Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 3.1
Teleportation as a verb: just click and you're there!
What situations—or scenes—could we engineer to develop this verb? Well, we need a reason
for teleporting to be important. So now we have our first object. It's an electrified force-field,
the kind of thing that appears everywhere in the future. The player doesn't want to touch it
because it looks dangerous. We'll talk more about using context to explain the rules of the
game in Chapter
, “Context.” Just know that there are sparks coming off this thing; its every
inch sizzles with a dangerous green, clearly unfriendly to life.
4
This force-field is moving toward the protagonist, from the top of the screen to the bottom,
and it stretches the entire width of the screen. Now teleportation has purpose: the player has to
teleport to get to the other side of the force-field safely (see Figure
). Maybe a food capsule
appears on the other side of the force-field, if the player needs a stronger hint. Those futuristic
food capsules are delicious! When the player teleports to the food, she's also teleporting past
the force-field and to safety.
3.2
Figure 3.2
Using teleportation to dodge a deadly fence.
That was a first scene in a story about teleportation. What could be a next scene? How do we
develop teleportation further? Let's add a stronger element of timing to teleportation. The
next deadly fence—we'll have it come from the bottom of the screen this time, since the first
