Level Up.pdf

108 LEVEL 5 The Three Cs, Part 1—Character
The Water ’ s Fine …
or is it?
Speaking of water, swimming can still be a difficult thing to design gameplay
around. In the earlier days of game design, water traversal was avoided
altogether, resulting in a long tradition of “ water = death ” in video games.
If you choose to go that route, keep your messaging consistent otherwise
the player will get confused. Don ’ t expect players to be able to differentiate
between water that is safe and water that is deadly. My rule of thumb is that
water within a single environment should be one or the other. There is no
deep end to the pool. It ’ s either all shallow/safe or deep/deadly. If you
must have transitional water, give your player adequate cues and warnings
of the danger of swimming too far. One game I worked on had a shark
fin appear and swim near the player when they strayed out too far. If
they ignored the warning and kept going, they got chomped on by a
great white!
However, water gameplay can be quite interesting as it lends itself to
exploration and exotic environments. But you must always consider several
gameplay rules when considering swimming:
• How does the player enter/exit water? Always make sure water entrances
and exits are clearly marked for the player. This can take the form of
clearly marked ledges, sloping ramp geometry, or those little pool
ladders — just as long as the player can tell “ this is where I get out. ”
• Can the player swim under water or just on the surface? Sometimes the
ability to dive isn ’ t given to the player until later in the game. Sometimes
not at all.
• If the player can swim underwater, can they stay underwater for an
extended period of time? Is there some sort of a timer that gauges air
supply or pressure that prevents the player from staying underwater for
extended periods of time?
• Does air matter? Can a player die due to lack of air? Do they need to
collect power- ups or have some other method to sustain their air supply?
• Can the player attack underwater? Do they carry their weapon and swim
at the same time? A typical swim stroke may look strange or cause
sorting issues if the player is carrying a weapon at the same time.