Elements of Gameplay part 4

Level design in games is all about the balance, the balance between the visual world and its believability and its accessibility in terms of the gameplay.  Developers want make a world where you believe you are there and you engage with your surrounds on a deeper level. But Amongst this world there needs to be a destination, a goal, an invisible arrow pointing you in the right direction. So developers will tend provide subtle guides within the game to assist the player into making progress through the game. It can be through creating narrow pathways that make it obvious to the player where to go next, or perhaps a incident in the game that leads on to another part of the game, or even just providing a map in the bottom right corner of the screen. The role of the environment in the game is to create the setting, embody the character and them of the game itself and portray that through its surroundings, the environment’s job is to make everything and everyone in the game to feel relevant to itself, that way whatever the content of the game, it can be made believable through the surroundings. I think that the balance of realism and stylisation is important, games that go overboard on the surrounding area end up alienating the player with a messy and cluttered surrounding. However I also think that games shouldn’t rely too much on realism, other the environment can feel uninspired and just dull at times, so I would say that stylisation is important, but try and maintain an element of realism to create a more believable environment. An environment in a game I thoroughly enjoyed the environment I the game mirrors edge. The environment was a cityscape that consisted only of clean white buildings, it felt like a big contrast to the games released at the time that were mainly set in dirty grey warzones. It was a breath fresh air to play a game that was bright colourful and very stylish. According to the story the city was supposed to be in total control of the government, meaning that every dirty old building was knocked down in place of the tall perfect white buildings, along with many security cameras and patrol helicopters flying around. Instead of providing a map the way you navigated around the rooftops was you would follow the objects that would glow red when approached them, making it simple and fun to run through the level without losing your way, a very clever way of guiding the player to the destination whilst speeding the gameplay at the same time. i get the feeling this game was inspired not only by the whole big brother scenario, but also the iPod/apple mac culture we live in today, where everything has to be white and pristine, a possible hint at the idea of individualism being lost in our world today, with everyone ignorantly buying the same products. Well that’s my opinion anyway ,we all have our theories.