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[Hempuli‽]

I've been pondering this for a while actually, and thought it would interest you too (unless this has been posted earlier and I just can't read properly):

In which way would you like to introduce the borders of the game world in a game?

How would you prefer to create the transitions between scenes?

There are lotsa different ways to do this: In 2D games, just making the game not scroll further, setting a super-high wall. In 3D games, there are those fancy unbreakable cardboard boxes and eternally locked doors.
The second question can be asked even when you're not meeting an actual border, just a place where you enter another place, another scene. The ways to introduce this are usually some sort of portals, or just simply walking off the screen.

I by myself prefer to make the gameworld seem as it would continue even further. So, when you get near the edge, there's a huge wall or something, that just prevents you from continuing. That makes perhaps the players feel like the gameworld was more open, even if it actually wasn't.
For the transition, I usually prefer doors and walking out of the game screen to enter other places. I detest the Maple-story-like 'portal' idea, it makes the gameworld feel very small and restricted.

So, please, discuss this (these?) question(s) here, and tell your opinion.

[Traveller]

Hmm.  Depends pretty heavily on the gameplay you're talking about.  If it's at all puzzley (even the 2d Zelda games count for this), small restricted portals is useful, and transitions are harsh, so that enemies in an area are all self-contained and spawn as a group, and while facing them you can't just sidle away off to the side.  In GTA that's entirely inappropriate...

I remember in the Team Fortress 2 commentary, they talked about how walls had to be REAL walls in Half-Life 2, but in TF2 you could just put one traffic barrier and people would accept "oh the level doesn't go that way" even if it appeared obvious that you could jump over it.  They just wouldn't try.  More serious games need hard borders, and slower-paced games need hard borders.  Places that you are only going to see once (linear single-player games) need it to be very obvious where you can't go, while multiplayer games or very repetitive ones let you get used to subtler suggestions.  And of course, the subtler your suggestions, the prettier you can make your game world...you don't always WANT a wall there from an artistic perspective, even if you want the player to not go that way.

...I have a feeling I only tangentially addressed what you were talking about.  Hope it's thought provoking anyway...

[Captain_404]

I'd like to see a game that has no borders. Like, once you reach the point at which the level designer ran out of ideas the level and all it's textures just stop and all the sudden you're running in an open black space.

I think it could be almost frightening if done right. It could emphasize the point that you are the only speck of life inside this huge black void. Maybe there could even be spots where you'd be required to travel inside the blackspace between two levels.


Ooh, what if you were to create a multiplayer game where the game just drops people in this open black space, then it's up to them to start making structures inside the game world. People could choose to build onto the main structure, or just go rogue and wander off somewhere else to build their own little island somewhere.



Actually, now that I think about it, that might literally be what I do in most of my games. Whenever the level ends, I just let it end (not the sudden drop into black, but I just stop making relevant structures in the game) and let the user run out into the nothingness. I figure if they want to run out there and bore themselves then I'm not going to stop them.

Actually, that could be a whole other discussion in and of itself. How might one design a game so that it uses these blank spaces for some kind of gameplay, rather than just walling them off from the user?

[Glaiel-Gamer]

There was this one racing game with completely procedural terrain outside the main racetrack, you could go on pretty much forever if you wanted, and could only get back by following the arrow.

[Lyx]

I think there are at least two sub-questions here:

- Do you want to handle situations when the player approaches areas, where your "design" ends

- Do you want to set limits? if yes, how?

Those two questions aren't necessarily answered the same way. For example, even if you find a way for your content to not "end".... does that automatically mean, that you really want the player to go whereever he wants? Is it even sure that the player wants that? Glaiel gave a good example for the issues which may arise then: In that racing game, the player needed a compass just to find his way back into the "game" at all. "Getting lost" is a real issue here (unless of course, getting lost is the point of the game (exploration)). So, i think before one asks onesself HOW to set limits, i think one should ask oneself if in an optimal case one would want to set limits, and which ones.

[Strong]

I'd like to see a game that has no borders. Like, once you reach the point at which the level designer ran out of ideas the level and all it's textures just stop and all the sudden you're running in an open black space.

I think Roller Coaster Tycoon did this- when you scrolled past the edge of the map it just ended.

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing did, too, but that's probably for an entirely different reason.

[ChevyRay]

As long as there's not the dreaded invisible walls, then I'm fine with any solution I'm sure. It REALLY saddens me when a place you otherwise could have gone is just... "cut off", and pretty much destroys immersion on queue. If you're not rushed by a deadline, come up with a better way pleaaasse.

There was this one racing game with completely procedural terrain outside the main racetrack, you could go on pretty much forever if you wanted, and could only get back by following the arrow.

This is actually a really cool solution, at least in such a particular case.

[Glyph]

Yeah, I think you might be talking about some ATV game for the N64. I always would go out into the nothingness in the desert stage, looking for some secret path or something. I was excited by the randomness, somehow.
As for the design, I'd say do it something like FFXII if it's a 3D game. Think of Giza Plains or any other of the wide open areas. I marveled at the amount of detail they put into the area after the cutoff (usually a wall of grass)- a wide, sprawling plain, a river, a pit, a (slightly less interesting) mountain, all unplayable, but very gorgeous. It makes you really feel like you're in a big, unexplored, world.
As for the transitions, you might think of having parts of the next room be visible through that cutoff, like a glimpse of a pillar in the next room and stuff like that. It also helps to capture the feel of an interconnected world.
I also liked how the game Jumpman did its transitions- they made up the background of the current stage and all felt like their own controlled world, your sandbox. I really liked the feel of that.

[ChevyRay]

I remember in the first Paper Mario game for the Nintendo 64, you fell off this scaffold; the witch/wizard bad guy came and dropped a block on the gate to the fence to trap you in.

What bugged me was that Mario could jump higher than the fence in fact, he was taller than it. The fact that Mario was trapped in there solely because an invisible collision boundary kept him there, and not because his character actually couldn't escape where he was in the world, still annoys me to this day.

Why not just make ALL walls invisible? Heck it's the easy way out. You don't have to do any graphics at all, and your game will be challenging!

[sergiocornaga]

For game world edges, I'm a fan of a couple of ways prevalent in Knytt Stories levels. The first is to have a long, uncrossable stretch of water like a sea at each edge. Although, I think regular water like shallow ponds being used as an invisible wall in 3D games can be pretty annoying.

The second is to have the game world loop, so that reaching one edge will bring you to another. There are some issues that can arise through this method, though.

As for transitions, I like the idea of scenery changing gradually between different areas rather than altering completely when you (for example) walk of the edge of the screen into a new location. Sorry, this might only be slightly related to your original point.

[Noel Berry]

As long as there's not the dreaded invisible walls, then I'm fine with any solution I'm sure. It REALLY saddens me when a place you otherwise could have gone is just... "cut off", and pretty much destroys immersion on queue. If you're not rushed by a deadline, come up with a better way pleaaasse.

Yeah, I hate that too. It makes me feel restricted to a larger area, and for no good reason.

As far as borders go, I'm good with most things. I usually make platformers, and in those games I have high cliffs or dead-ends in a passage way, etc - nothing special.


Transitions between rooms, I'm also pretty good with almost anything. Doors, passages, walking to the edge of the room and then flipping over to the next, etc. All of these are fine with me.

[Zaratustra]

regarding TF2, it's rather infuriating that some roofs you can jump on but others not.

In other words, don't forget the other two boundaries of the world - up and down.

[Traveller]

regarding TF2, it's rather infuriating that some roofs you can jump on but others not.

In other words, don't forget the other two boundaries of the world - up and down.

Ooh, I'd forgotten about that excellent point.  TF2 does very good with some of its boundaries, where you just have to hint at the player that this symbolic wall shouldn't be proceeded past, even if you can rocket jump to the top of the chain link fence...  But buildings and their roofs that are INSIDE the playfield, well, those feel cheap when you can't.  So it's important that the player understand clearly what is inside and what is outside the field of play, from a gameplay perspective.