Mirror's Edge, Player Psychology and the Implied Designer

(screenshot by Dead End Thrills)

Over on Wesley Tack's blog, he's posted some screenshots / comments about how he approached the Mall chapter of Mirror's Edge. Check it out.

(NOTE: I criticize the level a lot in this post. It's not because I dislike Wesley or DICE or the game. It's because I think it represents a popular way of thinking about levels, a way that I dislike. No offense is intended. Let's all be super friends, criticizing each other constructively.)

I think his commentary is most insightful when talking about the development process, like when he moved the highway portion to the upper part to save himself the time of actually building the highway / when he replaces all the BSP to minimize seams. I have to say though, some of his player psychology assumptions don't really strike me as correct. For instance, when he says:

[the mall logo] is visible in almost every section of the level and guides the player in the correct direction at all times

... That wasn't my experience playing at all. I only went that direction because there was nowhere else to go; it wasn't because the narrative told me I was supposed to go to the mall (I was disinterested in the developer-authored story by then) or because I was "guided" by the logo. I never even looked up for long enough to notice the red "Ne" logo there. I was too busy looking for red props to follow, or trying not to die arbitrarily from the gunfire.

And then I ended up at the mall somehow...?

Predictions for HL2: Episode Three

Inspired by Phillip's poll question "Who Should Die in Episode 3?"... I humbly present some predictions.

(Spoiler alert for events in HL2: Episode Two, naturally.)

• In the first act, Barney will appear in a sequence where he "rescues" you from a dangerous situation. It will be unexpected and totally out of the blue, but welcome. (He was absent from Episode Two. We "forgot" about him, so when he re-appears, it'll be great.) He and Alyx will talk; he'll find out Eli is dead, and grieve or something. He'll stick around with you for a bit, just long enough to lead you into a new gameplay mechanic, and then get in a helicopter or something and disappear.
• Dog will do something cool and totally non-interactive, several times.
• Probably no Antlions. They're kind of over-used now. There'll be another faction / NPC type to replace them.
• You will ride some sort of snowmobile.
• You will kill at least one Advisor as revenge, probably in the middle of the game. Alyx will find partial catharsis from helping you kill the Advisor, but ultimately realize that it doesn't bring Eli back.
• There will be a scene where Alyx tells Mossman that Eli is dead. It'll be sad and stuff, and the two will bond over this and come to an understanding. You'll be locked in the room with them as this happens.
• Mossman will fully redeem herself, accompany you into the final act, then die, imploring you to "finish the job," whatever that may be. She'll also say something that implies her last thoughts involve feelings for Eli, but in a subtle way because Valve isn't vulgar about these things.
• The Borealis will be Valve's attempt at "The Cradle." (Or that's more like a hope on my part.)
• Valve will either update water physics somehow, or update some kind of ice deformation thing. The arctic environment will drive them to update some kind of technology, because the masked alpha blend snow shader for displacements (back for DoD: S) isn't going to cut it anymore.
• All these predictions are completely wrong.

What are yours?

Close Reading: Inside Job

Inside Job by Richard Perrin is a short stealth game in Unity with (what is, at least to me,) a very obvious source of inspiration that's well-executed. It's also not very difficult. Give it a shot. (from this week's TIG Source round-up)

The blocky characters and funny / fantastic static cutscene style also remind me of Increpare's Infidelidad, which is also short and easy and fun. ("NIPPLES!!")

Spoiler thoughts after the jump!! (No, seriously, just play this first. It'll take you, like, all of 7 minutes.)

Levels to Look Out For (October)

"Levels to Look Out For" are work in progress / recently released maps around the modding community. I like them, and you should like them too.

 > lun3dm5, by Matt "Lunaran" Breit and Andrew "KungFuSquirrel" Weldon
A classic Quake 3 Arena floater developed as a side project by an adorable environment artist-level designer duo that used to work at Raven Software but now at Lightbox Interactive. Inspired by the brutalist sci-fi paintings of Peter Gric, who apparently really likes concrete and ambient occlusion. The detail blocks are procedurally generated by a magical Python script / Maya thingmajig that will someday gain sentience and replace all game developers.

> Call of the Fireflies, by Clément "Corwin" Melendez
An atmospheric puzzle-based journey in Crysis. The visual mood is excellent -- I can practically hear the sound of silence, simply from looking at these screenshots. Unfortunately I can't vouch for the gameplay at all because I'll never own a copy of Crysis, but Corwin is doing a lot of testing so I'm sure it'll be just lovely.

The Philosophy of Game Design (part 1)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_273/8159-The-Philosophy-of-Game-Design-part-1

The 1st part (of 4) of my "philosophy of game design" series is now up on The Escapist. I only started to get into philosophy a few months ago, so please excuse me if I make all kinds of horrible mistakes in my argumentation. My main mentor here was a neo-Aristotelian rabbi in a "philosophy of education" context that I tried to stretch over to a philosophy of game design.

Publishing is always really weird and scary for me.

Plus, the complexity of the philosophy on offer here is probably "wildly inaccurate junior high textbook" level at best. If you're really interested in the nuances of the subject, you should go read Wikipedia so you know what the hell Heidegger might be saying -- and then go read the actual texts and decide for yourself.

And now that I've exposed my vulnerability and emotional insecurity, proceed to kick my ass in the article comments. Thanks.

Visions From the Future

"Byzantine Perspective," an exclusive exhibition of both ancient and modern artists from Istanbul, presented by the New Urban Museum of Brooklyn; runs from November 1st to February 28th. To get there by NYC Subway, just take the K Train to the 6th Ave station.

Apparently HL2 Mods About Gay Divorce are "Hot Shit"

http://www.news.sjsu.edu/22440/learn-to-play-art-exhibit-brings-video-games-as-art-to-cupertino

Marek Kapolka, president of San Jose State’s game development club and a senior sculpture and experimental media major, helped set up the exhibit and comb through the submissions the exhibit received.

One game that stuck out to him was “Radiator 1-2, Handle with Care,” by Robert Yang, because of the game’s use of gameplay mechanics to communicate it’s meaning.

Kapolka said he thinks the game is “hot shit.”

Thanks for the shout out, Marek. You're simply adorable.

Mod Auteurs: Brendon "Blender81" Chung (part 3, The Puppy Years)

"The Puppy Years" was Brendon Chung's last single player mod for Half-Life 1, released in August 2004. (Previously: Part 1 and Part 2 and the lost but found Droptank Oscar)

(Critical bug in current release: the "slow motion" effect is broken; I imagine he used a version of the host_timescale hack by using mp_timelimit as a toggleable variable. However, the mp_timelimit value does not properly transfer into host_timescale. Every time you will want to use slow motion, you will have to go into the console and type something like host_timescale 0.0001 -- or, alternatively, bind it to a key via bind y "host_timescale 0.0001" or something like that.)

In some ways, it's the most disappointing. It has a great premise (a super-charged stealth spy baby that can climb walls / slow time) and has a great feel to it and Brendon is resourceful as ever with the hacks he uses... but unlike "Bugstompers," the narrative is really lacking here.

(spoiler alert is in effect!)

In fact, there's not much plot at all: you spawn. You do a fun tutorial. You get sent on a mission. Then you come back and everything goes to shit. (In some ways, this is a precursor to Gravity Bone in terms of playing with FPS single player structure; you expect a second mission, you expect the game to go one way -- but then it doesn't.)

Compare this against Bugstompers, which has a really great narrative / character moment in the middle. In the Puppy Years, there aren't any well-defined characters other than the player character. Which gets a little boring. Who's my enemy? What, exactly, is happening? You never really know.

But still, there's a genuine innovation here...