Level Analysis: Cripplescreek Fistful of Frags

So for a second level analysis I decided to cover a multiplayer map. The game this level comes from is called Fistful of Frags and the level is called cripplecreek. The entire game exists in this old west re-skin of Team Fortress 2. The level in question is complete with the swinging door saloons, houses of ill repute and a town center that borrows heavily from those showdown-at-noon style standoffs from the old school cowboy westerns.

You begin in one of the 12 or so spawn points and are allowed to choose either a 6-shot revolver, sawn-off shotgun, or single-shot rifle. You get to pick one of 2-4 teams (with cowboy themed names like ‘desperados’, ‘vigilantes’ and ‘bandidos’) and are thrown into the mix. There is a wide variety of weaponry, but they all feel closer in pedigree to Dark Souls weaponry than Call of duty. All of the weapons have massive recoil and slow reloads but even the weakest weapon in the game can one-shot if you hit the right places. This leads to a level of kinaesthesia that, instead of revolving around twitchy aiming, maximizes on the tension of spotting your enemy before she spots you. No amount of running and hiding is going to save you if your girlfriend spots you before you spot her. A single shot will straight tear about 45% of your health off if they manage a body shot. It’s almost as if they were aiming to take the Shootout at the O.K. Corral and stretch it into countless hours of entertainment. I would like to take the opportunity to say now that other levels in the game have different game types like Warhead, 2v2 and FFA, however, we are only here to talk about cripplecreek today.

As far as the ending goes. Well, like the multiplayer setting of many FPSs there isn’t really one. (unless you’re From Software, take a drink) I mean, yes, the game has an endpoint but, rather than there being any fanfare or pomp, you are left with a silent leader board listing off each team and the contribution of each member. This readout usually lists off the “notoriety” (see below) along with an indicator of who made MVP.

The goal of the match is to discover all of the best vantage points for your weapon of choice in a rush to rack up the most kills for your team. This is accomplished using a system very similar to the class system of TF2. Each combination of main/sub weapon and character handedness (you may pick which hand is dominant for your character, which factors heavily into high-level play). In addition to this, there are a number of care packages that occasionally carry health ups and rare guns. This is likely to create a series of choke and scrimmage points. These choke and scrimmage points are designed to add a level of tension to each map, as all of the high-level team play in the world wont save you if the entire enemy team is packing Sharps Rifles (this game’s equivalent of the Unmaker or BFG. In short, a 3 foot can of instant death, no matter where on the body you hit) or a pump shotgun (also known as the 5 stages of mourning in 1.5 seconds)

As far as reward goes, you receive a special currency called “notoriety” which can be used to fuel progression-type upgrades like talents or weapon proficiencies. In some play modes you need this resource to buy your equipment load out, which involves things like bigger better guns.

When you fail (ie. You die) you are made to sit in spectator mode for 5 seconds before being given the option to respawn. I figure this is a very common trope in shooter games because it allows for a level of enhanced communication amongst strangers. Say someone on your team refuses to talk in chat, someone can either pop into spectator mode or die themselves to spot. I also noticed that default mode each player is set on (before picking a team) is spectator. I believe this is done for competitive purposes. In many professional circles, each team has a spotter who’s only job is to watch timers and spawn points for powerups. In short, the penalty for being bad at FoF is being allowed to play mastermind in FoF.

As far as strengths go, there is this movement that has been going behind the scenes of gaming since System Shock and growing momentum in very recent years. This movement has involved more and more devs making levels that aren’t as stereotypically “gamey”. This is used to middling effect in FoF. See, in Cripplescreek (I wonder how many times I can say that level name before I start sounding like a sociopathic healthcare worker) the levels really don’t fit snugly into shooter tropes. It almost seems like someone made this level with roleplay in mind (essay seed, roleplay in games). There is a saloon, a gun shop, a bank and a stable but not much in the way of easy vantage points. There are a few eye-in-the sky locations that are reachable and excellent for sharpshooting, but instead of shielding the path up (as Halo made popular in Blood Gulch by putting all the spawn points and vantage points in easily defended, high cover locations) most of these locations are very open to counter shots from the ground. I’m not very good at shooters but I spent a good 3 or 4 hours over the last 2 days going through this map with a fine-tooth comb and only found one spot that could easily be held by a camper.

Those of you who notice that I have thus far mentioned ‘notoriety’ twice without expanding on the subject much at all. The reason for this is that I could not for the life of me find a way to use my notoriety in Cripplecreek. This highlights the fact that your money and endgame score are decided with the same currency. In survival games like Metro or hoard-mode games like Left 4 Dead this can be used to great effect but in a game that puts zero emphasis on conservation of resources and focuses entirely on one-off half-second skirmishes it only serves to confound your ability to assess the nuances of your performance.

My over all favourite part of this level is, as I mentioned, the tension. Now, as I said, I am really bad at shooters. My friends in high school made a running game out of jumping at me with a stopwatch and timing how long it took me to react to stimulus (for the record, 3 seconds was my slowest reaction to a jump scare). That being said, I could not get enough of that tension. There is no default music to the game. Your romp through the desert town of Cripplescreek is silent as the grave with the exception of the footsteps of yourself and those sneaking up on you and the occasional spray of bullets whenever 2 people meet each other. On top of that, while it’s usually a very bad thing to set your two or more teams up in largely similar gear, the fact that the team uniforms are so blandly colored often leads to this moment of complete panic when you turn a corner and must figure out if you need to use a round of your 3 shot clip on the guy you didn’t expect to see.

As for the UI. Well, I must admit that I have a very distinct weakness for minimalist UI. There is a numeric value of health (with no bar) on the bottom left, followed by the rounds left in your clip. Other than that there is a reading in the top right that gives a running ticker of kills and streaks.

Level Analysis: Marble Gallery SOTN

To begin on my analysis of the Marble Hallway from SoTN, I will start with the building blocks of the level. I believe that this level was conceptualized to contrast the second full zone (after the tutorial, of course) of the game. Whereas the Entrance served as a tech demo, showing off the rendering power available to the PS1 and the Alchemy Lab served to display the fundamentally perverse nature of Dracula, I consider the Marble Gallery to be a reflection of the hero, Alucard. As the level name suggests, there is a lot of marble and cut stone in this area. While many textures are used in the background there is one over-riding theme. That theme is corruption.

The very first time you enter the Marble Galley, you are met with a bronze statue of an angel overlooking a man who lies prone. I believe this is intended to draw parallels to the biblical Fall of Lucifer. If you take a few steps beyond that, you see a marble statue of a man making an offering to the sky, followed by another bronze statue, this one of a Renaissance-era depiction of Lucifer holding an offering to the sky. I believe this is the first hint we get in-game to the nature of the protagonist, Alucard. Alucard is a product of a human mating with Dracula. Alucard clearly stands in defiance of Dracula’s mad quest to kill God and, though Alucard himself would likely be destroyed in the process, he wishes to undo all of the damage done by his insane father.

The ending of the Marble gallery involves you dashing down a hall littered with marble statues of standing men covering their genitalia. I believe this is a part where the Japanese ancestry of this game shines through. In Japanese lore nudity is more symbolic of purity. The fact that they are covering their genitalia in all versions of the game is symbolic of Alucard’s secret shame concerning the nature of his existence. He is a perversion, a monster.

As for the goal of this level. Seeing as how this is a metroidvania game, the goal of this zone is somewhat fluid. One thing that is very important to note, however, is that if any level would be considered the “central hub” of this game, it would be Marble Gallery. It’s literally smack dab in the middle of the map. You really can’t get anywhere in this game without spending a little time in the Marble Gallery. Even the most iconic room in the game, the clock room, is smack in the middle of the zone.

As for the challenge of the Marble Hallway. Many metroidvania games use a core loop that revolves around traversing a space that, in itself, is rarely dangerous but contains a variety of enemy types that provide most of the challenge. The guys over at Konami used the enemies in this level to drive home the theme of corruption. Some day I will get into the aesthetics of enemy design, but for now I would like to note the fact all of the enemies in Marble Gallery are either post human (the type of monster that was clearly human at one point like ghosts and skeletons) or clearly intended as a mockery of some aspect of humanity (like the shambling Marionettes, the Diplocephalus and the Ouija boards).

The reward for clearing the Marble Gallery is, like many metroidvanias, fluidic. There are a few power ups (including your first transformation ability, another nod towards corruption) but mostly your reward is the ability to pass into another zone and see more of the castle. If you fail, your only punishment is being made to restart from the last time you saved the game.

So what did this thing do right? The Marble Hallway is a monument to characterization through environment. Not only do you have this beautiful environment that speaks volumes to the nature of Alucard, you also have the music. This song has the upbeat rhythm that would be expected of an action heavy title, but also in measures 8-12 of the level music you have this minor shift that has an almost tragic overtone to it.

As for what this thing did wrong. Well, in short, while this game has over a dozen warp points in each version of the castle, not one of them is in the Marble Hallway. In fact, I find that the quick travel locations were very poorly placed, rarely being useful for traversal across the map as a whole. I fail to see how this oversight could add to the experience so I will not chalk it up to the Artist’s Caveat (Unless that’s the point). On top of that, while this may be the point of an entirely different essay, they fail to use this for any major impact in the mirror-world version.

The UI, like many RPGs from the 90’s and 00’s, is rather maximalist. You have in the top right indicators for health, mana (which powers spells), Hearts (which fuel your sub-weapon of choice) and a reading for which subweapon you have equipped. All of this is surrounded by a border that is supposed to look as though made of crystal and gold. Finally, Alucard will flash different colors depending on what status effect he is under.

How to Train your Hero

I am a man of nondescript age with little to no formal training. I am not a game designer, a storyboard editor or a psychologist. In fact, it has been over 20 years since I’ve written any practically relevant code. If there is one point you take away from my entire body of work I would want it to be the exact opposite of the Jackass warning: I am not trained professional, please try any of these exercises at home.

 

So, my friend Wayne asked me a question this morning. I won’t go into detail because it’s a personal conversation and you know the deal. Speaking my true name backwards banishes me to the 5th dimension, so forth so on. Anyways, he asked me who my least favourite video game protagonist is. After about 10 minutes of us rapping over the subject I came to a startling realization. Now, those of you whom have followed me since the beginning knows that one of my favourite things about video games is the fact that writing for them is fundamentally different than any other medium. Tricks and techniques that come off brilliantly in music, literature and film have a nasty habit of falling flatter than Auron’s voice acting when translated to an interactive medium.

Funny thing is, now that I think about it, the idea that this issue would also translate to character development  seems laughably obvious but I never really gave it the thought. I mean, we have folks out there doing it right like Kratos and Samus (so long as you pretend very specific chunks of Other M never happened, not all of it, just the bits where she mindlessly fawned over Adam. The Ridley scare scene can stay. Loved that bit). Anyway, now that I think about it, we still largely use many of the techniques popular in film when trying to build our characters. I mean, I will watch Tidus fake-laugh to cheer Yuna up all day and love every second of it but in a medium like video games, wherein dialogue is so compressed, we are seriously hamstringing ourselves by not using every single second informing our fans.  I mean, imagine a version of Pulp Fiction where the “Does Wallace look like a bitch” scene was relayed entirely through dialogue as a past-tense exposition dump during one of the many car rides. Doesn’t that sound ludicrous? That version of the scene would not only be harder to pull off, but it wouldn’t have -half- the narrative power. Thing is, while that sounds ridiculous here, thats almost exactly how we treat character exposition in video games. So, lets put down some tips for building good characters.

First off lets start with the first layer. I know this is a ‘no duh’ thing but your character needs to look her part. Generic orc or generic mage isn’t going to cut it here. I’m looking at you, Blizzard. I know that you have put blood, sweat and tears into making cool looking baddies but look at Worldshaman Thrall. Prayer beads and a dirty robe isn’t going to cut it if your character is the big daddy of shamans. I mean, hes wearing the Cata robe along with his bracers so I get they were shooting for the ‘little old, little new’ vibe; but in a universe where even the lowest scourge cultist has glowing green eyes and a wicked looking dagger, during an era of lore that even the devs can’t describe without throwing in the word ‘brutal’ 3 times a sentence, brown rags and a hand-me-down pair of bracers doesn’t quite cut it. I wouldn’t know how to fix it at this point in development. I personally feel Blizzard painted themselves into a corner  with their aesthetic design. He’s off to pre-crack Draenor to kick ass and save the very heroes that inspired him as a child (and wow, once you word it that way, WoD actually sounds pretty badass) and if nothing changes, he will do so in plain robes that makes him look like he’s level 10. Contrast Archmage Jaina. Snow white hair, glowing blue eyes and a scowl that would make C’thun hesitate just bleeds that Draenor aesthetic. The gloves are off. Garrosh has succeeded in driving the world’s most accomplished ambassador and near Buddha-level pacifist to burning rage bordering on madness. She has more power in her right pinky finger than an entire clan of rampaging orcs and now she’s coming for you.

Next up, voice work. I have 3 words for you: less is more. We don’t need a wall of text explaining why your hero is a badass. The 2 words ‘Burn, whelp!’ says so much more about your hero’s intention than “forces of earth, wind and fire, flow through my hand. Take my blood and my rage and crush my enemies. Rage of Abaddon!”. Take the threats from the Sylvari in Guild Wars 2. How many times have you heard “This rose has thorns! Here they are!”. Yes, it was clever and funny the first time. It even feels clever a few times in the future but after that you feel like the Sylvari are one-trick ponies. We all have a friend who has that one quip that he keeps parading out because it was hilarious the first time and it just gets better with age. Contrast the Asura male’s ‘Go ahead, hit me!’. Contextually it’s the same exact phrase, they are even queued to use it under the same exact circumstances (it’s the “I just got buffed with damage reflect” voice stab for both of these examples). Yet you can repeat the Asura version all day and it doesn’t get tired because that statement is so broad and so well stated that it could be a threat, a challenge or even a brush off. Stated before engaging a clearly lesser foe it even sounds like a non committal ‘Any action you take is inconsequential’ dismissal. In short, it doesn’t matter how clever your quip is, if it isn’t also brief and broad in implication it will make your character look long winded or dull.

Thirdly comes animation. This one is probably the biggest character killer. I think the issue here might be an attitude that cost equals quality. All the time you see billion dollar budgets directed at imitating micro expressions that almost invariably come off horrible (looking at you, LA Noire.) I am about to come off repetitive so let me just say the following: the best, most powerful quality possessed by video games is their ability to compress truly titanic amounts of raw data. You don’t have to show players that your protagonist is a badass. Your players don’t just want a protagonist that looks cool. they want a character that has weight and breadth. they want to love every aspect of how it feels to play. The biggest offender here is Square. I mean, yes, watching Ifrit rip 3 tons of earth out of the ground, set fire to it, and throw the resulting flaming pile at you is impressive; but an hour later the cat is out, we’ve seen it, and ultimately nothing of import has been said about Yuna or the nature of summoning. Contrast post-reboot Dante. The guys at Ninja Theory didn’t need a 5 minute cutscene involving Dante whooping the hell out of Mundus’s minions. Just spend 2 minutes playing. Even without any of the bonus weapons or upgrades. Just watch how unbalanced he always looks after a combo. One of the standard Rebellion combos literally ends with him staggering on one foot while trying to cancel the tremendous momentum of his charge. You can clearly tell that Dante has a serious and flagrant disregard for his safety or the safety of anyone who gets caught in his blade flurry. I even bet Ninja Theory spent less money on Dante’s acrobatics than Squareenix did on that 40 second Ifrit cutscene.

I’m sure you notice a pattern here. From pre-Other M Samus to Hyrule Warrior Link, budget and technological expertise has never and will never stand between you and the amazing character you wish to portray. Just remember, the stuff that comes out of your hero’s mouth is just as important as your aesthetic direction. Also keep in mind’ even if you make him look badass and give him stellar voice work, it will all be for naught if his actions don’t sync up to the bio. Remember the first rule of game design: do, don’t show. Thanks for reading, see you next week.