Alright, so now E3 is over and after watching the expo on Kotaku and following a few people on Twitter I suddenly find myself looking forward to a couple of new games. And yes, those are a lot and sadly some of those are for the PS3 which I don’t (yet?) possess. So if you care, here’s the list:
That’s a lot of shooters. I guess I can’t help if that’s just my genre. I have made the observation though that I prefer to play first person shooters with a mouse (hence on the PC) and third person shooters with a controller (which means on the console).
The game that has been my first, roughly one year long job at Keen Games was doing Level Design and Scripting for Anno: Create a New World (known as Dawn of Discovery in the US) for both Wii and DS. The game’s been out in Europe for a few days now and it’s to be released in the United States in late June.
Now there’s a couple of reviews for the Wii version available online and the great thing is that the game has so far been rated 80% and above. That’s a good feeling. I’m especially proud of the many positive reactions I’ve read on the story campaign. I’ve been a big part of it’s design and I’ve almost enitrely scripted this thing. With all that said, here are the reviews so far:
With the death of 3d Realms a wealth of Duke Nukem Forever information has been leaked to the world wide web. There’s been screenshots and a demo reel showing some real gameplay and now there’s design documents. Specifically some Level Design documentation and since I’m always interested in the way other people work and plan, this is a good luck.
On IGN you can find a document covering three levels of the game and there’s also a reveal of the plot overview document. I’m not entirely sure this is genuine but since I haven’t yet had a good look it’s hard to say. It certainly looks that way to the IGN folks.
In the vein of writing a few shorter posts that are easier to digest I present the following thought:
A year, maybe more, ago we suddenly had a few video game titles popping up on the radar that relied heavily on co-op. Left 4 Dead is an obvious example. Resident Evil 5 is another recent high-profile example. There was Army of Two (soon with sequel) and the new 50 Cent game. After a long drought of co-op games this feature has (thankfully) become en vogue again.
Now looking at a few soon-to-be-released games I see a pattern (where there propably is none): Games that strongly with the spatial element of verticality and provide a high degree of mobility. There’s Bionic Commando, which uses the bionic arm of the protagonist to scale heights easily. The other example is Dark Void, which touts it’s Vertical Cover system as a big feature next to the Jetpack. And lastly there’s Damnation. While the avatars there have no fancy mobility gadget they’re acrobats rivaling the Prince of Persia.
Alright, so I only have three examples and that’s far from being a trend but I found it an interesting observation. What about you, can you come up with more?
I’ve just watched a lecture from Clint Hocking (thanks for the link, Beren) about the changing demographics and generations and their impact on the Game Design Industry, as developers, critics and of course audience shift. Clint takes a long time to build up to his important points but it shows an interesting perspective on the different trends of game design and well worth the hour it runs. It again features Clint’s rapid-fire style I’ve already seen at the GDC microtalks. Since I recommend it. why don’t you check it out right now?
IGDA-Montreal – Feb 09: Clint Hocking – The Next Generation Player
However while I enjoyed the lecture, I want to write about an aspect only partially related to the talk. At the very end of it Clint presents what he perecives to be one (of two) critical questions of Game Design: Immersion. The problem he says is that Generation X games focus on full-time, single-player immersion (something he exhaustively explored with Far Cry 2), while Generation Y games would propably have to shift the immersion model to accomodate a more multiplayer oriented, bite-size immersion. This made some of my brain cells fire.
Taking a look at the Generation X immersion, it seems to me that it’s aspriring to emulate the story-focused immersion model as is used by movies. In the cinema you sit down to experience a linear, uninterrupted experience. Sicne this is a passive media it makes it easy to just absorb and become immersed. Afterwards you mingle with the other moviegoers and discuss what you personally took away from the experience. The Generation X immersion focused, story heavy, single-player games tried to do the same. They create a nonstop reality to engage in and once you’re over you can discuss you personal experience with other players, arguing about different viewpoints and interpretations. This seems to be a somewhat flawed approach, because contrary to the movie experience, games are not a passive medium.
The difference is that the player can directly act and change the outcome of the game. There is this abstract layer of game elements that’s between the player and the game world, which regularly forces the player’s mindset into a different space than that of the story. This is propably because there are two forces at work:
There is the story based immersion into the narrative, plot and setting.
And there is flow, the immersion into the game mechanics.
While I’m not sure where I’m going with this, I found this to be an interesting observation. It’s clear that there are games that focus only on one of these feelings. For example many of the games from thatgamecompany such as the eponymous flOw or flOwer focus on the sensual immersion into the flow of the game’s rules, the moment to moment interaction. Other games try to focus more on the narrative immersion, trying to hide the game elements as much as possible. This however seems to be somewhat of a futile effort. Regardless of how much you hide the interactive elements, the player still has direct contact with them, since they are his interface. This is propably the reason why flow-only games (Tetris, Lumines, Peggle) without a detailed narrative pull in the player much deeper than games focusing much more on the immersion. There propably is a good middle ground here, where your game flow is intriguing and in sync with your narrative immersion.
Being a regular and avid Kotaku reader, I just stumbled over a small article and video from the developers of the game Damnation. This shooter tries to set itself apart by focusing on strong vertical elements in the gameplay. The video you can find here on Kotaku explains their approach to level design which is different enough to be remarkable. Update: there’s a HD version of the video available on Gametrailers.
The “usual” approach (if there is such a thing) of Shooter 3d Level Design is to come up with a floorplan of the level. Then concepts of important areas, which might have existed before or are created after the floorplan, are integrated. For example the secret temple at the heart of the map will be placed in a wide open area at the focus point of the level. The advantages of this are that the Level Designers can clearly plan the gameflow but obviously this has a few drawbacks. For example it might result in environments that do not fit together as well visually as they could. I also believe that this approach might be responsible for the prevalence of Room/Corridor/Room Levels.
The workflow chosen by the Damnation Developers Blue Omega begins with a large scale concept of the level, which is then used by the level designers to plan the player’s possible paths. This propably requires a close cooperation between the Concept Art and Level Design departments. An advantage I can see though is that the levels might end up looking much more organic, since they were planned as a “visual whole” instead of as a sequence of events/areas.
While I wasn’t too keen on Damnation, this video made me curious to take a closer look at the levels to see the fruits of this technique. It certainly sounds like an interesting idea but I’m sure that it’s not a perfect new solutions. Like everything it’s a method that has it’s uses for certain games . But it’s another tool to put in your Level Designer Toolbelt.
More than a month ago, when it was clear that I was coming to California for a few weeks I got back into touch with a few people from here to see whom I could meet. Among these people was Tom Fowler IV, a professor for Architecture at Calpoly, with whom I was working during my stay there in 05/06.
He asked me if I wanted to hold a lecture about Architecture and Level Design. Of course I jumped at the opportunity and started to think about possible topics. Since most students were from the Architecture department and had little to no previous experience to making games I decided to just go over the very basics, explaining what game and level design is and what it’s goals are.
The lecture went well even though I was finished a bit too early and should have prepared some more in depth material. I was glad to see that there was lots of interest though since the (small) room was pretty much filled. I’m guessing 40 to 50 people.
Anyway, since the subject I spoke on is an interesting one I thought I’d like to try and write up a proper article for this blog sometime after I get back to Germany…
