After playing through the first 10 – 15 minutes of Jonathan Blow’s Game ‘Braid’ I found myself in yet another puzzle game just like ‘The Witness’. He used one key mechanic (Time - Braid) and (2 puzzles – The witness).
Braid was entirely hand painted which for me made the game stand out more to me as a developer, I felt like the game was a piece of art all on its own. The aesthetic was appealing to the eye and the colors were amazing as well. The setting is washed out and quickly resembles Mario, mainly because of the pipes, flag and princess but that’s beside the point. After the success of Braid, Jonathan poured his profits into The Witness which had been in development from 2009, Jonathan decided to take 3D under his belt and learnt how to do things in a unique way. Braid; in contrast to The Witness, players are limited to basic movement schemes. Also, at first glance players are given the ‘Freedom’ effect in which players feel like they can go anywhere. However, they are actually limited by how much they know. For example, in Braid you can move to and from worlds with little information received, but as future progresses and information is gathered through the levels (puzzles, level design and verticality), the player can quickly and easily complete the puzzles from the past. From a design stand point this is the safest and easiest way to develop a game with little to no real ground breaking mechanics that you have never seen before. But, it's one completely solid mechanic that you can play around with in many different ways and polish the world around it. The Witness uses this to its advantage, as the puzzles are situated on panels on walls and objects. These puzzles can be seen throughout the entire game not only on these structures but also within the world. Let me re-word that, LITERALLY in the world. Path ways, clouds, trees, corridors and anything that looks like a line can be connected to a puzzle. This got me to thinking as to weather or not Jonathan had this in mind since the start of The Witness. It had been in development shortly after Braid was released which makes sense right? What if there was something more to the two games other than the obvious. This would mean me taking more time in both games and researching a fair bit more, but for now I can only speculate on the subject matter. To conclude Braid was a 90's retro styled game created in GameMaker – this meant that Jonathan had limitations to what he could use (sprites, animations, physics etc.) But with The Witness he had full control and with the idea, came an entire world filled with puzzle and mystery. This mystery is what I believe Jonathan has explored through the median of games. With his games taking inspiration from popular content and mixing it with his own flare to give it a good word. Textures and materials are key to making a scene look good. From what our lecturer was teaching us today, here is my example of a quick 2-3 hour gathering of textures from Google, creating PBR textures in Photoshop and joining them together in a scene I created in Blender. To give contrast here is the reference image I tried to match. This is an example of one of the materials used in the picture seen behind the glass walls, I merged two textures together and removed the rust color from the original image. The scene was put together knowing that the other rooms, outside area and back walls wont exist.
Playerunknown's Battlegrounds (or PUBG for short) is a game based on war and conflict between 30-100 people per session. The game is a first-person shooter where you start the game inside of an airplane. You choose on the map where you want to drop and parachute to where you alone playing solo or with your team. Once landed, you must very quickly start looting the zone because if someone else is with you it’s a battle to the death. Over the past two weeks, I've played a great ordeal of this game and came to know the map solely from looking at the terrain instead of the maps landmarks. Both from geological structures but also the colors, height and terrain monuments. For instance, the two images below are one of the map, and one of a player parachuting below into a city. Before I tell you, if you don't already know where he is trying to land, I want you to try and guess based off the map and land marks that the second image shows you.
This game shows examples of many of these landmarks which make it very easy to navigate, especially for inexperienced players. Even for players such as myself, I could say to my team: “Hey I’m heading over the wheat field now” and the team would know exactly where I’m going.
By investigating a more in depth perspective of what I interpret about the game, I will try and decipher what is happening in the greater scheme of things. Players are prisoners sentenced to death and the only escape is to fight against other players in a world that has been contaminated with radio activity. Since you play in an abandoned world where no people live and everything is left in place, you would assume natural or nuclear war is coming or has come. Perhaps the blue zone is what everyone was warned about and are fleeing for safety. The people running the games are millionaires that watch from afar and place bids on players for their own greed and fun. Prior to this assignment, we were given a lecture about abstract art and how these tie into the real world. How to differentiate between two or more types of abstract thinking. By breaking down some of my own conclusions on my take of an abstract game such as Memory Of a Broken Dimension (MOBD) I hope to understand what this game is trying to tell me.
MOBD is a game developed by Ezra Hanson-White (XRA) set to release in 2017. You start the game with a command prompt shell that allows the player to enter code into what appears to be a database infrastructure of memories from someone or something. Playing through the first minute or so you begin to notice what you had written beforehand starts to be forgotten or broken, this could be a symbolic gesture of time or desolation of memories. You start mindlessly typing and imputing various commands into the shell console, if smart enough you will eventually enter one of the memories. The first memory that I came across starts you inside of a cube like room where if you walk into one of the sides you appear on the other side like Pacman. The screen is all distorted and jumbled with lines and filters that make up 70% of the screen. Dense parts of the screen make out what looks like a stone or rock bridge man made structure leading upward into a hole or entrance into another part of the memory. This may mean that this is the entrance or gateway into what is to come or perhaps the comfort bubble people describe as their 'getting to know someone' stage. The structure has no collision and you simply walk through it. Once you get to know the game you understand that they want you to see things from their perspective, as you do this, only then can you emerge from the outer layer of understanding and truly grasp what the developer is trying to tell you. To see things, you must walk over a line that sprouts up out of the ground with a cube indicating perhaps a camera or lense. You stand there looking around until a white haze lights up the bridge structure. The bridge becomes walkable and you can step fourth into the next stage of the memories. As for the next part of the story I was left utterly confused and ended up walking into nothing for ten minutes before I gave up. Overall the game has depth uncompromised and open to many interpretations. This was my view on what the world was trying to tell me as the player. Games like these don’t often intrigue me but for some reason I can see my life or at least a part of my life with that starting CMD screen where people may try to get to know me, and after a brief period of trying I may let them see who I really am. But then again this is just a game isn’t it. Welcome one, welcome all to RPGLand where if you are brave enough to venture onward and conquer your fears and desires, you too could posses the power of the Gods.
Journey through lands with your companions alongside you, collect gear, level up and trade with other players. You will see through your venture that with power comes hardship as you must choose to turn against or stand together with your party, split off into separate zones or fight between yourselves. There are four main attractions that make you eager to progress. Leveling from 1-30 building up towards your first boss fight in the colored kingdom where your skills will be put to three tests before you venture into the harsh abyss of the winter highlands. Onward through your first dungeon in the castle and topped off with a grinding path to the final boss where at the end of each day everyone comes together to fight together. The navigation tools used in Bioshock are particular with directing the player to their destination using various landmarks and signposting. Bioshock draws highly on lighting techniques such as rim lighting around certain objects that you need to interact with and highlighting places that you need to go. Since Bioshock is a first person rpg which draws attention to the player through the use of light and monument placements. For example, at the start of the game there is fire is surrounding the player which acts as an invisible wall leading the player. In the distance a pale white plane wing which has a point or spot light cast above it. This draws the player's attention with a recognizable difference within the setting. Upon reaching the plane's wing your attention is lead towards a lighthouse. Cascading in front of the moon and clouds which convey the mystery of the situation. The light house has steps that are clearly seen. Atop is a huge door that allows the player to enter the monument, this is easily navigable from the player's perspective as the game leaves breadcrumbs for the player to nibble upon (lights that light up when near). Once inside you are greeted by flickering lights and a huge statue with a tie like figure in the shape of an arrow that points towards two doors making it apparent the player must head down. The game further uses lights as the main guiding system with the use of shadow silhouettes, colors and reflections. After the initial story telling from the mysterious character on the radio you’re able to move around a dark and gloomy area which is clearly leading the player with the use of carpets and broken doors. With only one possible way to go I navigate myself through to another small cinematic. At which a monstrous human diver kills a splicer in front of you. Going further through you are confronted by another splicer but he gets chased off by some kind of robot thing. The game drops for you a Wrench at which you gain the ability to attack, again through the use of a spotlight pointing out the weapon. A short cut-scene happens and you are told to break through into the next area of the level. This implementation got me thinking that there might be multiple paths within any area thus forward. I found myself hitting random objects to see if there is anything I can go though. After a kerfuffle with some splicers (enemy within the game) another signposting happens and draws your attention to a crazed woman speaking into what appears to be a cot with a baby inside. After defeating the lady you notice that within the cot is a gun at which point empowering the player to feel less afraid to proceed to explore. I found myself surrounded by robots and other splicers and died at this point as I rushed in feeling “Strong”, since the demo set me back a fair bit this is where I ended my experience. What I discovered however is that Bioshock plays heavily on lighting and very little to no writing to tell the player where to go, it all seems apparent which is a great use of world design.
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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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