Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Ideas for big-ticket surprises often emerge during the development pro-
cess for a level, mission, or quest. These “wouldn't it be cool if” concepts
can have the power to invigorate the experience and create an impactful
“set piece.” There's no question that surprises and shocking events can be
electric and exciting, but as covered in
chapter 6
, they can also present
major roadblocks to maintaining narrative integrity and believability.
In games, the balance between surprise and believability is further com-
plicated by another consideration: fairness.
Because when a narrative-related surprise happens while a player is en-
gaging with gameplay, it can be good news for storytelling but bad news
for the player. Often the surprise spills over into gameplay itself—indeed,
this is often the very point of the surprise—creating an unexpected situ-
ation for which the player finds himself unprepared. It can be exciting,
when well done.
But when poorly handled, a surprise can feel cheap and unfair. It can
cause the player to fail or even “die,” probably at no reasonable fault of his
own. How was he to know you were going to change the rules partway
through the mission? Then, when the player restarts from a checkpoint or
even the beginning of the level, the surprise is now gone (the player is
ready for it this time) but the feeling of annoyance might remain.
Thus, keeping fairness as well as believability in mind when preparing an
unexpected turn of events for players is just one more thing a level design-
er and his narrative collaborator need to think about. If you're going to
surprise a player, make sure he's also provided the reasonable means and
opportunity to recover from and deal with it.
Enemy Placement
Believability can also be sorely tested when it comes to the final place-
ment in a level of NPCs—especially antagonists. Enemy placement is a
design task that can take a huge amount of effort and tuning in order to
optimize the player experience, throttle the difficulty level, and regulate
gameplay pacing.
On the narrative side, the challenge is different but can sometimes be
no less obstinate. Narrative is constantly required to justify the seemingly
endless waves of enemies a player encounters in a typical action title or
shooter. Although an effort will probably have been made to narratively
explain the enemies in general, there sometimes also arises the question
regarding each individual enemy or small group.
