Games with good search?
Can anyone think of any games with a good “you’re looking for X” mechanic?
Games like Metroid have good exploration. There are cool things hidden about, and enemies that are fun to shoot, so you perform an exhaustive search through the world. Similarly with Diablo: you traverse the area boundaries until you find the gate to the next area, and move on.
What about games in which you need to find a specific thing, which feature something other than exhaustive or random search? How do you nudge the player in the right direction, without making it overly obvious or overly obscure? How do you include a skill element? This can be through an environment, or in a big stack of items, or whatever. Any examples?
December 1st, 2006 at 9:28 pm
First off, is there a missing sentence in there? At, “…and move on. There’s”
I’m having a little trouble visualizing what you talk about in the second paragraph.
There are games which are technically open systems, but which are so large that for all practical purposes, information must be provided to locate specific elements. Armada on the Dreamcast was an example of this — you’ve got the entire Universe (or Galaxy, or whatever) there the whole time, but it’s so big that you really can’t find anything unless you’re provided coordinates.
Uplink used the same mechanic, except with IP addresses rather than physical 2D space.
Now… something that I *haven’t* seen done is a game that takes that idea and stretches it along a gradient. So, say I’ve got my 2D world. It’s huge and open, but random searching will generally be fruitless because of the scale.
Then, say I’ve got planets in this world. Each of these planets holds 4-6 cities. Each city has two “special” buildings which hold the element I’m looking for; these special buildings sit among other non-special buildings, but stand out visually from the others and can be seen from afar.
(Note: I’m using the word “level” to designate these stages — Universe, planet, city, building.)
Every level of this involves some different sort of challenge; it could be reflexy, or puzzley, or whatever. Now, you’ve got contacts providing you with information; after all, someone needs to give you those initial coordinates for the planet. Then, every level has someone with clues to help you find what you need on the next level. However, these contacts become harder to find, or harder to work with (requiring more skill) as you go “down” (get more specific) in levels.
So in this gradient from the general to the specific, the chances that I’ll happen upon my target through random exploration increase. At the same time, I’ve got contacts who will tell me exactly where to find my next clue, but these contacts become harder and harder to work with as we move from the general to the specific.
What does this accomplish? Theoretically, it could be tuned to impose just the *right* amount of exploration without having to resort to the binary “exhaustive or random search”. Granted, this approach would assume that all the other pieces are in place — interesting and varied gameplay, lots of content, long-term goals, etc.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:51 pm
(Oops, post fixed.)
In most games, the navigation is a complement to the “real” gameplay. The real gameplay is an interesting combat system, for example. The action of “exhaustively search this area” or “move from here to that point in the distance” would be quite boring on its own, but it’s just an excuse to expose you to the real gameplay.
I’m wondering if there’s something other than exhaustive search or explicitly directed, which would provide some interesting element on its own.
I like your idea of contacts becoming harder to work with. What is harder to work with? Do they charge more money for the clues, or require you to complete the physical challenge, or is there some other skill element?
December 2nd, 2006 at 2:35 am
“I’m wondering if there’s something other than exhaustive search or explicitly directed, which would provide some interesting element on its own.”
You mean like Dragon’s Lair “Chase the Blinky” without the aggravating instant game-over?