Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

How might one make climbing trees into a viable game mechanic

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by Bootleg Girl, Jan 12, 2015.

  1. Bootleg Girl

    Bootleg Girl

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2015
    Posts:
    3
    So, I'm finally sucking up my lifelong desire to try game dev and actually making myself spend my spare time trying to develop games rather than just playing them. Unity's an amazing tool and I'm already seeing tons of potential. However, I'm largely learning it out of a desire to make a specific concept for a game, and it's one where the obstacle, for once, isn't making realistic art or characters or whatever - Unity makes that quite doable - but figuring out how to make its central mechanic work.

    The premise of my game is children sneaking out of their homes in the middle of the night to go on adventures in a magical land outside their window. I want it to be vaguely platformy. However, the aesthetic absolutely requires my characters to climb trees, jump from branch to branch, etc. The only game that I've seen that's done trees as anything more than a pretty background is Assassin's Creed, and 1) I don't have Ubisoft's resources and 2) the trees are still a pretty minor part of the setup. You never jump to higher branches, etc.

    So, I'm flexible in terms of developing a gameplay model that will accomodate this environmental choice, and I'm okay with making branches much larger than they would be realistically. I know doing this as a side scroller would make everything a lot easier, but I do want to at least try to make it work as 3rd person 3D.

    So, without asking for help on how to implement it, what would be some fun and interesting ways to design a game world that takes place mainly in trees? One possibility I suppose would be very thick leaf beds...
     
    Teila likes this.
  2. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    Yeah, I've played a few games that had this sort of tree-jumping mechanic in a few spots (I'm thinking of Jedi Power Battles for Dreamcast). It wasn't very much fun, though, as the platforms were way too small and if you missed one, you were pretty much guaranteed to fall all the way to the ground and have to start over.

    So, I think you'd want to include some more active targeting. As in, the player pushes in a direction and hits the jump button; you cast a fairly wide net and find the closest target platform in that general direction, and then adjust your jump vector so that you land squarely on it.

    This would be similar to what happens in, for example, the Spider Man 2 video game, where you hit the "web" button and your web finds a target to stick to unless there's just nothing even close. This lets you web-sling successfully around Manhattan, which is just about the most fun I've ever had in a video game. Your tree climbing/jumping game could be similar. Just getting around shouldn't be difficult; the fun is in how well you can get around — and the challenge is in choosing where to go. And there could be some trickier jumps too, that require more precise aiming or timing, but if you miss those you should always land on the next branch down, not plummet to the forest floor.

    HTH,
    - Joe
     
    Bootleg Girl likes this.
  3. Bootleg Girl

    Bootleg Girl

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2015
    Posts:
    3
    Right, that's the kind of feel I'm aiming for. Animation would be sort of the tricky hold up there - I'm not sure I have the graphics chops to animate my character making a motion as complex as aiming and grappling. Could implement the rest of the mechanics and see about getting help with art or hiring someone, I suppose.

    I don't really want falling to the ground to be a risk, at least not often. Like, if it does happen it should be because the ground is an area we want to explore. It's weird, I'm sort of stuck between two quite dissimilar models of moving around - one being Mass Effect 3 in the sense of how you only ever fall off drops if you're supposed to go down there, and the other being... whatever the first 3D Mario game was, which just sort of captures the sense of wonder and whimsical counterrealism I'm aiming for.
     
  4. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    You will probably want to do this the opposite way. Hammer out the mechanics first to nail down the specifications, then construct accordingly. It's really easy to have environments mostly done, then find out that if you had tagged branches a certain way, you could have been able to have simple autonomous branch landing/grabbing.

    Not really knowing the style you want to go for, it's kind of hard to offer much advice. It's fairly easy to take the path of a platformer, say in the vein of the tarzan level from kingdom hearts. Even a free running style, with paths in the trees a la assassin's creed, doesn't have to be difficult if things are well thought out. I suppose the biggest question I have is how much solid ground is supposed to be in the trees?
     
  5. Bootleg Girl

    Bootleg Girl

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2015
    Posts:
    3
    Well that's really the question. The "feel" I'm imagining is that these characters navigate treetops as easily as the earth, and there's as much interesting stuff IN the trees as there is on the ground. So I'm thinking beds of leaves/branches/leafy in-between-branches won't be uncommon.

    I get what you mean about hammering out the mechanics first. That's what I meant to say - I want to imagine how this could possibly work before I get started trying to design any of it. Still teaching myself Blender anyway so I've got time.
     
    BrandyStarbrite likes this.
  6. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2011
    Posts:
    9,859
    I would suggest you not worry too much about the modeling or animation at first. Use stand-in objects (e.g. spheres, cubes, cylinders) at first, design your level, and work on the mechanics — camera and character control. Get that sphere running and bouncing around your forest of cubes and cylinders, and when that feels right, then start worrying about making it look right.
     
  7. TonyLi

    TonyLi

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2012
    Posts:
    12,670
    Adding to what Joe said, use primitive stand-ins for the environment, but use a full humanoid model for the character since you need to make sure from the beginning that arms and legs connect to their targets correctly. You'll probably want to make heavy use of target matching. This is exactly the purpose target matching was designed for.

    If, on the other hand, you want to do a first person view, acParkour is today's 24 Hour Deal! :)
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  8. TonyLi

    TonyLi

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2012
    Posts:
    12,670
    My previous reply didn't really offer much in the way of game design feedback. Your concept brings Shadow of the Colossus to mind. A major aspect is free navigation of a complex environment. It would be a lot of fun to climb around trees either exploring or racing/chasing something. I agree that the player should feel safe to take risks without fear of falling. I could see this playing well in a cartoony art style. An interesting variation might be climbing a giant beanstalk. Are you thinking of a setting kind of like Where The Wild Things Are? Or fairy tales? Or something else? In any case, I think you have a great idea.
     
  9. beige

    beige

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2013
    Posts:
    18
    I'd recommend using auto-targeting and the like to partially automate the tree-jumping/climbing part; similar to how prince of Persia and/or enslaved games did not let the player jump freely but only to valid platforms. have the player
    walk towards (or press a jump button when near) a gap in the trees towards the next tree and have the jump to it then be automated so the players challenge is more path-finding than landing in the tree successful

    I say this as precision platforming in 3d is pretty hard for most players to wrap their head around, and could get very annoying very quickly if they keep overshooting the tree branch etc

    as already mentioned in this thread I recomend building the level structure first for where the jumps/trees will be before modeling them, as then you can have it concrete in your head how the player will land/jump etc so you can model the terrain effectively - avoiding it looking awkward :)

    this does sound like a very fun game idea though - climbing the environment has always been one of my favorite parts of any game
     
  10. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2013
    Posts:
    7,441
    I am not clear on your design goals so this may be completely off.

    Generally speaking if you want the trees to have a big role in the game then I think you should consider maximizing how you interact with them.

    For example, instead of focusing on movement alone the trees could be used:

    * For attacks: maybe a simple attack from above, maybe swinging around a branch kicking an enemy, or maybe pulling a branch toward you and relessing so it swings with great force striking an enemy, or perhaps even using the branches to catapult projectiles toward enemies

    * General interaction could be jumping up and down on limbs that bend serving as trampolines allowing you to jump higher, sliding down tree trunks, "riding" branches down to reach a branch on another tree, and so forth

    * The "feel"... Maybe you can summon, collect a small tree (Tree-ent) that attacks enemies for you, maybe you can create a force of wind and rich green leaves spinning around you lift you in the air to get back up into the trees, and so forth.

    * Maybe the enemy's real objective is to cut down the forest and you are their protector. The enemies come on screen with axes and chainsaws.

    If I saw a video showing stuff like this I would definitely get the connection to trees.
     
    TheAlmightyPixel likes this.
  11. TheAlmightyPixel

    TheAlmightyPixel

    Joined:
    Jun 21, 2014
    Posts:
    263
    If you want the player to feel the same excitement (or more) that they have on the ground, you should try to add some sort of functionality to the tree(tops) that would keep the player interested, and possibly make them want to get on top of the trees, even if they didn't necessarily have to. Things like this in my opinion are, tougher/easier/more enemies + powerups and rewards, chance of failing (the player could fall down from the trees?), some element of fun, like an animation, where the child the player is controlling uses a rope made out of socks to lasso onto a branch of another tree and make it's way to it.

    There are many ways to do this to be honest, but I think the best ways are to reward the player, and actually make them want to get onto the trees. You could also have sections where the player has no other choice but to get on top of trees, such as a swamp. If they fell in the swamp they could lose.
     
    GarBenjamin likes this.
  12. Pyronide

    Pyronide

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2014
    Posts:
    56
    One things that I would mention, which would kinda add to things Gar already said... but using large leaves to slow fall or use it as a means of carrying things.

    The immediate idea this made me think about was actually a catapult... using thinner trees and the player's weight to bend the tree back (some could snap for a giggle or pathfinding gimmick) and once the player "jumps" or "releases hold" gets slingshotted through the air in the direction. Could also happen closer to treetops instead of the center of them... things to think about. :D

    P.S - Like this idea and hope to see a prototype soon :D
     
  13. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2013
    Posts:
    16,860
    So this hasn't been mention yet. But a key aspect of climbing trees is that trees move. They sway in the breeze. Branches move as you land on them. Throw that in there somewhere.