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The purpose
of this article is to consider how conceptual architectural skills can
be used to generate game environments. Levels are often sited in a variety
of geographic locations, which provide a context and background for game
play. In his book Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas suggests that
Manhattan is part of a project "to exist in a world totally fabricated
by man, i.e. to live inside fantasy." This makes Manhattan a particularly
appropriate study for games and level design.
Games need
to have a strong narrative to make sense, but they also need to have a
strong and structured environment to reinforce that. Whether real locations
or abstract patterns, formal constraints and ordering devices for levels
can be drawn from different sources. Primarily, it is a matter of looking
at our immediate surroundings and thinking about how to reinterpret them
for games. In this instance we are going to look at Manhattan, both as
a reflection on some of the roles it has taken in books, games and movies,
and also simply on the city itself.
It is possible
to sample a location's organization, and re-use it at a different scale
in another context. Games like Deus Ex and Max Payne do
an excellent job of conveying the character and atmosphere of New York,
but we are going to look at New York in terms of attributes that can be
abstracted and applied elsewhere.
In the context
of these references, Manhattan is used as a tool to create pre-production
schematics of levels. Schematics are the first step of a design proposal,
much like pre-production. Ideas are blocked out in rough form; everything
is kept open and flexible, before approval is given to proceed. Many ideas
exist at the schematic stage that do not make it beyond that point, but
they can be used later in other situations.
We will
look at Manhattan, describe isolated event locations and consider how
their typical use might be inverted or disrupted. Then we will review
the city grid, two other networks, their breakpoints and connections and
how these could be used as organizing frameworks for game events.
The Big City
New York serves as the location for many movies and television shows.
A search on the Internet Movie Database for New York, New York yields
2554 results. A search for Manhattan, New York yields 250 results. Frequently,
however, it is only as the backdrop to character interactions. "Seinfeld"
and "Friends" were not even shot in Manhattan where they supposedly
take place. Woody Allen movies like Manhattan are similar in this
respect. A series of events and exchanges happen between characters, but
there is no real interaction with the city. It suffices to say New York
equals "Big City" and the scene is set.
In action
movies, where we draw most of our examples from, the protagonists are
directly involved with traversing or transforming the city in some way.
I think everyone remembers the breathtaking car chase under the El in
The French Connection. These elements could serve as components
for game play and the transit system itself interpreted as a structure
for a level.
Icons
Cultural icons are images or symbols that people immediately recognize
and understand their significance; the American flag, the Statue of Liberty,
Coca-Cola. Icons are elements that are introduced into stories for narrative
effect-plug them in and you generate values. New York contains many cultural
icons; so many aspects of the place are symbols and as such function as
ready icons for narrative incorporation.
However,
rather than create narratives, the intention is to provide a framework
of events around which we can build our own experiences; like talking
a walk on a Sunday afternoon. Some people like to manipulate the events
and create stories that you participate in-the concern here is just the
event potential.
Sampling
In the same way pieces of film, music and text can be sampled, so can
a building or element of architecture. Sampling means drawing out particular
characteristics or a fragment of a subject and reintroducing it in another
context. While the Surrealists articulated this formally a long time ago
with their collages and visual puns, in the creative process, we unconsciously
take pieces from here and there, reassembling them into new systems.
When we
reinterpret something we take some its characteristics and introduce them
in another context. It means looking at events in a new way. One could
say there is nothing new under the sun, that it is simply a matter of
new and alternate interpretations. We can draw on these alternate interpretations
and readings of spaces and sequences for our own purposes.
Events
Events are encounters or "happenings." In the real world or
an RPG, this might simply be meeting someone; in an action-adventure game,
it might be fighting a boss. In all cases the possibility exists for the
level space to support or encourage that activity. The key is that it
can also initiate it. Game play is the character, quality and intensity
of these events.
Events as
such take place within singular spaces or across a number of spaces. With
the advent of next generation systems, I think there is a shift to a greater
detail and focus of level spaces. Levels are becoming more like movie-sets;
highly detailed and subject to re-use.
New York
offers a great number of grand classical interiors, which will be considered
as potential event containers. In the past level design has nominally
been consigned to corridor-type spaces, but examination and analysis of
existing interiors allows for an understanding of the richness of scale
and detail that existed before malls became our civic interior space.
Without
referring directly to the story, the different locations can be sampled
for visual references and developed schematically. Images can also be
sampled from photographs and historical data and quickly mocked up as
game spaces. Perhaps in the end result, they are not used as a station,
a library or a museum, but they are a quick way to test ideas about scale
and organization in a new project.
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