Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
baby ducks move behind the mother duck. The player brushes against a rock and learns that
she has to plan paths around rocks.
After collecting several pieces of food and gaining a basic familiarity with the main verb and its
limitations, something changes. A new scene introduces a sudden new object.
The new objects are bullets, fired downward from the top of the screen, beyond which, we pre-
sume, a hunter lurks on the riverbank. Suddenly the movement of the ducklings behind their
mother is important—something the player has to pay attention to. As she tries to evade the
hunter's bullets, she may also try and keep the ducklings out of the way of those bullets. The
player's “move” verb now has an added responsibility: it's become a more developed character
in the game's cast of verbs. By stopping at the right time, the player can position her ducklings
so that the
bullet will pass harmlessly through the space between one duckling and the next.
Naturally, this is easier when moving horizontally than vertically, something the layout of the
scene is designed around.
Figure
depicts the getaway scene, the length of the river to the right of the pond. The river
to the left of the pond is closed off by rocks, remember. A big arrow flashes on the screen when
the bullets start to fire. This topic began with a complaint about the use of arrows to indicate
where players should go in a game, but given the suddenness of the attack and the panic it
induces, it's clear the author felt it was most fair to make absolutely clear where the path of
escape lies.
3.6
Figure 3.6
The player navigates around objects to escape the scene.
The path is constructed out of rocks, the game's most basic object. You can see from the figure
that the first significant obstacle, near the left side of the screen, is a wall with a gap at the bot-
tom. The next wall is fairly wide open for maneuvering before a third wall with a narrow gap
that's slightly higher up. Why does the gap start at the bottom and then move up? Because the
bullets are firing from the top. The purpose of this sequence is to gradually escalate the tension
between moving and keeping your ducks out of the
path of the bullets.
The bullets, not just the rocks, are a critical part of this scene. Both objects drive the develop-
ment of the player's verb forward, and their relationship gets much hairier toward the close of
the game. Eventually, at the right end of the river, the space the mother duck has to navigate
and dodge bullets in becomes greatly constrained. This progression develops the relationship
between the danger of the bullets and the player's main verb: “swim.”
