Just an Ordinary Day - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 97

Attractors should draw attention to rewards and thus to sites of retainers and
choice points and so on and, if properly designed, lead visitors around the game
world in a meaningful way, with the possible use of connectors. However, games
will often make use of “false attractors,” which are attractors that do not deliver
rewards. Used appropriately, false attractors can make a major contribution to game-
play and dramatic tension. The neon sign high up on the SinCity sky line is a good
example of a false attractor. It does contribute surety to the level through its famil-
iarity in such a cityscape but it offers no reward. You can shoot at it but you cannot
damage it, it does not supply any useful information, and it is not accessible on foot
so we cannot use it as a vantage point. It is a false attractor. There are a number of
doors that do not open in SinCity. They are good examples of false attractors. At
least one of the doors does open, so that balances out false and true attractors.
Seen from a distance, an animated object may act as an attractor of desire, but
when experienced close up as a reward it may be some sort of vehicle to ride in and
control thus becoming a retainer— a mini - mission, in game - speak. Retainers are
actually localized patterns of attractors, connectors, and rewards. Early computer
games, such as Viper and Breakout, and the vast majority of contemporary puzzle
games can be viewed as consisting of a single retainer in this sense.
PERCEPTUAL MAPPING IN SINCITY
We will illustrate retainers and other larger structures through an example. The
simplest way of documenting a perceptual map is by way of a “Table of Surprises,”
which has three columns that relate attractor/connector/reward triples. Rows indicate
the suggested relationships left to right and cells give brief descriptions. For SinCity,
a partial Table of Surprises looks something like Table 7.1.
Of course, players might have a number of intentions at any one time and will
be taking notice of a host of attractors as they execute one or more of their current
plans. For simplicity we have only illustrated some of the main attractors; there are
a number more. We could draw up this table in a lot more detail to consider the
gameplay on a moment - by - moment basis.
We are constantly presented with choice points in SinCity. Attractors compete
for our attention: ammo, health, weapons, doors and ladders. Any form of movement,
ricochets, opponents seen moving—sometimes seen just as a few moving pixels—
will stimulate intentions that override most others. The choice of intentions they can
stimulate are themselves choice points.
As already pointed out, the major retainers in DM levels are the fi re fi ghts and
ambushes that can happen anywhere in the level. Sometimes we instigate them by
attacking an opponent fi rst and sometimes we are the victims of surprise.
Challenge points do not exist in DM levels. Of course we die and fail if we
loose a fi re fi ght or get fragged, but we could avoid the fi ght, hide, counter attack,
and so on. Challenge points typically occur in adventure , point - and - click , and RPG
games where we can get stuck because we do not have a particular piece of infor-
mation or a particular tool or cannot open a particular door. Challenge points are