Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
My sister knew how to play
Lode Runner
, and I'd make her sit in my well-warmed chair once I
had finished creating a level. I'd tell her, “Go on, see if you can beat it!” She could beat my easier
levels without much trouble, and although she had a big smile when she did, I felt disappointed
somehow. I could tell that she was smiling in part because she'd beaten me somehow—as if I'd
asked her a riddle and she'd managed to outwit me and find the solution with no help.
Before long I started creating fiendishly difficult levels for her to play: they required precise
timing and exact knowledge of how to manipulate the movements of each enemy in order to
win. These scenarios had lots of hidden trapdoors that looked like ordinary sections of floor but
dropped the player right through them into certain death. I orchestrated the behavior of the
enemies so that they'd start chasing the player at exactly the moment I wanted.
My sister would insist that these levels were impossible, and I'd smugly show her that they
weren't... well, as long as you had exactly the right skill, the correct strategy, if you knew the
right path through the scene. As the designer, I possessed all the above, of course. I was think-
ing more like a player competing with a sibling, though, rather than crafting something for her.
I wanted to beat her and see her admit defeat. That's a natural impulse that I've seen play out
many times since in games and levels made by kids for each other to play. But creating a system
that's practically impossible for anyone but the creator is just a tiny, tantalizing fraction of what
we can do when we create games and ask others to play.
I was trying to create a harrowing experience for my sister, something with narrow escapes,
unanticipated secrets, and perfect moments where a choice to run left or right made for an
instant life-or-death difference. All the pieces were there, but with these fiendishly difficult lev-
els, I hadn't succeeded in engaging my sister, in showing her the magic I was trying to conjure.
Eventually, when faced with a level full of tricks that were impossible to understand ahead of
time, she rolled her eyes and refused to play.
So far, this topic has talked extensively about the elements of vocabulary: verbs and objects,
the pieces of context that aid in understanding those elements, and the ways those elements
combine into scenes that develop verbs and create pacing. In the second part of the topic, we
look at some broader questions:
why
might you want to pace the development of a particu-
lar verb? What kind of story is conveyed when contextual elements, objects, and verbs work
together... or against each other? What might you try to say with all that vocabulary? And how
might you invite players to say somethivng in response? Do you want to invite players to put
their own stamp on your game, or are you trying to convey something that's best understood if
a player primarily absorbs and listens to what your game has to say?
