For this weeks blog, I've analysed that pacing of the third level in my team Contrary Scholar's current production, KLEPTO - Space Thief.
For the most part, I think that the pacing of the level is pretty good. It does gradually increase in difficulty, there are sections of increased excitement, and there are rest periods where the player pauses to take in the scenery. There's also rest periods where the player collects pickups. It's perhaps not as steady as it could be, but it does have a sense of increasing difficulty. The nice long rest section leading up to the final grappling section is quite effective. After solving the second box puzzle, the player stands on a platform that zooms up to the final challenge, starting off slowly and gradually speeding up. This gives the player a quick rest before attempting the final challenge, but also amps them up as it increases in speed towards the top. Players tend to be 'in the zone' most of the time, and are only pulled out of flow when they fall during grappling sections, so these are possibly too hard too soon. THE CAMERA DESIGN OF JAK III
The camera design of Jak III was the most refined of the series so far, and was the pinnacle of third-person camera design at the time. It utilised classic third person camera techniques, such as those developed in Super Mario 64, and refined them to create a very fluid responsive camera system. This was of huge importance in such a fast-paced action-adventure game, with an emphasis on combat, speed and verticality. The camera in Jak III is a dynamic third-person camera. This means that while most sections of the game give full control to the player, it does have some subtle automation. For example, if the player jumps, the camera pans up slightly, and also rotates upwards slightly, making sure that the player can see whatever it is that they are jumping up to. Another example of this, is as the player heads down a slope, the camera often shifts to a slightly higher angle, rotated to face downwards. This is again to reveal what the player is heading down towards. If the player is stationary, they are free to move the camera as they like, but as the player moves, the camera automatically follows and tracks the player, making it easier to focus on the task at hand, removing the distraction of having to control the camera. Without these three techniques, a game that requires a lot of jumping, and heading both up and down in levels would feel extremely unfair, as the camera would often occlude obstacles in the player’s path that deviate from a straight or horizontal route. Being a dynamic camera has some other bonuses as well. Jak III, while being first and foremost a platformer game, also has heavy combat elements, including the use of guns and projectiles. In a first-person-shooter game (FPS), the player’s reticle or cross-hairs indicate where the player’s weapon will fire a projectile. This is very clear, and if the player misses, they generally understand that it was because they didn’t line up the reticle with the target correctly. In a third person camera perspective, however, it’s not so easy to aim a weapon, as you can’t stare down it’s sights. A lot of games opt for a lerp between a third to first person camera with the push of a button in shooting sections, and this works in a game with a lot of tactical shooting. But Jak III is a platformer, so instead the developers built the world and it’s levels around this limitation, instead of slowing the pace of the game down during shooting sections. The camera in combat sections will often pan up to a higher view, allowing the player to see more of their surroundings. This helps the player orient themselves to face the enemies they wish to engage. Automatic locking on, and a laser sight help the player understand which enemy they are aiming their weapon at. To further aid the camera, the levels are built in a way that enemies can be placed in rows, in succession, or in a way that flows well, and feels good as the player runs and guns through the levels. Designing your game so that the camera is an integral element is extremely important, and the harmony that Jak III strikes between it’s level design and camera design makes the game a very fluid experience. After all, not noticing the camera is a sign that it’s a good one. For this blog post, I decided upon the neo-futurist movement, and decided to use the famous Zaha Hadid as my influence. One of her designs, the Wangjing SOHO, designed for SOHO China, is a neo-futurist complex comprised of three curvilinear asymmetrical skyscrapers. I wanted to create a cityscape scene with similar architecture, from a low angle at a certain time of day. I wanted there to be organic shapes, as well as reflective surfaces, so as to capture the sun's reflections. Der Spiegel describes Hadid’s designs as ‘resembling curved sails that appear to swim across the surface of the earth’, and to this end, I wanted to create a scene that reflected this image.
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World design theory (WDT)DevelopersThe goal of this blog is to relate current and past attempts at world design to further improve our understanding. Archives
October 2017
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