When Designing Games, we think about the elements that make up how our
games play. We think about the way our game mechanics shape how the game is
played. And we think about the perspective the player engages the game from.
Often, this perspective dictates how we picture the game playing, as we'll
relate its movement to another game and iterate upon it. But something that’s
quite hard to design altogether is the movement itself. Strategy and Racing
games aside, if we want to create a game that is truly memorable, the game
needs to feel great, in order for it to feel great, it needs refinement in the
movement. I believe this refined movement is what sets apart action and
platformer games from being good to being great. Many games have controls that
feel ok, almost like they’re serving a purpose. I've no doubt its hard to articulate
and describe such refined movement. But I find it’s rare that a game has truly
great controls; controls that make the gameplay even more special because the
game just feels great to play. There's a reason why the original Super Mario
Bros. is so adored, it’s the movement, it’s that perfect jump that the player
immediately can become attuned to and the speed of Mario's run that can be used
to control his jump.
Abzu is a great recent title that (for me at least) was all the more
special because the controls felt so right, so smooth and just generally
satisfying to control. It didn’t matter that the gameplay wasn't fleshed out
with mountains of puzzles and mechanics; because there’s fluidity to the
movement of your character that makes playing Abzu engaging, despite not really
offering a great deal of engagement other than striking visuals. The movement
in Abzu feels natural; it helps that you swim for the majority of the game, but
much like in actual swimming, you'll move with you head first and the rest of
your body follows. It certainly helps that the animations are also beautiful
and are tweened perfectly to the direction of your movement; but Giant Squid
truly captured the feeling of swimming. When I look at such games, it makes me
think of the divide between something rigid and forced, to something like Abzu.
It makes it easier for me to visualize this movement with a scale. At one end
of the scale you have square and grid based movement, like chess, where you're
movements are planned out, and there are predetermined destinations. And at the
other end you've actual human movement, the movement we ourselves use day to
day, where the majority of us fortunate have absolute control of our movement,
no game replicates this of course as they're all limited to user input, but
last year, there was a game that in my opinion got damn close; Bloodborne.
Bloodborne not only has subtleties to its movement that can allow for an
almost seamless transition from slow walking, to walking, to running, to
sprinting, to a running leap. It has seamless transitions between practically
every interaction the player can use. The player can freely attack, before
using their switch on their Trick-Weapon to change their short ranged Saw Blade
to a far reaching heavy one. The dodge can be used at any time to interrupt any movement,
and bail out of the way of danger. Often if the player is quick they can even
interrupt an enemy movement also. All of these interactions feel great when
playing Bloodborne, but whilst the animations are fantastic, it is the
responsiveness and the weight of the controls that contributes most to this
interaction.
Any slight touch of the movement will jerk your hunter forward, and
similarly, if you’re running at full pelt towards an enemy; a slight tap of the
attack button will cause your hunter to swing with the motion and momentum
carried from the run. This movement is capped off with perfectly timed delay as
your hunter continues to move forward ever so slightly, in slowing themselves
down. Through this and the stunning animations; the player can feel every
footstep. This fluidity is perfectly harmonious with pace of the game. Unlike
the Souls games, Bloodborne is fast paced, and encourages the player to react
and play quickly. The game does not feature a block button, which makes the
responsiveness of the dodge button all the more vital. This combines to create
gameplay that feels fast and aggressive, where the player lives and dies on
their ability to maintain the offensive. After all, the player is the Hunter
and you’re enemies are the Hunted. The enemies are faster too and they do a lot
of damage in a short amount of time; so the onus is on the player to take the
fight to enemies, and get the drop on them, not the other way around. The game
further encourages this aggressive play style by rewarding the player with
health. If a player takes damage, they can regain most of it by immediately
retaliating with their own attack.
There’s a rhythm to the play that elevates it further, each player, once
they’ve played long enough, will eventually hit a euphoria moment where they
become one with the game. Suddenly, the player is no longer dodging hits, but
they’re staggering enemies with a shotgun blast before they’ve even had a
chance to swing their sword. This confidence will show the player that rather than attacking one enemy at a
time, they can engage with an entire mob and juggle enemies to wipe
them all out single handedly. At these moments, the game feels less like Dark
Souls, and more like Beat ‘em Up or even a Rhythm Game, like Guitar Hero. The
player learns visual cues from enemy movement that appear like notes on a
screen, and tapping them in time creates some of the most masterful gameplay in
any game, let alone action games. It transcends sword fighting to something
more akin to a dance, where each party dodges and trades blows with each other.
Part of this freedom and fluidity is down to the level design too. Most of
them are built with flats and slopes, but nearly all offer larger more open
areas than its Souls counterparts. At first, it’s difficult not to feel like these
open areas are overwhelming, but overtime, you realize and learn to exploit
this space – it’s not for the enemies to surprise you (well not all the time)
but it’s so that the player can dodge and move around the enemies freely. The space
compels you to move through it. The geometry and layout of the levels, is
typically fairly simple as a consequence, leaving the player to concentrate on
the beasts they’re fighting and not where their feet are moving.
Lastly, and possibly most impressively; the game features arguably one of
the best cameras in any videogame. It does help that the game is continuously
full of gorgeous gothic vistas; but there is brilliance in the nuance of it
being able to regularly frame and fill the screen with action; despite the
player never losing control of it. The camera can naturally create drama at
practically every moment of gameplay. Similarly to the 2006 film, Children of
Men, the camera chooses to shoot the action as if it’s another entity entirely,
one that is merely following the player. Every time the player moves forward,
there’s a slight delay before the camera begins to tail the player; this allows
the camera to frame a larger image for the player, but this also makes the
camera feel detached like it’s just along for the ride. A player can move to
the right or left of the screen, but if the camera isnt touched, it continues
to frame the image ahead, and the player can move almost out of focus, almost
off the screen entirely, before it catches up and continues to frame the action. This doesn’t sound like it’s particularly, useful or
helpful; but it actually helps to transform every conflict into a performance. As such, when the player locks on to an enemy, this is amplified further, as the camera (despite focusing on the enemy) manages to frame both enemy and player for engagements that feel epic and powerful, giving meaning to every fight.