My third mini article about level building.

Edges

An Edge is where a Place or Path ends and another Place or a Path begins. An Edge is a doorway, a drop-off, a corner, a shield door, a hill that obscures sight to a neighboring Place. This is where the callout for your location changes, when you are no longer in the base, but behind the base. When you are not on the cliff, but below the cliff. No longer in the dish, but beside the dish. Not on the ramp, but on the bottom floor.

Edges naturally exist, you almost never have to put thought into creating an Edge, because if you have and number of Places or Paths, then you already have Edges. So then why even bother talking about them? It's useful to consider Edges when thinking about how a map will be played. For instance, when a player crosses an Edge, he should be in a different situation and should have different options. On Hemorrhage, the big hill in the middle of the map is an Edge between the two halves of the map. You don't have to worry much about anyone on the other side of the Edge, and at any point in the game, threats will be different on each side of the Edge. Think about when there is one Wraith on Hemorrhage. When it crosses the Edge, things change.

Once you’ve determined where your Edges are, then you can more easily flesh out what your battlefields (Places) will play like. For the most part, battles will take place within the same Place. Of course there are exceptions (like when there's a long sight line for a sniper that leads way down a long hallway and into another room), but generally players will tend to fight with other players in the same Place. Knowing this, you can more easily decide what weapons to make available, and what types of cover should be where.

Another thing that should be taken into consideration with Edges is how you can use them to introduce a new Place. When a player comes around a corner (which is an Edge), the designer has complete control over what is immediately visible. Use these "reveals" to your advantage. Whatever information you want to convey to the player about a Place is best done when the player is coming through an Edge to get there.

My second mini article about level building.

Places and Paths

A Place is where actions happen. It’s a battlefield. Some people who design maps call it a "node." Often times these coincide closely with Landmarks. In Pinnacle, the dish is both a landmark and a Place. On Zanzibar in Halo 3, Generators meant both a landmark and a Place. Places are not always landmarks, though. Think about Asylum. There are not a whole lot of Landmarks in Asylum, but there are tons of great Places for battles. Places encourage people to stay put and fight. On the other hand, Paths encourage people to move.

Paths are walkways that connect important locations (Places). These are your bridges, hallways, paths through the forest of trees, ramps, mancannons, openings in cover, etc. This is where you are if you are not in a Place.

A person on a Path will continue on that Path, because by nature, people don’t want to stop on a Path. In fact, upon reaching the end of a Path, a person will tend to continue in the same direction he was moving when on the Path. Use this to your advantage. Do not put important places right around the corner of where a Path ends, people won’t look there. That’s why campers (like me) camp right at the end of Paths. At the end of your Paths, have an important location easily visible. If you do this, you have a lot of power over the way people navigate your map.

Don’t have Paths to nowhere. This will make players hate you. This is like telling a joke but leaving off the punchline. Paths should all lead somewhere worth going. If you have a Path that leads to a dead end alley, then there better be the coolest thing in the world at the end to make up for all the backtracking the player is about to have to do.

You can control the cadence of your map by controlling the ratio and size of your Paths and Places. When you watch a well made movie, it has a certain pace carefully crafted to help create the experience the filmmaker wanted. Action movies have faster cuts and shorter periods of downtime, while dramas can stay in the same scene for a while, building things up more slowly. Map builders have a similar type of control.

Short Paths with small Places will make the pace faster, and more hectic. Too much of this will make a player feel like he has little control, though. Long Paths and long Places make the game feel more epic with slower, bigger battles. Too much of this will eventually wear on a player, making him bored. Too much of any one thing will make a player lose interest. Mix things up. Maybe have a medium Path to a small Place, that has a short Path to a bigger Place. Mixing it up well will make players say things like, “There’s a good balance of short and long range gameplay going on in this map.”

"But wait," you may be saying. "Hemorrhage doesn't have any Paths, and it plays great [sic]."

To which I respond, "Yes."

Big outdoor maps usually have a lot of Places with few Paths. What they do have, though, is Edges. That's coming up next.

I've been pretty active lately at ReachingPerfection.com

There, I've started posting a few short offerings of my understanding of level design. Since that sight is full of people who create maps using Halo Reach's Forge, I have many references to Halo maps. Just keep that in mind when reading them. In the spirit of keeping all my things together, I'll be bringing those over here as well. Starting now...

Landmarks

Landmarks are unique objects that make a location memorable. These are used for orientation and communication. Examples of Landmarks are: a giant statue, satellite dish, huge cliff face, a building, a raging inferno, etc. Just make sure that it’s a unique object, and there aren’t a thousand of them on your map, as this will lead to disorientation. You want each of your landmarks to be one of a kind. One way to test if you have unique landmarks on your map is to listen to what people say when they are calling out location during a game. Examples of callouts when you have good Landmarks are: the fan, waterfall, ribs, dish, cliff top, the base. Example of when you do not have strong, unique Landmarks are: grey hall, long grey hall, grey ramp, grey room, second grey room, pillar beside you, pillar beside me, ummmm.

Landmarks, being big, cool things, draw people in. Because of this, it’s important to use them to draw people to the best places. If you have a specific area you want people to go to fight, put your coolest Landmark there. All your less cool Landmarks should be in slightly less important places on your map. Do not let your Landmarks direct players in a way that will make them miss something. If you want players to pick up your rocket launcher, put it between where they spawn and a Landmark. They will not check behind them.

Don’t put too many Landmarks too close together either. If I spawn and see two Landmarks, then I may not end up going to the satellite dish like you wanted me to, because I decided to run toward the hanging chandelier. Each Place (next lesson) needs no more than one significant Landmark.

Nothing is worse in the world than an infrequently updated blog. Lately I've been working on several different projects to keep my skills fresh and to have fun while doing it. The project that is coming along nicely is the Flash game. Let me tell you how this came to be.

A while ago I started playing around in Flash to see what I could learn about it. I don't really do much art, but I was learning how ActionScript 3 works and was playing around with several ideas for games. The first several ideas I tried either ended up not being fun, or were way too large for me to do alone. Eventually I stumbled across something that was small enough in scope that I could do all the scripting by myself, yet was still fun to play for a while. It was a turret defense type game.

With all the practice I'd been getting from the previous prototypes, I was able to set up a solid structural foundation to ActionScript for the game so that I could easily expand it whenever I decided to. Once the basics were down (aiming the turret base, shooting bullets, detecting collision with things), I was able to start all the experimenting with different weapon types. I must have tried 15 or so different weapon ideas, but I wanted to keep things manageable for the players, so I took the 10 coolest weapons and went from there. The coolest weapon that got left out was a gun that shoots bullets that bounce off of enemies and increase in damage with each bounce. The only problem with that is that I could only get realistic bounces from circular shaped enemies, and I didn't want to make a game with nothing but a lot of different colored floating balls.

Anyway, some people looked at the game and said things like, "Hey, that's an alright piece of work, but get someone who is good at drawing (not you) to do the visuals." I talked to a former classmate of mine, Max, who is good at drawing things. He's helping me now. I'll post some before and after pics once we get stuff in there.

Game Analysis

This is an analysis on the design of two of the biggest multiplayer console shooters recently, Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2, and how they compare.

Let's start with some general design decisions and how they impact gameplay.

Halo 3:

• Weapon accuracy is the same whether running, standing, or crouching - This lets players move with no penalty to accuracy.
  

• Shields regenerate - This kind of health system offers forgiveness for small mistakes. It encourages players to chase kills because if the enemy doesn't die now, he will be full health later. This encourages aggressive playing.
  

• Radar/Motion detector - This allows players to stay still and move slowly because they can see people coming. This allows for stealthy play styles.
  

• Slow horizontal movement, but high jumping - Strafing is not effective for dodging. This leads to bunny-hopping.

• Melee kills in one hit from behind - This rewards sneaky players.

• Players have relatively high starting health - A lot of accuracy is needed because several consecutive shots must hit. Teammates benefit from concentrating fire on a single opponent (side to side rather than back to back).
  

• Lots of grenades are available - Everyone is guaranteed a powerful combo (grenade plus any weapon). This helps keep the playing field fair, but forces players to use grenades to compete with other players, since everyone else will be using them as part of a powerful combo.
  

• Everyone can melee - Battles at point blank range are practically equal unless you have a point blank weapon (sword or shotgun). If outgunned, running up to the enemy can equalize the battle (be aggressive).

• In objective games, the objective carrier cannot use a weapon - Objective games require thought to maintain the balance between gaining points and killing opponents.

• When you die, you lose everything you'd gained that life - Death carries a heavy price.

• Everyone starts the game equal and must fight for better weapons and gear - This encourages players to move around the maps.
  

Modern Warfare 2:

• The benefit to not dying is that you lose your position and your killstreak potential.

• Accuracy reduced when moving – encourages players to be still (camp?) and crouch or go prone

• Players die very quickly – no room for mistakes. This encourages players to be generous with bullets and conservative with positioning. The person who gets the first shot will probably win, so players are encouraged to stay hidden until they shoot. Teammates are more effective back to back than side to side (shooting two enemies at once rather than the same enemy).

• Players are on radar when shooting – Players are encouraged to not shoot more than they need.

• Kill cam – Anti-camping mechanic (when you are killed, you get to see the last 5 seconds of the game from the perspective of your killer)
  

• Killstreaks – Provide momentum (winning team is more likely to stay winning) and incentive to live.

• All players have a knife for instant kill – If a player has the wrong gun for the situation, he can run in close to equalize the battle. (be aggressive)

• Sprinting – Helps to get into positions and away from enemies, but doesn’t help to kill. Supports the position-based gameplay.

• Leveling up, unlockable upgrades, killstreaks, and classes - Players must think about the metagame.

• In objective games, the objective carrier can still shoot his gun
  

Halo 3's mechanics promote running and gunning, being aggressive, lots of grenades, jumping, playing side to side with teammates, moving slowly, being sneaky, and staying alive.

I see some contradictions in that list: aggressive running and gunning is the opposite of being slow and sneaky. I will address this momentarily.

Modern Warfare 2's mechanics encourage being still, staying hidden, staying alive, playing back to back with teammates, not camping, shooting a lot (but not too much), being aggressive.

I also see some contradictions in this list: being still and staying hidden is the opposite of not camping and being aggressive. Also, "shooting a lot, but not too much," seems contradictory.

Let's look at these contradictions now.

In Halo 3, players benefit from running and gunning and from being sneaky. A player who is running and gunning aggressively will have the following strengths over a non moving enemy (I have removed the strengths that all players share): the potential to gain better equipment, a good position, or objective points. He has the following weaknesses: can be seen on radar.

A player who is sneaky has the following strengths: does not appear on radar, has a higher chance of getting a one hit kill melee from behind or getting the first shot in a battle. He has no weaknesses unless you want to count the fact that stationary targets are easy to hit, but I will assume, based on experience, that when the stationary person engages in combat, he starts moving.

For both of these conditions, the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. The only weakness (being on radar) can be removed by the player with minimal effort. The transition of being aggressive to being sneaky and vice versa allows players to determine what strengths and weaknesses they want at any given time. This creates an ebb and flow of changing playstyles.


In Modern Warfare 2, players benefit from being still and staying hidden and being aggressive and not camping. Also, shooting a lot, but not too much.

Staying still and hidden advantages: increased accuracy, first shot.
Weaknesses: kill-cam (kill-cam affects everyone, but it's the only thing to negatively affect stationary players).

Strengths for being aggressive: potential to get into a good position or score objective points.
Weaknesses: will not get the first shot, accuracy reduced, can be seen and heard coming.

Strengths for shooting a lot: potential to get more kills.
Weaknesses: can be seen on radar.

Strengths for not shooting: can stay hidden more easily.
Weaknesses: fewer potential kills.

The second example (shooting vs not shooting), works similarly to the motion detector in Halo 3. Depending on what strengths and weaknesses a player wants at a given time, he can select which tactics to use. A player can also use a silencer on his weapon to avoid being seen on radar at all, or call in a Counter-UAV to accomplish the same thing. Multiple methods exist to make up for those weaknesses; one of them is the player changing his actions. I think this is good.

The first example, I think, is not good. Stationary players have more strengths than moving players and are only limited by the kill-cam, which limits every player. There are perks that players can use to reduce some of the weaknesses of being a moving player, but there will always be more weaknesses when compared to stationary players.

All weaknesses can be eliminated or reduced by changing the player's actions or weapon/perk loadout, but the kill-cam is a weakness that can never be eliminated (barring changing game modes). This is a "disabling" design choice rather than an "enabling" choice, and I think there are stronger choices that could have been made. For instance, to counter balance the strength of stationary players getting the first shot, the accuracy mechanics could be changed so that moving players have greater accuracy and stationary players have lesser accuracy. Rather than having an ever-present kill-cam, it could be tied to a deathstreak, where only when a player has died 4 times in a row can he see the kill-cam. Maybe stationary players are more visible through thermal sights, since they've been sitting there warming up all their surroundings for a while.

In conclusion, I think the mechanics of Halo 3 are solid, encouraging players to change playstyles during a game to balance their intended goals with their strengths and weaknesses, and enabling players to try different things. I think the mechanics of Modern Warfare 2 encourage camping (and almost force it if you're trying to be competitive) and I think the kill-cam was implemented in a sub-par way, crippling all players rather than enabling them.

Kinds of Games

I read a lot of articles about game development. Pretty frequently I run into articles about “games as art,” which try to set video games up to be as respectable of a medium as literature, movies, and music. Whenever I read about this, it seems that the articles overlook the possibility that some games are not meant to be art and the creators had no intention of creating art. I think games can be art. I also think games can be not art. Here are some of my ideas about different kinds of games.

I suggest we have art games and non-art games. I think we can divide the non-art games into more defined categories, but we don’t need to do that much where I’m going. Some [most] games serve exclusively to entertain. Farmville, Fable, Fallout, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Plants vs Zombies, Peggle, etc. These is on par with most summer blockbuster action movies, Saturday morning cartoons, late night tv, romance novels, tabloids, etc. Now here’s something interesting. If you think about all the “classics” in literature, or all the movies of years ago the people still rave about, most of them were more than just entertainment. They either had important messages to tell or else they were crafted strongly enough around central themes that they held themselves up over the test of time. Alien, Lord of the Rings, Seven Samurai, The Odyssey, The Scarlet Letter.

I found a definition of artistry that I like a lot: “the selection and arrangement of elements in such a way that the artist's vision for the whole is fulfilled.” Artistic games present ideas and use every available element to support and enhance the presentation of those ideas. Maybe they explore a concept in depth. Maybe they reveal information that the artist deems important. Braid explored the concept of time manipulation. Portal has one mechanic and guides the player in using it in all sorts of ways. There are tons of Indie games that express things important to the creators.

Games are made up of several pieces. The player experience visual art, sound, story, and the game’s mechanics. These pieces can all work together to support each other, making a more compelling and artistic game. A case study: Braid. The story in Braid seemed to be about a fellow who was exploring the past and his decisions. The gameplay mechanics were all about manipulating time, and often reversing time to redo actions. The sound was designed to go along with the mechanics in that when the time slowed or reversed, so did the music and sound effects. It would be difficult to imagine how the visuals in a game could support a theme like time manipulation. Playing and watching the ending of Braid will give you a good idea how it can be done. Because all the elements of Braid are wound together and support the central ideas, I deem Braid to be an artistic game.

A game with a core concept or core mechanics, having all elements of the game designed to support, enhance, and explore the core, I consider art. I think artistic games stand the test of time and are still remembered long after they are made.

Extremely well balanced competitive games also stand the test of time. Chess, Risk, Magic: The Gathering, Soccer. One thing games can do that other forms of media can’t do is to provide competition. Sure, TV shows sports, but that’s showing a competition, it is not the competition itself. In fact, any competition you watch on TV is a game. Competitions are games. Video games can be played competitively like sports, player versus player. As examples, I propose Counterstrike, Halo, Starcraft, Modern Warfare, Team Fortress. Blizzard specially creates their games to be E-sports. Even in games not geared toward competitive play, people can compete to have the fastest speed runs, highest scores, or best character.

With the rate of competitive games being created now, there are new games at pro tournaments every few years. Sequels replace games, and new games come out that are better or more popular than earlier game. Maybe once console life cycles get longer, competitive games will last longer. Maybe (and I think probably) at some point there will be competitive video games that last as long as the sports and other games we know today. It is important to note that rules have changed in basically all competitively played games since they have been created. Chess has had rules added and changed since it was created. The shot clock in basketball. Ice skating scoring. Collectible card games have lists of banned and restricted cards that are always being updated. The evolution and iteration of games as sequels are developed might be on the same level as those changes. In that case, Halo games would be considered the evolution of the rules for the same core game, Unreal Tournament could be considered in the same way. Maybe competitive video games can stand the test of time.

Some games are historically significant. Sometimes that’s enough to make them popular, but usually not. Blizzard was not the first studio to make a MMOG, but it’s the one that most people will remember because it was done better. Whenever there is a significant innovation, people always seem to remember the first game to do it well, not the first game to just try it out. Perhaps there is a place, though, for innovative, ground-breaking games, but that’s going to be hit or miss, because you don’t know if your new innovation will stick. If your innovation doesn’t stick or isn’t done well, your game will be lost to obscurity like so many other games.

I guess my final point is that there are 3 types of video games: artistic games, competitive games, and forgettable games. What kind of games do you make?

Blog Check

My website is nearing completion, and this blog is one of the last things to be added. I have never had a blog before, but have decided that now is a good time to start. I'll keep you posted, internet.