World Design Exercise: Game #3 (Kairo)

Richard Perrin’s Kairo is a strong example of emotive environmental narrative, wherein the story of the game unfolds as the player explores a world devoid of representative imagery and dialogue, but primarily represented through brutalist inspired architecture. 

Right from the beginning the player appears to awaken from and within a white void, before a floating throne room of sorts. It becomes clear that the player is forced to move onward towards the only visible structure in the distance, and as they near the structure, audio cue chimes in, signalling to the player that they are on the right track and prompting them to proceed.

Fig. 1. The starting zone, straight away the player will notice a vague structure in the far distant that they can approach and explore.

When inside, the player will encounter a glowing rune (resembling a tree) engraved into a stone wall, and yet another throne with the same rune etched into it. Grooves in the ground will provide clue for the player to interact with the throne, pushing the two runes together. The fact that these runes are the only illustrated visual iconography the player will encounter in Kairo emphasizes the central role these symbols or runes have in aiding the player in solving the game's puzzles.

Fig. 2. Grooves on the floor is an intuitive visual cue for the player in this particular puzzle.

As the player walks, arches (reminiscent of Japanese Shinto gates, known as toriis) will appear, perhaps insinuating that as the player moves onward, they are transitioning into an area that is considered sacred, or even profane. These sort of imagery, while not blatant and explicit, helps add flavour to the game and allows for the player to connect and ground themselves within an already very alien space.

Which consequently, after a simple bridge puzzle, the player will encounter an area which seems to be a crude representation of what appears to be a park. Is this perhaps a breather for the player in the form of an abstracted oasis? This is probably befitting considering that the next area is a hub of some sort, with a central fixture surrounded by portals.

Fig. 3 & 4. The 'park' level as well as the centralized hub area that soon follows.

Every single portal leads to individually themed areas with corresponding puzzles, and what is interesting to note that despite the consistently brutalist (almost minimalist) architectural aesthetic, all of these separate rooms are still distinctively unique and different from one another, not only because of the fact that the rooms are clearly colour coded for the player’s convenience, but that structures come in forms and shapes that players can universally associate. Such as a generator, structures resembling a network of treehouses, and even a hallway resembling a mausoleum.

 

 
 

Fig. 5, 6, 7 & 8. The many different 'themed' rooms that the player will encounter, notice that despite the simplistic aesthetic of the architecture, they are all represented in ways where the player can recognize universal form and imagery.

Throughout the demo as well, the aforementioned rune appears in places, landmarks and crucial components of room puzzles as visual guide to assist the player in progressing. Completion of these puzzles will take the player back to the hub area, completing a full circle back to where the player started while simultaneously ultimately ending the demo.

Kairo's aesthetic choice is clearly communicated as a means for the player to focus on the gameplay and puzzles rather than having literal depictions of objects and contextualization to detract the player from the isolated and puzzle-heavy element of the game.

REFERENCES:

(all screenshots were provided by the author of the post)

World Design Exercise: Game #2 (BioShock)

A spiritual successor to the System Shock series, Irrational Games’ BioShock (2K Games, 2007) was critically acclaimed for its storyline, immersive biopunk environments as well as its unique representation of its fictional Orwellian underwater city, Rapture. To help immerse the players, clever and efficient world design is key to allow such players to experience the world of BioShock, by playing the demo, we will be able to analyse just how even the first half an hour or so of the game can convey so much.

The game begins straight after the player experiences a cutscene depicting a plane crash into the Atlantic Ocean, causing them to resurface to find themselves surrounded by fire, which serves as a contextual visual guide, urging the player onward to find a hard-to-miss landmark, complete with flickering lights at the bottom of the stairs as a visual cue for the player to boot.

Fig 1. The aforementioned unmissable landmark, not conveyed in this screenshot, but a light is broken at the bottom right, drawing the player's eyes to the flight of stairs there.

As soon as the player enters the building and into complete darkness, only for the room to light up, revealing a statue of Andrew Ryan, a banner proclaiming “No Gods or Kings. Only Man.”, providing an emergent narrative and clues to the player on the secular and objectivist nature of Rapture. As the player continue onwards, they are guided primarily by music towards the bathysphere (with the music growing increasingly louder the closer the player is). Entering the bathysphere will trigger a cutscene that will introduce the player to the splendour of Rapture with panning establishing shots.

Fig 2. An introduction to Rapture and its creator's ideology.

The player will then witness the demise of Johnny at the hands of a splicer, before leaving the bathysphere in order to progress. Despite the darkness of the level, again there are visual cues that will aid the player, such as a single flickering static monitor, as well as a singular spotlight on a conveniently placed wrench. 

Fig 3. The singular lonely wrench, ready for the taking.

Since the player can now combat enemies, they will encounter some splicers later on, before coming across a plasmid vendor, causing the player to black out and wake up in front of a previously inaccessible door with a “fistful of lightning” (a simple puzzle which comes in the form of a broken control panel with the same coloured bolts as the ones in the player’s hands). Once the player is able to move on, they will then come across a rather memorable part with a splicer talking to her ‘baby’, the player will of course naturally peek inside the stroller, discovering their first firearm, a revolver.

Fig 4. One of BioShock's more memorable scenes, providing one of many insights of how far Rapture has fallen.

Inside the Kashmir Restaurant a distant couple of voices can be heard, prompting the player to seek out the source and discovering two splicers arguing, which is also visually framed in such a way that the player can witness the exchange without being noticed, and strategize their approach accordingly. Taking care of the splicers will allow the player to move on into the Footlight Theatre, where Atlas will introduce the player to the backstory and explanation for the Little Sisters. A broken flight of stairs that the player will have to drop from can inform them that it is a point of no return, and that usually such cues are evident of the end of a chapter, or perhaps a significant encounter of sorts shortly after, which comes in the form of an indirect confrontation with Andrew Ryan himself. 

Fig 5. The player's first proper interaction with Andrew Ryan, Rapture's creator and founder.

During this timed and scripted event, splicers being to attempt to break into the room which the player is trapped inside, heightening the already tense situation, which ends only when Atlas finally opens the locked door for the player to flee through.

SCREENSHOT REFERENCES:

(all screenshots in this blog post were taken from Mike Mangold’s Visual Walkthrough website)

Mangold, M. (2008). More flames block your path, but you can see this building to the right of the plane's tail section. Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/5.jpg

Mangold, M. (2008). This statue and slogan are your first introduction to the philosophy of Andrew Ryan. Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/8.jpg

Mangold, M. (2008). Grab this wrench and use it to smash the debris blocking the door. Crouch to squeeze through, then avoid the flaming furniture as you ascend the stairs to the lounge. Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/19.jpg

Mangold, M. (2008). Turn right to witness this disturbing scene. Finish off the Thuggish Splicer and grab the revolver in the baby carriage. Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/35.jpg

Mangold, M. (2008). Watch this message from Andrew Ryan. More Splicers attempt to get to you, but are held back. Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/53.jpg

World Design Exercise: Game #1 (DOOM Map)

I was one of the many students who struggled initially with getting the hang of the Doom Builder, which was a primary factor in my designing the level to be incredibly simplistic and fairly easy to finish. I have attempted to achieve this by creating the numerous sectors of the maps in loops as well as ‘horse-shoe’ shapes.

Fig 1. A topography of the entire custom Doom Map.

The player starts off in a small ritualistic room a dead demon with only one exit, pushing the player to move forward in a linear fashion as well as introducing them to one of Doom’s basic enemy, the Imp; later on, the slightly larger circular room that follows helps introduce the player to handle multiple enemies at once.

Fig 2. In the starting room, the player is introduced to the concept of coloured keys and doors right from the beginning.

When the player continues onwards towards the central hub, they will encounter the much harder enemy, the Chaingunner, who drop his chaingun for the player to pick up (this will then be the player’s primary weapon for a good portion of the remaining level).

As previously mentioned, the next couple of sections the player will encounter will take the form of loops, that way the player will return to the central hub multiple times to take a breather before moving on to collect the next coloured key. The two curved yellow arrows shown the map above for example emphasizes the 'U' shape for two sections of the map to show how the player is able to return to the hub section of the level without needing to backtrack where they came from and to prevent repetition.

Once all of the coloured keys are collected, the player will then make move on forward towards the final ‘boss’ room, with an optional room for them to explore and collect a huge armour bonus for the final room (again, it is optional, the armour will only make the final room a much easier encounter, therefore the player is more than welcome to move on instead). In typical Doom fashion the boss level is structured as an ambush with areas where the player can hide and restock on ammo and med packs.

Fig 3. The numerous coloured doors that players are directed to unlock in order to unlock sectors and move on.

Overall the doom level itself is incredibly simple, but I have hoped that many of the fundamental level design aspects I have learned were shown in some ways, such as utilizing a looping (or ‘horse-show’) so the player will return to the hub multiple times, strategically placing items and enemies and ramping difficulty accordingly. Another aspect of the level that I wish I had executed better would be set-dressing, because while I have tried to theme sections of the map accordingly, I feel like my limited knowledge of Doom and the level builder in general hindered my process.


REFERENCES:

(all screenshots were provided by the author of the post)