Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
one forced the player to warp to the top—might be really, really thick. In fact, it might be so
thick that not all of it fits on the screen at once. The player has to wait until it's all on the screen
before she can teleport to the safe space beyond
it. Its near side is closing in on the player at
the top of the screen when she finally gets her opportunity (see Figure
3.3
).
Figure 3.3
Timing the teleportation to dodge a thicker fence.
If we use timing to develop our “teleport” verb further, what does a later scene look like? Imag-
ine an electric fence that covers the entire screen, with holes that appear long enough only for
the player to wait for the next hole to appear onscreen (see Figure
3.4
). How important is timing
to teleportation in that scene?
Figure 3.4
Timing is critical when jumping from hole to hole in the electric fence.
Each scene revolves around a particular development of the game's verbs. A scene can intro-
duce a new development, like the previous examples, but it's often useful to revisit how to
use a verb, or what aspects of using the verb to focus on (like timing) again and again—just as
recurring themes often appear in a written story or a piece of music. As we add scenes to the
game, we can also overlap these ways of developing a verb to create a more complex and rich
experience for the player.
