Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
From the player's perspective, the brainpower for pattern recognition and subsequent character
control required to negotiate the two zones is almost identical as the player transitions from the
cannon zone to the blizzard zone.
At the other end of the extreme, imagine the cannon zone first. It is an array of cannons, where each
cannon fires a projectile at a specific frequency, the cannons have a regular spacing between them,
and the projectiles are traveling from right to left.
In this case, the regular spacing and frequency of the projectiles means successfully negotiating this
zone is based on pattern recognition—that is, analyzing the projectile firing pattern to find the safe
path forward.
If the cannon zone is followed instead by the pendulum zone, now the player has to adjust to a
new hazard with a different mechanical pattern, and adjust again to the laser zone that follows the
pendulum zone (Figure
9-10
).
player
moving platform
pendulum
cannon
laser
blizzard
Figure 9-10.
Distribute obstacle zones so similar obstacles are not adjacent
After the laser zone, the player finally reaches the blizzard zone, which in this scenario emits the
snowflake projectiles with random sizes so they look different, within a range of random speeds,
generated from a random starting point. Although they move horizontally, this time they traverse the
track from left to right.
Once again the player has to make another major assessment and adjustment in strategy from the
laser zone to survive the blizzard zone. Since the player has made three major adjustments since
completing the cannon zone, and the details of the blizzard projectile attributes are now different
from the cannon projectiles, he perceives a much greater difference in gameplay mechanics between
the cannon and blizzard zones than when they had mechanically similar details and were placed one
immediately after the other (Figure
9-11).
