Game Design: Exploration

Today, i was reminded by someone about the lack of adventure in video games. It really got me thinking, why cant you design a system which enables players to actually discover new things throughout the game?

So, im sort of writing this as i go. But hopefully this lack of exploration can be fixed with such a system. Currently video games are very linear. Even the likes of Grand Theft Auto, Elder Scrolls and the hundreds of MMO’s out there. They all lack something, and first we have to figure out what it is.

The Elder Scrolls Series is known for its free-roam worlds. And i agree the games have fun writen all over them. However, even with the large amount of things to do, I’ve realised, your still there to complete the one main quest, and they bolted a few extras on the side, half of the world you dont even have to visit. Yet those level designers and artists filled up every inch of the map with forests, rivers and caves for you to explore.

The game was defiantly going in the right direction. But i can’t help feeling that there could have been more there for you to actually achieve. For example, i know of one indie team who are creating a space sim/mmo game from nothing. Basically, the universe is generated from given data, and each planet is given a name, and unique properties, some have asked how many planets there are, i couldn’t find the answer, but from what i remember, there were a lot. (link 1)

So, its possible then, to create a UNIVERSE of planets. Surely players will never colonise and even find, every single one? Well, of course its possible, but still highly unlikely that their players will find the edge of the universe in the game.

One thing i like about this system is the way you can simply discover and colonise your own planet, problems that can be found with this though are pretty large. For example, your going to need a hell of a lot of resources (models, textures, sounds, music, etc.) and most of todays computers will struggle to compute all this generated data.

Another problem is, how do you keep the game full. You could have a server with 100,000 players in it, and you could play through the entire game without seeing another human player (in theory). This scares me, because you lose the multiplayer aspect of MMO’s and it becomes a single-player RPG, and there is no chance in hell that on your own, you’ll explore more than 10-15 planets during the 5-10 years you play the game. Think how large our planet is, you couldn’t walk all over that 15 times without seriously getting bored the 15th time.

But i dont understand why this cant be used on a smaller scale, why can’t you still have the generated world, but only one planet. And perhaps its moon(s). Depending on the games concept/setting, how awesome would it be to take off from a spaceport on the planet, and land on the moon? So, lets say we go to the art department and ask them to come up with concepts for a few different areas of our world.

We need to cover all of the weather types first. We’re going to have:
- Temerate
- Snow
- Desert
- Underwater

That covers most of our planet. So we get the art department to visualise a landscape for each of the areas, some concept art will do. And we also ask for (depending on setting) a settlement version of each too. So now we have eight concepts. We ask the programmers to randomly generate some terrain to fit over our new world. Give them the concept art, and say that you want it to appear almost earth-like. They can go away, and build a system which generates a terrain heightmap which can seamlessly wrap around a sphere.

Of course, thats one large image file. So we can chop it up into 10×10 mile squares, and load them as needed. You’ll only ever see four at a time, and if your able to see a larger area of the planet, a lower quality version can be applied to the sphere. Now, im no programmer, but in theory, thats all possible.

So now we have this globe, with a terrain, hand it over to the designers and artists, and we decide where these different terrain types are, set the height of the sea, and were sorted, the art department can now pick out the key areas (where the cities, etc. are) and work in the key areas well. But the rest of the planet can all be generated. and with one system alone.

Lets give a few objects some colours.
Trees – Green
Rocks – Red
Object A – Yellow
(And so on)

Each colour can be drawn down onto a flat version of our world map. So, say you draw a small area of green on this map, that means randomly in that area in-game, there are half a dozen trees (or how ever many the area represents.) And at the end of it, you have this large map of colour, so this map could be huge, and take up a few GB of data. But in today’s games that’s not to bad, Age of conan had a HUGE amount of data. So say each of our maps (1 for objects, 1 for textures, 1 for height map.) is a total of 6GB in size. For an average PC this would be to large, but for consoles it wouldn’t be a problem at all. Everything else is as normal. Oblivion had a ton of trees, Speed-Tree sorted that out for them, Why cant you randomly place a set of 100 trees down in the areas, you wouldn’t notice a thing. I’m seriously thinking as to why this sort of thing hasn’t been done before.

So, with all the normal game data and the three large maps, you’ve got about 18-20GB of data. On Bluray you wouldnt have any problems.  You could easily fit that on twice, and have a bunch of extra content.

Perhaps its just time, all that content would take a long time to create, and the world would still be pretty empty as far as things to do are concerned, maybe ill think about this some more for a new post? Who knows.

Hopefully this post got you thinking, anyway. That was the point after all.

Thanks for reading.

(link 1 – http://www.infinity-universe.com)

October and November?!

Well, i just went through a list of the games im going to be buying this holiday season, and, well heres my list:
(PS3)
FarCry 2
LittleBigPlanet
Resident Evil 5
Fallout 3
Resistance 2
Rockband 2

(PC)
Left4Dead
So, seven games, weighing in at about £50 each at launch. Some how i think its going to be a pain spending £350 on videogames, when im also saving for a new TV as well. Oh, and if i wait, my money will be worth nothing. Oh, joy!

But, i think this is the best holiday season for games since the HD Gaming began. So many great titles. And 2009 looks no different. Killzone 2 is really high up on my list next year

Oh, just in case you read to the end, heres my PSN and Steam ID’s if you fancy a game.
You can normally find me on most sites as “Skulburn”.

Lords, Rings, and Uruk-Hai!

Lord of the Rings: Source

Well, work has progressed on my mod project of the Source SDK. I have built a website for the project, which can be found here:
Lord of the Rings: Source Website

Im covering design, mapping and some programming on the team. Also being team lead, i manage all of the team meetings, arrangements and so on. We are really loving the Source engine, its perfect for what we are doing here. Anyway, drop by and post your thoughts in our forum.

Game Design Documents

So, i’m sure everyone is aware that every game gets a lot of documentation during design stages. This is usually the work of quite a few games designers. But, for most independent teams, designs documents are overlooked, Why?

Well one reason, is perhaps that the project is “to small” for a design document. Another could be, that it takes time away from “actually developing the game”.

Let me tell you this. Without design documents, no matter what the project is. Big or small. You will need design documentation and technical documentation for the project. Even if its only ten pages long. Later in development, or presentation, you will be asked for these documents. They are the foundation of your product, and without them you have nothing but an executable and some graphics.

Later in the year ill get around to writing a guide on building up design documents. And perhaps ill include a template too.

For now though, i want all projects to have these documents! It truely does help within development. Take it from someone who knows.

Thanks for reading.

In the beginning…

…there was a blog. Well and empty one anyway.

So, every ones making these blogs. I thought I’d be a sheep and join the crowd. I wont bother introducing myself here, check out the “About” page, that’s got things covered, y’know.

I will say though, that i am a games designer, and currently managing a development company called Lockdown Interactive.
(www.lockdowninteractive.com)

On this blog ill go through many development and personal topics. Hopefully it should be a good read.
Bye for now.

Tyler Trevell