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Groping The Map Level Design

Groping The Map: Liberty Island, Part 4.

“I warned him, you know. I said right to his face, ‘Don’t take weapons into the Lady. That makes you as bad as UNATCO.’” Annotated Walkthrough, 3: Heading to the right after leaving the South Dock you will pass the corpse of another UNATCO Trooper, this one armed solely with a Pepper Spray. So far […]

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Groping The Map Level Design

Groping The Map: Liberty Island, Part 3.

“Everything was clear an hour ago. Then, BOOM!” Annotated Walkthrough, 2: Stepping up the ramp from the South Dock, the first sight to meet you is likely the dead body of a UNATCO Trooper, lying on the path ignored by the patrolling NSF. Directly ahead there is a stone pillar of some sort, despite not […]

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Groping The Map Level Design

Groping The Map: Liberty Island, Part 2.

“They’d’ve replaced his whole body if it would’ve improved performance. If that’s how you judge a man — by performance — then eventually it’s not about people but upgrades, versions, functionality…” Annotated Walkthrough, 1: Several things are apparently from the moment you arrive on Liberty Island. The headless Statue Of Liberty is the most obvious […]

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Groping The Map Level Design

Groping The Map: Liberty Island, Part 1.

“The bots have them bottled up, sir. We’d go right in, if it weren’t for the hold-back order.” The second instalment of Groping The Map will be presented in multiple parts running over the next several weeks. Introduction. Annotated Walkthrough, 1: South Dock. Annotated Walkthrough, 2: Island exterior and UNATCO HQ. Annotated Walkthrough, 3: Island […]

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Game Design Level Design Narrative Design

Groping The Map: Introduction.

Next week witnesses the beginning of a new phase for this site. Starting Monday evening (GMT) Groping The Map is a series of in depth examinations of a single level. Each new instalment will see me take a detailed look at a game level from the past several years that has been personally memorable or […]

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Game Design

Different Vocabularies.

Games can be thought of as a language of communication by which the player communicates their intent through the use of nouns (Objects) and adverb-verb pairs (Actions) and the game responds by changing the adjectives (Properties) describing the nouns. The grammar of the game defines the type of sentences that have meaning within the current context; […]

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Game Design

The cost of killing.

What does it mean to kill a virtual character? In a strictly mechanical sense killing a character is a means of removing their ability to interact with other objects in the game world, it’s a state change from active to inactive. Playing through Deus Ex, with the Vintage Game Club, I’ve found that frequently myself and others […]

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Personal Favorites

Flatlander Woman.

Now that it’s done I’m starting to regret it. I said it in such a throwaway manner, I guess I wasn’t really certain it would have any effect. After all I’d seen first hand what Agent Navarre was capable of. It’s still hard to believe the power contained in those two words. I didn’t really have […]