Lets talk about the level design of half life and why it was soo good

I saw an interview once with Carmack where he was asked about what he thought was his greatest experience or something like that - and he said that it was Doom/3D/fps because he'd never had the experience before or since of being so totally in unexplored territory and on the boundary of what was possible at the time. I think there's something to connect there in terms of what Doom meant to those involved, and the quality of the result.

If we as the community of game developers want to recapture that for out time, we have to go further out, into what's not been made possible yet, and make it possible. Not go back and try to reiterate what's already had its day.

 

You're referring to the tracks that are connected at 45 degree angles to each other? I was expecting the train to fly off the tracks when playing the game.
What I remember most about the game were the cool sound effects. I think they even reused some of the sound effects in Portal (the HalfLife sound of picking up a barrels)

 

"Cutting-edge" does not mean that it has a good gameplay. It means that it uses newest tech.

Doom is good because of the gameplay.

To the date there are maybe 3 shooter games total that get anywhere close to level of Doom (For example, Painkiller and Rogue Trooper). Everything else is significantly worse, even if it looks better has grass and leaves and shadows and shines everywhere, experience is still worse. Which is why I eventually gave up on FPS genre which used to be my favorite. People think that "cutting edge matters", think that "cutting edge means tech", start chasing shiniest technologies, and in the end produce experience that plays worse than one game from 1990s.

 

But to be fair, Doom was cutting edge technology when it was released. That's not the reason people like it today, but that was one of the reasons it was successful when released.

 

...which is why I used the word "contribute".

 

Nintendo seems to be a great example of not focusing on tech and instead focusing on game play experience for innovation. While other companies were always trying to max out visual quality, # of objects on screen at once without slowdown and so forth Nintendo generally took a different route of building very cool games well within the existing technical boundaries.

 

yeah i dont play very many nintendo games, or own any of there hardware atm, but i do appreciate that they are experimenting with the hardware and input methods. Otherwise i think we would just have variations on a controller that existed since the ps1 days still.

I guess even the ps1 dual shock which is what pretty much all modern controllers are based on, was in reaction to nintendo and its n64 controller with the analog stick. They just made it to the standard dual stick system first.

 

Have you seen a Nintendo controller in the last twenty years? Nintendo doesn't focus on high end tech, sure, so instead they focus on their tech that's a bunch of gimmicky bullshit. Star Fox Zero, I rest my case your honor.

 

Star fox zero could have been amazing with the same control if it wasn't the same game on 64 with occasional spot where you need the aiming and nerf direct aiming. They had teh potential to redefine the game like they did on mario 64 (redefining platformer, 3d camera, and sandbox level design) and zelda 64 (extending open world level design, simplified 3d camera with lock on).

Instead they did it like all absent minded dev do ... tacked on unnecessary control on well define formula that wasn't broken. I mean damn it, they could have usher a new era of aiming dissociated with views, instead we have star fox other M, and thank god the failed metroid had the prime trilogy first to show us the control could be non gimmicky (better control with lock + aim) though even there it was not used to full length ... which is a story we start seeing at nintendo, idea are n more thought through like with mario 64 and all.

They should go back to make game around control scheme instead of making game and shuffling the control scheme after the fact.

 

I'm sure everyone here being game developers, can prove their points with prototypes.

 

Not all prototype are easy to make, mocking these game with different controller mean you should be able to make those controller in the first place. They are not always trivial, I'm not sure the wii U can be emulated with my under 100$ smartphone (bad motion detection) especially at their latency, where do you start with the hd haptic of the switch, at least wiimote are still sold on teh wild but will the latency match an actual console (200fps I think for wiimote)? Not only that but mastering motion control detection is a skill in itself that need to be investigate, the sampling rate is key and the speed of treatment of these sample. I'm trying when I have time ...

 

I'm not sure what all the focus on controllers is about what I was getting at is stuff like this...

Why are Nintendo games always so much more polished than other game developers?

This is what makes Nintendo games great

And the fact that in nearly all Top Games / Best Games of all time lists you will find several Nintendo games.

It's more about their design & development philosophy.

 

In that case the person creating the argument is creating an argument they cannot prove, and therefore their points are moot without evidence clearly presented from reliable sources.

Also not sure what controllers have to do with the level design of half life and why it was so good. I think a unity staff member hit the nail on the head on the first page really.

 

It looks like the discussion took a weird turn since I last checked it.

 

What was this thread about again? Particle decay?

 

Game design -> Semantic Argument -> Meaning of Life -> Bashing and defending Nintendo.

Not sure how it happened, though.

 

Yeah, must be Unity forums.

 

Game design -> Semantic Argument -> Cutting Edge Is Key -> No Gameplay Is -> Nintendo games as example of focusing on Gameplay first & foremost not cutting edge -> Controllers -> Random ramblings perhaps from this point on.

 

Controller is key to game design though which impact level design, there is a strong correlation. Try rts on a pad
And nintendo has a legacy of focusing on control or core concept to bring quality games. Don't act it's not correlated.

Though it's one step remove from HL level design , though I contast they were that good to begin with, using my own memory and experience with the genre. I do recognize what it has attempted, but its legacy was the heavily scripted set pieces corridor shooter.

I cannot prove it with unity, but I tried some on nintendo sdk, that's the nuances. I also tried without when I was no more working on it, but I had to evaluate with the deficiency I mentioned, Why so upset? It doesn't make them moot, it's just you wouldn't be able to sell the game and the hardware at the same while being a bedroom coder

 

Well, every controller has it's quirks, but ultimately what makes or breaks a game is in the decisions the player must make.

 

While this is true, their games are still highly formulaic.

When somebody talks about games that break new ground, "Nintendo" never comes to mind. Except Donkey Kong, obviously, being the first successful platformer. But like id and Doom, they haven't really pulled it off a second time.

 

Nintendo has focused like a laser on controller tech over the past two console cycles, and although my opinion on the wii is different from others, wiiU is more of the same - just weird / innovative control and design that not a lot of people like.
Although Nintendo has some cool games - beyond Mario and the every 5-6 years Zelda title, not many other games have this attention to design and gameplay. I'd say (sadly) Nintendo puts out more gimmicky games than they do solid gameplay experiences.

Because the twin stick design is 98% perfection.

Are they? Beyond Mario and Zelda I'm hard pressed to think of other polished Nintendo games. Smash Brothers, Metroid Kart all have had less polished recent releases, and Star Fox has already been mentioned.
Nintendo games aren't any more polished than Inside, Doom, The Witcher, Uncharted. However to support this claim - they DO have an army of developers to perform the iterative design needed to polish a game to that Mario and Zelda level.

 

Indeed.

 

My point was that it took iterations and people thinking outside of what was the box in those days to create it, even failures when testing the boundaries of the box are good if it leads to iterative progress and improvement.

 

That was a link to a Reddit discussion about it. I was never a big Nintendo game fan but there are a massive amount of people who are. And they are doing something right that their games appear time and again on best / top games lists along with summaries of the innovation that put them there.

Sure they've focused on controllers. That doesn't replace the focus on innovating in their games. And it is not I don't appreciate their games it's just they so often had a kiddie vibe to me that didn't catch my interest other than certain titles such as Metroid.

It's like the Super Mario Maker and the mobile Mario games released recently. Maybe they didn't sell well I am not sure. But I do remember at the time of release they were pretty well covered as to what made them stand out... what the differences were between how most mobile platformers are made for example compared to the way Nintendo did it.

 

Wait do polish mean game I don't like now I keep expecting design discussion oh well...

Nintendo have always focus on controller anyway, the perfected the d pad, they popularized the flips, they normalize start and select button, they introduce analog for 3d movements, they bring rumble, saying they have a focus "now" is just saying the latest addition don't cater to your taste, since now every small innovation they brought defined gaming (even though they weren't necessarily the inventor).

What's happening to nintendo is that everyone else have caught up tho them and they are feeling teh stress of reinventing themselves while catering to their base. What nintendo has now other don't have except strong brand?

Nintendo are artist who pretend to not make art (as miyamoto say, we make product) but product maker listen to the audience to make the best product to them, not have a vision and respect for the artist (see lucas vs disney's star wars), sakurai crying because people don't get his game and play competitively is one key tell. Meanwhile the rest of the industry are product maker who cry to they are artist even though most don't have a vision and what little they have they compromise it to fit the audience (except for girls, they don't like girls /s)...

Nintendo is under big duress, they were the king once:
- they had the better tech, but now that's the west (game) and sony (hardware)
- they had the best gameplay, but everyone is catching up, from indie to AAA
- they had the better story, but now cinematic game have mature to not be corridor anymore and start blending with gameplay
- they drove innovation, but indie is stealing that thunder big time, so even their innovation is just one in many that do equivalent or better, or more interesting (looks at that interview where miyamoto lament they could have done minecraft, duh!), and needing innovation start to feel desperate (star fox zero) or under used (skyward sword do nothing beyond the first bokoblin and boss with sword 1:1).
- they had the quirky artstyle, the indie strike again here
- they still have strong brand, but fan work is starting to concurrence that, and they start to fade, only to remain nostalgic reference (where is your god now metroid, what about fzero?), even their big brand start to show sign of fatigue and desperation ...

Nintendo use to overpromise and overdeliver, but now they are like an old warrior you can't put past him the glory of his former day and still thinks he can fight like the vigorous youngster, sure they lack experiences and are are sometimes clumsy, but they compensate with a lot of vitality and enthusiasm where the old warrior have only pride remaining, and sometimes that pride is misplaced.

 

What are some "better stories" of Nintendo?

I mean, I loved Metroid Fusion, but they aren't really known for strong story content. Or am I wrong?

 

@neoshaman we need to rewind this way back before controllers... Nintendo game design... before cutting edge... back to level design.

So Half-Life... never played it. lol I'll have to check it out to find specifics. I'd guess if the level design is so darn good it is because they focused a lot on it, iterated through play testing & refinement until it was the best they could get or at least achieved the goal they had in mind.

 

Sorry Eternal I will just refer you to the metroid video of "the geek critique" and backstory behind donkey kong arcade creation ... And point at all those timeline theory that plague zelda fandom didn't spawned from fine air (although there is a huge part of improvisation over the ages), nintendo never practice in your face storytelling ever, when they did they failed (other m).

Back on topic, I learned that discussing design on game and game dev forums is a difficult proposition, because if a game have blow your mind what it did is good right? But being able to articulate and deconstruct why it blew their mind and deconstructing the structure makes people angry for some reason. Liking things and preferences is okay, but the focus shouldn't be agreeing or dismissing without demonstrating if design is the subject.

For example: I was non plus by half life, why? well because I played golden eye before and it's another legendary game, they were develop roughly at the same time though golden eye was one year early. Both where effectively design through close iteration, Valve invented a specific process for it call the "cabale". It's unlikely that one influence the other in any way. So the thing of golden eye vs half life is which one was your point of entry to this new phase of the genre, as both where innovative but also had overlapping ideas. Most notably the need to reload and realistic weapon drop and setting where in both title, and "a cinematic" approach to fps was also a focus, though implemented differently.

The difference is in gameplay aesthetics, half life was basically starting with the prototypical walking simulation, in which slow and mundane things were done before the action kicked, in it was done for the so called "immersion", and it was done in way we hadn't seen before.

Though the heavily script design was done before by duke nukem (ground shaking and floor splitting as you progress, scene triggering, etc ... which were in doom in some degree less), the type of atmosphere duke nukem had were just an evolution of doom with more personality, so the shift of tone of half life to something more serious and grounded make it more impactful. Half life did it in it level design by having an almost seamless stream of arena and linear corridor, I don't remember it having much backtracking like the key in doom. The pacing where also way slower to let atmosphere kick in.

Golden eye meanwhile approach the level in a more game like progression of discrete level, but intro and exit scenes of level were direct transition to each others most of the time, and all in level scene were gameplay a bit similar to what half life did but with a broader cast of character from the movie. Also levels where little objective based sandbox to experiment in, which tied in nicely in the difficulty system. Basically the lower difficulty were the same level with less objective to complete, but the objective were still there, just not activated for completion, and higher difficulty only activate after completing lower one.

This added to the sense of place to first play, it felt like real place with "unnecessary" non gameplay part, it let's you explore at your own pace and familiarize with it. Then they added more objective (or constraints) that reveal more of the story, make the unnecessary place mandatory but more importantly you already know the place, now you have to and can strategize, culminating with the highest difficulty setting with no new objective but a time limit that completely makes you rethink how to evaluate the level. Every level play differently and appeal to different gameplay structure.

This sandbox nature combined with the AI of golden eye made every level its own puzzle, the degree of noise you make attract AI to their source, so you have to think when and where to shoot, it has stealth elements, so you have to carefully think of where you are and scrutinize the environment, and they played a lot with line of sight in their level. You have to think to how many enemy there is and how they are equipped (they lob grenade at you before half life did it), you have to think which weapon to use at which time and you pick enemy's. There were a lot of way to do each level, and the difficulty system not only encourage you to do so, but actually trained you to do it. This game was closer in philosophy to a simplified deus ex with actual good control a no rpg elements.

At core, golden eye was more of an adventure game with discrete chapiter than half life, it ask to stop and think, to assess the entire situation and each level is basically its own puzzle. Half life is more of an adventure movie, you press on from set piece to set pieces with careful management of tone and pacing in a seamless experience, depending on which one you prefer is best level design to you. For myself I prefer golden eye because it has much more design variation to play with level.

They are still product of their time and playing them now can be difficult to a novice without enough information, especially golden eyes as it happen before standardization of control (though play in solitaire (control mode 1.3) no auto aim, game was one of the first to have localized damage and one of the first to have headshot, auto aim go for chest, so it was balanced to not give better advantage, the game DO support two analog! with two gamepad! so on emulation you might get something closer to modern shooter by mapping it accordingly!).

Now I would like someone to pick half life apart.

 

Yeah, sorry for taking it further off, and thanks for the reference.

 

The best I can do is go through the Steam reviews for what people are saying about the Half-Life now because I have no desire to buy it and play it just to check out the level designs at the moment.

"As someone old enough to remember the first-hand buzz over Half-Life in highschool, but never having played it until 15 years later, I'm very glad I ignored the voice telling me it'd have dated gameplay mechanics and be dated and weak by todays standards because I was 100% wrong and enjoyed it from start to finish ... Half-Life certainly has fairly bland graphics and visual palettes by some standards, it's still artistically appeasing to look at, particularly in the intro but even the level designs and contrasts of later levels are striking at times and the physics engine is no longer impressive by todays standards, but strengthens the gameplay rather than being a dependent part of it ... it still felt impressive to play through."

"This game is still awesome and fun to play to this day. Good level design."

"I was somewhat late to the party when it comes to Half-Life. Valve's debut title was released back in 1998, and yet I only actually played the game last year in 2016. Half-Life currently and always will occupy the grand title of my favourite game ever. LEVEL DESIGN: As most of the game takes place inside of the facility (named Black Mesa), most parts of the game are labs and rooms you'd find in a scientific facility. Parts are exploded or broken, due to the fighting that is taking place, along with various explosions. Enemy placement is done well, and the AI is also pretty good, some obviously smarter than others, the Black Ops being the hardest to kill in my opinion. With each scene change comes new scenery, always fitting the setting. I won't expand because I'd like to stay spoiler free, but the point is that all the level design is well done, from enemy placement to textures and such."

"Great Environment (The feeling of being alone and surrounded by enemies from all sides)"

"Excellent level designs"

Ah no details to be found there... at least not unless one wants to dig through all 15,960 reviews. But it surely is quite popular even in 2017.

 

Time for a game off

 

I recently re-bought it in the Orange Box package and played through HL, HL2, and Portal and they're all pretty great. Hmm, come to think of it, Valve managed something fairly unique with Portal as well.

 

Yeah they hired the student DigiPen team who was initially creating it?

 

Huh, never knew that.

So, can anyone name a studio that is more than a one-hit-wonder when it comes to breaking ground with truly major new ideas developed in-house?

 

Blizzard?

 

Hmm... they probably produced the earliest modern variants on MMORPGs, RPGs, and RTS (WOW, Diablo, Starcraft) but all those genres were already around. Maybe I posed the question too broadly, I meant ground-breaking in the same way id basically invented the FPS.

Probably, though, this is as stupid as asking "What is AAA?"

 

Eh, Blizzard is more about pouring UX expertise into an already existing genre. It's more like the case with Apple where they didn't invent the mp3 player, but they got pretty close to perfecting it.

 

I would say that Assassin's Creed was a major new idea at the time. An AAA (yeah, yeah...) game focused not on combat, but on stealth ("social stealth"), on environmental navigation, on the idea of tactical planning in a *dynamic* environment (they strayed away from that for a little while, but they seem to be going back to it). Even today, is there anything really like Assassin's Creed? If you wanted, you could probably go back to Prince of Persia, but that's the same company of course.

And Just Dance. It of course existed in some sense in arcades with dance pads, but was there a home console game like it before? And is there anything like it out there now?

And what about Grow Home? I wouldn't say all of it is completely unique, but it was all based around procedural animation and climbing. I would be hard pressed to point to another game similar to it.

As for basically creating a genre...well..."parkour game." "Dance game" (again, not really created, but made it for a home console). "Climbing game." That's reaching, but I think it kind of fits.

And even now, they maintain a far, far more diverse selection of games than pretty much any other developer out there, including EA or Nintendo.

 

The Dishonored series is a lot like AC, and frankly, being stealthly and overall gameplay in Dishonored is waaaay more fun than AC, in my opinion. AC was still the first for that type of navigation (that I can think of) and I've always assumed Bethesda was just cashing in on the AC hype, but if you liked AC, try Dishonored, these days you can buy a 4-in-one (3 DLC). Even if, like me, you've gotten worn out on the repetition in the AC sequels. Dishonored is different-enough you'll probably enjoy it. I also appreciate it's one of the few games where it's genuinely reasonable to complete every mission without killing anyone at all.

I wouldn't consider a home console implementation of an arcade game to be particularly ground-breaking.

 

I remember trying to play original Assassin's Creed and being bored to tears with it.
I would not call it a major idea.
It was pretty much "AAA budget" + "GTA open world" + "Parkour" + "one button control".
The one noticeable thing at that time was the amount of cash they blew on visuals. But that's about it.

Original Thief game could be called groundbreaking. Not assassin's creed.

Minecraft could be called groundbreaking, even though there were several games in development playing with the same idea. Dwarf fortres. Original Doom. Original Quake. Half Life 1. Half-Life 2. But that's about it. Most of the games were about incremental changes, without much "ground breaking".

 

How on earth do you compare Minecraft to Doom, Quake, and HL?

 

I don't see a problem here.

Minecraft started the whole voxel world craze that did not exist before.

Doom/Quake started the multiplayer fps game craze and is indirectly responsible for loads of nearly identical WWII shooters.

Half-Life demonstrated that a shoter game can have better narrative, etc.

 

I tried out Dishonored. I didn't find it very similar at all, personally. Dishonored is more like one of those "immersive sims" like Deus Ex, I would say.

And fair enough.

GTA open world? One button control? Blowing cash on visuals? Did you play the same Assassin's Creed I played?

It sounds like you're describing AC 3 (which is one of the most disliked, and where the series started losing sales every year), not AC. AC didn't have any of that.

Much like MV10, I have to wonder how you compare Minecraft to Dwarf Fortress (you said "games playing with the same idea." These games are not "playing with the same idea.").

 

Oh, it read as if those were your examples of ideas similar to Minecraft...

 

Yes, I played the same game.

The most striking thing in AC1 was ridiculously oversimplified control scheme, to the point of "press B to win", pretty much. Compare "parkour" in AC1 to tomb raider or to Prince Persia 2008.

The series, basically attempt to wow player with visuals and "cinematographic" experiences and offer relatviely shallow gameplay component. That's their defining characteristic - oversimplified controls, expensive visuals, little or no challenge. Tried to get into it several times, unsuccessfully, so I gave up on it. Clearly not my kind of thing.

 

Fair enough, you're certainly entitled to your view of the series. But I think you're doing it a disservice by not recognizing what it added to the gaming landscape.

I have no interest in FPS games (and to some degree dislike the genre), but can recognize the importance of games like HL, Halo, or Doom.

 

I just don't think it added anything.

It is a type of "you could watch a movie instead" experience which I'm not very fond of.
Service/disservice doesn't matter, because the franchise works quite well as ubisoft's cash cow.

It is a financially successful title. But I would not call it ground breaking. It could be a good example of successfully establishing and milking a franchise, though.

 

Well, that type of movement and the premise of social stealth was not done before, liking in or not (I don't like it either) does not mean it wasn't groundbreaking.

 

Assassin's Creed was decent. It was pretty good.

It's easy to see it was inspired by

to some degree but probably more so...

this...

or moving forward in time... definitely this...

combined with...

Classic games are like the ingredients for the recipes of all modern games.