Task 11: Elements of game design, part four: environment

To help you progress from one area to another to level up, level designers use environmental barriers to block your way so you have to move on to the next part of the objective. They use in game objects so you’ll try walking through a bush and it won’t let you because it’s away from the objective. They also use objects naturally found in the specific game environment. This kind of level constriction is found in mainly 1^st person shooter gameplays. I find that these barriers constrict the amount you can connect with what’s happening in the game because it feel a little maze-like. These barriers have been present throughout gaming history and it’s something I hope will die out eventually.

In Medal of honour game there’s a section when you storm the beach and if they’re not able to capture the essence of storming a beach it doesn't feel believable. If it’s not believable you can’t immerse yourself fully in the game.

Not only do you get drawn in with by an environment it can also create an atmosphere that fits the game. It can make you feel vulnerable, tense, uneasy, unsafe even though you’re sitting in the comfort of your own room if the game has a good environment it has the ability to make you feel unsafe. I found this with Bioshock one I was comfortable in my room playing and I felt very uneasy and I wouldn’t have been possible without the effects of the environment around my character.

I don’t think there has to be a balance between stylisation and realism, I found myself being equally immersed in realistic games such as Battlefield 3 which was designed to be as close as possible to the experience of being the heart of the action.

Compared to something like an MMO like world of Warcraft which is quite cartoony and has their own style I’ve been equally immersed. So I think it depends on the type of game you’re playing.

 To take it to extremes Minecraft is incredibly stylised and the furthest from reality you could get and you still get drawn in by the cubic environment. In its own way it’s still just as breath-taking because although it’s not realistic everything fits together and it overwhelms you. It shows off what it needs to and because of this you get immersed and you find yourself building a life in this little world. A good environment also needs to be unique to the game. Minecraft illustrates this really well because they created a unique, successful, stylised, environment and atmosphere when the gamer community was craving realism.

The style of environment that the Halo series uses is one I particularly like designed by 343 industries, because their able to strike a balance between realism and futuristic Sci-Fi which make it believable. Certain parts of the levels have the ability to make you feel intimidated by the scale but you also feel amazed by it. You don’t look at the game as a gaming environment you treat it as a real life environment that you could step into even though its set 220 year in the future on planets you’ll never visit but you can through these incredible landscape scenes and mysterious atmospheres.