an investigation of differences in [the perception of] time between architecture and [first-person / brief] games, and how this impacts social encounters
I had the opportunity to interview Joe Barlos who revealed some of the unique approaches Funcom took when designing the levels for the Secret World. It’s always interesting to see how different design groups approach level design. What was interesting for me was the relationship between real world architecture they seemed to make distinct and how that translated that into the game itself in a very logical manner.
So, what was your name?
Joel
So Joel what do you do?
I’m the lead content designer on the secret world
Ok, what kind of role would you say the level design plays in the game itself?
Oh, I meen, it’s a hugely important thing, in regards to our game in particular, we are set in the modern day so the first role is that the architecture needs to be instantly recognizable in the locations where you go. So we have locations like New England, in the US, like in Maine. So the houses need to look like they belong in that area, so we actually send artists there to take photographs to copy the architecture for the game. We have another location in Egypt and naturally Egyptian architecture we need to get, not just sort of the ancient Egyptian stuff but actually the modern day Egyptian dwelling. And then we also have Transylvania, which is we are luckier and yeah we send guys there as well to take photos of like Romani camps, also Eastern European architecture as well.
That’s more the cosmetic role I would say, what about the actual physical role?
Like the actual levels? The flow?
Val: How do you go about merging the existing kind of layout of the architecture as it is in the real place and also allowing decent game-play flow for it?
Yeah, I mean, a lot of the times, what we do is the outside needs to be obviously visually perfect but the inside has to be slightly sort of more open and to fit to game-play. In terms of how we do it; the designers design what they need to happen in the level and then we hand it off to our environment artist…
Because I noticed that your enemies in this game, they vary in size completely: from very small to very large. How would you say the level design is made to accommodate the fighting?
You saw for example the big guy at the end with the tentacles and stuff and he comes up among the containers. That area was specifically designed, like the whole cargo ship crash is a part of the storyline but within that particular area, we will place out the containers to make the arena for the boss to be in. But from a design perspective, we knew that guy wouldn’t move, so we knew we could place him into that smaller area. But usually the rule is we try to make all our corridors a certain width because you have to think about camera when you’re playing a third person game, I think it’s a minimum 3m corridor width in all of our areas and it doesn’t matter what the “architecture” is.
Is there a certain criteria of pursuits you guys try to achieve when you design the levels?
Obviously its open world, in some places, so we have like villages and stuff and other outdoor stuff and then we like to let people feel a bit free, get onto roofs, jump around, see different things. Some of the stuff is horror style, so when we go into like the car parks and then we narrow things up, we control the player, we guide them through a certain a very specific level but we try to use real architecture. So like a “real” parking garage is usually very linear, so when we make that choice of a level where we want the player to feel cramped in that’s a perfect example of architecture that exists that we can use.
Val: how do you approach designing social spaces for all sorts of interaction?
So we have, for example, London in the game as one of the cities that players can visit. So in their we have an area called the “Horned Gob” which is like an English pub, so it’s sort of a triangular, a middle bar, and so around that you have a lot of space for players to gather to sit on the seats and stuff. Then upstairs we have a dance floor, like a disco-floor. So we really modeled it on like a normal night-club to be honest. But of course we try to allow space for, people to be there and we try to let not too many NPC’s get in the way of the players and socializing.
Ubisoft is perhaps one of the largest developers in the game scene. Perhaps their most architecturally interesting examples are the "Assassins Creed" series where the game space is fully utilized as both an obstacle and aid in enjoying the gameplay. This company invests a lot of money in researching and modeling the cities it represents, in working with architects and architectural historians in creating a convincing and effective game environment.
I had a chance to speak to Kay Bennemann, and although he is not a developer he seemed to be very involved in the game scene as he had some very insightful things to say and seemed to express great interest in my topic.
So you claim that Level design is basically architecture?
Yeah, in a way, it’s my perception because we would need to define first, what is architecture in and in games? Before I can actually say something meaningful…
Right…
Because the way I see it, somebody who builds a level; is an architect…
Right..
But this level doesn’t necessarily need to retain buildings or bridges…
Have you ever heard of a guy called Ernest Adams? He is this critique online and he talks a lot about this whole idea… He said that the role of architecture in games is purely cosmetic, everything that you see is a metaphor of a building; it’s a façade. This was back in 2002 and now we are in 2011, things are a little bit more different…
I meen, I heard the name of the guy, but I can’t say I know him or his work, I think he wrote some books on game design?
Yes, doesn’t matter, what I’m really looking at is the difference between architecture in reality and architecture in games… obviously in games, like you said, level design is architecture; you have the user and your building the space around the user and obviously there are different rules because in gaming everything is revolved around the gameplay
True
And in real life it can be anything, it can be political, where as in gaming even if it is has a political or a deep meaning, it’s just a façade and it’s aimed for gameplay… so there is a different kind of goal.
Right, I recall seeing some photos online of “Socialist” architecture, totally ugly buildings. But at the same time also statements; statements for strength for instance. There could be many statements that a building makes, maybe some are not intended. But in gaming...
Well I’ll give you some ideas to jump around, when we’re playing a game, and I’m specifically looking a first person shooters; where you actually get to be yourself (in a way) is that it revolves around the keyboard and mouse and some games don’t even let you jump, and therefore the game; the level design is made to revolve around the way the user interacts with the game. If you don’t get to jump there’s nothing to jump over…
I don’t know if this adds anything to the argument, but I think that in a game, a modern game, a game that has been produced in the last 10 years even, the whole experience is designed. Maybe one game is better at it than it than another game, but there are some particular games that I can think of, first person shooters for instance. Half-Life 2 is a good example where they designed the whole environment and they actually thought where the player would be looking; when he enters a new location, they also use visual clues such as lighting that would draw your attention.
And let’s not forget the NPC’s as well, the play a big role in making you look in certain directions…
True, so, sometimes I think it’s hard to generalize these things about games; so many game developers do it differently. I really know people who design the background of the game, with let’s say a city with no real design meaning applied to it. It’s more like “yeah we need this background,” and “ah, we wanted to make it look realistic…” and so it’s not as sophisticated. But at the same time another designer may say, “you know, on this building here, we need to place it 3cm more to the right because when the player comes into the hall and looks out the window and sees the building there” and for some reason this could be a visual clue that is pointing him towards another thing that you should pick up or whatever. So that of course is a sophisticated way. I’m not saying all games are necessarily designed this way or that every single location in the game is made this way. I actually do believe that many, many games use this, but they use this occasionally. Because when I play a game, I say I’m trying to find this place, sometimes I find this place only once, because what I’m doing most this time is playing. And so I believe, if it is really well made, then you don’t notice it.
And also what they do, I find, is when they make these things that make you look in certain directions, is that they are very memorable, and the more memorable moments you have in a game, the better the game tends to be…
That is true, that is true
And when you look back at all those memorable moments you create a sort of timeline, and you know how some games maybe last only five hours, but the more memorable moments you have; it feels like the game was longer,
True, true
and I don’t mean longer in a bad way, like in a doctor’s office…
haha
it changes your perception of time…
It’s true! I noticed another effect; games tend to be… they tend to get better, in your memory. I mean not the bad ones ofcourse, they are always bad, but the good ones, that really had some exceptional moments. This thing about memorable moments is true, its really true and I believe this is what game designers are looking for, they are trying to create these, one of a kind memorable moments. Maybe some of them try to be, it doesn’t matter, single-player or multi-player, but let’s say its multi-player where there is another player, and then you can always talk to the guy, you can say “remember back in the day, we played whatever, how great that was?”
Exactley!
“and we killed the boss!” or whatever it is, and now I’ve noticed that this is something to do with your memory or your perception. These outstanding moments in your memory; they get even more outstanding the longer they are away… and then when you look at the very good games, like 20 years after they were released, whatever you played them on the Commodore 64, that’s a long time ago! You probably weren’t even born.. and you played the “Bards Tale,” and it was the most amazing RPG! It was the pinnacle and when you look at it now, you would it’s a joke.
We were talking about this, actually, Val (my friend), we were talking about fallout 2… and some of the reasons that, that was good, as a game, was because the limitation in graphics forced you to use your imagination…
That’s true, Ooooo, it’s a huge subject I’m having, a lot of modern games don’t let you use your imagination, they take everything away from you!
Val: that’s actually interesting because I was arguing the opposite when we were talking about this
The opposite?
Val: Because, Raz actually had an interview with, what was his name again?
Did you hear about this new game coming out, “Hard Reset”
Yeah, eh, must be somebody from Eastern Europe?
It’s a Polish company, flyingwildhog
Val: The guy argued that fallout 3 was worse than fallout 2 because it didn’t have that element that allows you to use your imagination.
The whole environment was very ambient and forced you to kind of create…
In fallout 2 you meen?
Yeah…
Val: my argument is that I think, that when we think that new games are so much more advanced and that don’t allow you to use your imagination. I think that’s actually a mistake, because fallout 3, as was established in that interview has pretty awful graphics; especially for its time.
Number 3?
Val: Yeah
But the reason people really liked it, and this is from blogs online where users were arguing about this, is the fact that it reinterpreted the way people perceived spaces, like a pile of junk could be a home to a raider. Also a lot of the areas were very recognizable, all the monuments in Washington and then they kind of just reinterpreted that so that people could connect to it because they knew those buildings but it changed their perception of how this whole space, could be or used…
Maybe, you could also say this might have a cultural implication, because I’ve never been to Washington, I might know some of these places from photos or TV, but they are not recognizable to me, so I had queit an issue with navigation
Right!
And I found it hard to navigate because I always thought because to me everything looked the same, brownish brown, and then some brown (pointing in various directions)
Haha that’s probably also the level designs fault
Brown here, brown there…
So your not a fan either?
Yeah
A lot of people weren’t, suprisingly, but in the US it was a big hit and I guess that’s because, you know, people could relate to it.
I wouldn’t say I didn’t like it, perhaps maybe I expected more from it, and perhaps this goes back to the memory thing. The problem with fallout 3, and this is a particular problem; the issue was that there wasn’t a fallout for years and years and years, basically the license was dead, it’s like you know fallout wasn’t a big seller, fallout 1 and 2, they sold ok… and they were very niche, you know they were super hardcore and so nobody expected a new fallout, and suddenly they renewed the license and there was a new fallout. Then ofcourse, “nerd rage,” everybody said
Val: “Oblivion with guns!”
“Obvlion with guns! Its going to be shit,” and then it turned out to be very sarcastic, very brutal, okay you couldn’t shoot people in the nuts, I miss that, but everything else was basically there, so it checked all the boxes…
And I’d like to mention something very interesting, in terms of the navigation, and to me, a lot of that was, that I blame the NPC’s in the game, because a lot of the time, they just stand there, they don’t do anything, they have no soul and they just stand there. And you look now, did you see the battlefield 3 trailer?
No…
That’s okay, but the point is, in the game the NPC’s play a major role of leading the player, of making you look in certain directions, kind of like in Half Life, with what’s her name? “Alex”
Yeah
Val: yeah
Her role, and I saw an interview where Gabe Newell talked about her as a tool for the developer to use to make the player look in certain directions and to lead the player, because your never lost in that game, you never backtrack, you always know where you’re going and I think the NPC’s have a lot to do with that.
At the same time, I would like to add that in Half Life 2, you cannot get lost… because the space that you are moving in is so limited, and if I remember the game they do a pretty good job of faking a real environment. So you might walk down the street and it looks like there is ten different streets that you could take, you know… but they would all end up in a dead end after five meters. Then they use visual clues to totally point you in a certain direction where you are supposed to go, I think what you’re getting from it is like a subconscious perception of a “real” city, even though it is not there… and so of course they also use NPC’s to move you in the certain direction or that you look in a certain direction, but I think they were only tools. They were tools just like the environmental things that they did; they were tools to give the player a sense of direction. I really believe it not necessarily in a well-designed game, but a consciously designed game where every single element has a function and even if its I don’t know; trash on the table, it is there for a reason.
Yeah…
Left4dead is a good example, I read about it, and Left4dead uses a lot of storytelling, but there is no introduction to the game, there is no storyteller, there are no large texts to read or what you typically get in most games…
Makes you want to play even more as they have to pull it off in the actual gameplay,
Yes, exactly, I think they call this visual storytelling, so you typically come across spots of places with left behind messages for their significant others or friends like for instance a piece of paper stuck to a wall that says “James, I cannot wait any longer I am going to the hospital, love you, goodbye,” and of course it’s not the real story that’s been told their but it’s something that gives you a perception of a world with depth. Those things were happening in this world before you were there… so the world becomes more solid.
Val: and then of course you always have the kind of dichotomy between telling a story and letting people create stories, when some games focus on more than others…
I personally think that games are performative, so there are people who look at games from a text analyzing way, games as texts… that’s basically literature science. But I find that too static, also many games, like quake have no story! You run around and shoot people, end of story. But in reality, Quake can be a very interesting story, but it is a story that you develop through your performance; to what you do in the game. So it might be just you, learning the greatest weapon, and its totally hard, you spend weeks on it and finally you master it. Later you remember yourself doing that, the greatest multiplayer match you ever had in Quake, and its just so awesome because in this very moment some guy tried to grab the extra damage or whatever and he didn’t reach it and whatever…
Yeah
This could be stupid stories, like a book about that might be odd, but in your mind it is something like a sequence of exciting events that happened and that is not necessarily a story you want to put in a book but it’s still something you created to your performer. So without you performing, the game is nothing. It would stand still, it’s dead.
In this post, I will talk about “situations of play”, based on a paper by Georgia Leigh Mcgregor, a student from Sydney studying in the University of New South Wales, who like me is exploring the spatial implications of inhabiting a video game. I will discuss ideas and themes related to this post while covering my topic which explores the way we perceive video game environments in comparison to real world architecture in reference to our perception of time and the way social encounters affect and are affected by all this.
To play a game, you need some sort of contexts. These contexts have been fabricated and designed specifically to facilitate gameplay. This much has been made abundtley clear until now. Most game spaces are fictional; even if they happen in real places. Take for instance the landing of Omaha Beach in Medal of Honor and in reality. Both events are not exactly the same because in the game the developer needs to infuse a sense of fun that revolves around the rules of the game. Hence, the space itself will be different, even if it is reminiscent of the real place. However both events are real. The landing in Omaha Beach for the player is a real event, even though the world itself is not. The rules, the player is playing with are real as well, even if the virtual space itself is fictional. Hence all the engagements, interactions and encounters that are real are revolving around a space which is a work of fiction that is made to convince and appear as tangible as possible. In turn “Game space also feeds back into real space, where their intersection forms what can be termed as played space.” – Mcgregor.
Hence, the argument we have here is that game space, is indeed architectural. It is a space that facilitates events and behaviors much like real world architecture. The only difference is that the person inhabiting these virtual spaces are fictional characters which work as an extension of the user limited to specific behaviors that are fabricated and controlled by the developer.
These behaviors, according to Mcgregor form a list of “patterns” that use “architecture as a tool to unpack spatial conditions in video games.” She continues to explain the idea that game “space and architecture in reality express simple patterns of use that underlie a range of sophisticated activities that occur there.”- Mcgregor. It is no secret that in games our actions can be grouped into patterns, because they are so specific. They trigger the fundamental rules of the game because they are literally the buttons of the game; the things that make you “do” things. This engagement is basically an essential part of the “fun” in the game. What allows you to throw, kick, punch, run these are all the things that the player is playing with in order to enjoy. Hence, these rules are indeed patterns. The other argument that we have here is regarding the fundamental relationship between architecture in games and in real life… That in real life at some outlandish level, we are still limited to patterns because of the physical and mechanical behavior of our bodies. I outlined this difference in one of my pervious articles when I was comparing the spontaneous behaviors that architecture is trying to facilitate in reality and how in games it is more easily controlled through the implementations of controlling movement for the sake of play. We also saw in my interview with the Lead Level Designer from City Interactive how in making the game “sniper,” a lot of the environment was scripted in order to keep it alive. All the social engagements were a form of carefully outlined patterns of behavior that relate to the behavior of the player. Yet, the mere fact that architects try to predict movements and actions of users in buildings suggests that architects are aware of a pattern of use in reality at some level. “The activities of people in cities and buildings can be seen by patterns”-Robert Venturi.
Georgia brings up a children’s playground, which like games, tries to control the movement of the user in such a way as to infuse a sense of fun. Cedric Price’s Fun Palace, tried to do the same by giving the user absolute freedom into what he would hope would infuse a similar value he termed “delight.” Mcgregor argues that “A children’s playground is a spatial challenge; to negotiate their spaces is to go up, over, under and through extraordinary configurations of multi-colored components. A cricket pitch is a contested space on which a ritualized battle is played out, a competition that adheres to a set of special rules. A domestic house is a set of socially coherent nodes, where function is set out in familiar spatial arrangements of kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. To create or change a building is another form of activity”-Georgia. Hence it is clear that at some sophisticated level (in comparison to games) we are still using patterns when we use our spaces. A more direct example of patterns in spaces can be found in archetypal elements such as doors and windows that we open and close, even, periodically; when we leave for work/when we come back home. What I am interested is how these patterns may affect our perception of time. For instance a playground infuses fun which in turn, can create an environment where time seemingly “flies,” we have all experienced this! Or conversely waiting for ages in a doctor’s office which seems live forever. Breaking patterns, can be looked at as “special events” which create a sense of landing on time, in games I termed this as plot nuclei or the timeline effect. There is also control from external architecture; I mentioned the tall and narrow buildings clustered in Amsterdam, which make time seemingly move faster as you typically pass more houses walking down the street in comparison to other cities.
Now I have already mentioned a noteworthy author, Jespuur Juul, who in summary; claimed we as gamers occupy two types of space; or what Mcgregor labeled “game space and construct space.” This phenomenon is a clear example of how in turn we occupy two types of time; game time and real time. In games the world can revolve around a different clock than the one we are occupying in real life. This is one of the most fundamental examples of how time in games is controlled and how it in turn plays with our perception of time in games, and especially in the real world. Because playing a game and turning off your computer and returning to real life can often cause a sort of “awakening” to the gamer of how fast time moved in reality (it usually sucks).
I have outlined in one of my posts in the past how in the real world, this notion of the perception of time is indeed controlled in super-markets, in streets etc. But before I dig deeper I would like to establish that “game space is architectural in every sense of the word”- Mccgregor. Ernest Adams argues that game space is “imaginary space, it is necessarily constructed by human beings and therefore may be thought of as the product of architectural design processes” And indeed game worlds are spatial construct, made by distinct decisions that relate to contexts and the users themselves. Mccgregor has her take on this issue;
“Game space is a man-made construction, a built space often composed primarily of architectural elements. The architectural object can represent intangible concepts, operating as metaphor that contains and locates concepts in game space. As an integral part of game structure and organization, game space acts as a framework defining where we play and helping to configure gameplay.”
Therefore by extension, the developer has complete control over the way we perceive time in a game, in a sense even more so than reality, because in a game the developer has more direct control over what the player can physically do, where as in real world architecture behaviors can only be desired by the architect and rarely directly controlled.
More interesting, (and relating to my topic), Mcgregor continues, “architecture is about more than just building; it encompasses the activities that occur within them, including social interaction.” A notion I have been long exploring, the idea that architecture extends past its physical geometry and enables social interaction to occur. In game space, this is all directed towards gameplay. According to Alexander Galloway a professor of cultural and media at NYU, game spaces are held by a “cybernetic relationship between computer and hardware.” Mcgregor paraphrases “this relationship is manifest in gameplay in the action, reaction and interaction of player and game. Game space must be interpreted according to how it affects gameplay. The patterns of spatial use look at how game space and gameplay work together.” Thus it is seen how inherit in every game space is the gameplay, and by extension one cannot live without the other.
But to truly understand how social engagements occur in both game space and real space it is important to highlight the types of spaces that we find in games. The way these spaces have been defined was by relating them to real spaces.
Mcgregor explores the first which she labels “screen mediated games.” These types of games are perhaps the most common, where an interface on a screen is interacted by the player through a set of controls accessed physically by the player, and through speakers and perhaps even a microphone aurally. The screen frames the interface and thus acts as the base of the game itself. Mcgregor explains; “Game space also extends beyond the screen in what Mike Jones calls the macro mise-en-scene [18], so that game space is framed within the screen by the virtual camera. The artificial world is contained and bordered, isolated from real space. Played on consoles, computers and handheld devices screen-mediated games are historically dominant and remain the prevalent form of spatial projection.” She continues “Despite its separateness, screen-mediated game space is dependent on the conventions of real space and our experiences in it. Taking Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s notion of embodiment, in which body image is task orientated and where spatiality relates to situation not position, Bernadette Flynn argues that players are conditioned by their bodily experiences in real space [10]. Movement and navigation in game space reflects their counterpart in reality. Game players inhabit game space in a subjective manner and bring to the game world their corporeal history. Spatial practice in games then becomes a cultural act. This suggests a way in which designers and players, through their unconscious familiarity with socially encoded environments, bring spatial and social practices to the game world.” Thus it is interesting to see how game space is clearly dependent on real space yet poses the illusion of independent. This may also help explain the way in which the perception of time in games may be completely mis-interpreted. Furthermore, it is interesting to see how players from different sides of the world inhabiting completely different spaces may interact socially on screen in the same space and feel completely convinced.
There are of course games which push the boundaries of framed space in screen mediated games physically into real space. These are labeled “pervasive games” where mobile technology maybe superimposed in the actual room in what Carsten Magerkurth calls “location aware games which regard the entire world, the architecture we live in, as a game board.” Mccgregor brings forth two examples of this sort of game
“Triangler (TNO 2007) is a collaborative outdoor mobile game using GPS systems where three teammates attempt to form equilateral triangles with their bodies in the environment, enclosing enemy players. Players negotiate real world hazards as they follow player positions on their mobiles, where game space shares a direct relationship to real space.
Another form of pervasive gaming that overlays game space onto real space are augmented reality games like Human Pacman (Cheok et al 2004) which places virtual items into the real world. Using wearable computers and head mounted displays Human Pacman superimposes game objects and game patterns onto a predefined area of urban space. Players see both the real environment and virtual cookies, collected by physically entering the space that appears to contain the object. Gameplay requires the player to act within the real world and game space corresponds dimensionally to real space.”
The last type of game Mccgregor brings forth is “Ubiquitous games” which literally recognize the edges and boundaries of the framed space as a concept in the real space. An example of this, is the tamaguchi, a simulation of a pet that lives inside the contained frame of the console, interacting with it and possessing the illusion through diverse scripted animations to the player that it is recognized by this pet. Mccgregor labels this phenomenon as embedding and explains “Embedded game space can also occur when virtual objects are used within a specially constructed play space. An augmented tabletop game that uses a physically modelled landscape in conjunction with virtual inhabitants embeds gameplay in a contrived reality. Game space is placed within an artificial real space.”
Whats interesting in embedding is that unlike the screen-mediated games, ubiquitous games are mostly real-time and physically interact with real world rules perhaps. Hence all the social interactions possess a more aware realization on behalf of the player as it is as if the characters (such as the tamaguchi) are actually occupying space in the real world. Mccgregor brings up an even more compelling example;
“Another example is Pixel Chicks (Mattel), whose advertorial catch cry is a 2D girl living in a 3D world. Here a pixelated digital character is displayed over a plastic molded house, projected above the furniture. The pixel chick sits, walks and interacts with the real space of her synthetic home. Artificial game space is given an artificial real space.” It is no secret and I established this in my storyworlds article that games consistently borrow things from the real world and re-apply them in the game space. Some of these types of games even go as far to physically inhabit the real world as we have seen. And as far as patterns of spaces is concerned we may see that games are very often reusing and modeling patterns found in the way people inhabit real space in game space. ¬¬¬ Mccgregor puts these patterns into a list:
“The prevalent patterns of spatial use are:
• Challenge Space: where the environment directly challenges the player.
• Contested Space: where the environment is a setting for contests between entities.
• Nodal Space: where social patterns of spatial usage are imposed on the game environment to add structure and readability to the game.
•Codified Space: where elements of game space represent other non-spatial game components.
• Creation Space: where the player constructs all or part of game space as part of gameplay.
• Backdrops: where there is no direct interaction between the game space and the player.”
Whats similar between all these patterns is the desire of the player to defeat the foe by the application of the game rules. And these patterns that we see go to show that there is a “strong correlation between where we play and what we play”- Ulf Wilhelmsson. And even more so the environments control how the game can be played and how the rules applied, such as physical movement. That is also not to see the environments ability to enclose game space cannot be turned into something meaningful that evokes a strong ambiance and do not necessarily have to be static but can even be turned into backdrops of cities and dynamic environments.
Mccgregor points out that the patterns of special use in games, are not necessarily prescriptive however, just like in real architecture;
“Rules give the game a range of possibility of play, how players actually use that space can vary from what the designer anticipated. Just as real spaces can be used differently from their intended purpose; patterns of game space can change through emergent gameplay. In reality skateboarders turn the safety of the shopping center into a challenge space, in virtuality players of Battlefield 2 can ignore the fighting for the sheer spatial thrill of base jumping. The patterns of spatial use are not prescriptive.”
This all goes to show that designed spaces in games truly implies architecture in every sense of the word, and can truly evoke interesting social interaction in many shapes and forms. Time as a fundamental variable, also, in architecture can be controlled more directly in comparison to real life allowing for the game to become more immersive. But most importantly in regards to this post we have seen how Jespuur Jules notion of players inhabiting game space and real space as a fact rather than as a concept. That games have this interesting ability to influence real space beyond the screen, and that video games have the ability to really utilize space to infuse fun.
City Interactive is another Polish company I had the opportunity to interview. They are very large, and focus on games ranging from flying games, to a very popular first person shooter called Sniper. They are about to release sniper 2… I had the opportunity to interview Nikoli Pablovski who worked with this company for many years and is their lead level designer.
So what is it that you do?
I am the lead level designer; I am managing a team of level designers, but we are also rather like scripters as level designers, we also focus on things like the visual design, but mostly we are making the script in the game; we are putting AI, any scripted action; explosives to be final to the game.
Ok, how would you design around the NPC in a game? I mean obviously you say you work with AI
And the design itself as well…
Yeah, well through making the level design, how would you make the characters and the level design work together? What are some of the things you consider?
It’s about the engine really, we need to make events, and connections between any logic; if the character comes from over here (points to a side) the character will make an animation like this… and if he is over here and the player is here he will behave like that….
So it is quiet cinematic?
No, no, no, not always. You can have an AI like, actually I don’t know, to be honest there is no AI in any game, all of them are scripted, so it actually depends how you call it… so you need to design how they will behave on different events, so you need to prepare them for bullet rain, sounds near their head, footsteps, or any other ideas… how they will behave, so wright a script in our case allows the AI to start to work. We are putting as well for example, cooperative animations, other stuff like random behaviors, random animations aligned with random locations and objectives, or for things like ladders and gameplay elements that you need to figure out… Heavy machine gun stands and most the elements that the game allows you to use.
Yeah, and what do you think a good level design can achieve? What are the main criteria’s and things you try to do when you make a level? Like the aspirations or things you want to get at when you design a level?
To me, honestly, the battlefield… a “real” battlefield, it’s kind of tricky when you have lots of AI’s and they need to behave properly with each other. Some are friendly, some are hostile, and they are not supposed to take you, as the player, as the main target always. This is the basic problem with all of the games really, that the player is the main object to shoot at for the AI’s but still to have a “real” battlefield, you need to have the soldiers choosing their targets properly, “this is a hostile so I need to shoot him first!” or “this is a player, why to shoot him? He is a hostile like the others… he is not closer so I nead to shoot the closer guy…” But still the main problem with games is that they are starting to be shorter, and easier. I am a hardcore gamer so it’s starting to be annoying really…
Out of curiosity are you approaching this as more of a sandbox approach where you have an open level, or is it more linear and scripted, or somewhere in between?
Something in between, some of the elements are sandbox, others are more linear… You know you need to have what we call the “logic gates” to close the environment, to reload it from the memory of the console, so that it can be better graphics and that kind of thing. You need to put those logic gates when you need to wait for a guy or you need to be there and then you will have a cooperative animation, and that you cannot go back, just because of the performance.
Yeah, I find that in sniper, because it’s a sniping game. The level design is quite different because the terrains are so vast.
This is the biggest issue, probably, there are no other games, like that and the biggest issue is that you need to have life in this area also where the enemy is. Normally, its quiet easy, you just run and gun, with close combat, the guys can be dumb, really, they just need to shoot. But in the big distances you need to script them or make them behave properly for a much more…
Large environment…
Yeah, large environment and still they need to do something… until you shoot! So, it’s a challenge, really… because they need to repair a car or something, they need to do something in the environments, they need to live in those areas as you are watching them.
And I guess in this game this is important, because you can revisit the same spaces quite often that you can walk backwards and forwards in the same space, so you want to keep it alive. It’s not like in Doom, where you just keep going and keep going, here you can go back…
Being the generally awesome adventurer that I am, I decided to travel onwards from Warsaw to Cologne with a dea friend (who also happens to write games) and speak to some of the people which design those very gameswe so love.
id software need no introduction. Being at the Gamescom I had the opportunity to get an early look and play their all new game "Rage" in assosciation with Bethesda which also exhibited some major new titles such as the Eldar Scrolls V and Prey 2. So this was clearly a good opportunity to get some insight into their view of my topic. I have to admit, level design has always been a strange thing in Bethesda’s games, because they literally create worlds with many cities that you can revisit, and that are very non-linear: meaning the player can wonder around relatively freely in comparison to other first person games. In Bethesda's worlds there are many specific micro environments that revolve around specific missions… (Like in caves and castles). I have always been a fan of the aesthetic quality of their level designs but never truly of the actual geometric makeup, because I often found that it didn’t carry so much suspense and was generally generic in terms of gameplay quality. Just like in architecture, a game needs to follow a sense of function, in games this is aimed to achieve fun. Now, id have basically invented the genre of first person shooters starting with Wolfenstein and releasing very popular titles such as the Quake Series and the Doom series. I found that their level design is not only historically significant and highly influential but usually very playful and straightforward. So getting an early look, playing this not-yet-released hybrid company game and speaking to somebody who specializes in level design from the dawn of first person shooters was a real treat. If you google Tim Willits, you will find him all over the internet, and find that he worked on basically every Quake game, Ultimate Doom, and Doom 3.
So what to you is the difference between architecture in reality and architecture in games?
So to me students of architecture, what I found, focus on the functionality and how practical a space is which doesn’t necessarily work well in game design. But, students of architecture can focus on making composition pieces, facades; they can construct the framework of a level. Then once that framework is established than you can put on your level design hat and focus on the gameplay space, because things in games aren’t necessarily realistic but their much more fun…
They are made for gameplay rather than function…
Yes, you know like architecture books that I have and that the designers have at work, we use those to copy styles, to get ideas, that sets the framework but you don’t want to get too hung up on realistic architectural design because then your game space will not be as fun as it can be…
I would just like to add, I was looking at a blog online and part of the reason people really loved fallout 3, was because some of the spaces people encountered re-interpreted the way they perceived those spaces, like a pile of junk could be a home to vicious raiders. That was quiet interesting, I mean; I don’t know if you wanna…
Em, yes, um…
It’s the whole idea of reinterpretation, also some of the buildings, you know.. in Washington, some of the reason players, especially in the US, I would say more so, than Europe liked it, was because they could recognize many of those buildings
Yes, and they liked to explore them and see what happens
It was like completely re-interpreted! It was like a new way of re-exploring those environments…
So again, I would as an architectural student, again, would always keep that level designer hat on, when developing your space
Right
Yes
So what do you think is the main kind of attribute of a level designer, what is the main thing level designers focus on…
Fun.
Fun?
Fun, that is the key, trust me, you know I’ve made, a lot of levels, all the way from Quake 1, and you know: good flow, good design. Maps either have like a theme, maps either have like a visual setting or maps have some kind of a gameplay mechanism.
Okay…
You know, figure out what you want to do, figure out what you want to accomplish in the map, build to that and then use your architectural studies too make it look pretty, because if you can make it look pretty and you get people’s attention they will “accept” where they are and the experience will be more rewarding for them.
And last question, what do you think the role of the NPC’s are in the environment?
Oh they help create setting, story, they drive the action they make you feel like there are other things in the world, make you feel like a part of a larger story, that you are a key character in this larger story, you know that you are not just the “lone gunman…”
Over the weekend, the biggest names in geekage from all across the world got together to compete for more than 50,000$ playing Starcraft 2 on Saturday, and World of Warcraft on Sunday for the equivalent prize money. This event happens once a year and funny enough this year it came to Warsaw, Poland, so I said, "Why not, go there get some interviews, talk to some geeks."
Well, arriving at the location, it was a giant huge mall in the center of Warsaw, I went to the information; they had no idea what event I was talking about. I walked everywhere, in and out of the mall, a good hour or two, nothing!
Finally when I was on the verge of giving up hope, I spotted a geeky looking kid and said, "he'll know!" He was vicously testing out a golden permanent marker on the back of a piece of paper, (probably for some autographs). I told him "Do you know anything about the Starcraft 2 event thats happening?" he told me to follow him, we went to the top of the mall where a giant futuristic semi-circular glossy frame punched into the wall with neon letters about 3 meters high that said "BATTLENET INVATIONAL" I couldn't help but awe at the site of the room inside, the event itself was spectacular, the posters, the artwork, made me realize how wonderful the life of hardcore geeks must be.
But as far as interviews went, it was a bit harder then I anticipated. No other game company has a fan base as geeky and loving as Blizzard, who have the ability to make games so addicting players dedicate their livelihoods to those games. Yes, these players make money, they are considered celebrities in the geekworld and everybody (except me) knew them... They do this for a living competing against one and another, with cool names such as "Thorzain" or the "Drunken Terran". Anyways, I thought I'd make the most out of this event and get some words from the developers.
However, just asking for an interview with one of the developers was a real pain, "we get hundreds of these requests a day" the press coordinator told me after I spent about an hour just trying to get in touch with him. He gave me his card, shook my hand and told me to drop him an email, maybe I'll get a reply, maybe I won’t. He said if you wait till the games are over you maybe able to exchange words with one of the players, maybe...
Another lady working for Blizzard told me, "look, if your doing research you really should talk to the players, their super friendly and will gladly talk to you." Well, I decided I wasn't going to wait till 11PM after the games were over to talk to them, because I HAD A LIFE, I barged my way to the back found myself in the spotlight. I jumped at the opportunity to talk to what looked like the dorkiest kid there with logos of various computer companies. "Are you a player?" He looked at me like I should know him, I told him the research I was doing, that I wasn't from the press and that I just needed five minutes of his time when he can. No words, I told I am just researching about architecture in games to which he replied "I don't know what you meen about architecture in games," and walked off. To be honest I may have gotten a different reply from a world of warcraft geek, because being a starcraft 2 player which is really a strategy game, or maybe the word "architecture," was too not fun sounding, whatever it was, he wasn't very social towards me. Nonetheless, I was so furious at his remark, all the while thinking, "What does he meen, what do I meen Architecture in games?" I was also furious at the difficulty of getting one opinion from anybody there that I decided to sit back and review the spectacle from an anthropological stand. After all I was researching FPS and this whole event was really not a FPS event, so what the hell!
Anyhow, it was reviewing the reaction of the audience, the faces of the players when winning and the adrenaline, that I realized that this was indeed an amazing event. These players were merely tapping some keyboard buttons and clicking the mouse and making amazing things happen virtually. This was the modern day version of gladiators. Players killing themselves virtually, losing, winning the awe, the spectacle, the dedication of the fans to sit their for hours upon hours.
A famous historian wrote on an article here in Poland, that "History is about people and places, not dates of victories and defeats," -Woloszanksi.
And indeed Woloszanksi couldn't be more correct, this was all about these players and the places there were in, both in the real world and in the virtual world. They were making very spacial decisions inside the game, (like in any game) but what was speciel her was how their decisions extended past the screen spacially and reached to the crowd that would be cheering for the virtual choices these players were making at such a massive scale. This was proper social engagement, virtually, realistically, in every possible way. These virtual environments allowed such a social manifestation to arupt around me that I was very glad, that at the end of the day, I really got out what I neaded by just sitting and watching and talking to geeks around me. This wasn't a FPS and so it wasn't directly relevent to my research in terms of game typology. However what this did show me was the ability a game has to extend and to reach out in the spacial environments, from virtual to real. This was the carrear of these players, they spend most their lives occupying a world that is fictional (in their heads) and turning into money in the real world. These people are immersed in another world, and we, in this world are following their actions. This is a whole new level of social interaction. Players around me who I spoke to and I asked "Why do you love world of warcraft so much?" Replied, "becuase its so social! and the worlds are so creative..." These players are willing to dedicate their lives to these worlds, and I bet, if they could, they would jump right into the wolrd in their screens without looking back...
Anyways! I plan on getting more interviews, and I recently found a essay by an Australian architecture student specifically about architecture in games that I will talk about in the posts to come!
Below my friend print-screened me from a live stream of the event online. I'm inside that circle....
Meeting this guy for the first time was quiet something, when he told me to look for a big guy in a military uniform, I knew already that I was interviewing a veteran of the gaming industry. Maciek worked in many companies, in big titles like, "Sniper," now him and his company "Flyingwildhog," are releasing their first game ever "Hard Reset" a FPS which I am sure will be a big deal! Below, is a teaser trailer, below that, a link to the game trailer (for some odd reason it won't insert), and below that the interview!
Interview with Maciej, developer from FlyingWildHog
In 2002 a noteworthy architecture critic said the role of architecture in games is simply cosmetic, I believe quite a bit has happened over the past decade, what in your opinion is the role of architecture in games today, and where will you think it will head?
Depends on what you do really, if you create a sci-fi world your inspirations are various, like you can create something from scratch or you could get inspired by something from the real world which helps you gather good references to create and recreate items for the games world. It varies on the kind of game, really... and what the player does... for example between rpg's or first person shooters.
Well in rpgs it’s different, because you can revisit the same environment where as in fps that never really happens, you never really revisit the same spaces, I mean sometimes you do....
Well sometimes you do
But it’s usually different, I mean the game has a timeline right?
Yeah
You need to progress the story right?
Yeah
If you go back to the same space its never really going to be the same, its going to be different
mostly, yes
And sometimes it’s used differently…
Yes, yes, yes, in FPS you usually push on, but you can sometimes go back
Well, if your lost or something or you can’t find your way…
No, no it could be a planned event, like retreat or something like that, we call this mechanism the script, like when you press the trigger something begins to work in the space
Right…
And then the game orders you to retreat for instance, then you come back to the same space and something entirely new happens… the other thing is that walking forwards and backwards in the same level allows you to create longer gameplay; I mean the game feels longer.
What do you think the major considerations of level designer are when designing a game?
It depends on the firm first of all, we make something we call a maquette which is a simplified environment, like simple blocks, cones. Let’s say we get a draft of a level and then we think how to create interesting gameplay, where to place events and how to lead a player through the environment. Sometimes we create ideas like collapsing buildings, we call this a special event.
In short and briefly what captivates you in a good game? What does it do? How do games become addictive?
First of all, I am interested in stories, it’s very important to me; I am not a typical player. Some players just push on, shoot targets; push on, shoot targets that is how it scrambles in their case. To me personally, I like to question why I am here? what am I doing? what are my orders? who are my enemies? and such things… So the story is very important to me, personally….
Why are first person shooters such a big deal? Why do people enjoy them?
Because your able to be fully immersed in a completely new environment that your able to explore…, it never gets old because you get to be somebody new...
It used to be that good graphics were the big thing, now I hear people saying good graphics are nice but they prefer the gameplay… What do you think constitutes good gameplay?
Well I think we may establish this as a rule, that people are generally attracted to good gameplay and for me the social interaction and the shooting is very key. Games should be fun and convincing; sometimes it’s done through the AI. That’s not to say that graphics aren’t important, it takes a team with a lot of skill to create convincing graphics. But at the end of the day you need a good story, good gameplay, interesting environments, events, people…
Have you seen the new Battlefield 3 trailer by any chance?
Yeah
Have you seen the way the characters lead you through the environment, there’s a lot of interaction…
Well yes, actually that’s an entirely different approach from our work, "Hard Reset", take a look, its built on a lot of visual impact; it’s an entirely different world, a cyber-punk world, where we make entirely different weapons, equipment and building environments, it’s a recreation so we have the privelage to create a new world work, with new rules and such, I’m the story designer, but I also create weapons and textures for the game…
So your inspirations do they come from the real world?
Sometimes, yes…
Is it just inspirational, or is there certain things you’re trying to trigger in the player?
Trigger?
Ok, let me give you an example, do you know fallout?
(tilts his head back and makes a wild eyed expression signaling, “obviously”)
Obviously
Very good game
Ok, some players online were talking about it and what they were interested in was how you that game re-interpreted the way they can perceive the environment, like a pile of junk can be a home for a vicious raider. Or just take you know..
Eh are we talking fallout 1, 2 or 3?
Three, sorry
Ah, that’s not fallout…
Fair enough we'll get back to that, but what I am interested in, actually, is the way they used recognizable buildings from Washington to trigger memories and that’s what kept players really interested in that area, I don’t know it’s just a strategy....
Perhaps for you as citizens
Haha, fair enough…
I think the graphics in fallout 3 was lousy
That’s true it sucked…
A big one
But it was fun?
Naaah, look, in fallout 1 and 2
I never played it so, I was eager to buy it on steam but…
You should, it’s a fucking milestone
Really?
It was brilliant, because the limits of the graphics forced you to use your imagination, you saw a simplified world, but in your head it was real!
Wow
And that was a major impact...
And how do you think they achieved that?
Through creating an inspiring story and world, it was this holistic design, it was a retro future. At first glance, the world is quiet strange and after a while it grabs you.
Right, I guess its like a story, you know, they say “let the reader use their imagination…” they kind of give you a hint, and then you actually get even more into it…
Yes, it works like that, I believe…
To me a good game leaves me with memories after I am done playing, how do you think this may be achieved in general? What makes moments, and events memorable?
Once again, creating very characteristic locations, characters and events… and if something unusual happens and I don’t know, like the dragon, for example, from the Witcher 2; huge bitch dragon trying to eat you up in a confined space, you’re going to remember that battle because the character and the environment was challenging.
Do you know Half life 2?
Yes
A lot of people really like the moment when they were playing with Dog…
Yes, yes, yes very good animation.
And the reason some people liked that was because it was very memorable, because yes, it was a very specific environment it was like a junkyard and that kind of matched Dog’s style, so it was an immediate aesthetic kind of unity but at the same time there was that animation and that interaction…
That and another cool thing in this particular scene was a robot behaving like an animal.
Right
It looked it like a robot but it moved more organic.
What experience do games have over in spaces that real world architecture does not? Why do people want to experience games?
Because in games they experience things that are entirely different in real life, for example in games you shoot people, seldom, rather. I mean I shoot people in real life, but its an airsoft game, similar experience... but you don’t KILL people.
A lot of people think that anything is possible in games? However would you say there are things games cannot achieve that real architecture can, or is this really the case?
Well, no, For example in our game we have the core, it’s a 5km high building with pillars and hangers and its like you know, insane, I don’t think our technology in real life can build things such thing now. On the other hand, in games you’re limited by the computers power, number of triangles, but that too gets better over time. So kind of like the real world, games are also always pushing limits. But at the end of the day games are built to support gameplay... thats a different approach then environments in real life...
What do you think the key elements are in making an environment convincing? Even if it’s very stylized or artistic, how do you make the player forget where he is and sink into the game?
First of all you have to synergize, if you take a level, and you take it apart, explode it, take the single assets they should match together, if they don’t match, they’re worth fuck all. If a game doesn’t follow its own rules it doesnt sell, it needs consistency. And the other thing that is very important is the overall quality of the assets themselves, if their visually attractive, if they work, then great!
One of the things I am specifically researching is time, the way it is used and distorted in games (specifically first person shooters) into what we call events. In reality where we may experience spaces that never really change over time, or spaces that feel like forever (e.g doctor’s office), in games this notion of our perception of time has the ability to be controlled very specifically. How would you say level design plays into that? And how would you say it controls this whole notion of distorting time…
They have full control over it, if the events are challenging, if you have to save and load often, it feels longer. An overall trend for the hardcore players, weekend players and monthly players is that if the game is challenging and the events are powerful it will be memorable; if not, even the hardcore player will forget those moments. Also if it’s not tactile, if it’s not unique its worth nothing, becuase it won't stick….
What are the primary roles of the NPC’s in games? What do you think the NPCS add to the game that goes beyond the dialogue?
Very hard question, because there is not a straightforward answer. But I think the best thing that you can achieve between you and none player characters is interaction! And most games, NPC’s are still dumb they are just following you. You know if you’re looking at your teammates, (the people that back you up), sometimes they’re just not doing anything… and I draw a conclusion that they are not necessary. You need the interaction!
To what extent would you say the level design is affected by the NPCs movements/actions and also specifically to the players interaction with the NPC?
In battlefield 3 there was a clear implication, when they crawl; you crawl, the impact is huge. It’s like in the real world; If your being shot at and the guy in front of you gets shot, you hit the deck. I know this from real experience. It’s something like instinct, so the way the NPCs behave in that game draws on your instinct and that also makes the environment more memorable because you as the player are interacting with the NPC and there is a relationship to the world that goes beyond dialogue. And the game draws at your instincts to use the environment to crawl if you’re visible, to use the walls the barriers to protect you. And when the NPCs begin to convince you it works like the real world, when they look in a direction, shoot in a direction it makes you want to do the same and then you start to consider them as real people, you are convinced.
One of the major differences I find between architecture in reality and in games is the way the player interacts with the environment physically. In half life for example they put a lot of effort into the bounce-back of the crowbar to give the player a “feeler” into the game, this was quiet a big deal at the time; but at the end of the day we are limited to mouse and keyboard? Would you say games aim at limiting the interaction of the player with the environment? Expanding it? Controlling it? (Some games don’t even allow you to jump)…
First of all we are not limited to mouse and keyboard. You have certain controllers like something that looks like a gun, you have the wii which recognizes certain movements, and the Microsoft connect, this gives the player the opportunity to interact with the environment directly, damage the environment. There is actual physics involved, things bounce, things move, things break, things weigh, this gives you a much more realistic experience…
I am going to play devil’s advocate for a second, because at the end of the day, games also have a story that they need to follow and things that they need to do, let’s assume we have the tech. to let the player do anything they want, do you think it may damage the story? Get in the way? You want to control it as well no?
I think that it can, yes, because the main topic, the main importance of the game, is to force the player to do what he wants to do, if you give him the opportunity to do anything, giving him a free hand entirely, creating such a game would be extremely complicated because you choose to make a game, you choose what to show, what to buy….
Also, if we just make it like real life, it won’t beas fun, obviously. There is a reason you play a game and it’s because of specific experiences…
Yes, many things of games are simply fake… for example, environments, buildings, sometimes if you see a front wall of the building, bricks, whatever, its just a plain surface, they is nothing in it. If you gave the player the opportunity to move inside every building, you will need to create the buildings' interior, so you would have to re-create the whole world and having no choice in what to create and what not to create, it would be extremely complicated and this would be a huge bitch to pull off.
Jespur Jull another game critic pointed out something very interesting: I will read you what he said, he was reffering to a book he was writing called “Half-real”
"The Half-Real of the title refers to the fact that video games are two rather different things at the same time: video games are real in that they are made of real rules that players actually interact with; that winning or losing a game is a real event. However, when winning a game by slaying a dragon, the dragon is not a real dragon, but a fictional one. To play a video game is therefore to interact with real rules while imagining a fictional world and a video game is a set of rules as well a fictional world." -Jespur Juul
Would you agree with what he said?
Yes, but to me this begs the question of mental stability, if your imagination is very vivid, and very strong and you consider things that are in the game, real, it’s your problem, but it’s a problem… You should always be able to tell the difference between the real world and the fictional world, otherwise…
You go off shooting people…
Yeah, I actually experienced that once, I don’t mean shooting people, buut I was playing fallout 2, I was playing 22 hours or so, without eating sleeping and my friend called me and said “hey come over…”
Was that the last time you heard of that friend?
Haha, no anyways I got dressed, I went to the tram station, I grabbed my smoke and then I realized I didn’t take a lighter. So I looked around, I saw a lady, I came over and said, in English (because the game was in English) “Excuse me, have you got a lighter?” and then I slapped myself, in my head, I mean, and I asked her again in Polish, and she gave me a lighter, I lit my cigarette, and then! I was at the very edge, the very edge of asking her “tell me about this place?” which is a standard dialogue in fallout…
You know what! I’m sure this has happened to me, I’m very oblivious, I also, I used to play doom, my mom couldn’t get me off the computer! Thats a funny thing actually I learned most my English from playing games, maybe that’s why your English is so good as well! Just a thought!
Yeah, you know I actually passed my English exam during my university career quoting fallouts intro., the lady asked us to sit down and talk about a book, then I realized I didn’t aaand I started to think what to do, and I told her the book I am going to talk about was fallout, she asked what is that book about, and I answered, “The book is about war, war never changes…” and I quoted the whole intro and I passed…
Hey if it works it works right! I’m sure she like started crying, that’s amazing, anyways! Moving on, Basically I was just curious, because I have a blog and some guy posted on it this link and I’ll send it to you, my friend thinks its fake, anyways! Its these guys and they have this technology that turns polygons into atoms..
Atoms
Atoms yes,
Well I’m not very technical
No that’s fine! and apparently they can put an unlimited number of them, and it looks real, there’s no triangular surfaces everything is as it should be… So you can actually
Yeaaah I heard about it
And then this other guy online thought it was fake
Noo its not
Unlimited though?
No, I wouldn’t say unlimited buut.. almost
Like you can run it? It will run fine?
Yeah, I think so, you see the real issue is that’s its not standard, you see industry uses standard, if something is not standard
Everyone will attack it or?
Everyone will attack it and its not very usable, because its not standard
Well apparently it works with 3ds max, but anyways I’ll send it to you because I have your email.. but my question, my point! Again one off those general cheesy questions but I nead your quotes, your opinion, What is the implication of upgrading my computer for a game? As computers get stronger, graphics improve our ability to do everything expands, what do you see happening in the future? Will games become more grounded and strive to be closer to reality? What will we see happening? What kind of spaces will I be able to experience?
It depends on many many factors, the first thing is optimization, a good should be optimized, sometimes you see a game that doesn’t look good and it crashes. You have a slideshow instead of full movement, but I don’t think there’s any limit, it will develop, there is no end of this. Geometries in games that are heavier, and they will be heavier, the interaction will become bigger and bigger, worlds, textures bigger and bigger, I don’t think there’s an end...
Well let’s say, hypothetically we reach a point where we re-model our entire Earth, every detail, every molecule, would games basically still be the same? How will the experience in a space change?
By all means no, I said I wouldn’t put my name on the thought that anything is possible, but let me think…
Well games still have to have rules as well, they still have to limit things they do...
Open world game, entirely free choices, as I said before, it would be a bitch to pull off, I meen production and the other thing is that game wouldn’t be so interesting
It wouldn’t would it?
Like in case of sims, it’s a lame game
I know its fun for a week, Funny enough it was made to simulate people in spaces, it was made for architectural purposes as a tool…
Really? What?
Yes it was made to be a simulation, to see how people behave, but back then they didn’t have such good AI so they just turned it into a game, I mean you can see that in sims, if there is a plate on the floor, they can’t walk over it, they don’t know how… well in sims2 they can but you still see that their like getting ready, bracing themselves to walk over the plate, its hilarious...
I just don’t get how this game is so popular, you take a dump, you get ready, you go shopping and that’s it! Nothing really happens
You know what! Your absolutely right, I get sims, I play it for about a week, but you know what takes it away from me! The fact that I have to control the sim, I just like building the house and watching things happen in it, that’s whats fun, but controlling when the guy goes to sleep, that’s boring! I have to confess, when I was a little boy I used to play with Barbie doll houses…
Same here
Really?
Yeah
I used to have fun organizing the furniture, I used to love all that stuff and that’s what sims was for me,
Arranging space
now I have to make sure this guy doesn’t starve to death, its as if I am avoiding the special events
If anything I have more fun making sure he does die
I like killing them! It’s a bit more entertaining, not because I am some sadistic maniac, and that’s certainly how the game makes you feel if you do, its because nothing happens! Ever!
Yes, its because the main value of the game is to be someone you are not, somewhere unique, you take your full armor and your giant sword and you slay a dragon…
Yes, and that’s why a real game exactly like real life would be shit, although I have to tell you and this is actually quiet an interesting thought, I’ve always wanted and I’ve never bothered to make this, but when I was in school or you know I live in a town outside of Amsterdam, its called Amstelveen, I would love to play a game that’s inside my town, simply because I could recognize things you know?
Yeah..
You know it’s the same thing, and I was talking about fallout 3, and I know you said you didn’t like it, well one of the reasons people liked that game, was because for people who have been to Washington and have seen those things, and then they re-exerpience those in a different way, to them that’s like great!
I think the game in post-apocalyptic would be interesting, I think so yeah, I know… Although it wasn’t a good game,
I think, because the NPC’s were just so plain, so boring,
they did not interact with you, I did not like the game…
By the way, whats your opinion of Minecraft!?
(He’s about to laugh)
Oh! C’mon! Seriously? What’s your opinion?
Its an entirely differnet approach…
I know right!
It looks abysmal
It looks like shit!
It looks like shit, but at the same time somehow cool, I’ve never played it but I’ve seen my friends spending hours, because in the office we play often, because of the production now, but I think its because of the feeling
The environments are so cozy and you can really interact with friends, and build together
Yeah and I think that’s why it works well despite the graphics
You know and this was what I was trying to bring up, I think there was a moment and It may have been 3-4 years ago where graphics was really the big deal, I feel like now, I mean its more, I mean you see things like Minecraft…
Yeah
And graphics, don’t get me wrong are still important, but instead of being like 30% important its more like 20%, people are more convinced by like, well the NPC’s, I mean we’ve both seen battlefield 3,
Yeah it’s because it’s like getting back to the important roots, we’ve done this, our game is hardcore, old-school shooter, we actually don’t allow jump, we don’t have crouch
Yeah! That’s what I am saying your controlling the… Why didn’t you allow jump or crouch!? That’s what I ment your controlling the way the user interacts with the environment…
Because it was necessary, because our levels were designed in the way that allowed you to really immerse in the gameplay and really focus on your goals, buut if you see a huge obstacle, you can shoot it and it explodes….
Sounds a bit like doom?
Yes, it’s a nostalgia game
Doom damaged my brain, I think, I used to dream about it… I used to dream I was in doom and I would wake up like o shit,
Yeah same here, and actually my fiancé played medal of honour
That was a good game
Yeah, and the scene of landing on Omaha Beach, crouching behind cover, behind obstacles behind heavy fire, mortars firing, everything happening at the same time, and she finished this level and we went to bed and I was reading, she went asleap. Then she started to crouch, sleeping, behind me, she started to crouch behind me…
That’s so funny!
And I was like, what the hell are you doing? And she answered, “they are shooting at me.”
