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[unsilentwill]

Somewhere in between watching the Crysis3 tech videos and randomly walking around the outer parts of town I realized that my favorite parts of games tend to be the exploration in which I find a unique landmark.

What a landmark is in this case, is essentially an area of physical space that literally evokes an image, or a familiar song or voice, a smell or taste, all relating to one very personal narrative.

My friend has taken a small trip to Scotland and talked about how when he tries to write about it, it becomes a character rather than a "backdrop" setting.

Now, this doesn't quite function too well in action games (not that there's anything wrong with that, I think) because as soon as you have a gun the story becomes almost purely about your survival, so any exploration or excursion tends to be just for a medpack or powerup. Come to think of it missions in general (point A to B), even in real life, divert from the joy we get in a pleasant boredom of looking all around us.

It's late and I'm rambling a little bit so some generic examples of what I'm looking for in games would be ruins (which every game has these days) would actually explain the culture of the people who lived there, piecing the story together without blatant signs or text boxes, giving the entire location a stronger emotional and maybe even moral impact than "generic battlefield #6".

I want to be able to have strong memories about a place in a game in a similar way that I would remember a spot beneath my favorite tree in the park...

Some quick and sort of forced examples of where I feel games have gotten close to this concept of organic narrative landmarks would be the spot on the beach with Marin from Link's Awakening, the ancient city where Sheba supposedly fell from Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and the etchings of Skull Kid from Majora's Mask. Again, most of these are forced as they are pushed through some cinematic instead of perceived and understood differently by each individual player.

There are a lot of factors to this, one is probably linearity, where as awesome as it would be, you can't have a whole dungeon hidden behind overgrown trees, as each dungeon must be cleared in order to complete the whole story. Hm.

I'll come back to this idea later with a clearer head, but I really really want to know what you guys think about this idea in relation to an effective game design.

[Perrin]

So you mean like BioShock?

[Jason Bakker]

The recent Batman: Arkham Asylum is (IMO, at least), a great example of what you're talking about. The locations are memorable, and they do a great job of telling the backstory of the game and many of its characters just through the environment.

[Gnarf]

Now, this doesn't quite function too well in action games (not that there's anything wrong with that, I think) because as soon as you have a gun the story becomes almost purely about your survival, so any exploration or excursion tends to be just for a medpack or powerup. Come to think of it missions in general (point A to B), even in real life, divert from the joy we get in a pleasant boredom of looking all around us.

It's kind of funny... the first thing your post made me think of was Romero's level design rules.

One of them being

creating easily recognizable landmarks in several places for easier navigation

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/John_Romero

And then episode 1 in DOOM is mostly very memorable locations. To be honest, I find that the shit that goes down right there when I'm there makes the locations more memorable than any hints about stuff that might have happened some other time.

There's also a system in place for recognizing how awesome an explorer you are, in addition to the weapons and health packs you get from it. It's amazing.

[Captain_404]

The game Icycle fits your description really nicely I think. A lot of the levels really frustrated me, but I kept playing simply because the art is so compelling. Nitrome's Rustyard really did this for me too.

Both of these games are really distinctive as an overall visual feel, but I don't they give that sense of specific place you're looking for. I can remember each of the games style well, but specific levels are less memorable.


I think it comes down to truly focusing on your game's art, throwing all you have at it. Emotion isn't just evoked Things that exist in the landscape, though they can add nice touches, but also the colors a landscape uses. I think that sometimes your color scheme itself can be enough to make something memorable. Intentionally staying away from overused color schemes is a good starting point (not using blue/green, grey/brown, black/neons, etc) The way you draw an object is also important, the same thing can feel completely different if its shown in all straight lines instead of all curves or something. Again, all this is really no more than focusing on your game's art as best you can.

It helps to imagine your place well, or to be working from a real place that you know. Don't use that place exactly, but it can be a good starting point. I often find my most vivid writing comes from when I am describing the place I sit at to write, rather than something completely from my head, or even something from memory. Whatever emotion you are feeling as you make something, I think, is most likely to come out in the thing that you make.


Also, it kind of seems like fallen civilizations are a pretty common archetype for game backdrops? Sure, they can evoke an epic feeling really easily, but isn't it more interesting to try and make something extraordinary out of the mundane? A lot of games tend to focus on these really big-scale events, where are the games that are about small things? Small things can be exciting too! Hm, I think I'm starting to deviate from the topic though...

[Brice]

Shadow of the Colossus is, in my mind, THE poster child for memorable and breathtaking landscapes.  Not just because the world is absolutely gorgeous, but also because of how the gameplay itself backs up the beauty of the landscape.

If you haven't played the game, then it's made up of boss fights + travelling.  It must have taken a massive amount of discipline to create that game, because it would have been easy to put at least a couple of enemies, obstacles, ANYTHING in between the boss fights, but they didn't.  You fight a boss in a huge battle, and then you spend the next 30 minutes riding your horse through the wilderness.

Check out the horse riding section:



They didn't have to do it like this; it could have been like Banana Nababa where you go directly to the next fight.  But they choose to force you to spend oodles of time, dare I say almost 50% of the game, running around with nothing to do other than look at the landscape and think.

The result of this is that you focus intently on the landscape and remember it as a large part of the game.

[Gorgoo]

I think one of the things that always makes an impression on me with landscapes in games is largeness. It's definitely not the only thing, but it consistently impresses me.

I don't just mean pure size, though. That can have an effect, but what I mean is that I'm impressed when I get the feeling that the environment is large, and doesn't end at the nearest wall or obstacle. I like the feeling that the world you're in is bigger than what is absolutely necessary to get the game made.

That can happen in a few ways. I remember Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine giving that feeling in many of their levels, because of how open many of the levels were. Most of them felt like their own miniature worlds.

Brice mentioned it, but I think Shadow of the Colossus captures that feeling so well that it deserves to be mentioned again. I don't think that there are any other games which I can remember so much of the scenery from. The fact that your character can climb up and onto practically anything does a lot to help that feeling; the world seems real, instead of a set of well-painted walls with ground in between.

[Biggerfish]

Another way of creating a memorable landscape may be to create a familiar one.

The places I remember most in games are the ones I go to often, for one reason or another, or even places that I choose to spend the most time in. These become memorable out of a mix of necessity and repitition, they may not be the most breathtaking of places, but you get familiar with them and learn to navigate the place easily over time.

For example, at the moment I'm playing Pokemon Platinum and FF1, in Pokemon Platinum I wouldn't call the landscapes memorable in the same way as I would Shadow of the Colossus, but there are certainly parts I remember more than others. There is a spot out inbetween two towns, somewhere that you would normally walk through and isn't really a spot of interest, but I have made it a memorable landscape because I use it as a point to get into the Underground, this means that I know what it looks like, and am familiar with the area since I visit it regularly.

Similarly in FF1, I use one town as a "home base" of operations, it's usually the place I go to the Inn before I save, since it's a very central part and essentially my "anchor" for navigating the world. This has made it a very familiar and memorable place (I wouldn't call it anymore interesting or different than the other towns and places I visit, it is just more familiar and memorable since I spend the most time there out of all the other towns).

You certainly tend to remember things better if you are familiar with them and have been exposed several times (think the first level of Super Mario, it's so well-known and seen often that I would think it a "Memorable Landscape" to a lot of gamers).

[Alec S.]

For me, a memorable landscape in a game is a combination of a couple factors.

First of all, the landscape should be deliberate.  Everything should have a purpose or some unique design.  My problem with games like Oblivion is they talk about how they have these huge game worlds, but there's nothing really special to do in any specific place, and you generally fast-travel past it anyway.

Secondly, the landscape should play into the player's interactions, goals and challenges.  If I play a game and I see something that looks interesting in the distance, so I go and explore, and am rewarded with something that is, in fact, interesting and unique, then that is memorable.

The world from Legend of Zelda:  Ocarina of Time, to me, was very memorable.  It was large enough to feel like a world, but none of it was a throw-away.  Pretty much everything added to the game in some way.  Twilight Princess, on the other hand, I found to not be particularly memorable.  Most of the landscape was only there to give you space to zoom past on your horse.

[unsilentwill]

Wow, you guys hit on a lot of good points. A feeling of home is a wonderful characteristic, and is really used only in RPGs, which is a shame.

I do think Bioshock did an good job at this, certainly better than most. Yet I think it shows an issue I barely talked about, which may be the most important. Characters and events in reality are what shapes our feelings about a particular place. This places become triggers where you remember something important from long ago, or in your characters past. For this to happen two things need to take place, the first being npc empathy. It's hard to find games that actually make you care about other people, especially if they don't give you any points, but that's another topic. The point is we get some amazing characterization in Bioshock about the lives of the people in the city. However, most of it is just before they went crazy, so we don't actually get to the point where we care if they live or die. So there's little empathy for the people (splicers) who we heard, before quickly burning their faces from behind their masks, wrenching their lungs and tossing their mangled, bleeding persons into their old mailman's torso. The second part is based on realistic details, making scenes realistic, which is something Bioshock learned well from Half-Life/2 (although it's a little difficult sometimes to see Rapture as a real environment, with apartments and bathrooms, etc.).

Getting back to the point, we remember where characters we were attached to told us certain things, or where we got a stronger understanding of who they were, we take a special snapshot of the area, that is brought back strongly when we return later on. And indeed, the moment may be much more emotionally appealing depending on what has occurred since.

As for the memory in repetition, that's a little different honestly. There are fascinating things to be done with this though. We become attached to things we are used to, even start to accept some of the faults of a place just because we've been in it for so long. It becomes interesting once this comfort and familiarity are disrupted. Imagine if World 1 Level 1 had been shattered (worse than Mushroomy Kingdom). That would definitely shift the mood of the game, and even give you more reason to press on besides a stolen princess who may not even be your type.

Above characterization, I think there is a lot of personal importance found in exploration. Finding a secret nook that no one else has, even if there's no treasure chest, tends to be rewarding in its own right.

[dbb]

I think Knytt deserves a mention in this context, as pretty much the whole game was the landscape; I mean, there wasn't anything to do, really, other than explore the world and look at stuff. People's opinions as to whether or not Knytt was fun to play mostly seem to centre around whether the enviroment was interesting and varied enough to carry this off.

I think one of the key aspects of creating an interesting/memorable environment is to make it feel as though it exists indepenently of the player/character - that is, it shouldn't feel as though the whole universe has just been put together purely for the benefit of the player/character. The little creatures in Knytt wandering about on their own business, completely ignoring you, achieved this to an extent. The small physical size of the character helped, too; it made the world feel bigger and the character feel like a small and objectively insignificant part of it.

[Loren Schmidt]

This has already been touched on, but I think density is really important. Every element in a landscape has the potential to convey something (even if it's just to reinforce the atmosphere), to be fascinating and worthy of attention. The areas in between point A and point B needn't just be an endless, repetitive terrain dotted by occasional areas of interest.

It would be interesting to see a landscape that is a game in itself- perhaps one dotted by occasional obstacles or hazards that are part of the terrain. I wonder what types of gameplay are conducive to moving, nonstop, along a relatively unguided path... The connecting areas in Metroid games are a bit like this, come to think of it. But I always felt a bit imposed upon by having to travel long distances in those games. I wonder how that can be remedied.

[Captain_404]

It would be interesting to see a landscape that is a game in itself- perhaps one dotted by occasional obstacles or hazards that are part of the terrain.

You should take a look at this game from the recent JiG exploration-themed competition. I've actually been meaning to post a link to it in this thread since the game came out, but your post reminded me of it.

[DantronLesotho]

@captain_404 I was going to suggest Small Worlds as well; I played it recently and thought it fit this yearning for subtlety to a tee.

I think a lot of the appeal has to do with eliciting a microcosm of life in an area of peaceful nature. The ruins in SotC are neat because they hint at ancient homes, the animals in Knytt go on about their business, the animals on planet Zebes do their thing on their own, and so on.

The feeling I get when I see these things, is that I get a sense of being at home, or possibly finding a new place that I could call my home in the game.

I always got this feeling from reading Dr. Seuss books because of the strange houses and landscapes that would be in the illustrations.

Anwyay, my .02

[Bree]

For memorable landscapes, I have to throw in two of my favorite movies: The Nightmare before Christmas and Where the Wild Things Are.

Nightmare is just filled with iconic locales, such as the hill in the cemetery, the fountain where the first number ends, Oogie's lair (coolest set ever!)... it just goes on and on. Wild Things has a mostly realistic natural setting, which makes the gigantic stick structures all the more awe-inspiring; it's impossible, and yet it blends in perfectly with its surroundings.

[NMcCoy]

Pokemon has been mentioned previously - I think Ruby and Sapphire, more than the most recent games, really nailed the "sense of place" aspect of things. This especially tied into the "home" thing mentioned earlier; unlike the recent games, you could set up your personal secret base at specific land features in the overworld, and when you connected your game to your friends' their bases would be added to your world in the same place that they had set them up. There were enough unique features to make the choice of base location feel meaningful - mine was set up in a cave only reachable by surfing across a lake.

Frequently when I was in a contemplative mood I would just stand outside the entrance, watching the reflections of the clouds drift across the lake, listening to the background music and the cries of the wild pokemon in the area. That really exemplifies what a memorable landscape in a game means to me - being special enough that I want to spend time just being there. The Metroid Prime games have often made me regret that there's no "sit and relax" button in the control scheme.

That actually brings me to a bit of a tangent - how do "bottomless" (i.e., fall off and respawn with damage) falls affect your sense of immersion in a landscape, all other things being equal? As I recall, the first Metroid Prime game lacked such features, while the later ones had them.

[X3N]

Pokemon has been mentioned previously - I think Ruby and Sapphire, more than the most recent games, really nailed the "sense of place" aspect of things. This especially tied into the "home" thing mentioned earlier; unlike the recent games, you could set up your personal secret base at specific land features in the overworld, and when you connected your game to your friends' their bases would be added to your world in the same place that they had set them up. There were enough unique features to make the choice of base location feel meaningful - mine was set up in a cave only reachable by surfing across a lake.

Frequently when I was in a contemplative mood I would just stand outside the entrance, watching the reflections of the clouds drift across the lake, listening to the background music and the cries of the wild pokemon in the area. That really exemplifies what a memorable landscape in a game means to me - being special enough that I want to spend time just being there. The Metroid Prime games have often made me regret that there's no "sit and relax" button in the control scheme.

That actually brings me to a bit of a tangent - how do "bottomless" (i.e., fall off and respawn with damage) falls affect your sense of immersion in a landscape, all other things being equal? As I recall, the first Metroid Prime game lacked such features, while the later ones had them.

   for Pokemon world-gameplay integration.
I kind of *liked* the bottomless pit you die in aspect of the landscape.. reminded me it was a harsh alien world, not a videogame!

I enjoyed the Fallout (post-nuclear-war) series, where in the random encounters you could run into bands of travellers/traders/beasts and see corpses and skeletons lying around. All buildings had bathrooms and beds, and many of their citizens carried soda or other kinds of food.

Did no one mention Pikmin this thread?

[Jrsquee]

This has already been touched on, but I think density is really important. Every element in a landscape has the potential to convey something (even if it's just to reinforce the atmosphere), to be fascinating and worthy of attention. The areas in between point A and point B needn't just be an endless, repetitive terrain dotted by occasional areas of interest.

I was going to say that sometimes a lack of density is just as effective
but then I realized that you meant something else
even if something has a pretty spartan landscape, the bits that are there can be emotionally dense
or whatever

[GregWS]

This has been mentioned, but I really think that the most significant thing about this topic is the "livability" of the landscape/game world.  Memorable Landscapes are always livable; NPCs could theoretically live "normal" lives in gameworld, entirely independent of the events of the game.  Non-livable worlds aren't memorable solely because they are illogical; they're clearly created as stage sets for the game.  Good game worlds "make sense" because they aren't contrived; they seem like places where people could live/work/play.  Alec talked about this as part of his "mega rant" on his blog recently: http://infiniteammo.ca/blog/mega-rant-the-state-of-indie/

Metroid Prime is absolutely the kind of game I think you're talking about.  The story of the game is told through the ruins of the setting, instead of cutscenes or other things.  And although in total ruin, the landscape does seem livable.  The little surviving creatures are certainly living in it, anyway.  Machinarium really should be mentioned to, as the setting of the game is one of the best things about it; it's just so full of character, and is clearly the home of it's inhabitants.

And I remember at the beginning you'd mentioned that action games naturally fight against interesting landscapes/places, but I have to disagree with that.  I think action game designers rarely create good, memorable settings, but it's entirely possible to create an action game with an amazing setting.  One of my favorite levels in a video game is the overgrown residential blocks in Mega Man Zero 3; the atmosphere of the place was very overpowering, and although sparse it it's own right, the whole place felt incredibly believable as a once-lived-in space.  And heck, that's GBA platformer!

[Imagineergames]

More than my two cents, I wanted to direct everyone to a GREAT iphone/ipod game that exemplifies the "memorable setting" quite perfectly. It is called GLIDER. from Glu. There is absolutely no dialog in the game, no explanations for the landscapes you find, but it's a rather calm and breathtaking game.

I might also mention Shadow of the colossus as a rather memorable setting experience, but I don't know if someone has already mentioned it before here.