Posts by ZZZ

  • Mental health / rant thread

    One of the most crucial aspects of mental health is vocabulary. I learned that by watching some videos about neurosciences and some experts in borderline personality. The first thing that often comes is: what do you feel? how do you describe it?

    Speaking of borderline. After watching some experts talk about it I changed my view on crimes. The press is very quick at labelling criminals psychopaths, borderline, cruel and the like. But you can't blame the disorder for it. In some cases yes, but more often not. I've seen a case where schizophrenia was given as an excuse for racism. Hmm.. no, really no.

  • Have you ever heard of directional dyslexia?

    I was researching some material to add to my level design site when I stumbled upon a curious condition. Some people are unable to memorize routes and get lost. While I was reading about level design I've accidentaly found about a condition that leaves a person unable to memorize a route. Level design has many sub-areas and one of them is giving the player directions. In some games the level design is poor and the player is lost with no clear indication of where to go. I've found out that the same can happen in real life and in some extreme cases it can be disorienting for a person to go to the bathroom in a school. They just can't memorize the route from class to bathroom and from bathroom to class.

    In Shadow Warrior 2013 they made the mistake of putting strong lights in dead ends or in the background, missguiding the player. In Alan Wake it's the opposite, light is very well used and you can trust light to guide yourself. It seems that some people are unable to recognize clues to follow a path. That or they have memorie issues that prevent them from memorizing a map.

    https://www.dyslexia-reading-well.com/directional-dyslexia.html

  • Mental health / rant thread

    I wasn't suggesting self-diagnose. I was saying that reading about emotions and how they relate to mental health. The diseases are often missunderstood because ppl have missconceptions and understanding the missconception helps to have a better understanding of emotions in general.

    Everyone can have obsessions, lack of focus, bad mood, bad days, etc. They are naturally occuring in most cases. Diseases happen when those are in extreme levels, both high or low.

  • Mental health / rant thread

    One thing that you can do is follow podcasts or read about specific things such as:

    - Ego defense mechanisms - Emotions from the point of view of neuroscientists

    OCD, ADHD, Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. If you go beyond the lists of symptoms and look for environmental causes you are likely to find one or more little details that may sound familiar to you.

  • What are you playing now?

    Played half of Wolfenstein and then dropped it. The levels are great and it has some Bioshock vibes due its design. It's semi open world with a city that you can freely go from one area to another, with loadins due to RAM restrictions at the time. The supernatural powers seem to be inspired by Jedi Knight 2, they work the same way. Except that you recharge at specific spots that are everywhere. The Black sun dimension is more or less the same idea used in Prey's spirit walk. I'd say that Wolfenstein is Prey 2006 with everything wrong done right. At least in terms of level design, game mechanics and a plot that isn't some random sh.... pulled from one's ass.

    The bad side about Wolfenstein is that it's repetitive. The same nazis from start to finish. It gets boring fast.

    The good side are the levels. Whoever made the hospital and the castle are very good. The level design does guide the player in the right direction.

    I was going to try RTCW but I decided to not to. I just watched the gameplay and the game is exactly the same old wolfenstein 3D with newer tech. The level design looks good but plays bad. Whoever was playing it spent 50% of the time lost in the levels and shooting at things that do nothing.

  • Level Design Help Files

    So I wrote 10 pages and plan to translate to english later. Now I have to do some cleaning up and choose a better structure for the text. I didn't wrote much, it's mostly screenshots and commentary. Currently it is as follows:

    - Readability and contrast. I choose FEAR 2, Diablo 2, Path of Exile, Prey 2006, a map of mine and Unreal Tournament's Outpost 23 to talk about how having too much / little contrast is a bad thing.

    - Poorly highlighted paths. I choose Shadow Warrior, Unreal Tournament 1, Jedi Knight 1, Prey 2006, as examples of paths that the player have a hard time finding.

    - Well highlighted paths. Max Payne 1, Alan Wake, Jedi Knight 2, Shadow Warrior, as examples of paths are are clearly visible nad the player can easly follow.

    - Bad puzzles. Prey 2006 is a lesson on how to make puzzles that are both too easy and too confuse because the player have no idea of what to do.

    - Good puzzles. Prey 2006 and Jedi Knight 2. Interestnly, the ideas in Prey 2006 are creative. It's the execution of the puzzles that is poor.

    - Exploration. Doom SIGIL, Bioshock Infinite and Alan Wake as examples of what you can do to engage the player to explore. In the case of Bioshock I criticized how they place a locked chest in one place and the key very far away in a way that forces you to backtrack a long journey for little gain.

    - Landmarks. Discovery Channel, doom 1993, Alan Wake and Jedi Knight 2 as examples of how landmarks are a good thing.

    - Lack of landmarks. UT1 and GoldenEye, as examples of how a map with no landmarks at all, assymetric design and the same lights and textures reused everywhere create a map that is very hard to navigate.

    - Coherence and cohesion. I use Shadow Warrior and Prey 2006 as examples of how things in the game world are out of place or lack any logic behind it.

    - Form and function. I use Prey 2006 as an example of objects that you just can't tell what they are and levels that you can't tell where you are. It's just nonsense. That and how you have to make good use of the mechanics that you have. For ex: in the same space you have a regular bridge to cross and an anti-grav bridge that makes you corss the same chasm walking upside down.