Day 13

Questions

Imagine that you are a level designer in the 1980's. Knowing the limitations associated with this era, what type of game would you develop?

During the 1980’s new original creations for games were being developed. Though they were still limited with their technology of making extremely creative games there were some out there that attracted a lot of early gamers for the 80’s. The type of game that I would develop would most likely be a pacman game, as the pacman game was a very popular mainstream game when it was released.

Play 3 games- one from the 1980's, one from the 1990's and one released after 2004. Compare and contrast how levels and environments are developed in all 3 games.

The 1980’s was when games were starting to evolve and new gaming styles were being created. Such as Donkey Kong which was a basic 2D environment where you were a character named Mario who would become well known in later years. Your goal was to jump over obstacles the gorilla threw and make it to the top and save the princess.

A game from the 90’s is a game that is a very popular and recently released the sequel to the popular franchise, Starcraft. Starcraft was one of the first Real Time Strategy (RTS) games ever created. It was a game that you could control the economic and military side things. The graphics were a slight improvement compared to the 80’s but no dramatic graphic changes. The environment was basically a map wilderness where you build up your army and destroy your opponents.

Crysis was released in the end of 2007. Crysis is a first person shooter with graphics that can still compete with games created today. It’s environment was developed very well, the interaction and physics was very realistic. The environment reacts very well depending on what the user does to the environment. For example of you shoot a tree it will break and animals react to your movements. The Artificial intellegents (AI) also react realistically when you are attacking them or sneaking past them.

Games have evolved very rapidly since the 80’s to the present and will most likely improve in the next ten years.

How does a game's genre affect the way its levels and environments are designed? Choose one level from 3 different games- each from a distinct primary genre- and compare how these levels are designed with regard to setting, goals, puzzles, and risk–reward system.

The first game is a science fiction genre game named metal gear solid 2. They level is on a cargo ship but is set in the future and you use non lethal weapons and stealth to gather information about a certain weapon being transported on the ship. The puzzles in the level is finding your way around the cargo ship and also timing your movement to sneak past guards. This level is optional so if you choose to do this mission you have a little more background to the story. The risk and reward is basically if you do the mission you learn a little more about the story but it does not affect the game and can be finished and understood without doing the level.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare is a modern day first person shooter. The campaign follows a linear story, there is not much exploration and the goal is whatever the mission asks you to do usually either infiltrate a place or kill terrorists. There are no real puzzles in this game other than using tactics to defeat enemies. The only risk and reward is going into the battlefield and not getting killed but when you finish the job you progress to the next level.

Fallout 3 is a RPG game which is set in a post-apocalyptic future. Where everything is a wasteland scavengers, raiders, mutated creatures also roam the wastelands. Your character comes out of vault that has never been open and you go looking for your dad who had also escaped. There are many puzzles in the game such as learning an algorithm to unlock doors or areas to pass into. There are also optional quests which class as risk and reward.