Substance and Style in Game Design 24
Gamasutra has a piece on the elements of substance and style within videogames, and what should be considered when designing with these elements in mind. From the article: "An easy way to understand the difference between style and substance is by example. Many shooter games have traditionally calculated world collision and bullet impacts by modeling bullets as instantaneous line traces and characters as moving collision cylinders. In this case, the line-projecting cylinder is the fundamental nature of the character - the character's substance. The image of a fighter, the sounds he makes and the way he animates is the character's style."
Strange game physics (Score:4, Informative)
That always irked me in FPS games. In the real world, bullets aren't instantaneous and travel in an arc. Red Orchestra [clanservers.com] (a UT2k4 mod) does a pretty good job of simulating bullet drop and real life physics.
Re:Strange game physics (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, this will just serve to confuse a lot of people, or make it difficult. In an effort to find a happy medium between the super-realistic people and the just-make-it-easy-to-pick-up crowds, I think modern FPSs aren't too horrible.
(Though, I would love a
Re:Strange game physics (Score:2)
Re:Strange game physics (Score:1)
Re:Strange game physics (Score:2)
FPS games are that way on purpose. It reduces the server load by quite a bit and reduces network traffic. Also, it's hard enough to deal with internet latency & client-side prediction of the action without throwing in craploads of flying bullets. (Most FPS games are now built on
Re:Strange game physics (Score:2)
But, in a fast paced FPS (a-la-UT2k4, f.ex.), i really don't think it matters much - after
Re:Strange game physics (Score:2)
Grab.
Re:Strange game physics (Score:1)
As far as accuracy reduced while moving, just about every semi-realistic FPS does that.
Re:Strange game physics (Score:2)
T
Re:Strange game physics (Score:2)
Meaning, you've never seen a PC FPS set on the modern planet Earth. Battlefield2, Counterstrike, Deus Ex, Rainbow Six, Americas Army... they all slash gunfire precision while in motion. Even the fantastically whimsical Castle Wolfenstein is careful to make an MG42 uselessly inaccurate if fired while standing.
Re:Strange game physics (Score:2)
Shmeh (Score:1)
Re:Shmeh (Score:2)
Well, apparently not, because I don't think Gamasutra quite got it.
A game's substance has nothing to do with how a bullet travels through the air. That kind of thinking is why we're all stuck with cookie-cutter FPS's, sports and racing games these days. People (including most developers) mistake genre conventions for substance. That's still pa
Re:Shmeh (Score:2)
Multiplayer games and online competitions. I forgive you for thinking entirely in the context of a single player game, though.
I'm rather disappointed. (Score:4, Insightful)
In terms of style it sounds a bit like a lecture for a school of game developers. Readable but boring. The examples are dull or oversimplified. FPS gamers concentrating on Substance, The Sims concentrating on Style? I wouldn't be so sure players of Half-Life 2 are all about substance...
In terms of substance... actually I'm not really sure what the article tries to achieve at all, because it first defines a sharp border between the two and then methodically expresses that the border isn't really important at all, because both are just as important, and by emphacising one or the other you change the style of the game, not whether it's good or if it sells well. I don't think I've learned a thing from the article, because all the info it presents seems pretty much as completely useless analysis. Like analysing structure of a sentence in a poem won't help you writing better poetry, analising whether your game has enough substance or better style won't make better games. And the article doesn't write neither how to improve the style nor how to create better substance...
Re:I'm rather disappointed. (Score:1)
Re:I'm rather disappointed. (Score:4, Insightful)
His conclusion is organic. Despite
In true
"Nobody can completely understand the entire field of game design. There are too many interacting elements, too much information, for the human mind to perceive and consider simultaneously. Thus nobody can hope to think about all of game design at once. The only solution available to the designer is to conceptually split the field up into manageable chunks, each of which can then be considered separately."
Re:I'm rather disappointed. (Score:2)
This is wrong.
Nobody can analytically examine all of the game design at once.
All the rest is possible. Not as business, science, engineering. But as art, pretty pure at that. And like any art, game design has some prerequisites that are hard to put in words, impossible to purchase, difficult to understand. Things like talen
Re:I'm rather disappointed. (Score:2)
That's the primary difference between organic and methodical analysis.
Organic analysis is used for subjects too complex for human's to completely understand methodically.
Re:I'm rather disappointed. (Score:2)
little things (Score:2)
some that could be fixed rather easily, too.
like models that keep guns at hip, and then bullets fly out of their eyes. pretty annoying when you see someone peek out and shoot you, while their gun is still behind an obstacle.
Myth's and Facts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Myth's and Facts (Score:1)
From the perspective of a Game Developer, there are quite a few myths that buzz about the game industry, and the majority of the complaints about the quality of games these days fall on deaf ears.
My favorite is "This game would be so much better if X was done instead of Y".
X = a pretty damn good idea which chances are was already thought of, and more times than not, in the original design doc to begin with but had to be c