Elements of Game Design, Part 4: Environment

As the years go by these become for more visually stunning and become more interactive and explorative than ever before. A level designer needs to give instruction to guarantee flowing gameplay, but not so much that it is obvious to the play. There still needs to be a challenge and a sense of discovery once you uncover the next task or stage of the game.

So many aspects of an environment can influence the atmosphere. The biggest being lighting and weather. How the light plays with object surfaces and textures can really highlight and intensify the desired atmosphere. Dark and gloomy lighting, with stormy weather can obviously create a very sinister feel, whereas a breaking dawn with a beautiful sunrise, casting an autumn coloured glow, would to create a feeling of hope and adventure, a new beginning. Scenery and surrounding also influence the aesthetics of a game environment. Built up cities, or open fields support many different ways of gameplay. Open fields and wide spacing, leave players to roam, giving a wide scope of exploration. A city environment could be controlled, cities are mapped out in real life to create flow, allowing people to reach certain destinations, this is true of video games also. Even though a huge city would leave room for exploration, but many games that use this type of layout are usually quite linear, you go in a certain direction to reach a certain goal.

Depending on the game style/genre, the levels of realism and stylisation have to be measured carefully. As well as other things, the environment of a game plays a key role in making a player believe the world they are in. With greater technology as the years progress, the level of realism to the visual graphics of a game has reached high levels, with recent releases, it becomes more and more difficult to determine what is real and what is game graphics. Such as the very recent release Tomb Rader, I personally was stunned by the graphics and the quality of realism that was obviously present. In terms of whether an environment is physically possible to recreate in our world, the level and practical realism is a rough area. For me, if It looks right and doesn’t bend any laws of physics, then it wouldn’t drag me out of my gameplay. But I love highly stylised visuals just as much as I love revolutionary, highly realistic looking graphics. The environments in games such as final fantasy 10 and Halo are visually stunning and encapsulating, and have just as bigger impact as realistic environments, but it is entirely dependent on the genre of the game.   

Personally one of the most amazingly breath-taking environment I’ve seen of recent belong to ‘That Game Company’ title Journey. Its style is highly simplistic but simple beautiful. The environments rage from huge desert, to an underwater world, to a winter wonderland. They are all environments, unlike any others. They were so well executed that you could feel the cold when battle through the snow storm, my throat felt dry when wondering through the dessert. Everything was so complimentary even though you went from sand to snow, hot to cold, everything still flowed. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2012/nov/21/journey-emotional-game-design

 

Environments in games give it identity and style. So much can be said through just how a building looks, or how an environments flows from one extreme to another. Without cleverly executed and though out environments, games would not have that power that they have on the human mind and allowing us to explore the form of escapism it gives us. 

Elements of Game Design, Part 3: Character

A set of interesting and well-designed character are what drive a game and its story. Characters help us, the viewer, form a bond with what’s happen around us, giving us a first person insight into the world we are driven to explore. They help us interact and be a part of the story. In books, TV and film this is also apparent. Seeing a characters emotion and reaction to situations, we are able to see for ourselves, we see into the characters mind and empathise with this person in front of us, bearing our soul. In games you do anything to stop your character from dying or being injured, there is an embedded fear of being attacked or anything bad happening to a character. It makes us cautious, we change how we are, our mood, our body language, anything and everything to do whatever it takes to make sure your character succeeds by any means necessary. It's this bond that immerses our emotions into a game, as the link below shows, all be it in very extreme ways:  

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57562235-71/dad-hires-hit-men-to-kill-sons-video-game-characters/ 

From personal experience of characters in games, I grew a close bond to a certain game. To say these characters felt like family is highly cliché, but there is no other way to describe it. I saw these character from a young age and they have always been in my memory. I’m talking about final fantasy 7………again, but this shows what I mean by how much this game means to me and how much it has impacted my outlook on life. 

To me every aspect of the game, makes it the perfect game, but a big part is the characters. Even though technology wasn't its best at the time, to the point where the characters couldn't even speak, but this didn't stop characters from developing personalities. Everybody is seen and ‘heard’ even though they don’t speak. This is where script comes in, and how it is more important that the script is right. With modern games, the script is still important but it’s the voice acting that makes the script shine. Back in the days of final fantasy 7, the player had to gauge a characters emotion from written words alone. Script in terms of punctuation was crucial. Sure it could make for lengthy conversation and cut scenes having to read what a character is saying, but it still managed to grip you and keep on hanging onto every last word. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjmEl7KmqS0 

In a game like Metal Gear Solid 4, acting and body language played huge parts in the cut scenes. Again, as the above video shows, the cut scenes are lengthy in this game, and I did find myself fading in and out of conversation, but it was the acting and body language that distracted me. The emotion in characters faces and the pain in there body when they twist and contort, makes for a realistic, believable scenario. 

To me, a story that shows in depth character development and a heavy focus on an interestingly intricate story line, is key to a memorable experience. Whether it be film, TV, books or games, a story can be gripping when all the ingredients are well balanced and of good quality. Characters help us become part of the story. We look for qualities in the characters that we can also see in ourselves. This gives us connections, makes us feel a part of what we’re viewing and this is so true in computer games, more so than any other form of media.

Elements of Game Design, part 2: Art Direction for Games

Art direction in games is a crucial part of the development process for a game. The art direction tells us, and the people working on it how to make things look and feel. This makes or breaks how a player reacts and immerses themselves within a game. Without it a game would have little or no identity. The art director is responsible for pretty much everything a game has to offer visually. They are responsible for the overall look of a game, this relates to everything from textures to cracks in the walls, they decide how things should look in order to keep in line with the theme and tone that has been decided upon. http://my.safaribooksonline.com/159200430X/ch11lev1sec2?portal=oreilly

This role requires a highly creative mind and a visionary type of character. Someone who is always thinking ahead and constantly thinking of the work ahead of them. Ways to improve and to better the quality of work they have to produce as a team. To make an exceptional art director, you don’t only need creative flare; something that is just as important is a good team leader. As is stated in this link http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3115/common_methodologies_for_lead_.php :

“The best teams I've worked with had an art director and lead artist who worked closely together and respected each other's roles. They communicated openly. They agreed upon the visual direction of the product and discussed their respective responsibilities that were required to carry out the execution of the design. Not surprisingly, they were relatively stress-free teams. With the definitions out of the way, we can look at the methodologies and stages of production the lead may encounter.”

In order for a team to create a highly detailed, flowing game, that has all the qualities the art director is looking for, they need to have close communication with everyone on the team. Collaboration is another crucial part of art development, many ideas working well together is usually a highly successful technique if done properly. Collaboration cannot work without good communication and understanding of one another. A team leader (art director) needs to be able to collect ideas from different areas and work them together. This calls for decision making, every decision counts to the end result in some way and it’s up to the art director to make these tough decisions. 

Game art direction is one daunting role to be a part of, let alone be the leader of. In comparison to an art director in film, the roles are quite similar. According to the step by step guide on wiki how, http://www.wikihow.com/Become-an-Art-Director-in-Film an art director has to design a set, right down to the smallest detail. This is similar to an art director for a games company, designing an environment then deciding what to use and what not to use. However from reading the above webpage, it seems to be much more of a solo career in the films industry then in games. There seems to be little collaboration or signs of working with a team. Also, an art director has to choose the feel and mood, and set the vibe for the entire game through its visuals. This stretches beyond the environments, and right to characters and vehicles as well.

From this comparison, I understand just how much an art director has to take on when helping to create a game. As well as having to lead a team, it adds further social pressure compared to a more solitude design process that an art director for a film would have to endure. Game production has such a wide scope and needs a lot of peoples help. Communication in order to make the story flow from its different areas of creation, seems crucial to making an iconic game. 

Elements of Design, Part 1: From Pong to next Generation

As technology and people’s exposure to so much more of the world becomes more imminent, the next generation of games have to keep up and follow along with the rest of the media. With the arrival of next generation hardware, we were given highly realistic and believable surroundings. This undoubtedly sparked our imagination, but was there a specific reason for this? Games in terms of plot don’t hugely differ from own to another. There are goodies and badies, you against another, in order to succeed you must be the best at what ever task it is that is in your way. 

Gameplay allows us to do things we could not normally do. It is escapism, and all areas of a game must work together to make it successful. Industry wants to sell and starting with Pong, the selling point was it was new and technological for its time. Ping pong could now be played on screen and you had to beat your opponent in order to succeed. The look was minimal purely due to the available technology at this time. Comparing computer games with traditional board games is often done, but for what reason. Board games are constrained and rule bound, there is a certain way to play and a certain way to win. With game play or ‘play’, especially with modern hardware, there are so many different ways to play, the world is yours to explore and in your own way and on your own terms. 

Next generation games allow play instead of just taking part in a game. You are the main attraction in whatever world you desire to be a part of. Ranging from different types of playing style to the interactivity that different platforms have to offer. The task of designing is a team effort resulting in pages and pages of story idea’s, character, genre, environment style, play type etc.   http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2156/game_design_theory__practice_.php  

These however, sometimes back fire, (hyperlink above explains) overload of ideas and cramming the entire game is too constrained, (almost like the rules of a board game) Designing a game, especially in the early stages is all about concept, the main idea and theme, which from that further development in production will shape the story line and other key aspects of the game. The genre inspires all visual and indeed plot aspects of the game, and would require research into past games that are the same genre. No matter how much a game claims to be new and innovative there will always be some past game,that was used for research purposes. It’s unavoidable, you need to know what your competitors are promising and see what you can do that’s different, and that’s all the games industry is, ‘One-up’ manship. From the dawn of computer games like Pong, to the present, there has always been one company, one game genre at some point that was above the rest. Games will continue to try and get better until nothing more can be done. 

Impossible right? Where the future is heading for games is very uncertain, I’m sure when people first got to experience Pong they never thought the virtual and physical would eventually be one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VKptjKW83Q