tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post282896918289546417..comments2023-05-20T12:08:52.031+02:00Comments on In The Games Of Madness: Obstacles continuedFrictional Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00278352641328669040noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-72103235275735250662009-07-27T19:06:22.309+02:002009-07-27T19:06:22.309+02:00I remember two approaches that impressed me some t...I remember two approaches that impressed me some time ago: "Shadow Man" and "Prince of Persia: Warrior Within".<br /><br />"Shadow Man" used something I would call a stretched hub. The main task was to collect so-called Dark Souls, and the "hub" was a kind of a weird corridor where you had several doors in sequence that opened as soon you had collected enough souls. You could decide to get all of them and open every single door if you liked to explore everything; but you could also go for the boss earlier. And during the game you received special feats that enabled you to reach new rooms so there was also a motivation to revisit old levels.<br />In the given pirate example this stretched hub would be the same as a central obstacle that can be removed by visiting all halls to a certain degree (finding 66,7% of the cursed doubloons...)<br /><br />"Prince of Persia: Warrior Within" was remarkable in the way of the level structure. Most of it was linear but the player passes all rooms in two different time settings which obfuscated this in a nice way, and it let to different puzzles because floors that were intact in the past were collapsed in the future etc. And as you described these large linear passages were used to script a lot of events.<br />But additional to this there were also a smaller hub obstacle and again an obstacle that only needed to be fulfilled partially before confronting the boss (solving it completely led to an alternative end).<br /><br />Long story short: when using the hub as level design then I would use an central obstacle that the player must only partially solve since it seems suitable for both the main story player and the explorer player.Chrischhttp://www.untote.ccnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-51167366838646136792009-07-27T09:37:25.180+02:002009-07-27T09:37:25.180+02:00I personally like the Hub structure more: it makes...I personally like the Hub structure more: it makes the game more mental. It also forces game immersion since you can put notes that describes the game's universe while kind-of-hiding the solution to the problem (like in Black Plague when you read the note that talks about Wilbur Fisk and it tells you that he is afraid of light so then you know to turn the lights on to walk down the hallway). <br /><br />But interchanging them can be fun, like in Penumbra, as long as Hub is the dominant one.Pedro R.https://www.blogger.com/profile/09155622475973504857noreply@blogger.com