Domestic Violence: Player Combat And the Game World

So a few nights ago I added the beginings of combat...

it was literally a game changer...

Playing previous versions of the game that didn't yet have combat felt completely different in comparison.

Despite everything already being there, weapons, and even combat animations, having something to actually hit and kill really made a big difference. At one time I must of spent nearly 15 minutes trying to “kill” a sphere and I enjoyed it.

For a while I couldn't seem to run a test session without absolutely killing every monster in the level before ending it. Even the choice of music changed.

I suspect it has something to do with the pace.

You could always 'run' in the prototype since the first build, but it wasn't something I made much use off till I had stuff to kill. To follow the pace I had to choose a tune with a higher tempo and a nice beat.

(Pace and music is something I was very aware of in Doom2, and a few fighting games, but very few other games.)

Combat really started to sort of tie all the other the elements I built before it together.

I had already had a health management system complete with health items etc, running and vaulting.

But it seems as if adding combat to the game has really given it all purpose.

It has me considering starting with combat in future projects, instead of holding off near the end.

Interior decorating...

I just recently started working on a new environment.

Before I started the project I had done some testing, and had a character moving around in a completely generic dungeon type of environment.

With the launch of new project I hadn't bothered to make any real environments, and so everything was pretty much a big vast and open space.

I found that a few things happened when I started building the new interior environment.

First.

The tone and pace of the game really relaxed itself while I was walking (not running) around the interior. I had to again change the BGM to match the what I was feeling as a gamer.

Going back to the very open section of the game was almost overwhelming.

From another gamers perspective: “I didn't really know what the hell I supposed to be doing.”

There really wasn't anything to do, at that stage in development, but I suspect it was that overwhelming feeling that made him come to that conclusion so quickly.

Second.

Focus. It was far easier to assess one room or corridor, than it was to try and take in everything at once.

I think that might be one of the initial draws of the open-world experience. “Everything At Once!” its that overwhelming feeling, that you don't have nearly as much control or influence of the game world at all. And in those particular games, that's a very welcome feeling.

However I've decided that that I want to try and make this game be all about your influence over the game world. Its leading me to consider leaving out wide open spaces completely.

I think it was Bill Clinton, on the Daily Show, when talking about the difference between being president and Not being president, saying something to the effect of...

“You can do a little bit in a lot of areas, but you can do a lot in a little area.”

That's not a strict quote btw.

Third.

Character presence shot through the roof. Which was really comforting to me, coming from a character design background. Revisiting the open spaces of the game made my character presence feel significantly diminished. I felt like I was controlling a smaller character than the one in the interior. Had I not done it myself, I'd have argued that at least the camera distance had changed, even though it had not.

Character presence has always been something that I felt very strongly about. The common trend in triple A game design at the moment seems to be to go with a very God of War style view of the character, which to me, seems like a betrayal to the poor artist who designed the main character.

All the details of his work are pulled away from the viewer/gamer and restricted to Cutscenes.

I feel like if you want to make your audience really connect to your character, then you need to really show him off, not in the Non-interactive portions of the game, but in part of the game where the players actions and the characters actions have merged, and the line between the gamer and the player character is blurred.

That's probably why I haven't been interested at all by the God of War games or its various clones. The game-play always reminds me of the old NES days where you controlled a little pixelated featureless sprite man, who jumped and hit things.

Its 2010, and now we control a little featureless(due to camera distance) polygon man who jumps and hits things? Seriously?

For me a game that really gets what I'm talking about is Arkham Asylum. Ofcourse I have to wonder if the only reason they got it right was because of the heavy comic book influence.

In comics the mindset is to always make your hero appear larger than life in just about every panel he's in. In Arkham Asylum, Batman can take up half the screen space at times....and its completely Ok, because he's never actually in the way...How could he be? He's the star of the damn game!