Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
General design wisdom dictates that it is usually preferable to have the player find
the lock before he finds the key. There are three reasons for this:
n
If the player generally encounters the keys before the locks, he develops the habit
of collecting everything that he encounters without discrimination, just in case it
might be a key that will be needed later. This makes for simplistic gameplay. When
the player encounters a lock, rather than going to look for a suitable key, he tries
everything in his inventory. Older adventure games tended to exhibit this weakness.
n
When a lock (obstacle) doesn't look like a real lock and its key (solution) doesn't
look like a real key, it is easier for the player to recognize the key if he has seen the
lock first. Upon finding the key, the player usually can often guess its function and
will actively formulate the intention to return to the lock. This makes the player's
role more active than simply reacting to whatever task the game throws at him. It is
also more likely to make the player feel smart because he figured it out himself.
n
When players can negotiate obstacles they were unable to get past earlier, they
experience progress and accomplishment. There may have been obstacles he could
not overcome, but he now has the power to do so. (You have to be careful not to
frustrate your player too much, however; young children and casual players are less
tolerant of obstructions than more experienced ones.)
It is not always possible to guarantee that the player will find the lock before the
key; it depends on the topology of the space that he's exploring. If the world is
largely open and the player has the freedom to roam at will, then he may well find
the key before the lock, although he may not recognize it as a key. We discuss lock-
and-key mechanisms in the context of game spaces in the next section.
Mapping Missions to Game Spaces
Lock-and-key mechanisms help the game designer to map missions onto spaces.
(Remember that
mission
in this context refers to the collection of tasks required to
complete a level.) As we saw in the previous chapter, game missions can be quite
linear, especially in levels in which the player still is learning the basic mechanics
of the game. At best, a mission allows a few alternative tasks for the player to work
on. Again, the structure of the mission of the Forest Temple level (Figure 10.13) is a
good example. In the most extreme case, a mission might be completely linear (
Figure
11.1
), but mapping such a mission to a physically linear game space is seldom the
best option. Lock-and-key mechanisms allow a different way to map a linear mis-
sion to a nonlinear game space (
Figure 11.2
): It allows the designer to move the
lock forward (closer to the level's entry point). In theory, it also allows the designer
to move the lock backward, but because, as we already argued, it is better to have
the lock before the key, moving the lock forward makes the most sense.
T IP
in our illustrations
of game spaces in this
chapter, the green
objects are enemies,
and the large one next
to a treasure chest
is a boss enemy. The
player's character is
not visible but enters
the level through the
arched door from the
outside. The colors of
the keys match the
colors of the locks
they open.
