Defining Boundaries: Creating Credible Obstacles In Games

[-HP-]

Really good article for level designers, i think!

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... hp?print=1

[2d-chris]

Very interesting read But I can't help but feel - using example from some of the best games made in recent years is confusing. It's like if it was REALLY important they would have adressed the issue ... Personally I'd rather spend time working on the central intrest of the gameplay than restricting myself too much by making realistic boundries. Let's face it, go to most real life settings used in games and you won't find boundries and that's why it will always feel wrong.

Consider boundries but don't let it screw with your ideal layout.

[Steppenwolf]

I'm sure most developers are well aware of this problem. Personaly i think about that all the time when i work on a map.

But there are often technical limitations behind these things. For example in the BF 2 example imagine how expensive it would be to render proper foliage at all the borders. Or you just have to compromise between nice visuals/a long viewing distance and the level boundaries (like in the cod 4 example).

We had this problem when we worked on the multiplayer for BC. In the singleplayer we have all radiation effects and stuff going on on the level borders but this stuff is expensive to render. So the first mp maps were kinda floathing in the middle of nowhere. I then came up with the idea to place the map on an island inside the destroyed city, the borders basicly being huge cracks and fissures in the earth filled with deadly lava. This worked out pretty well and most BC multiplayer maps follow this example now.

[Warby]

yes really good article i have been preaching that stuff for years !

[Erratic]

Crates do the job just fine.

[KungFuSquirrel]

I think the most important thing he touches on is consistency. If you interact with an object a certain way, the expectation is you should always be able to interact with it that way. That goes for barriers as well as any other object. Physics objects shouldn't be static, breakable objects shouldn't be invulnerable, etc.

If no one expects to go past a barrier they see, and it doesn't look horribly out of place, its job is done

[-HP-]

I think the most important thing he touches on is consistency. If you interact with an object a certain way, the expectation is you should always be able to interact with it that way.

Exactly! If you needed to break a plank to be able to get past a blockade, this plank should never be used in the game as a static object.

[Thrik]

Funny that they mentioned the Battlefield thing, as that actually annoyed me when I played it years ago. It's not at the edges where you see that foliage, but actually throughout the map. Sometimes you can walk through patches of trees like shown in their screenshot, whereas sometimes an invisible boundary stops you going between them. I remember finding a great sniping spot and not being able to get into it because of such a patch of trees, even though I'd just been through half a dozen similar patches to get there.

[Taylor]

The only thing that’s really important is your barriers are consistent, like everything else in your game or level. I would say “making sense” is a grey area.

If you watch anyone play a third person action game they will invariably try to jump off a ledge and hit an invisible wall. The player now makes a mental note that there are invisible walls on (all) ledges and just accepts this. They do not care it is, in the real world, unrealistic and they could jump off it (or step over something, etc.). Ledges cannot be jumped off is now a rule in their heads and as long as we don’t break this rule the player is content. Plus, as an added bonus, we don’t have a load of objects on these ledges getting in the way of the camera and don’t have to think of some elaborate debris for every area in a linear game. You're not just looking for consistancy in your level or game either, but the genre as a whole, because the player already has expectations based upon it (which is why ledges in first person shooters don't have invisible walls, etc).

Anyway, I have a beef with the rant about temporary barriers in third person action games. He calls for removal on the grounds they are cliché and ruin “immersion,” but the fact that these barriers (or "gates") are integral to the gameplay is unaddressed. I also don't agree with his list of problems and I think having a “believable” barrier appear and remove itself in every room is even more contrived and convoluted that the ‘honest,’ red webs of Devil May Cry and branches of Kameo.

[KungFuSquirrel]

I agree with you on that last point, Taylor, and I think those are two examples where it's right for the game. Assassin's Creed's (dual possessive!) barriers were totally contrived and game-y, too, but they were consistent. They explained it once, and that's that. Same can sort of be said of a Battlefield/GRAW style "leaving the mission area" setup, which has the perk of not technically stopping anyone, just highly advising that you turn around.

[AlexG]

Thanks for posting this. Good read.

[mjens]

Yeah, that's really major thing at level design. I hate situatons when game desiger shows the plan and there's a lot of "leaks" that player can jump off the map or just go to the next part of the level and omit some part of actions. Then I just wanna reply "Bad design, fill leaked level parts" but I can't, it's my job to correct this...

[mjens]

":3fuerfxn]

I think the most important thing he touches on is consistency. If you interact with an object a certain way, the expectation is you should always be able to interact with it that way.

Exactly! If you needed to break a plank to be able to get past a blockade, this plank should never be used in the game as a static object.

Yes, mark that the player/user can't destroy that barrier with specified gun/machine in whole game. It's fun when the game is free-roaming based and at the almost end player can get explosives or sth like that which can destroy that barriers and all the blocked gates are now open. It's fun for exploring fans...

[D3ads]

Ahh, great article. I really hate it in games when you're walking through an area and there's an invisible barrier stopping you from moving into a certain area that otherwise looks perfectly reachable from a distance. There's a lot of that in games and it just makes you wonder why? It's not much trouble to stick some kind of debris in the way is it? or fire or a gas pipe that's burst, just anything but an invisible wall, it's just lazy.

It's something I'm having a bit of trouble with in TF, creating decent ways to block areas off in Pinewood Creek, so far I'm limited to storm barriers Vice City/San Andreas style, fallen trees/telephone poles and vehicles turned sideways.

[Rick_D]

I have a beef with the rant about temporary barriers in third person action games. He calls for removal on the grounds they are cliché and ruin “immersion,” but the fact that these barriers (or "gates") are integral to the gameplay is unaddressed. I also don't agree with his list of problems and I think having a “believable” barrier appear and remove itself in every room is even more contrived and convoluted that the ‘honest,’ red webs of Devil May Cry and branches of Kameo.

Agree and disagree; I interpreted it as the arena itself should be different, rather than just a room that suddenly becomes blocked off; rather you enter a room, monster attacks through floor, you fall into a lower level, have the fight there, kill monster, it's death throes cause some object to fall down giving you a natural escape route.

The problem there is you need a unique system for each boss fight or it becomes just as cliched as the red webs, and ends up costing more art and scripting time. Also, the player is most likely going to focus on the huge monster rather than then fact they cannot run away. So for some games a cliched barrier is probably more desirable; that doesn't mean we cannot at least explore the idea of doing something different for those games that don't have predictable boss fights.