Hi everyone!
Again it has been a bit of a while since our last post. And again it is a rather long one but it should be worth it I hope! We share some our thinking and research on exploration gameplays and how we would like to structure the game progression.
In the next few months you should be able to see more of
Havre as we have arrived to a point where it is again possible for us to share our progress. We have managed to achieve pretty much everything we needed to do in order to start building the actual game world.
As we may have said before,
Havre is an exploration game. But exploration is a rather vague concept, it does not describe what a player should do besides moving around. At the very least when thinking about an exploration game, we tend to imagine a treasure hunt with rewards at the end of every paths. But what makes us truly want to explore?
What is the difference between an
exploration driven reward and a
reward driven exploration?
How can we, as designers, create motivation, discourse, narration or interaction, only using world building, architectural imagination, and spatial arrangement?
Exploration based games often add variation and rhythm to the act of exploring by providing different traveling modes: walking, running, cycling, driving, flying, climbing, etc. But could it be possible to create variations with only one mode: walking? What about wandering, sauntering, rambling?
We have tried to deconstruct and find some of the core mechanics of what exploration could be in a video game and thus started thinking about the behavior one can have when exploring a new city for instance. Most of the time we tend to wander aimlessly until something catch our eye and we start looking for ways to get closer to it. But looking for a path to something interesting also often means coming by other possible interesting far away places or objects that drives you away from your first goal. And a major
point of interest can also be only accessible through a series of other many minor interesting features of the place you are in. You then try at all times to be aware of the place you want to reach while keeping an eye out for closer places and striking features of the environment that you want to see and explore.
As a result we decided to use the notion of
point of interests in
Havre and build the game world around them. The role of a
point of interest is then to catch the attention of the player and drive her movements. The degree to which a
POI exerts a hold over the observer’s attention depends on its features and its relations to other visible
POIs.
Whether the POI reveals itself to be what it looked like can even feel either satisfactory or frustrating unless it is far better than it was supposed to be.
The whole experience of the game is consequently based around the notion of places and environmental features that break the aimless wandering of the player and shape it the way we want it to be while still giving rooms for serendipity and freedom.
In order to build the tension that drives the player towards the various points of interests scattered through
Havre’s world we had to come up with a number of ways to make a
POI visible to the player. Each aims at building very different kinds of mood.
A fragment is a piece of a
POI made visible somehow.
• A fragment revealing the nature of the
POI can intrigue and frustrate if the object is not easily accessible.
• A fragment that does not reveal the nature of the
POI can intrigue and frustrate but less so than the one revealing the object.
• A fragment that hides the nature of the
POI can intrigue and astonish when the object is finally revealed.
Unveilings happen when a fragment or a whole
POI is progressively revealed.
• It can be instantaneous and surprising
• Or it can be progressive and feel intriguing. The slower the unveiling the less exciting and the more calming it feels.
• An unveiling can be done using different shapes (triangle, square, circle, line). Each can feel different (satisfying to frustrating) depending on the
POI’s or fragment’s shape.
Possibility for low angle or high angle shot to increase or decrease the sensational features of the POI or fragment.
Veilings happen when a fragment or a
POI is progressively covered. It can be instantaneous or progressive.
A zoom happens when a
POI or fragment is progressively getting closer to the observer and thus growing bigger.
• Dollyshot
A break is the absence of teasing. The longer the break the more distress the observer is likely to feel.
Rhythmic sequencesThe
rhythmic sequences aim at bringing the various ways of making a
POI visible together in
sequences that build up different kinds of tensions and rhythms. By allowing us to describe longer sessions of play, these
sequences help us build the various areas making up
Havre’s world. We also use them to create positive feedback loops allowing the observer/player to feel whether they are on the right path or not.
As such,
rhythmic sequences are the basic material with which it is possible to conceive and build an exploration driven game. They represent a new way to look at the game world and its organization.
The language used to describe
sequences is based on a series of predefined symbols. Each
sequence is made of several teasing features such as
unveilings or
veilings of a fragment of the
POI, or the
POI itself, as well as breaks. Each
sequence can be set to various speeds and accelerations and has a value on the frustration scale.
For instance this sequence
<* X3 <* X <* means instant revealing of the
POI (<*) followed by a medium break (X3) during which the POI is not visible anymore then followed by an instant unveiling (<*), a short break (X) followed by an instant revealing of the
POI (<*).
This other sequence here
<<<# X <* corresponds to a slow unveiling of a fragment of the
POI (<<<#) and then a short disappearing of it (X) followed by an instant unveiling of the
POI (<*).
We also use modifiers sometimes and an instant unveiling of a
POI can be decelerating:
\- <* or accelerating:
\+ <*Different speeds can induce different emotions. The greater the speed of the
sequence the more frenzy it feels and the more likely it is going to be also tiring on the long run. The slower it gets the more likely the observer is going to doubt and wonder. Whether the sequence is speeding up or slowing down can also feel either hypnotic or troubling.
Each
sequence can take many forms and their exact configuration depend a lot on the person responsible of its integration in the game. But using this abstract language it is possible to try and develop certain feelings and adjust the rhythm of play. It is also a good way to arrange the overall feel of the game by looking at the different sequences we filled it with and make very specific adjustments if required.
In the end this is more of a general framework than a practical design methodology but thinking the game world in these terms help us think about its structure and the way it shapes the behavior of the player.