Level Up.pdf

136 LEVEL 6 The Three Cs, Part 2—Camera
• Removing camera control gives the player one less thing to worry about.
If they aren ’ t wrestling with the camera, the player is free to concentrate
on what ’ s important: playing your game.
• More visual bang for your buck. A camera where YOU determine what
it ’ s looking at means that game art can be built to maximize polygon
and texturing limitations. In God of War, the environments were built like
theater sets, not in full 3 - D. Why build the back of a building if you are
never going to see it?
• You can treat your game like a dark ride. Disneyland ’ s Haunted Mansion
is the perfect real - world example of a designer- controlled camera, as its
omni - mover carts 6 always have the guest looking at the most interesting
scenes in the ride. You commonly find this kind of rail camera in first
person shooters like Time Crisis (Namco, 1995) and House of the Dead.
(Sega, 1996).
• Your game world simply looks better. Taking away camera control
means you can set up shots. Want a worm ’ s - eye view to make the boss
look more menacing? No problem. Want to skew the camera to make
the world look demented or creepy. Go right ahead. No one is going to
be able to screw it up.
• What did I miss? Have an important clue or event happening in your
game world? Want the player to be able to see the Tower of Doom
looming in the background or that giant spider that is creeping up on
them? No problem. Without camera control, you don ’ t risk the player
missing anything important in your game.
• Want to have the camera do a barrel roll? Zip in and out between
columns? Move around pillars or over or under objects? Match the
player ’ s movement as they crawl under obstacles and through
narrow passages? Go right ahead and go nuts with those complex
camera moves. Using a rail camera you can set up elaborate and
cinematic camera angles. You don ’ t have to worry about the player
wrestling to regain control of the camera. Just make sure your
gameplay controls remain consistent during any of these fancy
camera moves.
• If you decide to obstruct or let the character get out of the player ’ s view,
make sure that your character- relative controls let the player guide
the character back into view. For example, if the player moves the
character behind a fence, the player should be able to keep pushing
the control stick in the same direction with the assumption that the
character will eventually emerge on the other side. Don ’ t place hazards
6 Which they call “ doom buggies. ” Heh.