More Bad Game Design Decisions
Okay - now after my lame counter earlier this week to that manifesto, here's a link to Earnest Adam's ever popular "Bad Game Designer: No Twinkie" series at GamaSutra (free registration required):

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050603/adams_01.shtml

Earnest Adams has probably forgotten more about game design than I've ever known, so even though these "Twinkie Denial Situations" were recommended by others, they come with his recommendation.

The one about crates in particular caused me to smile. I hadn't actually THOUGHT about that, but anyone who's ever worked in a warehouse would probably get very annoyed by this. That's another one of those "game conventions" that just appear because they are really convenient - mainly because they allow level designers to clutter up a level and make them interesting without taking extreme liberties with how human architecture. We don't usually build our office buildings with lots of cover in the hallways for battling terrorists or alien invaders.

So ... I'm working on a game right now that's not an FPS, but it is a modern-era game. So I am gonna state right now that I'm going to try to have NO CRATES in my game. Destroyable or otherwise. This is painful to me personally, because my modeling skills are pretty crappy, but I know crates are one of those few things I can actually do a decent job on...

But by the completely UNBIASED Old Man Murray rating system, my game should be a critical masterpiece!

The "Easy Mode" thing - man. That falls into the same category as the "Save Point" issue - frankly, game developers don't want their game to be finished too quickly. It's the equivalent to the "filler" inside of hot dogs, I guess. High-quality content takes a lot of time and effort (and money), especially if you want to look like anything remotely resembling current-generation. As a result, games really HAVE become much smaller on consoles. But if you don't want your game to be played through in a single rental period, you need to figure out a way to make sure the game LASTS more than five hours. So what do you do?

You can add more content, or you can reduce the rate that the player consumes content.

The latter can be done a few different ways. You can make the game replayable (like the popular '90's standby - the fighting game), you can add variations to the same content (like make the player race the same track backwards and at night...), or you can simply slow their progression. The higher difficulty and forced repitition (through limited game saves) is a popular way to do it.

I've been guilty of going overboard on final bosses at times. The final boss in "Outwars" was just so insanely nasty that I think I only beat him three or four times without cheats - and I was the one in charge of writing the AI and balancing the level. I definitely deserved to have my twinkie taken away for that one.

Of all of the Twinkie Denial Conditions in the recent installment, the camera-angle thing is probably my greatest frustration as a gamer. One of the saddest things about the advent of 3D gaming is how horribly the camera ruins the action in so many games. Third-person shooters are the worst. Nothing kills my enjoyment of a game as quickly as suddenly not being able to see my targets (or accurately hit them) because the camera bumped into a wall and decided to pan around to give me a close-up of my character's crotch while I'm desperately trying to fight and dodge sixteen opponents with rocket launchers. Beautiful cinematic cameras to show off your pixel-shaded levels and brilliant lighting effects are great and everything - but when it prevents me from playing and enjoying your game, you have FAILED.

Labels: Game Design

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:19 PM (Permalink)