Posted in: Game Theory
Destructoid posted a blog about Clint Hocking (the lead designer behind Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and the latest Prince of Persia) and his discussion at the Game Developers Conference about how, basically, his plans for Far Cry 2 failed.
Hit the jump for excerpts and my thoughts.
The intentional sandbox of Far Cry 2 had nine essential systems: the map system, which allows the player to scout a location for information before entering it, weapon load-outs, which were constrained (you can only carry one type of each weapon at a time) in an attempt to ask the player to define a specific set of abilities, a safe house, allowing the player to rest and formulate a plan of attack or choose the time of day they wanted to attack, the fire system, which was meant to leave a quick area of dead ground where hot messy death radiated outward from, the combat AI, which Hocking admitted he wouldn’t really be talking about, the HMR (health, morale, reliability) system for each of the two factions in the game, where different weapons would have different effects on the different HMR systems (sniping removes morale, for instance), the infamy system, which gave positive feedback to the player for enacting disturbing behavior like shooting medics, mission structure, which specifically requires the player to strike directly at the rival faction’s HMR attributes – destroy a weapons outpost and the rival faction’s weapons will jam up more often, kill one of their leaders and they’re lose morale, etc.
Reading this made me really think back to when I first played Far Cry 2. I had a vague feeling that there were a lot of systems like this in place, but none of them seemed to have any significance and/or impact as they should have.
In reality, the beautifully theorized mission Hocking referenced earlier actually turned out to be simplistic and boring: all you get is cash and plot progression because the HMR doesn’t really exist, your buddy side-mission doesn’t mean anything, when you begin to scout and try to plan an attack, you’ll get a malaria attack and be spotted and then panic and throw molotovs insanely and have to heal yourself and eventually find yourself trapped on all sides by enemies and right as the tide began to turn, your gun would jam and get killed. Your other buddy would pick you back up and help you, but you’d get separated, and you’d eventually find your other buddy mortally wounded. This is sort of interesting in its own way, but nowhere near the initial idea, turning more into a “ride-like structure” Hocking mentioned earlier where the composition part of intentionality takes a distant backseat to execution.
This pretty much sums up why I ended up getting pretty sick of the game after an extended period of gameplay.
However, despite Hocking’s failure, I feel that he touched on a very important essence of gameplay, something which we can easily glance over, like breathing air.
Hocking mentions three elements of gameplay:
Composition – The stage where the player evaluates the situation and plans a course of action.
Execution – Carrying out the intended act according to plan.
Improvisation – If an unexpected change comes about, the player must quickly think on his feet and act accordingly.
I felt that I had a much deeper understanding and appreciation of what this developer was trying to create, but I could only look back and realize that these ideas fell into the trap of repetition. For example, when I chose a mission, it was always the same path: get a phone call from a buddy, drive to buddy, get sent on a sidequest by buddy, then proceed with true objective, kill, blow up something, come back home, take next mission, and so on.
Perhaps it was my lack of imagination when I approach games, but I always found this same pattern to be the most efficient approach for every mission. Why WOULDN’T you want to be prudent enough to have backup, when it only costs one more side mission to improve relations with your friend? Why WOULDN’T you choose to snipe the enemy first before rushing in to clean up and get your objective done?
