“Ol’ Andy rambles on about the Great Chain… I got people shellin’ out to pull it for me!” Annotated Walkthrough, 3: The concept of a crumbling apartment building is hardly a new one, Max Payne, Condemned 2: Bloodshot and BioShock have all included representations of such locations. They are familiar places, safe places, made explicitly […]
Category: Level Design
Analysis of specific concepts related to level design, what works, what doesn’t and why.
“… a whole city tuggin’ at the same dollar bill.” Annotated Walkthrough, 2: Officially designated simply ‘Pumps’ the area known to all as Skid Row, has become the Market district of Pauper’s Drop where what little it’s denizens have is bartered and traded for something just a little better. In order to gain access to […]
“There ain’t a side of the tracks more wrong than under ’em.” Annotated Walkthrough, 1: Stepping onto the platform at the start of the level one thing is immediately clear, this place is dirty. Compared to the luxuriant excess of the Adonis, or the manufactured joviality of Ryan Amusements, Pauper’s Drop feels old, decrepit. Designed […]
“And now you come swanning into my neighbourhood looking for me? Wrong turn, tin daddy.” This first instalment of Groping The Map will be presented in multiple parts, running over the next several weeks: Introduction. Annotated Walkthrough, 1: Diner and Downtown. Annotated Walkthrough, 2: Market. Annotated Walkthrough, 3: Sinclair Deluxe. Combat in The Drop: Encounter […]
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 […]
In the interests of pacing it’s not uncommon for action games, and first person shooters in particular, to vary the style of gameplay over the course of the game as a whole, and over the course of individual levels. This variation of gameplay style leads to a variation in the aesthetic experience of play, and […]
Categories
Exploring the Territory.
Games are about the exploration of space, both in the physical sense of exploring a virtual environment, and the abstract sense of exploring the possibility space provided by the game; the mechanics available and the dynamics that develop from them. In both cases there are two distinct types of explorable territory: functional and logical. The […]
Categories
Tension.
Aristotle understood the power of suspense, of tension. The unknown is vital for both good drama and good games. Without some degree of uncertainty regarding events there is little tension, little drama. Though often the overall outcome is not where this uncertainty lies. In a single-player games we know that if we keep playing for long enough we will […]