Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Unseen Mechanics in Platformer Games

Very often when you play a game, you usually take several design mechanics for granted.

One, in particular, was something that was discovered and perfected in the NES platformer era, called Mercy Invincibility. The best, and easiest example would probably come from the NES Megaman series.



In Megaman 1, when the player took damage multiple times, consecutively, it meant that he could die at a very rapid pace, without having a chance to correct his behavior. Enemies with rapid attacks were deadly; getting hit and then falling into spikes was a death sentence. Naturally, this was frustrating for the player, as this left very little room for error. (Something already pretty notorious in the Megaman series.)

But in Megaman 2, the designers attempted to fix the problem. When Megaman was hit, his sprite would flash rapidly, and he would have a solid second or two of complete invulnerability. This is called Mercy Invincibility, and it allowed to players to get hit, and then, quickly correct themselves to avoid further attacks. Experienced Megaman players even used Mercy Invincibility to their advantage, allowing themselves to get hit, and then using their temporary invulnerability to walk on the normally-fatal spikes. This greatly increased the ease of play, and lowered the frustration of insta-dying.

But before Megaman 2, even the original Super Mario Bros. had come up with a form of Mercy Invincibility, even though Mario had no health bar and would instantly die if he took any damage as small Mario. After Mario had consumed a mushroom and transformed into Big Mario and then gotten damaged; he would flash several times as he shrunk into small Mario, and more importantly, for a few brief moments, he would become invulnerable to all forms of damage. (Except the all-mighty pits of death.)  If you play or look at a lot of amateur platform games, you can usually see when the creator neglects to add this little caveat of a mechanic, and usually it's an indicator of bad design. There are always exceptions to the rule, though, and sometimes even well-designed games do not have Mercy Invincibility, although they typically become notorious for difficulty, ie: Metal Slug, Contra series.

 (If you want to see a incorrect way to utilize Mercy Invinciblity, check out the hilariously bad PC version of Megaman made in 1990, here.)

As a side note, the idea of Mercy Invinciblity may have been an indirect influence on the Health Regen seen so often in FPS games nowadays. But as the Insomniac dev in the article above explains: most of the time it goes too far; often preventing the game from becoming suspenseful or exciting, which is never a good thing, especially in a combat-oriented FPS. Perhaps a more direct descendant of Mercy Invincibility would be Spawn Protection, protecting players in multiplayer games for a few seconds after they spawn.

Another mechanic that's very common in more well-designed Platform games is something I call Jump Forgiveness. Traditionally, in platform games, you can't jump unless you're standing on something. Obviously, this also has a basis in reality. So, naturally, when you play something, you believe that you're doing what you see below: running and jumping BEFORE you hit the yellow line; the edge of the ledge.




However, if you try coding this in your game, you'll notice that it becomes difficult to jump right at the edge, even if you have good reflexes. Half the time, you'll just end of falling off the ledge and being unable to jump.
I assume that Miyamoto, the designer behind SMB, noticed this problem, and addressed it by doing this:


He allowed the player to jump in midair, if only for a half second of leeway, after walking off a platform. This made it considerably easier to jump from platform to platform, an invaluable thing to have in something as platform-centric as Mario. The amount of leeway you give your player can vary, but generally a half-second to 1 second is the sweet spot.

The most important thing about these mechanics, and others like them, is that they allow the game to flow so smoothly that the Player does not even know that these designs are in place.

-Alex

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Dead Gear Possible Title Screen Art

Was messing around in Photoshop today, wanted to do a quick little piece promoting Dead Gear.




Edit: And just like that we have a new coder and technical director, a Mr. David Gutierrez. It's good to have him on the team.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Weapons in Metroidvanias, Gems in Dead Gear

Many Metroidvanias follow the Metroid route: there is a standard weapon or attack, and throughout the course of the game, the player buffs the efficiency of the weapon, or alters it in a beneficial way.

Metroid for the NES.
 A good example from Metroid would be the one of the very first abilities gained. In Metroid for the NES, Samus' basic beam attack is pitifully short range, almost melee range. One of the first relics she obtains, increases her basic attack range two-fold. As the genre evolved, the abilities not only gave Samus better combat skills, but had additional utility functions as well. In Super Metroid, gaining the Ice Beam allowed Samus to freeze enemies solid.


This was cool by itself, but more importantly, it allowed Samus to jump on top of the frozen enemies, creating makeshift platforms. Samus did have different abilities, like the Grapple Beam and Morph ball, but most things in the game (even opening doors) are accomplished by using her basic, default attack and modifications therein. (Missile, Super Missile.)


Different Castlevania, but same premise.
When Castlevania SOTN came along, it offered a much more RPGish take on the system, allowing the protagonist to equip a myriad of different weaponry, each with their own quirks. A rapier would attack in a very different manner than equipping a greataxe. In addition to attack differences, the weapons even had attack attributes associated with them. This meant that a weaker weapon would grow obsolete, given enough time, forcing the player to find a more suitable item to equip. This system differs from Metroid in that weapons and attacks were not used to progress in the game in any manner. In theory, you could play through the entire game using the weak rusty dagger from the very beginning. Instead, Alucard's gained abilities that allowed him to progress through the map. The weapons were there only as a means to defeat enemies.

Cave Story.

Cave Story offered another fresh take on the system, containing a weapon system that more resembled a Contra game than a Metroidvania, with about 6 weapons that behaved in different ways, and could be 'leveled up' (or down) depending on the exp received. Functionally, it resembled SOTN in that weapons were purely for combat, with the possible exception of the Machine gun, which allowed Quote to hover a bit if fired downward.


Some designs for the Garnet.
In Dead Gear, Illyia collects Gems as a means of gaining both new attacks and new abilities. Some Gems will grant Illyia abilities passively, such as the ability to double-jump. Whereas others act as equippable weapons, similar to Cave Story and SOTN. But I've tried to make an effort into making each new weapon have an important secondary function that can affect gameplay mechanics.

For example, one of the first new weapon Gems that Illyia obtains would be the Garnet, which allows her to use Fire Magic. In addition to being one of the most damaging weapons, it also functions as a way for Illyia to hover for a short distances, allowing her to make long jumps. Other functions include doing extra damage to Ice-based enemies and melting ice.

In the future I'll elaborate on the overload mechanic.


Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Some mockups of the menu screens. 

On this menu, Illyia chooses her currently equipped Gem, which serve as her primary weapons.
You can also quickly select gems without using the menu by using a quick-select button.





Each Gem is given 3 ratings from 1-5. 1 is poor, 5 is great.

 Power: The amount of pure damage output.
Utility: Ease of use, and additional functions beyond attacking.
Overload: Resistance to the Gem overloading and resetting its level.






 Here's a look at a map system mockup. People are sure to note its similarities to the excellent SOTN and Metroid maps. Not sure if this is the direction I'd like, but it's getting there.

Something I'd always wished had been in Metroidvania maps is color-coded areas, so the player would be able to clearly define the borders of the different locations. Another possible change from the norm would be not revealing the doors until the player has found them, unsure.

-Kirb


Tuesday, March 6, 2012

On Level Design

I was going to write a post about some aspects of Level Design, and the unwritten tutorial;
but was pleasantly surprised to find that a fellow had already written an excellent article on the subject.

Give it a read, it's pretty dang educational.

The most important thing to take away, design-wise, are the subtle tutorials that manifest themselves through gameplay. There is no handholding, there is no large text tutorial; those are symptoms of a designer who is not confident in his own design.

-Kirb