In most stories, there's always a sense of progression as the protagonist overcomes challenges, works around their personal flaws, and basically improves themselves up until the story's end, where they've learned what they needed to know. Carried over into a game setting, this obviously should come with stronger abilities on the part of the protagonist. Hence, the game mechanic so integrated into the RPG genre that it's hard to find a game that doesn't make use of it in some way: leveling up.
Leveling up is by no means a bad thing. One of the reasons the mechanic has endured the way it has is because it's simple, satisfying, and effective. A reward for hard work, which is always welcome. However, implementing levels into a game you want to make is by no means a simple task, and requires careful fine-tuning to make it work. There's a few reasons for that, but most of them tie into the game's difficulty curve.
Every level a character gains makes the game easier. Depending on the game, a given level may have a drastic bonus or a slight one. It might even be to the point where one level is all the difference needed for a tricky fight to become manageable (or worse, an impossible fight to become at all feasible). Of course, this practice has given rise to the habit of "grinding", or putting the progression of the game on hold to fight vanilla monsters in order to gain several levels. There are also players who might dislike the fights interspersed through the game, and run from as many as possible.
The sharper the benefits of levels, the harder it becomes to balance the rest of the game. Either you anticipate the low-level players and make your fights too easy, or you anticipate the higher-level ones and force grinding from the player. On the converse side, if gaining levels doesn't give a benefit, why bother? There's no satisfaction gained if you haven't earned or accomplished anything, which in turn gives you less of a reason to go after the rank-and-file enemies.
There's also the fact that gaining levels tends to increase the number of moves you have available. Take, for example, the Final Fantasy games. The higher your mage's level, the more spells they'll know. There's a side effect to this that I don't think a lot of people see, and that is that early on, a character who gains abilities by leveling up has a limited, ineffective, and generally boring skillset. Sure, you might get the Awesometastic Bazooka of Justice spell later, but in the meantime, you're stuck using a boring Bonk spell, or worse, your physical attack. And for characters that only have one or two moves and don't get new ones by increasing levels, the system may as well not be there for all the difference it makes to them.
I think the best way to handle leveling up in games is to have the levels increase your stats by a fair amount, but to not change your character's moveset. The character should have all their moves, at least in a basic form, available from the word go, and the encounters should be designed to assume that your character fights only the battles they have to in order to get to that point. This lets players who don't mind grinding get a reward for their work in the form of ordinarily difficult fights being a bit easier, and characters who stay underleveled have to get creative with their abilities to take on foes much stronger than themselves.
One last thing that's worth mentioning: in many games that allow for leveling up, if you die to an enemy, you may lose some of the levels you've earned. Why anyone would consider that good game design escapes me. Yes, you want to punish the player for not succeeding, but causing them to lose levels just means they either have to go into a fight they've already lost at a disadvantage, or they have to grind even more levels, to make up the one they lost and then to eke out the advantage they need to win. And in that second case, if they still don't have enough, they get to do it again. Ugh, no thank you.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
gamedesign.dev: Controls
So, I don't really play fighting games a lot. I do on occasion, but they require way too much technical fiddling with the system to eke out every last advantage in order to win, and the setting of the games is all but a placeholder for the gameplay itself. "But hey, that's the same thing you say about roguelikes, and you won't shut up about those!" Well, there's two key differences between roguelikes and fighting games. The first of these, and the one central to this post, is that of the controls for the game. Every game has controls to them, otherwise you can't interact with the game, and then it's not a game at all (it's Metal Gear Solid).
Ideally, the controls of a game should be simple and intuitive enough that the player never has to take a break from immersion in the gameplay to go "okay, what button is the one to cling to walls?" The more often a player has to do this, the less likely that they'll want to keep playing, especially if they have no easy recourse for learning the controls for what they are trying to do. In, for example, a simple platformer, you'll probably have one button dedicated to doing just that, and so figuring it out is a matter of mashing all the buttons at random until you get it right. The scientific approach, if you're in a light-hearted mood.
In a roguelike, which still has considerably difficult controls (especially with cases like NetHack, having a command for every letter on the keyboard and then some), you can usually access a help menu at any moment with the ? key, which is natural enough that even a player who doesn't know for sure how to get help can figure it out. Better yet, roguelikes don't have time pass at all until you make a move, meaning you're at little risk of simply trying things until one works (or reading the help menu).
Compare this with fighting games. These also have a help menu, more often than not, and you usually only have a few buttons to deal with, so these shouldn't be the source of much trouble, right? Well, that's where the second issue comes in. In fighting games, every split second you have is to be used to gaining or keeping the upper hand. There's a big difference between learning how to perform an action and doing so with no pressure, but doing so when you have someone else, presumably a competent player, bearing down on you ready to punish any mistake, you have very little opportunity to learn how something works.
But hey, that's what the tutorial or practice modes are for, right? You can pick a character and learn all of their moves without risk. Unfortunately, it's not always as easy as that. Take the iconic Street Fighter series, for example. If you ask someone what a Hadoken is, they can probably tell you just how to perform it. It's considerably more complex than a single button press, and even more complex than, say, timing two button presses together. The motion is something of a shift from down to forwards on the directional pad or joystick, with a button press at the end of this motion. This is not the kind of thing someone would discover by accident.
"But that's not a big deal, since the game tells you in the help menu how to do it, and you can practice it. Quit making a fuss!" There is a huge difference to performing that kind of motion in a practice room, and performing it, when you have to (and not any other time) while being pressured by another player. And this Hadoken motion is only the tip of the iceberg. The Shoryuken move has an incredibly similar way it is performed, but the two are used in drastically different situations, and using one in place of the other will pretty much guarantee you take a hit. Even outside of the Shoryuken, moves that are even less intuitive, like holding one direction for an extended amount of time, or the absolute nightmare that is Guile's Ultra Combo in Street Fighter IV, are not the kind of thing you can reasonably expect to perform under duress unless you invest a stupidly high amount of time into the game.
I guess you can claim that perfecting these moves is the hallmark of an accomplished fighting gamer, but like I said earlier, every moment you spend figuring out how to do a move is a moment where you are not immersed in the game. I might just have a drastically different opinion of immersion than your average fighting gamer. You could claim that mastering the way your character controls improves the immersion more, but I would simply have to agree and play a game where I don't need to worry about needless complexity to get that immersion.
Ideally, the controls of a game should be simple and intuitive enough that the player never has to take a break from immersion in the gameplay to go "okay, what button is the one to cling to walls?" The more often a player has to do this, the less likely that they'll want to keep playing, especially if they have no easy recourse for learning the controls for what they are trying to do. In, for example, a simple platformer, you'll probably have one button dedicated to doing just that, and so figuring it out is a matter of mashing all the buttons at random until you get it right. The scientific approach, if you're in a light-hearted mood.
In a roguelike, which still has considerably difficult controls (especially with cases like NetHack, having a command for every letter on the keyboard and then some), you can usually access a help menu at any moment with the ? key, which is natural enough that even a player who doesn't know for sure how to get help can figure it out. Better yet, roguelikes don't have time pass at all until you make a move, meaning you're at little risk of simply trying things until one works (or reading the help menu).
Compare this with fighting games. These also have a help menu, more often than not, and you usually only have a few buttons to deal with, so these shouldn't be the source of much trouble, right? Well, that's where the second issue comes in. In fighting games, every split second you have is to be used to gaining or keeping the upper hand. There's a big difference between learning how to perform an action and doing so with no pressure, but doing so when you have someone else, presumably a competent player, bearing down on you ready to punish any mistake, you have very little opportunity to learn how something works.
But hey, that's what the tutorial or practice modes are for, right? You can pick a character and learn all of their moves without risk. Unfortunately, it's not always as easy as that. Take the iconic Street Fighter series, for example. If you ask someone what a Hadoken is, they can probably tell you just how to perform it. It's considerably more complex than a single button press, and even more complex than, say, timing two button presses together. The motion is something of a shift from down to forwards on the directional pad or joystick, with a button press at the end of this motion. This is not the kind of thing someone would discover by accident.
"But that's not a big deal, since the game tells you in the help menu how to do it, and you can practice it. Quit making a fuss!" There is a huge difference to performing that kind of motion in a practice room, and performing it, when you have to (and not any other time) while being pressured by another player. And this Hadoken motion is only the tip of the iceberg. The Shoryuken move has an incredibly similar way it is performed, but the two are used in drastically different situations, and using one in place of the other will pretty much guarantee you take a hit. Even outside of the Shoryuken, moves that are even less intuitive, like holding one direction for an extended amount of time, or the absolute nightmare that is Guile's Ultra Combo in Street Fighter IV, are not the kind of thing you can reasonably expect to perform under duress unless you invest a stupidly high amount of time into the game.
I guess you can claim that perfecting these moves is the hallmark of an accomplished fighting gamer, but like I said earlier, every moment you spend figuring out how to do a move is a moment where you are not immersed in the game. I might just have a drastically different opinion of immersion than your average fighting gamer. You could claim that mastering the way your character controls improves the immersion more, but I would simply have to agree and play a game where I don't need to worry about needless complexity to get that immersion.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
gamedesign.dev: Co-op play
So I picked up Donkey Kong Country Returns just the other day. Given that I spent almost a whole day with a friend of mine playing it, that says a lot of what I think about it. I really wish I had more opportunities to do co-op games, because there's a bunch of different philosophies regarding them that I don't think many people realize. A game designer needs to consider all of the players involved and how they want them to interact. I'll spend this post looking at each of the philosophies I know of in turn.
First off, the one presented in DKCR. Both players are active on the screen at once, they can't interfere with each other (except by triggering stuff in the environment, and this is kind of hard to malevolently use), and collectibles are shared between the two. The player controlling Diddy Kong (2P) can even ride on Donkey Kong's back, letting him carry both of them through and sharing health for as long as they like. The goal presented here is simple: the two players are meant to work together as often as possible, and very rarely throw each other under the bus. Additionally, the second player has a number of tools, like a weak ranged attack and hovering, to help them, which only makes sense considering the first player is likely to be the more experienced of the two. The atmosphere is one of friendly, but not vital, cooperation.
The next example people will probably think of is the one in Left 4 Dead. Each of the four players has their own health and weaponry and so forth, and must stick close together, lest one of the special infected ambush them where they can't be saved. That said, if one of the players should get to the level end and survive there, they win, and must wait there for the other players to win in turn or die. The players can harm each other through friendly fire and the like, so good teamwork is vital to survival. A player going lone wolf can cause major problems for the rest of the team, assuming they even bother to save the lone wolf at all. The atmosphere here is somewhat competitive, but very vital, cooperation.
A third example is the gameplay of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Although the core gameplay is fairly similar to DKCR, NSMBW instead has each of the four players with the same moveset and a definite ability to interfere with the others. Players can't pass through each other, and you can also pick up and throw other players into hazards, or use them as footstools, or hog the powerups, or basically any amount of backstabbing you can imagine. There's no hand-holding for the newbie players, either: instead, only the first two players get the actual characters of Mario and Luigi, and the third and fourth players get nameless Toads. I would've liked to see Wario and Waluigi, but that's just me. Point being, it is very easy for a decent character to screw over the others, and the game very much rewards you for it. The atmosphere is very competitive and not-at-all vital cooperation.
One last example is the flash game Transformice. For those of you unfamiliar with it: a crowd of mice is in a level, all of them racing to get to the cheese and return to the exit as fast as possible. The highest scoring mouse is selected to be the shaman, who can summon objects to assist or interfere with the other mice. Despite the lack of ability for mice to interfere with each other, barring a few special levels, it's still very competitive, as the shaman effectively holds the life of the other mice in their hands/paws, not to mention the scoreboards for mouse performance and assorted cosmetic rewards for doing well. That said, as possible as it is for mice to screw each other over, it's equally possible to help them along. The atmosphere: fairly competitive, and fairly vital.
So, which of these is best? It really depends heavily on what kind of game you want. Personally, I'm a softie who likes to help out the other players as often as possible, so the first two are preferable to me. But if you want to rub your victory in the faces of your friends, the other games are valid as well. Honestly, as long as you have a clear goal in mind, any kind of co-op is better than none, because we all love to socialize, and what better way than working together to accomplish a goal? Or chucking people in a pit, that's social too.
First off, the one presented in DKCR. Both players are active on the screen at once, they can't interfere with each other (except by triggering stuff in the environment, and this is kind of hard to malevolently use), and collectibles are shared between the two. The player controlling Diddy Kong (2P) can even ride on Donkey Kong's back, letting him carry both of them through and sharing health for as long as they like. The goal presented here is simple: the two players are meant to work together as often as possible, and very rarely throw each other under the bus. Additionally, the second player has a number of tools, like a weak ranged attack and hovering, to help them, which only makes sense considering the first player is likely to be the more experienced of the two. The atmosphere is one of friendly, but not vital, cooperation.
The next example people will probably think of is the one in Left 4 Dead. Each of the four players has their own health and weaponry and so forth, and must stick close together, lest one of the special infected ambush them where they can't be saved. That said, if one of the players should get to the level end and survive there, they win, and must wait there for the other players to win in turn or die. The players can harm each other through friendly fire and the like, so good teamwork is vital to survival. A player going lone wolf can cause major problems for the rest of the team, assuming they even bother to save the lone wolf at all. The atmosphere here is somewhat competitive, but very vital, cooperation.
A third example is the gameplay of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Although the core gameplay is fairly similar to DKCR, NSMBW instead has each of the four players with the same moveset and a definite ability to interfere with the others. Players can't pass through each other, and you can also pick up and throw other players into hazards, or use them as footstools, or hog the powerups, or basically any amount of backstabbing you can imagine. There's no hand-holding for the newbie players, either: instead, only the first two players get the actual characters of Mario and Luigi, and the third and fourth players get nameless Toads. I would've liked to see Wario and Waluigi, but that's just me. Point being, it is very easy for a decent character to screw over the others, and the game very much rewards you for it. The atmosphere is very competitive and not-at-all vital cooperation.
One last example is the flash game Transformice. For those of you unfamiliar with it: a crowd of mice is in a level, all of them racing to get to the cheese and return to the exit as fast as possible. The highest scoring mouse is selected to be the shaman, who can summon objects to assist or interfere with the other mice. Despite the lack of ability for mice to interfere with each other, barring a few special levels, it's still very competitive, as the shaman effectively holds the life of the other mice in their hands/paws, not to mention the scoreboards for mouse performance and assorted cosmetic rewards for doing well. That said, as possible as it is for mice to screw each other over, it's equally possible to help them along. The atmosphere: fairly competitive, and fairly vital.
So, which of these is best? It really depends heavily on what kind of game you want. Personally, I'm a softie who likes to help out the other players as often as possible, so the first two are preferable to me. But if you want to rub your victory in the faces of your friends, the other games are valid as well. Honestly, as long as you have a clear goal in mind, any kind of co-op is better than none, because we all love to socialize, and what better way than working together to accomplish a goal? Or chucking people in a pit, that's social too.
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