Gameplay
Okay, this is a post for the people that like reading about level design, a big blink to Arcadia. So if you're not into video games, or not into aspects of their design, then I'd suggest you skip this little topic.
Today's third topic is gameplay. Now as you may know, gameplay is THE crucial part of a game that will either make it good, or bad. Surely the visual aspect of a game counts, as well as AI (if applicable), but gameplay is the most important part of a game, and that's why games should be focused on gameplay.
Gameplay is not just one aspect, dozens of little things have to be taken into account for gameplay to be good. First, there's the intuitive controls. Playing a video game, be it on PC or on a console, you like to be in control of things. The feeling that every action you take using your keyboard plus mouse, or controller, accurately reflects the actions performed in the game, is a first essential part of gameplay.
Secondly, there's the difficulty of a game. If a game is too simple, or too difficult, it's gameplay can be considered bad. The hard part with adjusting a game to a certain difficulty is that not every person who plays the game has the same amount of gaming experience/skill, as difficulty is a personal impression. Luckily, many games have the built-in option to adjust the game's difficulty to your own skill.
Thirdly, the entire visual/dynamic setup of the game must be believable. For instance, if you have a First Person Shooter game (FPS in short) in which you battle humans on loose platforms in the middle of space, it wouldn't be very believable. A naturesque setting in the woods, with a nice splashing waterfall and a rippling pond, however, make a much more enjoyable and plausible setting for such a game.
Those are all example aspects, if I covered all of them I'd still be typing here tomorrow, but the key with almost every single one of these elements is refinement. If an environment you can walk around in isn't refined, you'll find sloppy lack of detail or unfinished things you're not supposed to see, which we conveniently call bugs. If controls aren't defined, you can find the controls feel like you're walking on slippery ice, if the difficulty isn't refined enough, the game will only attract certain groups, either mainstream gamers, or their opposite, the hardcore gamers.
Now I'm going to be a little bit more specific, I'm going to discuss gameplay for one certain game, especially to please the UCMP team members who read this. Unreal Tournament 2004 is the game I'm currently designing maps for, and I'm lucky to be teamed up with a great bunch of people who have good knowledge of what they're doing, both with designing maps as in real life. All the sucking up aside, the UCMP team is focused on designing maps that primarily offer the gameplay players of the game are looking for in a map.
The gameplay dynamics for Unreal Tournament 2004 are very similar to most games within it's genre, which is FPS. Dynamic movement, balanced set of weapons/pickups, and action all around you. The key elements in bringing all this forward in a single map are easy to be listed, but often hard to live up to. To mention some of them; plenty of space, but not too much, plenty Z-axis, but again not too much, map layout with good flow, balanced and refined item/weapon placement, good AI, and a pretty sight to look at while playing. Though the last one I mentioned has hardly anything to do with gameplay, the believability of an environment often contributes to enjoying a match in that map. Taking all these things into account, you better know what you're doing when designing a map, because the community that receives it in the end can be very warm and friendly, but cold and hard as well.
I'll sign off with the promise that I will rant some more about applying gameplay to a map in the very near future...
Today's third topic is gameplay. Now as you may know, gameplay is THE crucial part of a game that will either make it good, or bad. Surely the visual aspect of a game counts, as well as AI (if applicable), but gameplay is the most important part of a game, and that's why games should be focused on gameplay.
Gameplay is not just one aspect, dozens of little things have to be taken into account for gameplay to be good. First, there's the intuitive controls. Playing a video game, be it on PC or on a console, you like to be in control of things. The feeling that every action you take using your keyboard plus mouse, or controller, accurately reflects the actions performed in the game, is a first essential part of gameplay.
Secondly, there's the difficulty of a game. If a game is too simple, or too difficult, it's gameplay can be considered bad. The hard part with adjusting a game to a certain difficulty is that not every person who plays the game has the same amount of gaming experience/skill, as difficulty is a personal impression. Luckily, many games have the built-in option to adjust the game's difficulty to your own skill.
Thirdly, the entire visual/dynamic setup of the game must be believable. For instance, if you have a First Person Shooter game (FPS in short) in which you battle humans on loose platforms in the middle of space, it wouldn't be very believable. A naturesque setting in the woods, with a nice splashing waterfall and a rippling pond, however, make a much more enjoyable and plausible setting for such a game.
Those are all example aspects, if I covered all of them I'd still be typing here tomorrow, but the key with almost every single one of these elements is refinement. If an environment you can walk around in isn't refined, you'll find sloppy lack of detail or unfinished things you're not supposed to see, which we conveniently call bugs. If controls aren't defined, you can find the controls feel like you're walking on slippery ice, if the difficulty isn't refined enough, the game will only attract certain groups, either mainstream gamers, or their opposite, the hardcore gamers.
Now I'm going to be a little bit more specific, I'm going to discuss gameplay for one certain game, especially to please the UCMP team members who read this. Unreal Tournament 2004 is the game I'm currently designing maps for, and I'm lucky to be teamed up with a great bunch of people who have good knowledge of what they're doing, both with designing maps as in real life. All the sucking up aside, the UCMP team is focused on designing maps that primarily offer the gameplay players of the game are looking for in a map.
The gameplay dynamics for Unreal Tournament 2004 are very similar to most games within it's genre, which is FPS. Dynamic movement, balanced set of weapons/pickups, and action all around you. The key elements in bringing all this forward in a single map are easy to be listed, but often hard to live up to. To mention some of them; plenty of space, but not too much, plenty Z-axis, but again not too much, map layout with good flow, balanced and refined item/weapon placement, good AI, and a pretty sight to look at while playing. Though the last one I mentioned has hardly anything to do with gameplay, the believability of an environment often contributes to enjoying a match in that map. Taking all these things into account, you better know what you're doing when designing a map, because the community that receives it in the end can be very warm and friendly, but cold and hard as well.
I'll sign off with the promise that I will rant some more about applying gameplay to a map in the very near future...
posted by Sjosz at 4:58:00 PM
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