Dwarf Fortress Vertical Slice

Now Loading...

Nobody likes staring blankly at loading screens.  Because of this game developers are perpetually struggling against hardware limitations to create as seamless an experience as possible.  In current gen titles this tends come up most often in the form of open world or linear action/adventure titles.  Of course, there's a balancing act between graphics and performance as well.  Aside from frame rate drops, stumbles often come in the form of geometry or texture pop-in.  One way to avoid these kinds of hiccups is to hide the transitions.  Squeezing that player character through long narrow passages, having them ride an elevator, forcing them to walk slowly when normally they can run...these are just some of the tricks employed.  They aren't perfect solutions, but it can be one method of pushing more out of the hardware available.  What's interesting about all this is how it has influenced film making.  Particularly, the way in which the Oscar award winning movie "1917" uses tricks similar to video games in order to achieve its one-shot technique.

Obviously, "1917" isn't the first film to do this sort of thing.  Alfred Hitchcock's black and white motion picture "Rope" is probably one of the first examples in modern cinema history.  More recently movies such as "Hardcore Henry" and "Birdman" have also utilized the one continuous take.  "1917" represents this style of film making in that, aside from one deliberate hard cut, the movie follows the main character from opening fade in to ending credits.  Unlike the drama film "Russian Ark" though "1917" was not actually shot in one take.  In fact the longest sequence is only about seven minutes in length.  The transitions are carefully disguised (sometimes with subtle use of CGI).  A few of these stitches are easy to spot; such as when the camera passes through a doorway or an object in the foreground obscures the view.  However, most of them are pretty well hidden, the way a skilled video game designer would hide the loading taking place when the player transitions their character into a new location.

Another aspect of "1917" that feels reminiscent of game design is the compression of physical spaces.  In games this is done because of memory limitations, or due to the boredom that comes with traversing terrain for extended periods of time.  In order to avoid uninteresting downtime "1917" unnaturally compresses in a way that feels very similar to video game environments.  Add to this the third-person camera view, that occasionally pans around the characters as they advance ever forward, and it creates a similar feeling to what one might get watching a Let's Play of the newest God of War.

I've seem people complain online that the one-shot take in "1917" is a gimmick.  I understand where they are coming from, but when you think about it isn't editing shots a gimmick too?  Assuming they're conscious, humans experience the world in real time.  So, in that sense certain genres of video games mimic reality more closely than standard film making techniques.  That's not to say movies should always strive to imitate reality...and yet, if the goal is to emphasis immersion then there is definitely something to be said for hiding the cuts made on-screen.

Reoccurring Characters

If you've played more than one Final Fantasy game you have probably noticed a character named "Cid" pop up in the story.  Apparently, it is a Square Enix tradition to have a wise or capable individual bear the name in each and every Final Fantasy game...even in the spin-offs.  So, I'd like to use this interesting little fact as a jumping off point for reoccurring characters in games - not ones that the developers come up with - but rather ones I made for IPs which allow me to do so.

Joan D'Arc
As one might guess, this is a character based on the historical 15th century French woman of the same name.  I like to create her whenever I play a Dark Souls game and outfit her with the classic plate armor, one-handed sword and knightly shield.  It should be noted though, I only got to as far as Anor Londo with this character in the first game.  For the second Dark Souls I made it  further, but still only to about the halfway point with Joan D'Arc.  In fact, it wasn't until the third game that I actually managed to finish the game using her based on the herald character template.  I guess third time is the charm...

Ripper and Clipper

In the original 1994 XCOM, the Terror from the Deep sequel and the ambitious but flawed XCOM: Apocalypse, I always began by selecting the two strongest characters from my pool of starting recruits and outfitting them with heaviest weapons available.  Typically this was an auto cannon or heavy cannon of some description, and loaded with either high-explosive or armor piercing ammo.  Usually, neither of these two walking mini-guns would last long, but on occasion one would survive long enough to trade in their outdated signature weapon for a more modern alien plasma gun.  That was always a sad event, but such is the way of technology...it marches ever on.

Thrax
While not a kind of character found in video games, I have a fondness for naming a planet "Thrax" whenever I play Master of Orion.  It's always a barren, lifeless world that serves as an impregnable stronghold and base of operations in times of war.  It sounds pretty cheesy, I know, like the name of a world from Valfaris...which is why I drop the habit if I'm playing any other 4X strategy game.  Still, in Master of Orion (whether it be sequel or remake) there is always an Orion, an Antares and (in my games) a Thrax. 

Ruthless Reviewers

The concept of "meta bombing" has been around for as long as websites have allowed user reviews.  In the case of video games it's typically seen on Metacritic, Steam, or even Amazon.  "Meta boosting" is the same concept just taken in the opposite direction; giving a game the highest possible rating rather than the lowest though still without any real consideration put into actual merits and flaws.  Unsurprisingly, Blizzard's latest nostalgia cash in is no exception, but the way people are reacting to this game makes me think meta scoring has been taken to a whole new level.

As of the posting of this blog entry, Warcraft III: Reforged is the lowest rated game on Metacritic.  No especially astonishing given Blizzard's conduct of late, but what did surprise me was the extremely-poorly-reviewed games competing with Warcraft III: Reforged getting meta boosted in order to push them up and out of the bottom spot.  In addition to this, I have seen user reviews that gave the game a perfect score yet only had bad things to say about it.  The insidious reasoning behind this is to ensure that even people only viewing positive reviews will still see complaints made against the game.  It's savage to say the least.

Now, to a more mature minded individual this might all seem awfully petty.  Don't pre-order games, right?  Absolutely.  However, Blizzard/Activision have gone to great lengths to ensure that even if you don't fall for their marketing tricks support for the original Warcraft III is still being discontinued in lieu of their largely inferior remake.  This practice of killing off games is something that Ross Scott of Youtube fame has been campaigning against for awhile now primarily because it is an erosion of consumer rights (not to mention a major barrier when it comes to game preservation).

So what if companies are trying to strong arm customers?  You still don't have to buy their products.  Vote with your wallet, right?  True, but boycotts have proven time and again to be largely ineffective (see Pokémon Sword and Shield for the latest in a depressingly long list of examples).  Additionally, the fact remains this has been an disconcerting trend in the industry for a long time now.  Big businesses get to dictate whatever terms they see fit and the only way to contest them is via costly legal action.  Worse still provided a game has the most basic functionality (i.e. it will boot up sometimes) it is, by legal precedent, not in violation of consumer protection laws.  Left with no real avenue of recourse, it's not hard to see why there has been an escalation in review bombing/boosting.

Generally speaking, it feels like some government legislation is in order.  In particular, laws that make software corporations more accountable.  Otherwise this problem is only going to get worse and worse until the situation degrades into some kind of dystopian nightmare.  Of course all that is another can of worms beyond the scope of this blog.

I.S.H.B.A.G. (Aquatic Edition)

Warning:  The following contains spoilers for the 2020 film "Underwater".

The title of this blog post is an acronym for "It Should Have Been A Game", a long running series here in which I point out various movies that would have been better served in a different form of media (namely video games).  Today, the topic is the rather blandly named film "Underwater".  As far as scifi/horror hybrid movies go it's not bad.  Then again, the competition isn't exactly fierce regarding this particular subgenre (both in terms of quality and quantity).  Nevertheless, when watching the film I got the distinct impression that it would be a lot more interesting to actively play "Underwater" rather than just passively watch it.

I want to reiterate, it's an alright movie (especially when compared to similar films such as "Leviathan", "DeepStar Six" and "The Sphere").  "Underwater" tries hard to avoid cliches like someone turning traitor, doing something boneheaded stupid or somebody going crazy and endangering the lives of everyone else.  The film also avoids wasting time with boring character exposition that tends to occupy the first third of these sorts of movies.  Instead, the action starts pretty much as soon as the opening credits finish.  Characterization and backstories are woven into the plot rather than being front loaded.  So, while good in some respects "Underwater" has a problem common to a lot of modern films.  Subverting expectations and deconstructing tropes is fine, but if the script writer doesn't have anything interesting to replace it with.  The storytelling feels empty, and without any real narrative substance "Underwater" becomes a simple case of hopping from A to B to C with bad stuff happening in-between.  For a movie it's a bit lackluster, but for a video game this about what most players expect; an excuse to go someplace to do something.  In fact, a more complex or intricate plot line might risk getting in the way of gameplay.

So, how would this theoretical "Underwater" video game play?  To me, it has survival horror written all over it.  I like the idea of indoor first-person sections primarily about scavenging and puzzle solving.  Meanwhile, suiting up and going out on the ocean floor is where the third-person exploration and combat kicks in.  Over the course of the game the player could repair damaged infrastructure, rescue survivors and upgrade their suit equipment.  There's also an opportunity to expand on the nature of the threat.  More enemy variety is an obvious way to go about it, but there are other possibilities...perhaps the monsters have exploitable weaknesses that the player learns as they progress through the game?  What is the life cycle of the monsters like?  Too much detail might ruin the mystery, but I think digging into certain aspects of the fiction more could enhance the overall experience.  Deep sea environments also offer all kinds of potentially interesting gameplay elements.  I dove into just such a topic about a month ago with regards to a hypothetical XCOM: Terror from the Deep remake.

"Underwater" makes a big deal out of light (or the lack there of).  The creatures in the film seem to strongly dislike it and actively avoid being lit up.  It's the sort of gameplay mechanics one would find reminiscent of Alan Wake or the Blair Witch game.  The stealth driven bits of the film reminded me of Soma, as did the environments themselves.  Despite not having any swimming Demon's Souls has some areas (the Valley of Defilement, in particular) that feature large stretches of darkness with points of interest illuminated in the distance.  Such a design template might work well here.  A common complaint about the film was many shots being dark and murky, but in a video game that's a feature not a flaw.

One last thing I want to talk about is the ending.  "Underwater" concludes with what feels like two, out of a potential six, survivors.  If one were to take an Until Dawn approach then there could be a number of variations based on the player's actions throughout the game.  Maybe only one character escapes to the surface...or maybe three, four, five, or (even all) six do.  There's also an opportunity to tell the story of "Underwater" from multiple perspectives, thus increasing the replay value of the game.  A movie doesn't change on repeated viewings, but a video game has the potential to be noticeably different each playthrough.  For those reasons I think that "Underwater" really should have been Underwater.