World Design 3 & 4 - Kairo & Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

KAIRO

What an odd game to experience.

Maybe I just couldn't appreciate the beauty of abstract and symbolism enough, but the game repels me with its lack of decent basic control and empty space. However, to be fair - it was not all that out of my taste. The throne chair in the beginning was a nice touch, it somewhat hints a backstory to the character you control. 

The game’s simplicity is probably its strongest unique selling point. The ‘puzzle’ is simple yet they were well laid out, especially the part with the beam of light. The self-building level of moving platforms was very nice, it invites the protagonist to an adventure that is dynamic and otherworldly. The sound is also a nice touch. It’s chilly and eerie ambiance is a good trigger for the imagery of the player, to what kind of mysterious world the player is treading upon.

The simplicity, or better yet the 'abstractness' of the game uses plenty of negative space, saturated flat colour (such as red and white) to divide the player's attention towards danger, goal, and progress. You can't really get lost, despite its abstractness which is a huge point in its genre.

However, as much as an abstract game goes, the game relies heavily on my endurance to pursue a goal I can’t clearly understand, to perform things I don’t get the purpose. Perhaps I would understand more if I play the full game, but the lack of firm control such as mouse sensitivity and other menial things such as the uncomfortably low jump really puts me off.

Despite all the hate spewed within such short body of paragraph, I can comfortably say that this game would appeal to others with different taste and appreciation to people like me. Some people could easily appreciate the negative space, while some might like a world with more life.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Prince of Persia is an odd series that I have come to experience. I started playing the game with the 2008 version simply called ‘Prince of Persia’ which back then I assumed was a reboot or some sort. I was not that pleased with the 2008 iteration, due to it having obvious personal experience flaws such as repetitive mission and awkward difficulty curve. In 2010, I watched the Jake Gyllenhaal movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and I actually enjoyed the movie. The movie had flaw - but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It’s safe to say that I’m not that familiar or attached with the Prince of Persia series.

So recently I’ve gone back and had my hands on the demo of the 2003 version - aka the reboot of the golden age Prince of Persia. Surprisingly, it was an interesting experience to have. I always thought the game is always set in the middle-eastern, so when I was introduced to the Indian architecture I remember that Persia used to own at least half of India back then.

The demo was great with the fact that it doesn’t waste any time with its mechanic introduction. In such a short slice of the game, they equip the player with the dagger of time and let the player let loose with it. I’d also like to add at how nice classic third person camera as opposed to the really saturated over the shoulder third person camera games.

The design of the level synergizes quite well with the gameplay - a dungeon under the kingdom of the Maharajah. The narrative explains the traps and all the parkouring needed, so props to the developer of creating a believable experience to the player.

So which came first? The gameplay or the narrative? Simple answer – everything seems to lead me to believe that the narrative came first. The environmental design, the stage hazard, even the water which replenish your health, they’re all game elements which derived from the narrative. Prince of Persia, despite the huge amount of time you will be investing on the gameplay, is very narrative driven. Sure, it does not have the same size of content like a telltale game, but the world and almost everything that is interact-able tells itself a story.

World Design 2 - Bioshock

BIOSHOCK

Good Ol’ Bioshock is a game that always had a special place in my FPS-genre hating heart. While my head suffers in nauseating motion sickness, the game had always somehow propelled me into finishing its 10-15 hours of story. This is fully demonstrated in the first portion of the game, which the demo successfully portrays with its eerie and well-made introduction. Right off the bat, the game introduces the player in a cinematic, which for gaming standards in 2007 it was rather groundbreaking. The narration of the main character, the emotion he delivered with just a few lines prepared the player for an epic journey.

What was an eerie start is then followed by a series of unfortunate events for the protagonist. The protagonist survived the crash (surprise surprise) and was thrown into the middle of an ocean that looks more like a graveyard of broken airplanes. With no additional waiting or hand-holding, the player is then allowed to swim around the ocean. Everyone at some point had probably been stung by a hot utensil once in their life, so with the firewall blocking the protagonist’s path, the player most likely will swim around the fire into the direction which the game wants the player to go. The use of a landmark also helped the player plenty, as the massive tower extruding from the ground in the middle of the ocean is screaming to the player to go visit this location so the game can begin.

Once inside the building, the player is greeted by an uncommon soundtrack and architecture in video gaming: A theme so vintage, it would inflict a different effect on two kinds of players: Nostalgia for elder generation of gamers and a mysterious world for the younger generation of gamers. Bioshock’s timeline is a theme not visited quite often in video gaming. The moment the music plays, gamers know that they are not playing a buff army guy trying to save America from foreign terrorists or the other cliché alien invasion. They will know, that this is not ‘that kind of game’.

The demo was done in a way that the lighting, soundtrack, and architecture invites the player to an epic story unlike others. Not only that, the lack of hand-holding more common in recent video games is also gone. You are on your own, and you are to use your wit to survive. The fact that it taught many players on how to play, introduce them to a unique world of amazing architecture, and as it invites them to an epic story by use of very little to no narratives is truly a golden move in the gaming industry.

http://img09.deviantart.net/d0bc/i/2011/320/5/b/bioshock_big_daddy_by_archiesnow-d4gf3v3.jpg

World Design 1 - Doom Level Map

CHAINGUNE

such map, many chaingun, wow

In this map, the player must navigate a circular open area shaped like Doge in order to get to the target point. However, if the player chooses to go to the center, they will most likely immediately get shot by the hordes of chaingunner swarming the entire level. Instead, there are trail of bloods that the player can follow, circling the map to get to the other side of the map for his first key.

The player is armed with a chaingun, and there will be no ammo-pickup in the entire game. Instead, every hostile unit in the game are also armed with a chaingun, and killing them will cause them to drop their chaingun, which the player can pick up to refill their chaingun. The player must continously pick up the dropped chaingun if he wishes to ‘chain’-kill the enemies.

Once the player comes across their first key, surrounded by health bonus shaped as the word ‘WOW’, he can then open the first door, which is located on the right eye. After obtaining the first key, the player can navigate to the second eye, and ultimately finish the mission.

The goal of the map is to have continuous killing with the chaingun, while constantly picking up dropped chainguns and collecting medikit, as both ammo and lives are constantly going down. It’s a circular level in which the level ends generally near the starting location.

"wow such map, much effort, actulli not rly"