Through the Lens: Video Games - Game Design Theory - page 97

minished because of the overlaid metagame mechanisms. In a game with
a significant metagame element, there ends up being less variety because
everything becomes a big, blurry wash of mechanisms that lack identity.
Three-dimensional games, at least, have little choice but to include
camera controls—but there are actually 2D games that allow players
to move the camera around for some reason. Real-time strategy (RTS)
games and computer role-playing games (CRPGs)—such as Fallout —are
two examples that come to mind. Make the level small enough that I
don't have to scroll around. In any game that has a mini-map, the mini-
map effectively becomes the game, because it actually makes sense. Just
make the full screen the mini-map. Come up with creative solutions;
don't make me do your work for you when I'm playing the game.
I should mention there are two genres that provide notable excep-
tions to the avoid-3D rule, and that's because these games, by their na-
ture, sort of need to be in 3D. These two genres are first-person shooter
games and racing games. In both games, however, the camera usually is
not something separate from gameplay that you have to worry about. In
both FPS games and racing games, the camera position generally is de-
pendent on where you're actually pointing in the game. If a game ties the
camera to a fundamental element of gameplay, then it's OK. I'll touch on
this more when we get to these genres.

Brawlers

Examples: Golden Axe , Final Fight , River City Ransom , Double Dragon

Brawlers , as they were called in the coin-op arcade days, are side-scrolling
games wherein you control a character (usually a burly muscleman or mar-
tial artist) who has to fight his or her way through several levels filled
with bad guys. They were extremely popular in the 1990s, particularly
in arcades where they made for excellent quarter-eaters, but we don't
see too many of them these days (Xbox Live Arcade had a Scott Pilgrim
game and there was also Castle Crashers on that same platform, so it
seems that the XBLA platform is to some extent a holdout in this genre).
Generally, third-person action games are taking their place these days.
Brawlers tend to have health bars, lives, and continues, and they also
tend to allow for 3D movement onscreen, despite their side-scrolling na-
ture. he term Z-order refers to how deep the player's plane (the playing
field) is on the screen in a brawler (or other games that simulate depth
in a similar way).
There are several serious problems with brawlers, but like almost ev-
ery other genre, their problems tend to stem from the same underlying