Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
ions. The visuals make it clear that the threat the players are about to face
is a deadly one.
On a darker note,
BioShock, Dead Space, Portal
, and others use the en-
vironment to foreshadow and warn the player about upcoming challenges
and threats that have the potential to evoke a real sense of dread.
In
Portal
, barely coherent graffiti scribbled on the wall in a hidden, un-
characteristically dirty section of Test Chamber 16 famously warns the
player, “The Cake is a Lie.” This of course references GlaDOS's repeated
reassurances to the player character Chell that, once she finishes all the
test chambers, there will be cake. In another secret “backstage” area there
is a menacing drawing of GlaDOS—whom up to this point has been re-
vealed through her voiceovers as being slightly odd but certainly not a vil-
lainous threat—with a disturbing caption: “She's Watching You.”
Since GlaDOS is the only character in the game besides the player—the
only “person” to keep you company, as it were—the idea that she is
secretly malevolent is quite a chilling one. And just a few test chambers
after having the opportunity to see these scrawled warnings, the player
learns they were quite true. GlaDOS attempts to incinerate the player.
Internal Logic and Placement
Another question to ask oneself when setting up an environment to tell a
story is, are you crafting it in such a way that it that makes sense and is
easily comprehensible?
For example, imagine a mission scenario in which the player begins
listening to the contents of a voice recorder he found in a burnt-out, ap-
parently abandoned building. The recording—a woman's audio journ-
al—continues to be heard as the player interactively explores the environ-
ment. On the tape, the woman is heard moving through the same loca-
tion, and is eventually attacked and apparently killed by something that
clearly terrifies her. The recording culminates with the sounds of her viol-
ent death just as the player happens upon a woman's gruesomely mutil-
ated corpse, which has only been decomposing for a matter of hours. An
I.D. badge confirms that she was the woman on the tape.
This hypothetical setup certainly seems like it would have the potential
to effectively establish a mood and an imminent threat, perhaps even raise
the hackles on the player's neck—and all with minimal interruption to
gameplay. But if the player takes just an extra moment to think about it, he
might wonder how the voice recorder got so far away from the woman's
