite liberally from Professor Layton, and relies heavily on its art style, but it’s still my favourite of Telltale’s episodic games to date.
The bits:
— Obviously the most noticeable thing about Puzzle Agent is its offbeat, crayon-drawn art style. What’s interesting here is that the game relies on stop-motion like animations reminiscent of old, low-budget cartoons. The effect is actually quite good and and the choppy movements are consistently utilized even when smooth animations could have easily replaced them (e.g., a snowmobile driving in a straight line).
The system made me wonder if other art styles not conducive to animation could successfully adopt a similar approach.
Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent is quite a cinematic game that uses lots of different framing techniques for both its interactive and non-interactive sequences.
— Aside from the visual style itself, PA is a very atmospheric title in the vein of the old LucasArts adventure games. The characters are bizarre and expressive, the Fargo-esque setting is unique (at least for a videogame), and the great music and voice acting enrich the overall experience.
— PA was clearly designed with the iPhone/iPad in mind. The player never walks his avatar around the screen, and clicking most places sends out a helper-shockwave. As this shockwave expands, it highlights any points of interest that can be clicked on to initiate conversations, puzzles, scene transitions, etc.
These icons briefly pop-up whenever the player clicks on any close-by, non-interactive areas.
— The actual puzzles in PA are a bit of a letdown. This is due to two main reasons: lack of instructions, and the inability to jot down notes in-game.
A lot of the puzzles are quite obtuse, sometimes to the point where a hint needs to be purchased just to figure out what the game wants the player to do. Unfortunately this seems like a concession to the game’s hint system (all puzzles must contain 3 individual hints) as some cases actually contains an additional screen that explains the controls and the goals of the minigame.
The secondary complaint deals with the nature of the puzzles themselves. Many of them are common math/logic problems that are meant to be solved in a series of steps. However, the player is often forced to visualize and work through them without any in-game aids. This artificially inflates their difficulty, especially when compared to the visual jigsaw puzzles.
These points certainly don’t ruin the game, but do I hope the various minigames are improved in future episodes.
Unfortunately most of the other puzzles are not described in nearly as much detail.
- Many puzzles are completely optional and make exploring the world feel more like a non-linear, interactive experience.
- The actual hint system is quite clever. The game starts off with the protagonist trying to solve a crossword, and, having some problems with it, eventually reaching over for some gum to help him concentrate. As we soon learn, the town he visits is experiencing a gum shortage. This forces the player to pick up old, discarded pieces of gum to aid Agent Tethers in his puzzle solving endeavours. Yes, it’s quite gross, but perfectly fits the mood of the game and gives the designers a great excuse to sprinkle virtually all parts of the environment with a useful collectible.
Agent Tethers comes face-to-face with Mike "The Lobster" Lobb.
Old gum also seems to be a reusable resource, reappearing in new spots as the Agent Tethers travels around town. This provides the player with an unlimited source of hints and prevents him from getting stuck on any one puzzle.
- As a nice little touch, the time of day on the title screen changes up periodically while the camera slowly scrolls around the Scoggins eraser factory.
- The UI of the game is very flashy but intuitive, with lots of animating widgets composed of labels and icons. The unskipable puzzle submission is a tad long, but the overall interface is a joy to use (especially when compared to many other adventure games).
My favourite scene with the creepy gnomes had one of them invade my puzzle in the middle of me trying to solve it! The sequence worked very well since the puzzles (at least up to that point) were a separate, uninterruptible segment only exposed to the player.
- Agent Tethers uses a tape recorder throughout the game to narrate his experiences. This provides extra personality and context while clearly outlining what must be done going forward.
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Dungeons & Dragons – Tower of Doom Bits
Posted by The Management in art, games on June 29, 2010
In the 90′s, Capcom produced a plethora of side-scrolling beat-’em-ups. They were all pretty fun, but my favourite was an unlikely-branded D&D title, Tower of Doom.
The TSR/Capcom partnership actually spawned two individual games, but here are the notable bits for the first one:
— The most famous feature of ToD is the branching path structure. Periodically, the player is presented with 2-3 options of how to proceed, with each choice leading to a different area and boss. All these paths converge fairly quickly, but the extra choices are a nice feature and encourage multiple playthroughs.
Options, options...
— ToD’s overall structure is very similar to a typical beat-’em-up, but the game also contains lots of streamlined D&D/P&P RPG elements. Characters gain experience and grow stronger by leveling up, keys (or a thief character) are needed to open some chests, traps are virtually everywhere, there’s lots of treasure to collect, etc. There’s even a troll boss that needs to be burned once his health is depleted or he’ll simply regenerate.
— There are very few health-recovery items in the levels themselves, but the player can heal by collecting loot and purchasing health potions in shops. The shops appear in between levels and also allow the player to restock on usable items such as daggers and arrows.
— ToD contains lots of nice, little touches: the characters start the levels with their weapons sheathed (and the player can walk around unarmed until he presses the attack button), enemies can be damaged by traps, an extra victory animation accompanies a boss’ defeat, and all major stages and events are framed using unique illustrations. The game even contains some unique “Game Over” pop-ups that — if triggered during a boss fight — have the player’s enemy openly mocking him.
Upholding the D&D tradition, Cloudkill is useless against the undead.
— Magic spells execute a flashy animation while pausing the gameplay, and their effects occasionally carry on once the game has been unpaused. This works fine for the most part, but due to the rule of only-one-spell-at-a-time, it’s occasionally possible to not be able to cast a spell while walking around without having a clear idea as to why it’s not working.
— Like many other beat-’em-ups, ToD’s attacks are accompanied by hit-flashes that indicate successful hits and mask collision issues. However, unlike most other titles in the genre, the player can attack downed enemies, but can’t actually grab or throw them.
— If timed properly, it’s possible to slash projectiles out of the air with a basic attack.
How could they break -- the Beholder isn't even touching them?!
— Non-usable/equipable items are fairly rare, but they do provide passive bonuses such as extra attack and defense boosts. These items don’t usually last very long, though, as they get “broken” or “lost” if the player gets hit a couple of times.
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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.
