Of Blood and Wine

This is a detailed level design document [LDD] for a game Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

In this blog, I have designed a side quest with a detailed level design doc for the DLC of the game “Blood and Wine”.

Please note, I have used mock images throughout the description of this document.

Let’s Start…

Overview

There is a small town in Toussaint, famous for its classic wine. The wine is distilled by the secret formula run by the Noble family of that town. The wine quality from past few weeks has been very inconsistent. Noble family accuses one of their own couples as the question of inconsistency and deteriorated wine quality haunts the family.

The player plays as Geralt the Witcher who is tasked with helping this couple find the problem of what is going wrong.

Prerequisite

To play this quest, player Must be at least Level 20. The mission level is level 20 i.e. the enemy level will be close to this range of level [Enemies are defined in details ahead]. This quest can be played in Day, Dusk or Night time (No special time requirement).

Duration of this quest is around 10 to 12 minutes.

There are total 2 outcomes in which this quest ends. The outcomes are based on the decision player takes in the quest.

Game reward also defers on how the quest ends and what decision player makes. The rewards and the consequences have been enlisted further in details.

After completing each mini goal in the quest or whenever quest goal updates, the game will be automatically saved. So anywhere during the quest, if the player dies, Geralt will be spawned on the last saved checkpoint.

2D Layout of the level

Area 1 The Town: The town where the player starts the quest.

Area 2 The Wine Cellar: Player heads to the wine cellar for further clues.

 Area 3 The Camp Sight: Player ends up in a camp finding all the solutions.

Brief Level Flow

Detailed Walkthrough

There is a small town in Toussaint which is famous for its perfect blended wine production. One noble family controls the Wine production through a secret formula of blending.

Town Scene: (Area 1 on 2D layout map)

On entering a town, the player meets a couple in trouble who are members of that Noble family. The couple pleads that if they are not helped then they will be disowned by the family.

According to the couple, they have been doing their best in blending perfect wine, but the family accuses them of very poor production. All their family members have lost their faith and trust in them and that the couple needs to gain it back with the respect they deserve.

Poor wine production has also taken a toll on the town’s glory.

Geralt says this is usually not the thing a Witcher deal with, but makes an exception and decides to help anyways saying humans are no less than monsters.

After listening to the problems with wine, player concludes there is something wrong at the place wines is produced and stored for aging.

This triggers the quest and player gets a notification to head to the wine cellar for investigation.

Cellar Scene: (Area 2 on 2D layout map)

This is a pretty old wine cellar and a lot of barrels can be seen there kept for aging. There, the player sees two different divisions of wine distilleries and one common place where all the selected barrels can be seen.

This building is a normal 2 storied cellar. There is one main door to the cellar. The top floor of the cellar however also has an exit door for climbing off the ladder to the ground and go.

Once inside, the player will have to use the Witcher sense to investigate the distiller. Later other parts of the cellar.

The player finds nothing off while investigating the distillery on the ground floor. Player then will access the upper floor. Here, with Witcher Sense, the player finds a group of footprints of the workers on that floor but one distinct human footprint which leads out of the cellar through the ladder.

Player follows that footprints which get out of the cellar from the top floor using the ladder.

Here player finds a torn rag that sticks to a nail of the ladder that leads out of the cellar. Geralt picks the rag up and smells it. This rag will have a distinctive perfume on it.

Player now has to follow this perfume which leads the player to the small camp. Here, the perfume takes player directly to a woman wearing that clothes as the scent on torn part matches with that of the scent of that person.

Camp Scene: Area 3

Player discovers that she is leading a group of men in a camp outside the town. Player now has to go and confront her for what she is doing in the wine cellar, being an outsider.

As Witcher starts confronting this woman of what exactly she does in the wine cellar being an outsider she draws the sword, with that her 10 bandits gather together behind to support her with weapons drawn.

Enemies: There are total 13 enemies including the boss woman spy in all. Breakdown of enemies.

Number of Enemies	Enemy Type	Enemy Level
6	Melee enemies with a sword	Level 14
3	Ranged enemies with bow & Arrow	Level 19
3	Enemies with Shield	Level 17
1	Boss woman	Level 20

Best Strategy to fight: For any player, the best strategy to complete this fight is to go Swords blazing, literally.

1. Use Superior Hanged Man’s Venom Oil on the steel sword for max damage.
2. Use potions enhancing the magic powers.
3. There will be explosive barrels strategically placed in the camp.
4. Try to kill the ranged enemy (archers) first and go for shielded enemies last with bombing etc.

Here the player has to fight and kill all the bandits. The combat will be in such a way that all the bandits protect their boss, so to reach her, the player needs to kill all the bandits first.

There is a defined combat area. This is an area which player will not be able to leave once the combat starts.

After all bandits are killed, she puts her sword down citing no one is left to support. She confesses that she is a spy from other kingdom & came here to destroy the glory of this town by adulterating the wine.

She then tries to bribe the Witcher and promises a hefty reward of 50% of what she gets and nothing more than that.

Here now the player has to decide one of the 2 things. Each decision has a different consequence and reward

1. To imprison the spy, take her to town and save the couple in the town from being disowned.
2. Either to let go the spy, spare her life and keep the 50% of the share.

If the player chooses Option A, the following happens:

A cutscene plays where members of the Noble Family have gathered with the couple. Witcher hands over the spy to them with a proof that she was adulterating the wine and even destroying family relations.

Consequence: The spy gets imprisoned for a lifetime in that town.

Reward: Noble family gifts the player a house right in the town. Player also gets Experience points 50. This house becomes safehouse for the player in the game.

If the player chooses Option B, the following happens:

Consequence: The cutscene plays, where all come to know the wife in the couple could not take anymore and has hanged herself. This completely breaks the man and he hurls curses at Witcher and blames him for her death and for not helping. Also, the town disowns the person.

Reward: For this player gets 4000 Crowns and Experience points 50.

Quest fail scenario:

If the player leaves the combat area only then the quest will fail.

Inference:

This quest makes the player take a tough call and face the consequences of the decisions player makes.  The Game makes the player feel very bad about how wrong the decision was and how it had a grave consequence on the two lives and a family just for accepting the bribe. Inversely player gets a good reward.

Another way the game plays is, the player ends up getting a cozy property and good reputation in town.

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Thanks for reading this. I hope you really enjoyed reading (and playing in mind) this small side quest. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions on this.

Game Developers Vs. Game Players

The gaming industry is a big huge world. It has two very important elements, the suppliers and the consumers. The suppliers that are Game developers, study their audience and make a product that is based on some data estimating what would work and what wouldn’t. These calculations and estimations are very important as they highly impact the future of the product, the game.

There is a very special relationship between that of the Developers and Gamers. Developers always are committed to giving their best to please their audience trying to keep them awestruck and curious, keeping them wanting for more. This is the reason, seldom it happens that players don’t like a game, or they think what they have purchased is a complete disaster.

The game Concept is God in this business as it defines the paradigm of every single aspect used for creating it. It’s the whole base where empire gets built for players to experience it. The creators have to go an extra mile so that they can give full justice to the concept of the game. To inflict the required emotion among the gamers is what really matters as emotions are how the designers communicate with the players. It gives kind of an internal satisfaction for designers when this tremendous hard work put into it is appreciated.

Last weekend I finished playing the game “Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice”. For a game, I think it is simply fantastic. It can’t really be explained in words, you need to play it to experience how game addresses and deals with the medical condition of psychosis. The game gives players a tour of dark horror and real-life experience of this mental condition.

For gameplay, Hellblade had two important elements in it for progression, combat and Puzzle solving. The game relies on old-school combat tactics of a block, parry, light and heavy attack with sword and a classic puzzle solving scenarios of detecting patterns in the environment for progression. So before playing the game, I couldn’t help but hear many gamers were truly happy with the combat, however not many were pleased with the puzzle solving style. Typical feedback was that puzzles were very shallow and did not blend well with the game style. I am yet to research why gamers might think so, but on my first gameplay, I couldn’t judge the game that way.

What my primary thinking is that not many people know about this mental state. Most players had intentions of just pure combat like every other game with a sword and shield basically offers.

I was literally awestruck with the depth of research developers at Ninja Theory have put into to bring this dark experience closest to reality. In a vlog on their website, they have had several mentions that the pattern recognition we see in-game is one of the daily problems the patients of psychosis suffer from. The protagonist of the game, Senua too suffers from this problem and that’s the reason these puzzles totally make sense. Most gamers are not aware of this fact that if something is there in a game, developers surely must have put a lot of thought for it. The pattern solving puzzles put in the game now makes complete sense of the WHY it is really there in the game. Most reviews heavily criticized this puzzle solving game mechanic saying the puzzle is not a good fit and does not really blend with other combat mechanics present in the game.

While I do support the developers for their amazing work, I somewhat feel we can’t really control what exactly player wants from the game. This pursuit of perfection needs different angles of proper thinking of what majority players may desire out of the product we are selling them. Some players may simply love the amazing hardcore combat and may expect more out of it, while on the other hand, many would like the patterns finding puzzles in the environment.

My views on this are currently neutral for players as well as the developers. Due to the lack of knowledge that people suffering through psychosis have this kind of problems may be the reason many gamers got their own different perspectives about the game. I won’t blame the players here to expect something like this from the game, but players also need to at least try to understand the intentions of the developers of what they exactly want to convey. This is like while playing Assassin’s Creed game, we really dig deep to find out the history of Templars. I bet most of us even tried to read and understand the information what game hasn’t offered about Templars!

On the other hand, while developing a game its important and part of the job we do all the research work and dive deep into the subject so as to know almost everything and make sure no part is left unturned in it. But at the same time, we also need to find the easiest and most interesting way to convey our hard research work to the gamers. We as developers need to understand that what developers have spent so much time in “studying” may be a completely new subject for players as they perhaps may be touching the subject for the very first time. The learning curve, therefore, plays a very important part here in the game design aspect. The deeper players understand the core concept, the more developers are successful in justifying the concept of the game. It does happen sometimes that we have a great concept, a solid research behind it, but the mediocre presentation to an audience which makes it difficult or very alien for them to cope with.

Well, these points discussed are not universal and may not fit aptly for all kind of concepts, but you’ll get the jest of what I want to convey.

What happened with Hellblade is perhaps a pure misunderstanding between the developers and gamers. The convention was apt but the learning curve and information of “why are we doing what we are doing in the game” could definitely have been better.

Developers also managed to trick players and grab attention with a great concept of “Permanent Death” in the game. Many gamers admit having fallen for it. Yeah, it is a part of the excitement and helps you keep you on the edge of your seats while playing. Now was it really implemented or just a hoax will remain a secret for now.

I would definitely recommend trying out this very different experience of stepping into the shoes of victims of Psychosis. The sounds and audio techniques used are hands down one of the best till date.

Thanks for reading my speculations on the Game! I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.

The “empty retreat” problem in Open world games!

Open world adventures are one of my favorite game types. I like talking about RPGs whenever I get a chance. Open world games always tap into the essence of human tendency of exploration and discovery of new things. The curiosity drives and makes us push the bounds and keep getting more knowledge of what is alien.

This case is also true with the games having “open world” world element in them. Exploration is the main ingredient of many of the spices we see in adventure games. Different games we see have radical approaches of constructing a world which in turn changes a face of the game which is presented to the player.

Most of these open world games contain secret dungeons and caves to be explored, which brings us to the point of what this article is about. The designers put a lot of effort into making a good level which will be gripping and engaging throughout the session of gameplay. But there is sometimes a problem in a proper approach of the implementation.

A couple of weeks before nostalgia kicked in and I was playing Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, the great old times. If you have played the game, you will know there are hidden life upgrades in this game which you can get through a secret passage to upgrade your health. That time while playing typically these life upgrade levels I felt like addressing this problem. This issue can be called a problem of “empty retreat”.

To know this better let’s consider a scenario:

You are playing a game in which you happen to explore the mystical caves. These caves are full of puzzle paths, which unlock if you solve the environmental challenges presented to you. You have to solve these tricky puzzles and make your way to end. While on your way, you even meet a lot of minions guarding these caves. You have to hack and slash, full action packed and make the way till you reach the dead end. Seems pretty interesting till here, right?

Purpose:

Now, this can be anything. Say you are going to get a hard rugged armor and a sword with high damage points or any other collectible like a chest of money or maybe a health upgrade, damn it can be anything.

Most people will play it for the love of exploration and/or solving these interesting puzzles as it is their forte.

Okay, you now successfully reach the dead end, and your goal is met. The problem typically starts from here. The action-packed adventure you had till now, is there until you reach the objective which is getting to end where it is not further explorable. When you reach there, you now have to traverse all the way back to carry on your adventure. This is really very very boring and I personally feel players may simply lose the grip of engagement. This also will have a negative impact on the pacing of the gameplay.

Many times, this exploring a cave, a dungeon or any underground tunnels does not come under the main story mission, but just a side quest. So this means players have to explore this leaving their normal route of story progression. If this cave or whatever is small, backtracking is fine but what if it is a really long way? Player has to return back from the dead-end point where everything (meaning minions and all) is cleared and nothing interesting to be done or solved on the way back.

How do games solve this problem:

Here in case of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, when we have to get health upgrade, observe how we go through the series of obstacles by dodging all the blades and traps. After we finally reach the end and get it, we just have to pretty much traverse back with nothing really left to do. All the traps magically disappear and we have to go back to the point where we started. Typically in this game, the distance, fortunately, is not too much to travel. But if it were the case, it would surely have taken a toll on the pacing of the game.

Let’s see how other games provide a solution to this problem:

You will see a similar situation in the Assassin’s Creed 2 game. When we visit the catacombs, we get challenged by a series of action puzzle. Ones when you finally reach your goal and interact it, a secret door opens.

Observe here how the game tries to solve the problem of backtracking. As soon as we get the collectible, a secret door opens, which directly shoots us to the outside world where we can further continue our adventure.

This is fine as far as a solution to our problem is concerned, it is kind of good but there is a feeling of missing out something. This doesn’t really give the sense of completion, or we can say reduces it by 30%. This I think may happen because we don’t see the entry door again. We exit from the different portal, hence have a loop missing here, which leads to a feeling of a reduced sense of completion. I will further explain this but first, let’s see another better option.

The apt solution, in my opinion, is provided by the game Witcher 2: Assassins of the King.

If you’ve played it, you’ll definitely remember this mission “The Mines of Vergen” in the dwarf’s town.

Let me show you the map to have a clear idea about it.

The layout of Mines of Vergen

All the red crosses you see in the map are the dead ends. The area is pretty big and the player has to cover a lot of distance going in and then traversing back.

I won’t explain the mission here. My point here is, ones we are done with the mission inside these mines, we are pretty much left with nothing, literally. All the monsters slashed, all collectibles collected. Now, all we have to do is traverse back to the door.

Here the game gives us the option to either traverse the area or just poof back to the entrance. This is a good way to deal with the problem. If you like to explore, the game gives you the freedom to do so. If not, simply fast travel out! This seems a good way as the level of independence to the player is more here.

Though the third option is the better in approaching this problem, I feel designers still could have done it better. If we observe the map of the mines carefully, we can notice that this level is pretty much circular. Now all they had to do is arrange the events in such a way that it loops around circularly. In this way, the player starts at the gates and eventually ends at the same gate. Thus it gives a proper sense of completion.

This I believe could have been a better solution than the present. To explain it properly, let’s take our daily life example. Our goal here is to run some errands.

We open the door of our home, step into the outside world, get the job done and get back home. This gives us a sense of completion.

Now consider a scenario where after your job is done and poof, u disappear from the market and emerge directly in the home where you started. How does it feel?

Now consider another scenario where you are done with what needs to be done, but now, from the market, you get in the door and end up appearing in neighbor’s home! Does it give the feel of completion or closure?

This problem is very easy to solve yet some games still fail to address it. There are many ways it can be approached. But taking into mind the scenarios of the game, designers need iterate a lot until it gives an apt impression of closure. A clever level design, wise placement of events in the world and many other factors can work like a charm and solve the issue.

I hope you enjoyed the read. Please let me know your take on this. Thank you very much for taking out time to read this. See you next time.

The Bioshock Infinite Ending: There is a lot more than what really meets our eyes!!

Bioshock Infinite is one of that few games in which I was shaken to the core on completing. I loved this mind-boggling game made by Irrational games, there are really very few such kinds of games present currently in the market. It has the capability to invoke a chain of thought process and I liked how the developers left the story to be thought and woven by the players itself. The core concept of the game, the multiple parallel universes itself is so baffling that so many thoughts keep gushing our mind even after hours of game completion.

The core notion of the game solely plays around the decisions we make. Now imagine we took a decision “A” for a situation. So there is another universe created where we may have taken the decision “B”. The artwork in the game completely takes it to a different level. Though it was created by the villain, the city of skies, Columbia is damn beautiful.

While playing half of the game, the player will have no idea what is happening and where is he going through tiers etc. One thing here must be accepted is that in the last part, especially in the last 20 minutes game blitzes players with a lot of information. This bombardment is okay, but it is really hard to process all in one go. This is because so many things are dynamically happening around us. Hell, I played the game twice to properly understand it. If you haven’t played the game it, I strongly recommend playing it. Needless to say, big spoilers coming ahead.

Today I will attempt to explain all this complex ending of the game in the simplest possible way. So, grab your coffee, set back and relax. Let’s have this ride!!

Main theory in the game:

The basic approach of this game is based on millions of universe created and collapsing with every decision you make. To understand it better, let’s take a real life example here.

Say you got a date in the evening with this lucky person. Now there are two primary decisions here. Either you go for a date, or you don’t. When you decide to “Go” in this universe, there another universe is created where you “Don’t Go” to the date. All the further consequences will be based on what decision you make at that moment.

Now further these universes may have branches where you say “prepone” or “postpone” your date or say “postpone and cancel” or “prepone and cancel” etc. There will be innumerable possibilities and I guess now you get the gist of the concept is. So for each decision, there exists a universe and also there exist a universe for, where you don’t take it, or the opposite of it.

These lighthouses represent millions of universes and possibilities in the game!!

Now let’s understand how the game kick starts.

One very important event in the game: The Baptism of Booker Dewitt.

Booker is plagued with some sins from the past, which he wants to get rid of. He decides to undergo Baptism. Thus the scene of Baptism plays. But as we see, at the very end, Booker denies this Baptism, and somehow decides to continue with his life.

Exactly, at this moment, two different worlds are created, one where Booker accepts Baptism and one where he rejects. Right here two “Bookers” are created. The one which accepts the Baptism calls himself as Zachary Comstock, probably to distance himself from sinful past. However, the original Booker decides to go on by accepting his past.

The biggest irony of this game which I feel is, the Baptized Booker, goes on to become one of the biggest villains of all the time and the non-Baptized “sinful” Booker is the savior after all.

A little background check: Booker, Comstock, Anna and Elizabeth

Let’s get to know Mr. Booker Dewitt a little better:

Booker Dewitt is a normal man living his life in the simple world. He has no Idea what is he about to go through in near future. Booker has a wife, and they have a baby which is named Anna. My speculation about wife is that she dies while giving birth to Anna or maybe some other complex reason. But now she is not there.

Now Booker is left with Anna to be taken care of. Booker tries to get over this sour grief with drinking. With a lot of drinking follows the gambling.  In gambling, Booker now owns a lot of debt to very dangerous people.

Say hello to Mr. Zachary Comstock the bad guy of the game:

Zachary Comstock is the creator of the city Columbia in which later we play the whole game. He builds up this empire with the help of the brilliant physicist the Lutece Twins. Lutece twins also invent of tier technology to which Comstock has early access. This tier tearing is nothing but an invention which allows traveling to another universe (made by other decision) without disturbing time-space units. Long time exposure to this makes Comstock infertile and unable to conceive a baby in his world. Due to his age factor, he must find the heir to rule the nation which is of his own bloodline.

So there must be some universe existing, where he has a baby which is, of course, that of Booker’s!! He then decides to use this tier technology, and use it to get his baby from another world. He then interferes into Booker’s world and brings his baby to his own world with help of Lutece’s help.

Anna equals Elizabeth:

So by now, you must have got clear idea that the character we play with the game is actually Booker’s daughter from his universe. Anna is actually confiscated from Booker by Comstock. So Elizabeth is a grownup or elder version of Anna. During her forcing through the tier, she gets a clean cut and loses her pinky finger. I guess this gives her superpower of opening the tiers to another world just as Lutece Twins.

Comstock has special plans for Elizabeth. He plans to implant a control device in her head, and use this power as and when he pleases. He clearly has the full idea of what Elizabeth is capable of and therefore orders to make a “siphon” tower in Columbia so that he can limit, utilize and even drain her powers. He also orders to make a huge mechanical bird, called as “songbird” in the game to protect her.

What happens to Comstock’s plans then:

Lutece twins look into this future in which they find that Comstock uses her to bring Armageddon on New York and all over the world. Hence decided to make it all right by returning Elizabeth to her original timeline. They then bring Booker to this world of Comstock with one goal, save the girl.

The actual game starts here when Booker is bought to Comstock’s world by the Lutece twins through the tier. Booker comes to this world only with one goal, that is, to save the girl. Here, in Comstock’s world, Booker suffers two memories existing in same space and time in his head, which I feel is the reason for the nosebleeds.

Now fasten your seat belt as we take a tour through the different universe.

I will now brief only the main events in the game, as we are not here to discuss the complete game. I will enlist all the important events as and when they happen in the game.

In the game, we travel mainly through 4 different timelines or let’s just say 4 different universes. The events in each universe unfold as chalked below.

Universe 1:

1. You enter Comstock’s universe and start your journey.
2. Travel to the tower of Monument Island and free Elizabeth
3. Fight Slate
4. Enlisted by Daisy to go and arm Vox populi
5. Find Chen Li is dead
6. Exit this timeline with help of Elizabeth.

Universe 2:

1. No Elizabeth as she is moved to Comstock’s house
2. Booker teams up with Slate and Burns down the hall of heroes
3. Chen Li lives in this universe
4. This is where you enter the universe
5. But tools are confiscated by police
6. Exit from this timeline at this point

Universe 3:

1. Booker is killed and becomes the martyr for Vox populi
2. Chen Li’s tools haven’t been confiscated.
3. Vox revolt
4. You enter here the timeline in this universe here.
5. Elizabeth is captured by songbird and taken back to Comstock
6. Because Booker was dead, he never came to rescue Elizabeth
7. Booker pulled in future by older Elizabeth
8. The control device is implanted in her by Comstock, nothing under her control
9. Gives Booker a note to give to young Elizabeth in order to save the world

Universe 4:

1. You enter universe here
2. Booker rescues Elizabeth so the control device was never implanted
3. Comstock gets killed
4. Siphon destroyed by songbird.

The story in the game starts playing exactly where you enter that particular map. So like a hero, Booker either takes entry in every universe when the things are about to get screwed up or after they get screwed up. Elizabeth takes them through these different universes as story unfolds.

The Infinite Loop:

The ride we just had in different universes is what happens always, rather keeps happening always. The main goal of Booker is to break this loop which goes on playing so many times. The whole game we keep hearing about the constants and variables. Now we will get the clear idea of what exactly are those constants and the variables.

When siphon tower was destroyed, Elizabeth gained her full capacity and became omniscient and omnipotent. She saw a million possibilities (the universe), all the dimensions where Comstock is still alive, knew where it all starts and finally converges.

To end this never-ending loop of always losing Anna, always getting to Columbia, always getting a head on coin flipped, always getting ball number 77 and failure to finally save his daughter has to end at some point. To end this very loop, Elizabeth has to put an end to where it all started.

This is where I saw many people actually lose it. What we think is that at the end Elizabeth kills Booker and the whole loop ends. NO, it doesn’t happen that way!!

Knowledge and Wisdom:

Booker and Elizabeth have to eliminate the “constant”, where it all started. This loop will not be over when Comstock is killed but ends only when he never existed. This means they have to make sure he was never created at first place. We must observer one point very carefully here. In a loop, we always kill Comstock only in the universe you experienced. Actually, there are millions of other universes, where he still exists and still tortures his daughter.

Look at the bigger picture here, you only experience ONE of the infinite number of possible endings all happening constantly and simultaneously until this loop breaks. Luteces make it work, always bring Booker to Columbia. But in the end, it is Booker who needs to act.

This I think is why when you are playing the game and die, Elizabeth merely adopts another Booker where he didn’t die at that time from another universe.

What Elizabeth kills is the man who accepts Baptism. So rather changing variables of “He accepts Baptism” or “He does not accept baptism”, she turns it to a constant of “No, he doesn’t accept baptism”.  

In this case, Comstock was never created!! So all the other things on what Comstock had an effect on, also vanish with him. Columbia was never created, Luteces were never there in Columbia, no crazy inventions, songbirds, siphon tower and most strikingly, Elizabeth, never existed.

Yes, it is really a lot to take. Elizabeth, we came to know, played with her whole game and shared a bond of caring father-daughter relation, never existed!! So in a way in the end, when she was killing Booker, she was actually killing herself, making a greater sacrifice. If she does this sacrifice, the other timeline where Anna is with Booker will always remain safe, as there is no Comstock.

Now here arises a doubt that when a universe is created when Anna gets confiscated, there must even be a universe (possibility) where she doesn’t get confiscated, right? Well, the doubt is correct, however, whatever happens in the end, Comstock always manages to take, ask or confiscate Anna and make her Elizabeth, kind of a “constant” thing. You see where it all starts and where she will always end.

Here is a precis of what all we talked till now:

I will be honest, I have never seen a girl character so beautifully crafted, ever in any game. The animation, the voice over is just wow, perfect!!

Actually, I like the way game developers at Irrational games kept some things cloudy and foggy intentionally. This helps game build good hype and also, yes, million possible universes of what might have exactly happened. Everyone has their own version of the story.

Hope I was able to at least touch the line of the depth of what game wanted players to experience. Please let me know if you enjoyed the read. Also feel free to add your thoughts to it in case I miss anything. Until then, see you next time.

How can be Fantasy Game Designing done in Better way

We in game development field have always heard of this one well-worn line “The game is all about the experience you want to give to the player”. But actually while developing a game we sometimes get drifted so much inflow that we exactly miss out the point of “experience” part. Fantasy games are no exception to this kind where we sometimes fail to deliver a complete experience that is intended.

Almost every gamer I have met has a dream and own version of a fantasy game they have on their mind. This fantasy game designing is so awesome that every budding and even experienced game designers have at least ones in their life would have thought of making a fantasy game, or at least got inspired from one. So today let’s discuss in detail about how can we design a fantasy game in a better way.

Fantasy game has many fundamental aspects. It safe to say that if we balance these aspects perfectly, we get a well balanced game!

• Game System– mechanics, crafting system
• Game theme– art, audio, narrative.
• Story– lore, Mystery, challenges and uncertainty of the outcomes.
• Gameplay– Progression, Space, goals and rules to roll.

Fantasy is one of the most important genres in the gaming world. It gives the player actual feel that you are living and are part of that world. When people get bored of their normal life doing all normal things, fantasy empowers them to live a completely different life in a different world. Therefore selecting a proper theme for our game is very important because it is this very world where players are going to live in.

One very important point I feel is that just because our game has some swords and hefty armor in it doesn’t give a game “feel” of epic war game or just because we have some shattered environment with cracked buildings in it, doesn’t ensure it as an apocalypse survival game. The game should have proper congruent mechanics, gameplay and progression so that it doesn’t lose the equilibrium.

To achieve this, the game designers have got a big task to do:

1. Understand your fantasy that you are presenting to the world. Be very clear about the vision.
2. Once all the ideas are clear from the design perspective, now we have to convey these ideas to all rest of the team. Make sure the artists, programmers, sound engineers and whole team all are on the same page as you.
3. Discuss with programmers and have an apt set of mechanics which perfectly counterpart the world you create and enhance the experience.

We all have had experience of great games where mechanics fit aptly according to the environment. Now take an example of Assassin’s Creed series on one hand and Prince of Persia on other. Both games use their own mechanics in distinctive ways in their respective worlds. Now just interchange their mechanics and see what happens. I won’t say it’ll be a disaster, but it will lack the right “feel”. I guess you get my point here, exactly where I am going!

We need to do a proper plan of what exactly we want the player to experience in the game. Find the essence and get to the little details of it. Scheme a proper progression for immersion factor. If the game has a big world, the player will eventually explore it. We need to make sure the player should have some purpose, just to avoid aimless wandering followed by boredom. When I say it, I remember the game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It got really boring sometimes to reach your objective. Exploring any world is fun but only for the first few times. Later when everything is revealed, there is no new thing to discover, it becomes pretty repetitive. So if we have a proper aim for players, they will explore the world and even notice the beautiful environment. When we form the balance in mechanics and world, we can be sure about the player having a good time.

If everything is at its right place, like mechanics, game elements etc. the game runs butter smooth. But we have to remember one thing here, if we miss something, it gets noticed by the players. Maybe not very strongly but subtly they do note it. This is sometimes a major cause we are not able to deliver intended experience.

I have seen many games where it teaches players a lot of mechanics. Somehow later in the game, the full segment of all the taught mechanics is not used to its fullest. The player keeps learning new things half of the game but then the game can be completed anyhow by using basic mechanics. What is the point of teaching player all these things which player may or may not use to the game? It just increases ambiguity and even a hardship for the programmers followed by animators and the list goes on. Every tactic, every skill we teach player should have some or the other intention. My point here is, gamers may get busy in learning things for a long time than to experience the beautiful world which is created for them to enjoy and here we miss their involvement in the game.

When we see a fantasy game we have a lot of things to take care of. Many important things like the world, the theme of the game, narrative, story that binds everything, character (including intractable and non-intractable), audio, the progression of a player. Every aspect needs your focus on details so it gets all elements right in line. Every damn thing deserves proper love and attention of the designer, as for any of these gets imbalanced, it may kill the whole game. We certainly don’t want to have a mole in our game when have to achieve beautiful seamless experience.

I personally feel that the theme, mechanics are not that substantial while making an intractable fantasy to come alive. Don’t get me all wrong, these factors certainly are important but priority wise, it is the very first, pre-production stage of the game that deserves the most attention. The designers need to think of the fantasy all profoundly and clearly, analyze it and only then we can go ahead and have the right theme and the mechanics for it. This will also make sure that it meets our initial idea and chances of mismatch become negligible.

Most of the time what I think happens is, we concentrate more on making good mechanics and awesome artwork, which is not wrong by the way, but all preference should be rightly set. Right here, we fail to understand and have a clear idea of what exactly we are trying to achieve. This is exactly where the problem starts. Designers think of something, convey something else to artists and from there goes on the domino effect. We need to find that very fundamental essence which conveys the experience not only to our end gamer but also to the team who is going to actually mold it and this is the reason, scrutiny of details is a must.

What can be done to achieve it??

Well, we need to get to the specifics. Just merely saying we are making a war game, just by adding some castles and huge armies don’t make it live up to the mark of a war game. We have to research a lot. Go deeper and deeper. Try and get to the level where you will be distinguished from what knowledge others have on a particular subject you are researching. Study all current games from the analytical point of view. Watch out what things work in the game and why they do or why they don’t.

Study of demographics is must while making these kinds of games. Look for what kind of audience will exactly percept your game and what will make them gravitate to it. Focus on those little elements.

The online critics and the reviews available are the best friends of the designers at this stage. They give the clear idea what a game missed or what common mistakes are pointed out by most reviewers. In this way, we can find the weak spot and work on reinforcing it so as to avoid these errors.

Break down the game into molecules. This perhaps gives the clear idea of what your game is. It is never a single theme or single idea we work on, but probably the whole bunch of ideas that makes it better. Break them all down. For example, take the RPG game Witcher 2. It contains action, adventure, elves, dwarves, magic, creatures, monsters, ghosts and what not. But all the things blend very properly and are bounded through a story to give you a unified experience of awesomeness.

Ones we are done with finalizing the idea, think the most effective way of delivering it. Check for exactly what we are conveying gamers here. Is it just a world experience, like that of Journey game, or is it the experience of an individual’s story in the world, like that of Witcher 2 or say war game like Battlefield. This can be decided by what player is doing in-game, only lives in the created world or is the world shaping on the choices made by the player.

Well, I must admit one thing here though, all these thoughts are easier said than done. I absolutely know that while working within the deadlines, some of the things get overlooked and it is inevitable. However, at least knowing them and keeping all points in mind is battle half won. So if we know how to proceed, we will probably make fewer mistakes thus getting closer to perfection. If we are able to do at least 70-80% of these points, it is sure to raise the bar towards par excellence.

We as designers need to find and strike that perfect chord of player’s sentiments so as to keep them immersed, engaged and entertained throughout the game.

Thank you very much for your time. I hope you had a good read. If you feel I missed some points, please let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear your suggestions on it. See you next time!!

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Mode: Still Alive and Awesome

Battlefield bad company 2 is a marvelous package of true shear madness. The developers seem to have carefully devised the game to cater the fire of providing what we call a polished experience with a real warlike sense on the battlefield. I guess it is definitely safe to say, the game, especially the multiplayer mode is still kicking, going on strong. This version of the game is the best one till the date of its type. We can still see many players and populated servers even after 7 years of its release and that is intriguing.

The game has got a really cool campaign mode but was the game was crafted with a special focus on a multiplayer mode. Bad Company 2 for that time of FPS gamers was a leap of innovation of its kind. If you truly consider yourselves a Battlefield series fan, you cannot really claim so without playing this one. EA launched many battlefield titles after that, but every game till date, even the latest, Battlefield 1 is compared to this old beauty. It is still kind of milestone, a benchmark for all battlefield lovers.

I am really excited to talk about the game which I have been playing from a long time and honestly addicted to and I must admit I have not got tired even a bit of playing this game till date.

I want to specially discuss the multiplayer mode of bad company 2 and what it has to offer. It has got a huge amount of insanity jam-packed in it, and I am literally talking from shooting the opponent players with RPGs to blasting them off with C4 kind of madness. Ever heard of an anti-tank mine blasting and taking down the heli?? Sounds crazy right? Well not for the bad company 2 players, as this is what they can do to take the opponents down.

The game has got crisp mechanics which are real easy to learn but tough to master them. Being easy, there is huge competition and your real skills are put to test. Apt strategy and wise tactics are a must to win any mode in this game. I am saying this because it is not really a game where you just go on Rambo shooting anyone who crosses you. The ragdolls in the game are truly funny though. I don’t know are they made so intentionally or what, but they sure as hell are damn funny. You literally even knife someone and sometimes the body flies high in the sky. Occasionally when there is any kind of blast, a flying body or bodies can be seen from miles. Truly hilarious.

The game has got four modes major modes of the game in total: Squad Deathmatch, Rush, Squad Rush and Conquest. Although the game is more focused on Rush and conquest, still squad deathmatch is also great!!

I liked how the game properly balances the points, pins distribution and progression system is very well. Just a high kill to death ratio is not enough to top the charts in a round, but you have to be a team player and focus on the objective which yields a lot of points. You can have a really low number of kills and still top the chart by completing the objectives. I absolutely love the fact that the game is objective oriented and not just kill-oriented.

One more momentous element in the game is the near-perfect audio design for which, the game even won the BAFTA award, which it truly deserves. Someone lurking behind you or approaching from front hence becomes easy to foretell. The audio cues players get when whole building is about to collapse on you or say grenade warnings and even opponent and friendly soldier’s outcry makes the experience more breathtaking.

The game has got fascinating visuals with a variety of war terrain right from dense jungles, chilly snow-clad areas to big deserts. The developers made sure while making the game that they cover the maximum type of regions and give a premium quality warlike sense to the players. The map design of the game is prudently done which never overpowers either side of offense or defense. Map designing is a crucial aspect in any FPS multiplayer to maintain proper flow of offense and the defense and balance both the sides.

The game gained this huge popularity is due to the amount of demolition packed in it. There were not many games at that time which had that kind of dynamic environment set. Like, just blast a couple of C4 on the building and watch it will crumble down to ground. It is human tendency to enjoy the destruction, especially when you have such adrenaline pumped in you. Everything being destructible in the game, which even canvassed the covers while in the fight, dramatically changed the face of the game. Each and every structure standing on the field can be flattened and that is really intriguing.

Another plus point of the game is its polished set of arsenals. There are total four kits for a player and each kit has its own perks which can be used in the game.  Not only just kits but also the combat vehicles like tanks and helicopters have their own perks and upgrades. With different kits, the change in the play style is literally felt. It is this variety of weapons and contrasting performance of different kits that made this title a big hit.

About the technicality, this game definitely uses a good net code. Pings make a huge difference in individual performance though, but it also kind of depends on, how far you are from the servers. Sometimes hit registration problem also occurs due to ping difference. So overall it is a pretty good experience and surely enjoyable.

Though the game is really good, it has its own imperfections in my opinion which could have been better to enhance the experience. Whenever the game elements are introduced in the game, like weapons per se, the quantity and their purpose should be definitely kept in mind. What I exactly want to say here is Quality and the Quantity of these game elements and their exact intention in the game. Simply keeping a huge amount of weapons and gadgets with little damage and/or accuracy difference just seems a cover up to word “variety” where quality lacks. Sure, it gives us many options of how we want to play the game, but this also makes it very difficult to maintain the equilibrium of all the gadgets, weapons and gameplay. Due to this, even redundancy of weapons increases as anyhow, players use only some popular weapons & gadgets. Also, less redundancy means being less random and uncertainty in way player dies, which won’t make a huge difference but surely will give feel of the good and balanced experience.

The game has four primary kits and those are Assault, Engineer, Medic and Recon. When a new player starts with any of the kits, all popular or a bit powerful weapons of that kit, along with customizable upgrades are locked for you. So if you are a new player to this FPS arena of games, with no added perks, you are sure to die like million time unless you get the upgrades unlocked and use it for your advantage. Till then, players may get frustrated as the experienced players already are pro in playing and also with all the upgrades, which gives them the extra edge. Until the time you unlock them game really tests your patience and consistency. This causes lot of frustration in players which makes them rage quit the game pretty quickly. If we see through a designer’s perspective, you will surely have to rethink on it. As a designer, we have to attract and retain almost all types of players.

For this, we can simply have one simple solution. The primary, at least 3 weapons should be kept unlocked (one of them being a good or popular weapon). Now surely some will say it will kill progression part, where you actually have to unlock and “earn” it. Now c’mon, this isn’t RPG you are playing where you have to see the track of your progression. I certainly don’t mean it is not at all important here, it is, but not really that much. Let’s say even the weapons are unlocked according to the current scenario, but still, there is no huge difference between their accuracy, damage point etc. If players are retained in game, there will progression. I guess you get where I am going with that. Moreover, the ranking system and different achievement pins really do the job of giving progression feel very well.

Pins and Awards in Multiplayer Mode

Speaking of progression, the game misses the feature of dynamic ranking system. Ones the player in the game reaches rank #50 and there is nothing really left in the game to unlock, you have no choice but simply play the game, that’s about it. So say, if a player is playing from really long time, still is not much skilled, the player is sure to reach rank #50 one day, but really lacks the skills as per the rank number.

For this, simple solution is the introduction of dynamic ranking system. That is, your rank will be decided on last 4 games you played and your performance in it. This would definitely increase the attachment level and there will be always something to boost of in the game other than skills! This varying ranking will always keep the players adhered to the game until they reach a respectable rank. It will also ask for consistent performance, so skilled players will be rewarded accordingly.

There are basically a million different ways in which you can die in the game due to its randomness and unpredictability, which are maybe enjoyable for some but really frustrating for others. What I am exactly talking about is, say you are in the middle of completely open ground, and there is a mortar strike on you. You can’t really escape the situation. Death is certain for you and can do nothing about. Other worse cases are, say you face a UAV right in front of your face, bam, there is no way to escape it and it will rode kill you or say a million varieties of RPGs flying at you and you have no idea where are they coming from. For experienced players, who know the basics of the FPS game, it keeps them focused and alert, but if say you are new to the game and when you get erratic and random deaths, it just it doesn’t makes the best gameplay experience!!   From my perspective, it cannot be completely counted as an imperfection. But then unless the player gains the proper experience this game can be bit tough to handle. To avoid the frustration, the player needs to be a fast learner with patience, to have smooth experience and enjoy it to fullest. I thought of adding this point in my analysis, just because, in my experience, I see many new players,  joining servers every day, after hardly first five minutes, if they don’t have proper know-how of how to play, they start feeling this game is just not really for them and end up rage quitting. Now you may say that those players are losers or bunch of newbie, but thinking from a designer’s perspective, you would want really anyone and everyone to play and enjoy your game. I have seen many players jump directly into the multiplayer mode not even touching the campaign mode for even single time.  So assuming player knows all will be erroneous.

Another big issue of game, in my opinion, is its squad chat option. It is not really smooth with lots of voice drops observed. Also when game SFX is loud, say for example you are in combat with lots of destruction and blasts happening around you, your squadmate may not be clearly audible to you at that moment. The voice and audio volumes are set to default and you cannot adjust that. Mostly, third-party software is used by many players for in-game voice chat. As I already mentioned, this is a team game and you cannot win it without proper strategy and tactics, ingame chat kind of becomes an important part of the experience. A squad occupies only four players. This means, if you are playing with a big team, the squad chat is limited for your squad only and not the whole team.

What I would like to tweak here is, we will give a proximity area for every player, a range. Now say if that player talks in game, the squad mates will listen him irrespective of the distance, but also all other players who are in the range will be able to listen him. Yes, this means enemy players too, if they are in range!! Doesn’t it give a more realistic experience? So say if one of your teammates is a chatterbox, the enemy will know your position if he/she talks a lot, better watch out for these kinds.

Also, the main thing I missed in the game is the variety of combat vehicles in flying category. No jets are seen in game in flying vehicle class. Though the helicopters are enough to get around in the maps, but still, flying a jet will give a real epic feeling. Bad Company 2 do gives you lot of options to navigate around in big maps, but it makes a difference when there are simple vehicles and combat vehicles. Point which I like about the game though is, the upgradeable perks you can add to your combat vehicles which in my opinion is a really good touch. While on foot, the players can crouch, that’s fine but I missed the prone position. This pose in the game will add a lot of fun as players will also have to thoroughly check the grounds as well. Then sometimes there is no difference between fresh dead body and a prone posed player. This will make the gameplay in dense jungle really exciting!!

I honestly feel the Recon kit, which is my favorite kit, in the game is little over-powered compared to other kits. Yes I admit it. If you are skilled and use this kit, you can easily dominate the field. One shot kills, no scope kills in close quarter combats, C4 to blast tanks and buildings, motion sensors, ranged attacks by mortars, ability to take down helicopter just by sniping the pilot etc. makes this kit really powerful than other kits. For me it is fine. Even though it is over-powered, you need to be skilled enough to properly use it. After all, every kit has its own role to play on the war field.

When there is proper team work, coordination and you win a round, trust me, it really gives an epic feeling of victory. With small tweaking and balancing, this already one of the best multiplayer games is sure to raise the bars of excellence to new heights and that too with an awesome experience!

Thank you very much for reading my insight and opinion on the game. Hope you had a good read. I would love to hear from you your thoughts on the game, feel free to discuss. Until next time then!! (: