Tension (Perceived Danger)

Tension occurs from the belief in an unknown danger and can be difficult to achieve, but the result of achieving it can be incredibly immersive. Tension works particularly well in creating the right pace for a horror game.

In order to create tension the right atmosphere must be created. A world has to be crafted that the player can invest in, believe in and ultimately become immersed in. Audio can help a great deal in building tension. Music in particular can create tension by playing to well known triggers that people have learnt from years of films and TV shows.

In truth, whilst tension is created from fear of the unknown, the threat must be known in some way. Take the game Alien Vs Predator, which I feel has possibly the most tense introduction level of any game I have played.

Throughout the level your motion sensor blips and flashes as threats apparently come near you. However, this sequence heavily relies on the player's knowledge of the films to know that the flashing blips on the radar could potentially be the deadly aliens.

To achieve tension when you don't have the luxury of a well-known license to rely on, then you need to show the potential consequence of the threat, or the threat itself in some form. Dead Space does a very good job of building up tension without the player immediately knowing what the threat is. As soon as they board the Ishimura it is plainly obvious that something is seriously wrong.

Tension can also be achieved through a known threat in stealth games. Instead of a fear of the unknown, the tension comes from the fear of being discovered. Games such as Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell utilize this fear well by forcing the player to engage in tense scenarios with enemies in close proximity.

Tempo

Tempo describes the level of intensity of action -- how much concentration is required by the player to achieve their goal. Low tempo gameplay tends to be that which requires serious thought and contemplation -- generally puzzles. High tempo gameplay is generally gameplay that requires fast reactions and split-second decisions. High tempo action often induces stress or panic and often at its highest level might be termed "frantic".

There is always a sure-fire method of creating high tempo no matter what the situation -- by imposing a time limit -- or what could be called "Forced Pacing".

Tempo in Movement

Tempo when moving around the environment is determined by the mechanics of the game and the environment itself.

Explorative movement tends to be low tempo, as the player has time to look around and determine their own route.

More acrobatic environment traversal can often be higher tempo. It really achieves high tempo when there is a great sense of flow in the design. A great example of such flow is the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time -- the mechanics and level design merged to create patterns of flow that had high tempo.

Tempo in Puzzles

Puzzles by their very nature tend to be low tempo -- the only real way to create a high tempo puzzle is to add a time pressure. This tends to make them the ideal method of reducing the pace of gameplay as a counterpoint to high paced action like combat.

Tempo in Combat

Combat is usually high tempo as it will require split-second decision making and requires high levels of reaction. The tempo itself may change dramatically over the course of a battle.

General Skirmishes

A general battle against a group of enemies in a game tends to follow a bell-curve pattern. The tempo of the battle builds to a certain tempo before it hits a turning point, where the more the player removes the incoming threat, the easier it becomes to take out the remaining threats.

For example, a Left 4 Dead horde encounter follows this pattern -- the initial build up of enemies increased fairly rapidly up to a maximum number and a frantic tempo, before the player manages to destroy enough to turn the tide of the battle. At this point the lesser numbers make it easier to kill the remaining zombies and the tempo drops off.

Boss Fights

Boss fights tend to have much more of a crescendo feel -- they are generally eased into the first part of the fight, but as they start to chip away at its health it begins to attack with more and more ferocity, until the final phase where it is particularly dangerous. Of course once it is defeated the threat has been completely eliminated the tempo drops to pretty much nothing.