Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Naturally, it is possible to have droplets that are in liquid form and droplets that are in gas form
at the same time, which makes coordinating them trickier.
Figure 3.15
Liquid and gas states of the water droplets in Condensity ; a liquid droplet will fall, but a
gas droplet can move in any direction.
Droplets in gas form have properties that are different from the liquid form. There are fan
objects that blow them around, pushing them relentlessly in a single direction. Usually these
fans function like gates: to pass a fan, a gas droplet has to find a way to become liquid, or a
liquid droplet needs to avoid being transformed into gas. But one scene (see Figure
) finds
another use for the fan: it propels a gas droplet helplessly along a path while a water droplet
below, steered by the player, tries to keep up so that they can meet at
3.16
the exit (where the gas
droplet is transformed to water, and will fall past the exit unless the other droplet is there to
catch it).
Figure 3.16
Introducing timing in a scene puts pressure on the player.
This introduces an element of timing—of racing, of struggling to keep up—into a game that
doesn't normally have that kind of pressure. And it does it using rules that are already estab-
lished. The player understands the interactions that conspire to create this situation for her; she
knows why she's running.
Remember the game To mb ed
we looked at in Chapter
2
, “Verbs and Objects”? The one with
Danger Jane and the descending spiked wall? Figure
is an early scene from that game. The
purpose of this scene is to make the player aware that she can use the spiked wall's destruction
of objects as a strategy. Rules that have been established so far: “soft” blocks, the cyan, blue,
and green, can be dug through. Metal blocks cannot—except by the spiked wall. It's the latter
rule that we want to develop in this scene to give it a relationship to the player that's
3.17
nontrivial.
 
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