There seems to be an infatuation not unique to the gaming community that single-use definitions
of concepts like "good level design" are useful.
What one game finds successful, another will find a travesty.
Yet, two games can benefit from the same tactic.
Any design decision is so highly contextual that not only its success but also its function
is highly dependent on the game in which it's packaged.
Even the absence of a particular design tactic can be beneficial or contradictory to the
final goal.
To illustrate this point, I will be using Dishonored and Assassin's Creed 2.
I suggest either playing these games or checking out my individual analyses on them to further
understand all of the points I'll be making.
First, I'll discuss why a comparison between these two games are valid, then I'll get
into all the details about how they can learn from each other.
This comparison is interesting because its analysis reveals a kind of sandwich of how
they relate to each other.
The top piece of bread is the superficial look at how the two games are related, showing
that they are: They both claim to be about stealth and involve it to varying degrees;
they both feature guards as the primary obstacle throughout the game; they both feature navigational
freedom for how the player can arrive at the objective; both protagonists are assassins;
and they both allow different tools to complete the objective.
Looking at it slightly more deeply shows that they don't deserve to be compared at all
because it's comparing apples and oranges.
This is the ingredients of the sandwich in the middle that has all the lettuce and meat
and all that stuff.
They're completely different because while AC2 is about following and assassinating people
as its primary draw, Dishonored involves legitimate problem solving, and multiple playstyles,
and chaos, and supernatural powers.
But the bottom slice of bread is a return to the beginning because looking even deeper
into the games shows that they're intrinsically linked: How both games include guards as the
main obstacle does most of the heavy lifting here, but other aspects like the pursuit of
a very specific target while the player is given freedom to move about the environment,
and the system of enemy awareness in the form of notoriety or alertness are also present.
Now, you might be thinking that I'm playing fast and loose with these descriptions because
you could use them to describe the Grand Theft Auto games, although they're all quite different
games.
This "intrinsic link" between AC2 and Dishonored is not exclusive to only those
two games.
And you might be thinking I'm trying to deceive you into perceiving they have a unique
special bond even though they don't.
But.
. . a few things.
I would like to simply say that one should just use their intuition regarding which games
deserve to be compared to one another, but the caveat is that intuition varies between
people and not everyone's intuition is correct, so how do you reconcile these inconsistencies?
The answer is, "I don't know," quite frankly.
And coming up with a set of rules or principles regarding how games should relate to each
other Would Be Infatuating Over Single-Use Definitions, [WHISPERING] and. . . and if
you forgot, tha- that's uhh th- the thesis of this video that's uhh. . . it'sss it's
in the introductory p- paragraph.
. . btw.
In a medium like video games where one thing doesn't carry the same meaning in every
context, it's impossible for guidelines to be established that dictate which games
can and cannot be compared to one another.
That would seriously hinder the medium as a whole because it would exert a totalitarian
choke hold on artistic endeavors.
If games can't learn from each other, the medium would never advance.
Okay, now let's get into what aspects each game can learn from each other, starting with
how Dishonored may be able to learn from Assassin's Creed 2 about the guards.
Maintaining the design simplicity of Dishonored was the driving force that makes me hesitate
to suggest new guard types.
Whereas the variety in guard archetypes in AC2 made the game somewhat less boring, the
same breadth in variety could detract from Dishonored as a whole.
But, ultimately, I don't think it would, especially if they would be handled as elegantly
as the game currently is.
What really matters to the player experience is consistency.
To prove that more variety would not only not detriment the game but actually improve
it is by mentioning the variety already present.
There are five unique enemy types: dogs and weepers, tallboys, Golden Cat uhh sales?
Associates?, Overseer music guards, and standard guards.
Dogs and weepers are grouped together because, although they visually look very different,
they're functionally identical.
They're mostly stationary but can roam about a bit and are melee-based enemies.
Guards are different from them because they can throw objects at Corvo and fire projectiles.
Volatile citizens are identical to guards in behavior, so they don't get their own
category.
Introducing the guard types I mentioned in my Dishonored video as well as a guard that
acts like a Chihuahua, an "alarm bell" that doesn't pose much threat itself but
calls to the ones that do, would make Dishonored a more organically difficult game.
There's nothing wrong with an easy game by default, but Dishonored seems to be about
engaging the critical faculties of one's brain in a way that makes one think creatively
to solve problems.
The most organic aspect of increasing the difficulty currently is enlargening vision
cones and increasing enemies' awareness sensitivity.
However, having multiple different archetypes that are used regularly would engage those
faculties more frequently and more intensely.
The sheer diversity would heighten interest for a longer period of time.
An alternative could have geography-based diversity, meaning each area would have its
unique enemy which is already done to some extent.
The Golden Cat mission has the women that aren't hostile but alert the guards.
Although weepers are used in several different areas, that could be the unique enemy in another
location, maybe the alleys.
Same applies to the Overseer music players.
Buzz-saw butchers inhabit the The Knife of Dunwall DLC in the processing plant.
Perhaps it would make sense to feature a guard with a zapper because some particular area
has a bigger problem than others with rats.
Zapping Corvo would temporarily daze and disable him.
And the addition of the guards would, in fact, be very potent because Dishonored is in first
person and the interactions the player has with the guards would feel more personal than
they are in AC2.
There's more than one way to scale a hagfish, so would Dishonored have benefitted from exploring
one of those ways?
Indeed, I believe so.
Naturally, bad games can learn from good ones as well.
The way Dishonored world-builds is far superior to its counterpart.
Reading notes and letters and books and poems is the primary way to engage with the lore
of the Dishonored universe, although the visual design, characters, the Outsider, and the
Heart contribute to this as well.
AC2 simply plops the building or location or person or whatever it is in the logs for
you to read at your leisure.
Dishonored handles this better because it generates scenes that imply to the player,
often times, an emotion and an event that occurred.
Then, some sort of literature is placed in the scene to describe what has occurred.
Happening upon these instances is a treat because it feels like a genuine discovery
that indulges your curiosity.
Purposely obfuscating lore for the sake of reward is how many games approach this topic,
but I think that's toxic.
Unless it's something like a family secret or a safe combination, there's no need for
information to be hidden in a game because that's not how real life works.
Information isn't arbitrarily hidden.
Investing effort into a game just to receive lore is a scummy tactic by the developers
because it's basically them saying that their writing deserves to be labored after.
No writing is that good.
I'm not saying that all video game writing is bad, in fact I think the notes in Dishonored
and the codices in AC2 are well-written, but that no writing is so good that it's above
the player.
At any rate, back on topic.
The reason why AC2 lacks a sense of place despite its clear location in time and geography
is because its devoid of life outside of the main characters.
Yes, the streets are bustling with musicians and carne fresca, but you don't ever hear
about people or events outside of what's happening to Ezio and company that gives the
player a clear understanding of where different people land in the world, although that's
what the game is trying to accomplish with its grand setting and large cast.
Scummy tactics aren't completely missing from AC2, however.
The developers are guilty of trying to dazzle us with stunning visuals, most apparent in
the synchronization points.
Panning around Ezio 360 degrees exposing the surrounding area is cool and I wouldn't
want it to not be in the game, but it seems like I'm expected to be impressed, but I'm
not.
Maybe some people are, but that doesn't mean the game should stop there.
Spectacle only lasts for so long until it becomes monotony, and that's what the game
suffers from, especially considering every single area of the game looks identical to
one another.
Injecting small pieces of literature in key locations would be immensely more effective
at building a world than just adding another block of dry text in the logs.
And it's not like it would be tremendously more work either because it would be about
the same amount of writing, but just different writing.
So far, I've covered how one aspect from a bad game can benefit a good game, and how
one aspect of a good game can benefit a bad game.
But like I said at the beginning, not all features are better suited to another game.
Sometimes they fit right where they are because it's simply incompatible with in another
game.
Mission structure in the two games work this way.
AC2 is so monotonous that the gimmick missions like the ones with the horse carriage and
the flying machine offer reprieve from how boring the rest of the game is.
Because these segments are relatively short, it doesn't effect replayability much.
Departing from the core gameplay loop in Dishonored would seriously detract and distract from
the game because it's so tightly paced and so regularized in its gameplay that it would
throw the mission-to-mission flow off-balance, making the game lopsided.
Shortness, in Dishonored's case, is a good thing, but including any amount of gimmick
missions would make the game seem like it has a limp.
Weapon assortment is another feature that the games are comfortable keeping to themselves.
Introducing many weapons in Dishonored like it is in AC2 would over-complicate stealth
and combat, while reducing the number of weapons in AC2 like it is in Dishonored would even
further homogenize the game.
One of the major principles that contributed to Assassin's Creed 2 becoming very boring
very quickly was that nothing in the game world changes because of Ezio's behavior.
As you progress, a wider variety of guards start appearing, but I suspect that's just
because the developers thought of multiple ideas for the guards and decided to trickle
them in, and not for any reason regarding Ezio's actions.
Arriving at another city, even, a man confronts Ezio saying that he's infamous for his assassinations
in another city.
In a time before even the telegraph, his reputation precedes him, but what does this city do in
preparation for this serial murderer coming?
Nothing, apparently.
Contrast this with the chaos system in Dishonored.
Your actions as an assassin directly affect the universe.
Future areas can be either more or less tightly guarded, weepers and rats are either more
or less abundant, and characters take actions that effect how you play the game.
The closest thing AC2 has to this is the notoriety system, but that's nowhere near the same
thing.
It's essentially a slightly modified version of the alertness system present in Dishonored.
Player input or psychology is not affected by it in the very long run.
Of course, in the short term, players must act more carefully to prevent being attacked
by the guards, but no meaningful changes occur.
This segment was originally going to be about how each game treats tutorials differently,
but I'm instead opting to expand the scope of this segment to be about respect for the
player.
I think it comes down to how many contrivances the developers are willing to include in the
game.
Dishonored keeps the arbitrations down to an extreme minimum while Assassin's Creed
2 does nothing to conceal them.
Dishonored has exceedingly unobtrusive tutorials while AC2 has aggressively conspicuous ones
that accompany you to the end-game.
Dishonored features a minimalist approach that doesn't have much but makes sure that
what is there is fleshed out and meaningful while AC2 crams itself with useless crap and
overused content and hopes the player doesn't notice.
Dishonored has simple missions that can be completed with multiple creative approaches
while AC2 attaches undeniable contrivances to them.
Look to the mission where you must retrieve Bartolomeo's men: One member of the three
groups you must save must be alive, so instead why can't I just rescue three men from the
first group and be done with it?
Regarding wasting time, Dishonored boats me to exactly where I need to be to begin my
mission, while AC2 has me running for minutes across a city just to start a mission.
A video game is unlike an assembly line that creates cars, say, with replaceable parts.
There is no universal set of components that developers can plug into their game to assemble
a product.
Everything about a game requires a design from the bottom up, considering how each piece
interacts with every other piece.
Attempting to adopt a piece from a foreign construction and integrate it in a non-native
environment, 1 to 1 without any appropriation, will only lead to a failure.
Try to play a PAL game on an NTSC console.
Yes, they both use a disc, but the version needs appropriation to function.
Maintaining a blind infatuation for having a dictionary definition of every design concept
leads to unoriginal games and borrowed mechanics adopted into dysfunction.
For more infomation >> Believe in What U Feel or in What U See #91 🍀🏄🌊💓☯ - Duration: 11:48. 
For more infomation >> Fruit Smoothie Or Hot Dog Water? Haley Joel Osment Plays Trivia To Decide | Blender - Duration: 3:04. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét