Quite a while back, I was turned on to Haunting Ground by Leigh Alexander's writeup of it for her Aberrant Gamer column on GameSetWatch. Her insightful critical read of the title made me want to see it for myself, but the disturbing subject matter she described kept me from diving in for a long time. And now that I've played through it, I've been taking even longer to write up my experience.
It's because Haunting Ground is a tough game to write about. Half of it's brilliant, the other nearly unplayable; it treads patently unpleasant and distressing territory, but features clever, enjoyable design that can be great fun to play. It uses exploitation and objectification to challenge audience identity and gender expectations in ways that only a game could, but feels simultaneously pandering and puerile. It's a great success, and a great failure. It's a weird game.
Haunting Ground is a Capcom survival horror title of 2005, following in the tradition of the Clock Tower series. The player is cast in the role of Fiona Belli, a young woman who wakes up in a strange castle with vague memories of a car wreck floating in her head. Fiona soon befriends a helpful German Shepherd named Hewie, and with his assistance must navigate through a convoluted series of puzzle rooms while evading the depraved denizens of the castle.
The first half of the game is an incredibly well-crafted example of classic survival horror design. The castle itself has a creepy-but-plausible layout which includes bedrooms, sitting rooms, bathrooms, gardens, studies, a kitchen and dining room, along with a number of stranger, more baroque locations such as alchemy labs, a gallery filled with dolls staked to the walls, and a demented merry-go-round. The dense puzzles filling the castle hinge on a distorted abstract logic, and beg the question of just what kind of madman would construct such a lair. The setting layers surreality on top of mundanity with aplomb.
Mechanically, the clues and solutions to the first half of the game's tightly-knotted puzzles are wonderfully decentralized and satisfying to solve. Much like the dreamworld of Silent Hill 2, Haunting Ground's early puzzles operate on an otherworldly but readable ruleset which begs nonlinear thinking from the player.
The gameworld's structure and puzzles encourage the player to constantly make connections between distant points, while providing just enough direction to keep the player from getting completely lost: the clue to any given puzzle always lies in one room, while a pertinent object lies in another, and the place the puzzle must be completed in another still, resulting in puzzle solutions that sketch complex webs across the playable space.
The castle is divided into distinct chunks composed of a dozen or so rooms apiece, each chunk initially blocked off from the other by doors "locked from the other side." As the player enters a new chunk, he builds a mental map of that isolated physical space, then by clearing obstructions unlocks the blocked doors to prior sections, gradually building out the full map of the castle as a whole. From the nonlinear objectives to the physical shape of the gameworld and the player's course of progression through it, the first half of Haunting Ground presents a wonderful mechanical experience centered on completing circuits within a system driven by interconnectivity.
The character dynamics and narrative frame that buoy the gameplay in the first half of Haunting Ground are equally compelling and challenging, in totally different ways. Filling the role of Fiona Belli places the player in limbo between voyeur and subject, exploiter and exploited, violator and violable, and for most players, between masculine and feminine. It's a distinctly tense space to occupy, and can only arise from the play of a video game, as opposed to passively observing other entertainment media.
We first see Fiona in Haunting Ground's attract screen movie, padding down a long, red corridor wrapped in a translucent bedsheet, intercut with footage from a camera that follows a blooddrop trickle down the contour of her nude body:
The symbolism makes itself clear here, and colors the game's ongoing depiction of Fiona, which emphasizes her femininity, vitality and vulnerability. These aspects of the protagonist drive all of the ongoing narrative and secondary character motivation in the first half of Haunting Ground, which finds a pitiable rogue's gallery chasing lustily and relentlessly after Fiona. She is expressly designed as an object of desire.
In an early scene, Fiona trades in her wispy bedsheet for a set of clothes she finds disconcertingly laid out on a bed as if for an expected guest, and which furthermore seem to be tailored just for her. As she dresses, we observe the scene through the eyes of an unseen figure watching from behind a painting hung on the wall; we are momentarily put in the shoes of someone preying on Fiona, while simultaneously charged with keeping her from harm's way. The clothes she's been given are exploitative and degrading: a skirt much too short for decency, a bodice cut too tight for modesty, bringing into question the motives of her gracious host. But meanwhile, the game's developers also intentionally invested in a system for simulating breast-bounce as Fiona moves about the castle. The revealing costume serves a fictional purpose as an outfit orchestrated by Fiona's perverse captors, but the computational power poured into depicting boob jiggle can serve no one but the (predominantly male) developers and players of the video game. The overall effect is to reinforce Fiona's vulnerability as a captive subject within the gameworld, while also indicting the player as a voyeur in league with the story's antagonists.
Fiona is hereafter imperiled by the ongoing threat not just of death, but of vague and looming bodily violation. Her first pursuer is a hulking manchild referred to as "Debilitas," seen in the attract screen movie above. When he initially encounters Fiona, he glances from a filthy ragdoll he's holding, to our protagonist and back, then tosses the doll aside and lurches after his new object of desire. As Fiona progresses from room to room, Debilitas will attempt to chase her down when their paths cross. During the pursuit he'll shout out "Dolly!" giggling and stomping with child-like delight, but also sometimes stop to paw at the crotch of his pants in frustration. The implication is that his adult body and stunted mind may be in conflict: the player gets the feeling that Debilitas wants to rape Fiona when he catches her, without even understanding his own actions. The dissonance between physical and mental intent places the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between the threatening-but-blameless Debilitas and the helpless Fiona in an exceedingly uncomfortable frame.
If Debilitas embodies the conflict between male and female, lust and innocence, brawn and intellect, Fiona's second pursuer, Daniella, explores a range of conflict between two female forces: sensation and function, humanity and inhumanity, servitude and dominance.
Daniella is the maid of the castle, and takes over as Fiona's pursuer when Debilitas steps down. She reinforces one of the ongoing themes of the narrative frame, which deals with alchemy and reanimation. As the game progresses, it becomes clear that Daniella is an automaton: she has a body and sentience, but no humanity. As she says, she is "not complete," and can't "experience pleasure or taste." Daniella's turning point from observer to pursuer comes when we find her running her hand over Fiona's body as the girl sleeps, her palm coming to rest over the womb. As Fiona awakes, Daniella goes on to study her own reflection in a window, then bash her head against it in disgust until it shatters, from which point forward she mechanically follows Fiona around the castle, wielding a huge shard of glass as a blade.
Unlike Debilitas, Daniella isn't after Fiona due to any physical urge, but out of jealousy, confusion and contempt. Daniella covets everything Fiona represents: her vitality, her fertility, which spring from her femininity and youth. Daniella has no youth because she has no age; she's an empty shell and she knows it: simply being reminded of such by her own reflection drives her over the edge. When her polar opposite arrives in the form of Fiona, she simply can't process the contrast. Daniella is associated with dolls and puppets via mise en scene throughout the castle, and is just that: a body without a soul, a tinman without a heart. She is broken, pitiful, and terrifying.
The most unsettling aspect of Fiona's predicament is the vagueness of the threat that looms over her. If she's caught by Debilitas, what is he capable of? What is Daniella's true nature? And who is the madman orchestrating all the events in this demented castle anyway? Dolls, mannequins, puppets, earthen golems, mummified girls and even partially reanimated corpses occupy room after room; what is the obsession with life from death?
At one point, Fiona's unseen host, a mysterious hooded figure known as "Riccardo," tells Fiona to remove the tarp from a form sitting on a couch in the study. Upon pulling back the sheet, Fiona finds a clay replica of herself in a state of full pregnancy. Just what the hell are these people's intentions? Overtones of Rosemary's Baby intensify. While the player wraps his head around the castle's abstract puzzles and flees from an array of freaks, an abiding, oppressive fear of the unknown always looms large over the proceedings. It's the opposite of the explicit threat of having Leon's head chainsawed off in Resident Evil 4. Does Fiona face a fate worse than death? Not to know is to dread it all the more.
Haunting Ground chooses a female protagonist deliberately, almost perversely. Unlike many games that put an attractive female shell on an otherwise genderless protagonist, Haunting Ground exploits the trope of the woman imperiled in a way only video games can, twisting it to overlap with the player, resulting in a strange duality that requires the player to really delve in and inhabit the role, to identify with the uniquely female aspects of the character and be driven by her fear and vulnerability, as opposed to observing from a detached viewpoint. The player of the game is charged with protecting Fiona, but also with being Fiona, a character who is different from the player in much more psychologically significant ways than your standard video game protagonist. It's a unique experience for a male player, and uncomfortably so, but one worth braving for its truly alien qualities. Both as a set of engaging game mechanics and as a novel and affecting transportive experience, the first half of Haunting Ground is an overwhelming success.
But here's the thing though:
The second half of Haunting Ground takes every aspect that made the first half interesting or enjoyable and turns it absolutely on its head. Once the third of four acts begins, puzzle design devolves almost instantly into a linear set of rote objectives, with no thought or deduction required. The areas thin out and transition from unsettlingly surreal to simply goofy and implausible. While the early acts had me making interesting mental connections and criss-crossing the map to clear obstructions, successive acts had me simply walking from room to room pressing the buttons in the order I was instructed, or worse yet participating in terribly-designed boss fights.
Player feedback, which was a point of emphasis in the first half of the game, takes a nosedive: I banged my head against one bossfight for the longest time because using the "come here" command on Hewie seemed to be resulting in an aggressive attack that I was just mistargeting, while in fact a FAQ revealed that I had to use the "attack" command explicitly to achieve my goal, while nothing in the game even pointed out that I was making a mistake in the first place. I solved another puzzle by sheer coincidence: one progression gate requires you to simply have a candle in your inventory while your pursuer follows you into a room which also contains some dynamite, at which point a cinematic plays, solving the puzzle for you. Thank god I hadn't actually been trying to figure that one out in any kind of intentional fashion. The final sequence in the game is horrifically punishing, obtuse, and just awful: an invincible boss that kills you in one hit chases you through a gauntlet, requiring the player to restart over and over, scouting with death to build enough precognition to perform the routine perfectly, lest the "game over" beast catch up to you for the dozenth time. The abruptness with which the quality of the game design drops off after the second act is striking, and it continues plummeting all the way til the final credits roll.
Furthermore, any subtlety or restraint the game showed regarding its themes is sandblasted away. We go from uncomfortable sidelong allusions to reanimation, fertility, and impregnation, to Riccardo shouting in the player's face, "Your father and I are clones! WE.. ARE.. CLONES!!" and yelling outright, "Fiona! Let me into your womb!" The story, which pointed in an intriguing direction in its early stages, descends into silly nonsense along with the gameplay self-destruction. We see clones floating in green goo tubes, Riccardo makes himself invisible by casting some spell on Fiona's eyeballs, and we meet an ancient alchemist named Lorenzo who falls from his wheelchair and scrambles along comically behind Fiona, flailing his arms in triple-time, practically begging for strains of Yakkety Sax to play in the background. Everything foreboding and unsettling about the game's narrative frame is transformed, alchemically, into its polar opposite: laughable, eye-rolling camp.
So, Haunting Ground is a game that I can recommend emphatically, up to its halfway point. Buy a used copy of the game for cheap and play up through the end of Daniella's chapter, then turn off the PS2 and don't look back. Despite the second half's implosion on every level, I completed it out of respect to what a great game the first half was, and out of some vain hope that the conclusion would make my devotion worth it. It wasn't worth it though, except to be able to report with confidence that you definitely shouldn't do the same.
Haunting Ground isn't pleasant. It isn't uplifting. Hell, it isn't even noble or progressive, considering its queasily pandering depiction of its protagonist. But its first half is incredibly well-crafted and entrancing while it lasts. At its best, Haunting Ground will take you to an unfamiliar place, ask you to put yourself in a pair of shoes that are particularly difficult to wear, and to experience all that comes along with that challenge. Good luck.
6.29.2008
Critique: Haunting Ground
2.14.2008
Work
A long time ago, I promised to share the specific elements of Perseus Mandate that I was responsible for.
I came into the project more than halfway through its life cycle. The entire single-player campaign was set in stone. My duties were primarily to A) bring various campaign levels from alpha or beta quality up to final state, and B) to create original maps for the Instant Action gametype.
First I'll share the original levels I built.
Instant Action
The Instant Action gametype made its first appearance in the 360 port of the original FEAR. These are standalone maps unrelated to the single-player campaign, which allow you to simply blast through a bunch of FEAR's combat without narrative elements to slow down the pacing. I was assigned to create three Instant Action maps (or "Bonus Maps" as they were called in the PC version.) One was based heavily off of an original design by Ian Shephard, so I don't consider it "my map" any more than the levels that I worked on from the single-player campaign.
But I created two other Instant Action maps from the ground up, handling all stages of development from original concept to final visuals and bugfixing. They were sort of "concept maps:" 'Sprint' and 'Arena.'
Sprint
This map eliminates all elements of exploration and equipment scavenging. Instead it focuses on an extremely focused linear path with checkpoints along the way at which the player can refill without slowing down. The challenge is to complete the "track" as quickly as possible, dropping each enemy as efficiently as possible so that you can cross the finish line without breaking stride.
Upon playing the demo of The Club, I felt that their game structure was a much more involved version of my concept for Sprint. Obviously the two productions were each developed completely independently of one another, but it felt validating to see another studio executing on the concept fully.
Click for bigAmanda Stewart performed an environment art pass on this map. The setting for Sprint is a bright, clean office complex, lit throughout by skylights. This environment was chosen to emphasize the focus on precise execution of your run, and to avoid enemies getting lost in the shadows. One battle does take place in the basement/generator room underneath the building.
This map is the opposite of Sprint: it's a large, enclosed courtyard-- basically a single, open-plan room-- that gets invaded by wave after wave of enemies. The player must survive until the final enemy is killed. The checkpoint system reappears, by way of supply crates that are periodically dropped by planes flying overhead in a very arcadey fashion. The player kills waves of enemies, restocks at the supply drop points in the corners of the map, then continues the cycle.
Click for bigAgain, the player's goal is to clear the map in the fastest possible time. My focus was to create exciting, open-ended combat in a dynamic space; challenge the player to maintain awareness of his surroundings at all times; and include some excellent destructible elements in the final battle, once the arena had served its purpose. So at the end of the level, the huge "Power Armor XP" mecha is dropped from a helicopter and crashes through the sculpture in the center of the map, then can smash through the surrounding concrete arches to chase the player.
Amanda Stewart provided the standing lamp and destroyed arch art assets.My favorite detail of the map is the large clock on the north wall, which runs in real time. I was actually surprised at how nicely the visuals turned out, since I was responsible for all the geometry and texture placement on the buildings surrounding the courtyard (I am a level designer, not a world artist.) The modernist sculpture in the center was also fun to build, and to blow up.
Single-player
I was responsible for adjusting gameplay elements, event scripting, tuning, performance, and visuals in a handful of the single-player campaign maps, but I don't feel like I "owned" any of that content. If my fellow LDs laid the foundation and built the frame, I just put up the drywall and gave it a couple coats of paint. These levels included the abandoned Underground, the sewers/subway following the Underground, and the mining facility, as well as a good deal of work on the final level of the game.
One area of the single-player campaign that I did feel some ownership over was the freight tunnel that preceded the mines. The player rides an elevator down into the large subterranean freight tunnel, and accompanies an NPC through it. I was handed the shell geometry, and built the visual look of the area:
Click for bigMoments
Throughout the campaign, I was asked to go in and add some unique moments-- scares, scripted events or enemy encounters. While I only felt like a guest in the other guys' levels, the events that I added were themselves entirely of my own conception and execution. Spoilers ahead; here are some unique moments I snuck into the game proper:
Data Core Vision
During the first act, the player works his way through the ATC's Data Core facility. The main shaft runs many stories vertically through the center of the building; as the player criss-crosses through the level, he passes through the main shaft a number of times. The first couple times you pass through, it looks like this:
After becoming familiar with the environment, you pass through a final time, and are confronted with this scene:
The Data Core environment was built by Jim Kneuper, and the cloning pod assets were provided by TimeGate art department. The scene did what I wanted-- you feel frantic and distressed as you try to escape from the horrible machine, then disoriented as everything is suddenly back to normal. Jim said it's his favorite part of the level, which tends to make one feel good.
Foreshadowing of Chen's Fate
As the player presses through the sewers under the city, he suddenly finds himself in an unfamiliar place: a strange industrial facility. He's greeted by his squadmate, Chen... but the vision ends with an image that implies things might not end well for the good lieutenant.
Art assets provided by TimeGate art department. I built the industrial facility environment and scripted the sequence, as well as the transition out of and back into the sewers. The sewers were built by Jim Kneuper. The idea was for an attentive player to suddenly remember this scene far down the road when Chen finally meets his end, and to foster that spark of realization when the two scenes click.
The Abandoned Hobo Camp
Before exiting the sewers, the player encounters a makeshift barricade of sheetmetal and cast-off home furnishings. Enemies burst through with breaching charges, sending debris flying. Upon further inspection you find mattresses and a flaming barrel; apparently vagrants had set up a small shanty here.
I placed all the set dec and scripted the enemy encounter. This event was originally created for the Perseus Mandate demo, and was integrated into the campaign proper. The level was built built by Jim Kneuper.
Chen Disappears
After a large explosion rocks the city, the player takes refuge in the abandoned Underground. He and Chen are separated from the rest of the squad. They must hurry to get back topside. The player follows Chen, until the inexplicable happens.
Shane Paluski (late of TimeGate, now of Remedy) is responsible for the scripting in the initial monologue, as well as the overall visual look of the Underground. My role was to make the player follow Chen for a bit, as this segment has originally been solo. I wanted to show off as much of the partner AI's range of motion as possible, so I had Chen ducking under obstructions, tumbling through windows, and sliding over tables. I had the player's vision distort and Chen dissolve into ash, leaving the player to wonder if he'd even really been there in the first place.
Window Surprise
While working your way back up from the Underground, the player comes across a small ammo cache in a side room.
Bruce Locke built this level. This little event I stuck in is a cheap scare, but one that's apparently effective. It's especially satisfying putting these kinds of shocks into the game late in development. A tester in QA has become completely familiar with the map, having played through it dozens of times; then one day you hear him literally scream as a scare sequence suddenly pops up somewhere it hadn't been before. Priceless.
Interrupted Firing Squad
When Paxton Fettel is killed, his platoon of Replica soldiers goes dormant, instantly falling into hibernation where they stood. As evidenced by scenes throughout the FEAR games, Replica forces tend to purge their surroundings of any civilian life. This gave me an idea for a grimly humorous little tableau:
Bruce Locke built the level. At this spot, I placed a squad of Replicas that was in the midst of executing a group of civilians, firing squad-style, when Fettel's death pulled the plug on their consciousness. The guy on the far left was seconds from meeting his maker like his two unfortunate friends, when out of nowhere the Replicas just dropped what they were doing and went to sleep. As you can see, the mental stress left the survivor trembling in a quite a state.
Wicked Witch
Finally, a little flourish I added to a scene I'd become way too familiar with while working on the game. After the player goes through enormous amounts of trouble to apprehend one Gavin Morrison, the guy is up and crushed to death in one of Alma's psychic freak-outs. I wasn't responsible for this scene, except for one small bit at the end.
Shane Paluski scripted the scene. It's messed up, but also kind of funny: I mean it's only one step away from a piano falling on the dude. So I added the skid motion to the truck after it lands, and left poor Morrison's feet sticking out from underneath. More than a couple people suggested his toes should curl up when you look at them. I'm glad this little touch made it into the final product.
So, those are my personal contributions to the game, along with the less tangible finishing work I did throughout. My time spent working on it was incredibly fun, rewarding, and challenging. Less than a year ago I was a tester; now I can point to stuff in a retail video game and say "I made that." Which is nice.
Anyway, enough about my day job! Thanks for bearing with me.
Oh, and happy Valentine's Day.
11.08.2007
Retail
It's official: my first title as professional level designer has reached retail store shelves.
The low profile of the title means it hasn't received many reviews of yet; other factors have kept the reviewers from being too kind. Perseus Mandate is taking a bit of a beating, while F.E.A.R Files is doing a little better, no doubt bolstered by the added value of Extraction Point being included in the box. Innumerable factors result in the final state of a game at release, much less the review scores of that game, but I stand by my work on the title, and am proud to have been a part of something that I hope will bring some players a good deal of enjoyment during their time with it. As a fledgling designer, one who is only a single member of the design team and who was brought onboard less than 6 months before we went gold, I can only take some small amount of credit for our successes with the game, and a small amount of responsibility for our failings. I also hope that as more reviews trickle in, those Metacritic averages might creep upwards a bit.
We're digging in our heels and revving up pre-production for our next big, unannounced title. Here's hoping that with more resources of all kinds at our disposal, we'll be able to use the lessons learned from Perseus Mandate and deliver something truly outstanding!
In the meantime, if you do pick up Perseus Mandate or F.E.A.R. Files, pop open Instant Action: Sprint or Instant Action: Arena to play the two levels which are entirely my own, from concept to final polish. I am also largely responsible for Instant Action: Clinic, though I built it up from a base created by fellow level designer/former QA tester Ian Shepherd. My hand is visible throughout the campaign as well, though none of the level layouts or meta-elements are mine; only finishing and polishing. I'll have images and video of the material I'm directly responsible for sometime in the near future, for the curious.
Cheers!
10.09.2007
Demo
The playable demo for F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate, a standalone expansion by TimeGate studios, has been released!
I was responsible for creating this demo, but most of the content isn't mine. I grabbed large sections from one level created by Shane Paluski and another by James Kneuper, a nightmare sequence from one of Sam Villareal's levels, stitched them all together, cleaned up some elements, added more of my own (including the final room,) did a bunch of bugfixing, and voila, there we have it: one playable demo that is truly a team effort.
I'm happy with all our work on the demo. It's a fun little playthrough, looks nice, and does a good job of illustrating what Perseus Mandate is all about. I hope that if you're a F.E.A.R. fan looking forward to the expansion, or just a gamer who happens to try it out on a whim, that you enjoy the experience we've put together.
5.30.2007
Path
I've come to a conclusion about level design philosophy that's probably elementary knowledge for someone, say, studying game design in college, but it just congealed for me during my stint at TimeGate. Even when building a level that only provides the player with a strictly linear path, the designer should build the path through the place, not build the place around the path. It's about contrivance and cohesiveness.
I think that there's a natural inclination when laying out a linear shooter level to sketch an 'interesting,' abstract path first, then rationalize it by building out the appropriate geometry around it. In my experience, this tends to lead to spaces that feel very contrived and 'gamey.' Places built around a path are disconnected from a sense of purpose-- where is this curved hallway supposed to lead? Why do these storerooms feed into one another like a string of pearls? Why would they make people in this facility go up a series of ramps and catwalks to exit this room? Why is the layout of this place so convoluted?
I believe that the superior approach is to build a place first--a cohesive, functional space, with a purpose--then define a path through it by strategically restricting the player's movement. If it's a factory setting, build a small complex of storerooms, packing floors and shipping bays in an open structure that could simply be a place of its own, then start blocking off hallways, locking doors, collapsing staircases, and so forth to remove all means of egress that conflict with your chosen gameplay path through the space.
Hereby, the overall space inherently makes sense, while still allowing the designer to have a strong hand in leading the player. No part of the built space, and therefore valuable time, need be wasted-- the player can still be given controlled access to each room; or if a room isn't visited, it is at least visible, understood by the player as a part of the place he's exploring, showing him that there's more to the gameworld than the little path he's running along.
5.16.2007
Gamespy
A little bit of cool news: Residential Evil got written up by Gamespy today (at the bottom of this page.) It's nice to get some recognition, especially for the first finished map I ever publicly released. Now both of my F.E.A.R. maps have gotten mentioned on Gamespy, which I hope means they've been played by a lot more people than they would have otherwise. If only I could let those people know that my work will be in TimeGate's next release, but it hasn't even been announced yet. C'est la vie.
To anyone who's downloaded Residential Evil or BENEATH: hope you dig'em!
3.20.2007
Personality
Today I was thinking about Personality of Place.
I am not a big proponent of author-dictated narrative in character-driven games, but I do think that the strongest player narratives come out of games with well-crafted and unique author-dictated settings; these settings are conveyed both through the core fiction and NPC's personalities, and through the physical spaces provided by the level designer. Since the scenarist provides the raw setting data to the level designer, it's important for the settings themselves (the Places where the play occurs) to exude their own inherent personality for the level designer to play off of, either by way of exploiting expressive locale archetypes or drawing from an original fiction. Many games suffer, in my opinion, by setting their games in spaces that have no ingrained personality of their own, and thereby nothing for the level designer to channel into a truly living gamepace.
Considering my job, this train of thought started with F.E.A.R. as its reference point, compared to prior Monolith games, specifically NOLF2 in this case. While the core gameplay of F.E.A.R. is outstanding in my opinion, I feel it suffered from a lack of Personality of Place. Each setting was inherently generic-- warehouse, industrial plant, office building, office building, office building, high-tech research facility-- and that carried through into somewhat aimless level design. The story occured alongside the levels as opposed to within them-- exposition was through verbal transmissions, usually revolving around events unseen by the player. While the spaces showcase the combat effectively, they gave the level designers no strong personality traits to build off of, as they weren't integrally tied to strong narrative elements or immediately evocative locale archetypes, resulting in an overall rather dry player experience. I single out F.E.A.R. here, but this could be said of many, many action/shooter games (for instance Splinter Cell, Black, Max Payne, The Punisher, The Warriors, and so forth.)
Compare this to NOLF2, which not only had an extremely strong narrative featuring a cast of distinctively-voiced NPCs, but a succession of levels that had as much personality as the game's human characters. When it comes to snap-visualizing a space, which says more to you: "villain's secret undersea base" or "wastewater treatment plant?" "60's spy agency headquarters" or "industrial warehouse?" Hell, even "abandoned suburban home in Akron, Ohio" or "office tower?" In my opinion, the first of each of those pairs evokes not only a strong visual but a tangible mood, a personality-- something to shoot for in both look and feel of the resulting playable spaces. Choosing settings with strong Personality of Place has led to outstanding level design in such recent games as Psychonauts (the settings being the mindscapes of a variety of quirky characters) and Hitman: Blood Money (the settings being a number of exotic and not-so-exotic locales, each home to a very distinctive target for assassination.) When picturing levels, do you get more out of "sewer, factory, office, research lab" or "Mardi Gras, Mississippi riverboat, Heaven & Hell-themed rave, French opera house?" Could Psychonauts' run-of-the-mill platformer gameplay have been so engaging if it didn't take place in the minds of a paranoid conspiracy nut, a battle-hardened army general, and a frustrated painter of black velvet matadors?
The scenarist of a game is not only responsible for inspiring the player's forward movement through engaging plot points and relatable NPCs, but for inspiring the level designers to create spaces that truly exude personality, by supplying them with exciting and unique core Places to develop. It takes an incredibly self-motivated and inventive LD to infuse a boring Place with strong personality strictly through gameplay; on the other hand, an inspiring fiction and locale can lead to truly outstanding playable spaces which breathe with a unique and palpable personality all their own. To put this in MDA terms, there are types of Places that have a built-in aesthetic for the level designer to work towards, adding a unique and tangible set of emotional metrics to the process, which leads to more inspired and engaging playable spaces.
2.21.2007
Pro
Official announcement:
I will begin work as a level designer at TimeGate Studios on March 12th!
TimeGate's most recent release was Extraction Point, the official expansion pack for F.E.A.R. Considering my work with WorldEdit and the F.E.A.R. maps I've released, I would say that TimeGate and I are a pretty good match :-)
TimeGate has been on the scene since the late 90's, gaining prominence with the Kohan series of RTS games before switching gears with the release of Extraction Point. I was very impressed with my playthrough of the expansion, which recently won PC Gamer Magazine's Expansion of the Year 2006 award. It's a great team of guys there and I'm excited about the project.
I'll be moving to Texas immediately after GDC. I'll miss being in the Bay Area with Rachel and everyone else I know here, but I feel like taking on this new role will be worth it.
I hope to find the time to release BENEATH pt. 2, which is not so far from completion at this point. I'd like to make it a priority, as I'd hate to see this go unfinished, since I'm excited about how I plan to finish up the story.
In any case, with this move I'll be a professional designer, which just makes me happy beyond words. I'll keep this blog up to date with how it all works out. Thanks to everyone who's provided me with the encouragement and support to do this thing. Lone star state, here I come :-)
1.29.2007
Stress
I've been thinking about my own self-induced stress lately. Here are the factors:
- I work in QA
- I am eager to begin working in a design role
Am I too impatient? Am I too hard on myself? Or am I too lazy? I feel like I don't spend enough time at home working on my mapping. But I don't have a good metric for that. How many hours per day did other level designers put into their maps and mods before they went pro? How many months or years? Do I spend too much time reading and posting about games online, or playing games? Or do I not spend enough time with my girlfriend, or reading, or traveling? I'm trying to find a balance, but I admit that I'm impatient regardless. I want to be where I want to be and I want it now. I don't know if I should expect myself to be making quicker progress on my work, but I do. So I'm sort of stressing myself out. I'll be happy when my night job turns into my day job, and I can actually enjoy myself when I'm not working. I'm looking forward to it.
Another short-term factor I've noticed in my own dissatisfaction is when I reach a point in the mapmaking where I'm not sure exactly how to proceed. I think part of learning level design is figuring out an effective workflow, recognizing exactly which aspects of the map need to be completed in what order, and being prepared to tackle them when the time comes. I'm facing some aspects of this map that I haven't had to deal with yet-- specifically, meeting a friendly NPC in person for an expository scene-- which I still need to figure out how to set up and script, not to mention writing the actual dialogue to be spoken, and recording it, and putting it into the game. I've gotten to the point though that I know my next step is to write the dialiogue, at which point I can lay out the sequence of the NPC delivering it, script it in, and then move onto the next scene. In general, I'm much more comfortable when I know exactly what work I need to do, and just have yet to do it, than when I'm uncertain about how to proceed. I think that's really true of myself in any regard; I thrive on certainty, knowing what goals I have to complete, and completing them. This probably figures heavily into why I'm drawn to games, and specifically the ones I am.
Here are some progress shots of the living quarters where you meet the aforementioned NPC:
"Sup bro"
A comfortable seating area, with dining table in the background (the two of each seat will become significant.)
Another outstanding bathroom set that I'm slowly becoming famous for.1.24.2007
More
Welcome to the first scripted sequences of BENEATH pt. 2!
Some dastardly ghosts swarm you:
But that's just a trick.
Then, a Heavy and his cronies burst through this door! The Heavy easily tosses over this huge reception desk, scattering junk everywhere:
Then you fight the dudes!
Next I'll either be scripting the NPC conversation sequence, or the next fight sequence... I also need to convert that overhead bridge seen in the last shot into a working retractable walkway.
More to come!
1.20.2007
Shell
So far, I've built the entire shell of BENEATH pt. 2, and laid in the gameplay-relevant set decoration objects. Here's a general overview:
From a viewability standpoint things are still pretty dicey what with the fullbright and the stock texture, but the player's path is something like this:
Green star being the start point. I've learned a lot from making BENEATH pt. 1 and observing how levels are designed in retail games, and I'm happier with the layout and flow of Pt. 2. I was pretty happy with the beginning and end of pt. 1, in that they were pretty open and non-linear, but the central section-- the meat of the fighting-- was really cramped, and basically sent the player in a more-or-less straight line through a bunch of little rooms and little hallways. Also the fights often "felt like [the player] was fighting from a doorway," in that you were confronted with enemies as you set foot in a room, and basically had to stick to the front door for cover until they were dead. So, even though I personally really enjoy close-quarters tunnel fights, I think that more open environments with more cover and flanking opportunities play to F.E.A.R.'s strengths, so I've tried to give the fights as much room to breathe as possible.
For the bigger picture, I'm trying to unify the map as a whole by sending the player through various parts of it in multiple ways and making later parts of the space visible from the very beginning. Also building out ancillary areas along hallways and side rooms that aren't actually playable, to give the player a sense that the space is more of a "real place" that expands beyond the playable path, and exists as a complete entity (labs you can see through windows but can't enter, doors blocked off by debris, etc.) So that's the basis of my layout philosophy this time.
Here's the first arena you'll meet hostiles in:
It's a barracks area, with dividers between individual bunks (more playable space to the left and right, not pictured) and a split-level ceiling. There are no dead ends, giving both the player and enemies plenty of chances to hit cover and flank. It's a straight shot from one end to the other without stopping, except a heavy is going to burst those double doors and block the way until he's killed off.
One section of the map is a non-combat living quarters area where you speak with an NPC. This is the panoramic overlook from the quarters, where the player can look back down to the starting spawn, further down to the lowest level, or up to the roofs, to reorient themselves. Makes for good scenery for a semi-interactive sequence.
Stairs leading down from the "rooftops" (indoor rooftops) to an interior area, that the player must pass through to proceed. Alice is there for scale reference.
My first vent-crawling sequence! I think it'll be a pretty nice one, not stupid and drawn out. There's going to a scripted Alma appearance in here too, but not the scary stuff. Alma in BENEATH isn't a malevolent force.. hopefully her role will be clear by the end of pt. 2.
The server core-- the heart of the facility. It holds all the answers to what lies beneath.
Weirdly I already don't feel like I have THAT much more to do on the map. Logically, I know I do: triggered event scripting (which there's more of this time,) set dec, detailing the geometry, texturing, and enemy encounters. But somehow it doesn't seem especially daunting. I think I just have a better foundation this time.
More to come soon!
8.30.2006
Publication
Germany-- a great and beautiful country, or so I've heard. The glorious architecture of Berlin, the frost-tipped peaks of the majestic Alps*, the warm and friendly leiderhosen-clad country folk. And BENEATH.
That's right, at the end of September, you will be able to find all of these things in Germany.** BENEATH is scheduled to appear on the coverdisc of September's issue of PC ACTION magazine, probably Germany's leading PC gaming publication!
I'm psyched to have my map show up on newsstands and in subscribers' mailboxes across the great country of Germany. This will be the first official publication of one of my maps in a legit print enterprise, which is exciting in and of itself. But for BENEATH to glide into the hands of millions of genuinely wonderful German citizens, courtesy of that fine nation's leading PC gaming publication PC ACTION magazine? I just couldn't be happier.
Confidential to Germans: sorry in advance for the green blood or whatever. I swear when I made the map those guys weren't robots.
*possibly not in Germany
**possibly
8.27.2006
ModDB
Welcome, visitors from ModDB!
You know, it took me a while to think of putting BENEATH on ModDB. I'd never really thought of the level as a 'mod' per se. But, I guess that a single-player map, that has its own story, and stands apart from the original single player game, is a sort of mini-mod. Not a total conversion, or really any sort of conversion, but a modification nonetheless. If Minerva is a mod, then BENEATH is, too.
To the ModDBers, thanks for stopping by. This blog probably won't be of any huge interest, though there's a little of the process and behind-the-scenes info here and there. Download mirrors are below if you missed them, and I hope you enjoy BENEATH.
As far as the rest of the below post goes, let's hope I spoke too soon :-)
8.21.2006
Release
The final version of BENEATH has been uploaded to the following download mirrors:
FEARMaps
FileCloud
FileFront
FilePlanet
3DDownloads
I made the opening more user-friendly and tweaked a few things. Everything, I believe, is just how I want it.
This morning, I announced the release of this map on a few message boards I visit, including the official VUG modding board, and the SA Games forum. I'm surprised that there really hasn't been any response in the threads at all. Are people just not interested in single-player maps? Am I aiming at the wrong audience? I haven't been able to find a solid general mapping community site. There are sites based on specific engines, such as Unreal sites or Source sites, but no "mappers' haven" that I've come across to just generally talk about mapping and level design and share your work regardless of engine. The only place I've gotten any response-- which was positive, granted-- was on www.fearmaps.com. I appreciated the feedback from the forumgoers there, but I just wonder... how does a mapper get the word out about their work, and get involved with a community? Especially when they're working with an engine that doesn't have a huge amount of fan support behind it?
It's not that I made the map for the attention it would give me. My work with WorldEdit started out as a self-driven desire to make my own single-player scenario for one of my favorite new games. Then it turned into a desire to do well in that FilePlanet contest, once that was announced. But after the contest, turning Residential Evil into BENEATH has been nothing but a labor of love, as it were. I just loved the gameplay of FEAR, and couldn't think of another game I'd rather make a single-player adventure for... and there it was, an SDK with the capability of making single-player content, right there, for free! I've enjoyed working with WorldEdit immensely, and I'm personally satisfied with the results I've come up with... but now that it's finished, it would be nice for more people to see and enjoy the actual product.
I feel like this is the way every one of my personal projects has gone. All the comics I did in high school and college had distribution that you could count on one hand. The webcomic I put 9 months of work into managed to garner about 15 fans. The Journal, while again another project I was personally very satisfied with, managed to move about 10 copies per issue. It served its purpose-- I got to write about something I really cared for, got paid freelance work out of it, and got to contact a number of my game industry heroes in the process-- but still, personal drive can only get you so far. Wouldn't it be nice for someone else to appreciate the work? I don't know. I just can't seem to get the word out.
I think I'm bad at publicity.
8.18.2006
Candidate
Okay, so!
I have what I'd call a release candidate of BENEATH prepared and ready to install! If you are somehow reading this, but haven't already been contacted by me to test the map, download it...
HERE
It's an auto-installer that provides a shortcut to run FEAR with the BENEATH module enabled. Just start a new game after launching the BENEATH shortcut.
If you play this, give me feedback: steve.gaynor@gmail.com
I'll throw in a couple of screenshots while I'm at it, to remind you what this is all about:
"This level is not considered a prequel, sequel, or continuation of the original game's story, but a "what if?" What if F.E.A.R. were a tiny, inexperienced agency, whose existence was based entirely on the whim of an eccentric Army general who'd begun to take wartime ghost stories a little too seriously? What if F.E.A.R. primarily investigated "anomalous" incidents-- flukes, rumors-- that no other agency cared to waste their time on? What if the F.E.A.R. crew never expected to stumble across any significant threats while chasing shadows... and then suddenly, they did?
Coincidentally, recruit, it's your first night on the job. And you think you're in for a walk in the park."
I am fairly confident this will be the final version, but we'll see. Let me know what you think :-)
7.31.2006
Checklist
BENEATH is almost finished. I'm going to estimate it's got another couple weeks til completion. Then I want to test it myself and with a couple people I know for a little while before I release it publicly.
To do:
- Finalize and record spoken dialogue
- Script in vocal/story sequences, including opening sequence and useable laptop objects
- Create and script in onscreen text elements (titles, credits)
I'm excited. I'm really happy with the map itself. I think it's a tightly constructed space, and I have fun with the gameplay experience (even though I'm already pretty jaded towards the actual layout and encounters... a lot of the basic stuff has been in and working for a relatively long time.)
This stuff coming up is going to be fun and easy. I'm looking forward to it.
