Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Lately, there has been a movement afoot to develop audio only games.
These games use sound as the chief design mechanic. The visual data
in these games takes a signii cant backseat to the audio—almost a
complete reversal of the way games are usually designed.
Jim Hedges is a
game industry
veteran. His
music has
been heard in
hundreds of
titles; one such
game is Soul
Reaver 2 , created
for the Sony
Playstation.
Adventure Games
Adventure games emphasize exploration, problem-solving
skills, and communication rather than combat or lightning-quick
rel exes. Adventure games usually focus on story and narrative
context, so they share some features with novels and i lms.
The adventure genre started out using text-based interaction
with the player, and by the 1980s had graduated to primitive
graphics with the release of Sierra Online's King's Quest (1984),
one of the most popular adventure games.
Credit: Jim Hedges.
The prominent sub-genre for this genre are RPG or Role-
Playing Games , in which the player takes on the role of an
adventurer with a specii c skill set or specialty (such as melée
combat or magic) to explore the environment and progress
through a storyline. All RPGs descend from the pen, paper,
and dice game Dungeons & Dragons , created by Gary Gygax
and Dave Arneson in 1974. Depending on the game design
approach, the narrative, linear element of novels and i lms
may also strongly inl uence RPGs. Another aspect of RPGs
is the ability of characters to level up, or accumulate skills,
abilities, and combat power, as the challenge level increases.
For Soul Reaver 2 , we had developed
an adaptive music system that muted
and unmuted music tracks based
on the player's level of danger and
combat. It was based on four game
states: no enemies present; enemies
present but not aware of the player;
enemies aware of the player (thus
running after them); and combat with
enemies. As you moved up and down
the chain, tracks would be muted
and unmuted by variables based
on these game states. h e problem
we encountered was that since the
variables changed immediately from
one state to another, the music tracks
would be altered immediately as well,
producing very unnatural transitions.
I realized that we had to provide a
way of smoothly crossfading between
these transitions. I ended up creating
a crossfade script that accounted for
transitions between all possible game
states which took me about two weeks
to write and test.
Combining Adventure or RPG with Action
The adventure-action game was a later of shoot of the original
adventure game. As the speed and graphics capabilities
of computers and game platforms improved, so did the
complexity and quality of the game itself. The Zelda series is
the most prominent example of a classic action adventure
game. Current examples are series like Fallout and Mass Ef ect.
Action RPGs emphasize combat to the point that they often
simplify or remove non-combat attributes and statistics
and minimize the ef ects these non-combat elements have
on the character's development. The most successful and
best-selling action RPG is the Final Fantasy series, while other
current examples of this genre are the Elder Scrolls series and
Diablo . This genre continues to diversify and gain popularity.
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search