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Remember all the crazy encounters in the original Half Life? Remember how head crabs and biogun-wielding alien invaders and black-op marines were popping out of god damn everywhere? Well, despite the wide range of bad guys to fight in Half Life, and despite the fact that none of these bad guys were native to the Black Mesa Facility (the setting of Half Life), very few of them seemed particularly out place when you, the player, encountered them. This is because the designers of Half Life used contextual events very effectively. Allow me to elaborate. Essentially, and I’m hope I’m not spoiling the game for anyone, the bad guys in Half Life were invaders from one of two places: either a government military base or the alien dimension of Xin. Throughout the game, the designers set up contextual events to remind you, the player, that the base is being invaded by two outside forces: the marines and the aliens. You see marines rappelling down from circling helicopters to join the fray. You see them setting up forward positions, unloading trucks full of supplies. You see them setting up scout patrols and you even hear them discussing their mission on their radios as you crawl through the (gratuitous) ventilation shafts of the Black Mesa facility. Likewise on the aliens’ side, you see them warping into the base through strange green rifts, the same strange green rifts you accidentally tore open during a failed experiment in the beginning of the game. By witnessing these events, you as a player have a clearer understanding of what each enemy is doing in its particular location of the Black Mesa facility. Thus, though they are non-native to the game’s setting, these NPCs do not seem out of place when you encounter them, guns drawn and teeth bared, ready to brawl. Contextual events also serve another important function when it comes to brining a game world to life: they enhance the relationship between an NPC and its environment by implying that, like the player, the NPC can also manipulate and interact with the world. It’s one thing to encounter a group of marines hanging out in a warehouse, waiting with their guns drawn for some hapless player to walk by, and it’s another thing entirely to have that same group of marines arrive via a freight elevator as the same hapless player is exploring that same warehouse. Contextual events make a game world and the creatures in it feel far more dynamic then they would otherwise. And, as we all know, dynamic worlds are generally more believable. Even if the elevator mentioned in the example above is scripted to arrive exactly twelve seconds after the player enters the warehouse, it still makes the game world seem more unpredictable and realistic. Indeed, a player may even be more wary of closed elevator doors later in the game, fearing NPCs may come pouring out at any moment, which is exactly what you, as a game designer, want. Interesting side note: the designers of Half Life also effectively used architectural associations to tie their creatures to the game’s environment—for example, you can tell marines are nearby when you encounter sandbag barricades, and you know aliens are nearby when you see green Xin plants growing along the walls and floors of the Black Mesa facility—but we’ve already discussed effective usage of architectural elements, so let’s move on, shall we? A third way to imply a relationship between an NPC and its environment is via the visual appearance of the NPC model itself. There are many ways to do this, and I’m not going to indulge in a lot of explanation here because this concept is relatively straightforward, but the main idea is to make an NPC look like it belongs in its environment. There are a number of ways to do this. Rather than elaborate on all of them, I’m just going to list a few examples to give you an overview. For starters, swamp troopers in Star Wars Galaxies shun their traditional white armor and instead wear green camouflaged suits to blend in with their surroundings. Treants (tree creatures) in EverQuest have three different mats—oak, willow and deadwood—to allow them to blend into a variety of zone geography. The flames around the skulls of the lost souls in Doom III have roughly the same appearance as the fires of hell, which you actually see in the later levels (again, I hope I didn’t ruin the game for anyone). The giant in Prince of Persia has skulls on his belt that are properly sized with the same skulls in the creature’s lair, implying that the creature has preyed on many past heroes like yourself. It’s little touches like these that cement the relationship between an NPC and its environment, and by “environment”, I mean specifically the level you as a game designer are trying to convey.
Also, while we’re on the subject, it might be worth your time to peruse a zoology textbook to learn about what types of animals live in certain environments here on earth. In far too many games, I’ve seen creature types in environments where they generally do not belong. Bugs in the arctic are one persistent example that continues to puzzle me. So too are giant carnivores in the desert. I’m not going to dictate the biological laws of your game world to you; I’m just saying you might have better luck conveying a believable ecosystem if you stick to the crudest of principles laid out by 3.5 billion years of earth’s biological evolution. Just a thought… |
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