Level Up.pdf

166 LEVEL 7 The Three Cs, Part 3—Controls
Now when the character presses the stick to
the left, the character walks to the right —
because the controls have been mapped to
how the game camera sees the character,
rather than from the character ’ s orientation.
Unfortunately, thanks to the backwards
controls, our hero has walked right into the
arms of a zombie, who proceeds to chew out
his brains.
This is why I ’ m not such a big fan of the
camera - relative control scheme. I much prefer
a character- relative control scheme. In a
character- relative control scheme, the game
controls are always relative to the player
character. If the control stick is moved to the
left, the character will always move to the left
no matter where the camera is facing. The game compensates for the
player ’ s movement even if the camera turns 180 degrees around.
There ’ s no need to get fancy with the controls … unless you are designing
for one of those new - fangled motion controllers.
Shake, Rattle and Roll
Most modern game controllers are outfitted with actuators and
gyroscopes. They are the devices that make most motion controllers like
the ones found on the Wii or the PS3 possible.
An actuator gives feedback to the player
in the form of vibrations. Like with control
schemes, make sure the language of
your actuator usage is consistent. Rather
than blasting the thing off all of the time,
limit it to when a player takes damage or
when they earn a reward. You can have
a lot of fun with actuators, if you take the
time to play with them.
My favorite use of an actuator was in
Silent Hill (Konami, 1999). The developer
figured out how to vibrate the two
actuators at different frequencies to
simulate a heartbeat. Whenever the