Designer's Dozen - Halo 2

Welcome to the first installment of Designer's Dozen. In this feature, I will play through the first hour of a game, stopping every 5 minutes with observations about the experience, and trying to be as precise as possible about the experience going on in that exact moment. I will spend that first hour playing at a pace which I imagine is the pace the original designers intended. Obviously, this is an enormous guess on my part, but in general I will not be playing extremely slow and methodical (a pace I lean toward, due to my almost anal obsession with detail), nor will I be playing at an accelerated speed that tries to get as far into the game as possible.

While any hour of playing time could suffice for this, the choice of the first hour is not entirely arbitrary. In general, the first hour is very crucial in a game. It is when a player learns the game mechanics for the first time, and also should contain some memorable moments to make a good first impression that makes the player want to continue the experience - hopefully to the very end.

So, with the methodology out of the way - let's kick off the feature with a game that had a lot to live up to as the sequel to the game that launched Microsoft's 800 lb gorilla Franchise (with a capital F as in Fanboys) - Bungie's Halo 2!

5 minutes:
Space Marines are issued donkeys?
I'm on the elevator with Sgt. Johnson and Master Guns has just said "My ass!" to him in response to being told that information on how they returned safely after the events of the first game is classified. As a player, this salty language reinforces that in the role of Master Chief, I am defined by a military environment, as well as in a game that passes for "mature" in this medium.

10 minutes:
I need a weapon.
I have just picked up an SMG. The Covenant is about to attack, and the atmosphere is one of impending battle, with alert sirens adding to a sense of urgency. Returning to the idea of pace, if the player is supposed to be moving quickly as if in an emergency, this is accomplished by adding running squadmates to follow as well as having a weapon in your hands immediately upon passing a certain point. It could be argued that even having to be instructed on how to pick up a weapon at this point in the game would slow things down. Also, 10 minutes seems like a good amount of time to wait in a shooter before actually being armed. Intro and cutscenes set up the story effectively without dragging on too long.

The SMG as your first weapon is a weapon that shoots quickly as well. Consider if your first weapon was a pistol. Now consider if it was a rocket launcher. Do you see how even this decision influences and is influenced by the situation the designers have put the player in?

15 minutes:
Battle flow
A lull in the action, about to move through a door that previously had opened to allow more Covenant into a room. Combat intensity almost guarantees some confusion about where to go next when the setting is large. The need to string together open areas that contain a variety of flanking options also brings with it the likelihood of the player assuming a new doorway automatically leads to the next checkpoint. The Covenant being the invading force in this scenario creates an opportunity for the designers. The enemy serves as the agent of opening the next door for you. They enter a cleared out room, providing another skirmish (the core gameplay), while simultaneously revealing the next path.

20 minutes:
This place seemed a lot friendlier the first time.
I'm in a tough fight back in the room where I first started with Master Guns and his ass, although now his ass is dead. The fact that I'm getting the warning that my shields are depleted and I need to seek cover about 3x as often indicates that the danger level has ratcheted up. Most games offer a variety in degree of challenge - what in this precise moment design-wise helps create the sense of increased danger? It isn't strictly in the game mechanics...
- Returning to a familiar area that was once safe but now isn't.
- The death of a character you have actually interacted with as opposed to a nameless grunt.
- Combat arenas now smaller and darker with less room for tactics and less places for cover.
- The introduction of Elites with cloaking armor that are much harder to see.

25 minutes:
Stop and pop, not run and gun
I'm barely past the point where I was 5 minutes ago, but it looks like I might get out of here alive. I'm back in a larger area that may or may not be somewhere I was before - if nothing else it is identical in layout. The difference now is that I am alone and outnumbered, where my previous experience in this layout involved squadmates. The necessity for the player now is to change their gameplay. Where squadmates provide enough distractions to the enemy for you to be more aggressive , flying solo on hostile turf now slows things down and encourages more caution unless you want to end up dead. Picking off targets one by one, using cover, and trying to cause multiple casualties with grenades now seem to be the more appealing options.

30 minutes:
The Swarm
I'm tucked in an alcove. If I were to peek around the edge of it, I would see a very large open area that stretches very high. I would also see a large number of a new enemy - Drones. At the halfway point of this first hour, the main idea I'm taking away from the game is that every new area seems to try to provide a different combat experience. Drones are smaller enemies and can't withstand much damage, but this is balanced by the fact that they fly & are fast, making them hard to hit. They also appear in greater numbers - this group of them seems to number at about 10. Drones are clearly suited for this type of arena - the open air space gives them greater maneuverability and an advantage over poor me stuck on the ground. This many Drones packed into a narrow corridor would be a cakewalk, but also poor design. As it stands, the new scenario forces me to instinctively adopt my current post with my back up against a wall where I can't be surrounded. The hope is either to lure them to this tighter space, or improve my cover for the extra time it will take for aiming at them in their erratic flight paths.

35 minutes:
In space, Bret. In space.
The reason for the areas being so wide open (indeed, theoretically infinite) is that the action now takes place on the outside of Cairo Earth Defense Platform. A mix of ground and air based enemies is faced here - the other type of flying enemy is heavily armed and armored and zips about on jet pack thingies. In the attempt to increase the drama as we get nearer to our goal of saving the station from a bomb, the settings are more and more serving as impressive set pieces. With giant elevators and structures moving throughout, the environment seems to be intended as the player focus now - definitely making its' presence known during the firefights.

40 minutes:
It's so loud I can hardly hear myself being awesome.
The 40 minute mark occurred during a cut scene, which was honestly so loud that I was unable to hear the 5 minute timer go off, so I could not say which precise moment it happened. But hey, precision is for darts and targeting reticules. The important thing to note is that the cut scene closes out the first story chapter with a literal bang as Master Chief pulls a Slim Pickens and rides a bomb out into open space to blow up a Covenant carrier. It is one of those "wow" heroic moments meant to reinforce the larger-than-life role of Master Chief. Because the player is the actual actor in this role, gameplay-wise, if it helps the player feel like a hero, it should influence their positive feelings about playing the game. While I was not wholly conscious of these feelings during this scene (and since my actual involvement in it ended with me approaching the bomb in game before switching to the cutscene), I can say that afterwards I did feel an increased sense of self-confidence. That's successful design in my eyes.

So let's start the final 20 minutes after the cutscene that introduces the second chapter.

45 minutes:
Turret syndrome
I'm battling waves of enemies in a courtyard with squadmates and these experiences are where Halo shines the most for me. I love hearing the comments my allies make while we fight as a unit - it is one of the most impressive features of the franchise. I cannot even fathom the work that goes into taking all these dialogue snippets and making sure they fit the situation at hand. I still remember moments from the first time I played Halo 2, strictly because of something an AI teammate said during battle.
At this point in the game I am doing the "turret dance" on an elevated rooftop overlooking the courtyard. Taking the high ground for battle advantage is a no-brainer. Using the turret to rain hot lead on the enemies below, as well as on a wave of drones in the air is something I've been waiting to do. Up to now, I have had to be on the other side of the equation - dispatching an enemy at a manned turret. Once the turret can be manned by me, there are no longer any enemies to use it on. It is such a tease...there are some games (Half Life 2 comes to mind) that make sure to give you some enemies to mow down once you take position at a gun emplacement, and it feels like Christmas morning. So even though standing at the turret makes me a sitting duck, and I must continually abandon it to let my shields recharge before returning to it like a starving dog to a multi-chambered bone (the "turret dance"), I refuse to give up my turret. I will marry the turret. We will build a house of love and ammo.

50 minutes:
yes they got snipe
Moving through narrow alleyways I am reminded of the term "chokepoint". Snipers are now among the enemy, and the tactics change yet again. To get from point A to point B requires liberal use of cover - staying behind it long enough to pick out the next cover spot to quickly move to and hopefully be able to zero in on sniper positions. One goal of a designer is to challenge the player, but I do believe that deep down the designer is rooting for the player to succeed but cannot be too overt about it. Tools to succeed (in this case, cover spots) must be provided, but the player is still the one who is expected to discover the tools and use them. Effective game design facilitates an experience, but does not dictate it.

55 minutes:
Snipe 2 - Too Hot for TV
Here's a nifty design trick: I picked up the sniping weapon (the Beam Rifle) from a downed sniper. Being a very powerful weapon (the kind that reduces you to very low shields in one shot), I immediately equipped it. With the next group of enemies being at close range, how does the game prevent me from using it as an effective close combat weapon? By overheating after 2 or 3 quick shots in succession. The gun is rendered unusable momentarily, which is not what you want at all with foes bearing down.

HOUR!:
Space marines are issued warthogs.
The hour ends as the gunner in the Warthog I'm driving has just destroyed an enemy Ghost. I was hoping we'd get to vehicles in the first hour, and we sneaked it in under the wire. Since they are just introduced, after an hour of play time the game is staying fresh. And with a continuing eye for sustaining balanced levels of challenge, the designers introduce enemy vehicles almost immediately after. The successful player must learn to drive effectively to maximize the damage the AI gunner can dish out, so a variety of combat situations and tactics is still keeping them entertained.
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After an hour of Halo 2, the desire to continue to play is very real. When a game holds your attention and drives you to have the next experience, feel the next emotion, and do the next deed, that is the sum total of any number of little moments that just seem to work and make sense. But ultimately, these moments are just dots that a game designer lays out to the best of their ability. The better the dots, the greater likelihood the player will connect them.

WELCOME

Welcome to Semi-Intelligent Design - a blog about game design.

I'm Brit Baker - Lead Designer at Perfect Dork Studios. We're currently putting together a game called Box Macabre, which I'm very excited about designing for. In the months leading up to our planned release later this year, I thought it would be fun to blog about my views on game design. In a field as creative as the game development field is, the unique challenges presented to a game designer have always fascinated me. In order to help create an immersive and interactive world or story that a player wants to be in, a game designer might have to draw upon fields as diverse as storytelling, dramatics, psychology, logic, economics, history, mythology, and those are just off the top off my head...

It is the lot in life of the most successful people in the games industry to be such masters of detail that they create an experience, that if done correctly, is so engrossing that those very details do not even stand out. This keeps the reputation of whatever studio they work for as one which brings loyal players back with the certainty of a very fun experience.

And that is the main ferret the designer must er....ferret out when he brings his skills to the table. Yes that's right, The Fun Ferret. The level of detail a designer should invest is focused on one thing - how to have a communication with any number of players he mostly will never meet. How to communicate to them a story, a task, a quest, an objective, a cause, an experience of fun that they are the actor in, and create a certain relationship that is uniquely influenced by and influences all the other game elements simultaneously.

No biggie. But to distill it down, in my mind, the communications and relationships of humans are the meat of a game designer's job. Pretty sure I'll be coming back to that a lot....

So to wrap up the first post, some questions for discussion:

1. Let's say a blogger used a game design blog to shamelessly plug his internet radio station, "The Head Bakery". Is this or is this NOT a good design idea for a blog about game design ideas?

2. If the Fun Ferret had a name, what would you name him/her/it? Gosh, would it have a gender, or would it be an asexual ferret? No really, this could end up a blog mascot, these questions matter...