Skyward Sword is going to be awesome

Check out this 11 minute clip from the conference that happened in Japan yesterday:



For those of you who have been saying Skyward Sword will be another Twilight Princess, you are either really jaded, or you just won't give Nintendo the chance to redeem themselves. (Though I enjoyed Twilight Princess greatly.) Zelda's not even my favorite franchise and I'm really excited from what I've seen of Skyward Sword. If nothing else comes out this holiday season for the Wii, I'm just glad to have this game.

Gameplay Concepts: Exploration

Wow, 5 days since an article, that's too many. Well, let's see where this goes!

I thought I would whip up another running series of articles called 'gameplay concepts.' These articles will be about the ideas in games which make them fun. The first concept I would like to talk about is exploration.

Exploration can be a very enjoyable experience during gameplay if its pulled off the right way. In most games, exploration is completely optional, and it's a second thought for most people, but in some games, exploration is the key to gameplay.

Exploring the environment in Shadow of the Colossus is completely optional, but damn, is it beautiful.

When exploring a game's environment, the player looks for something to progress the game's story or objective. It's important for the designer to make this exploration an enjoyable experience, especially if the game relys on the concept for it to succeed.

Endless Ocean relies on the player to explore to advance the story and complete the map.

A genre of 3-D games that utilize this exploration are sometimes called 'sandbox' games. Most people are familiar with Grand Theft Auto in this genre, but not only sandbox games do this. There is a genre of 2-D exploration games which resemble the classic Metroid and Castlevania games called Metroidvanias.

Roaming the city to gawk at the environment in GTA is my favorite part of the game.

Metroidvanias usually give the player the option to explore the entire environment once they unlock all the abilities the games gives them. A couple of games that aren't Metroid or Castlevania that show this kind of exploration gameplay include the independently developed Cave Story and the Xbox Live Arcade title Shadow Complex, and I would recommend playing both. Some Metroidvanias are more linear than others, but they still hold the same gameplay.

It's available on WiiWare right now, go buy it!

There's also a very short flash game that I think shows off this concept of exploration really well. The game is called Small Worlds and you can play it on Armor Games. It only takes around 15 or 20 minutes to play, go ahead and play it to see what I mean about exploration!

Depth and Underwater Games

That is a video of a game called 'Depth: Aquatic Stealth.' The game takes place underwater with two teams. One team is made up of scuba-divers and they have to find treasure. The other team is made up of sharks and they have to defend the treasure by ripping the divers apart. Sounds like a great concept... right? Well, I think it is, though there is something that can make or break this game: the controls.

This game got me thinking about a question I ask often. Why don't we see games that take place underwater more often? (Not like Bioshock, I'm talking about games where you actually control yourself submersed in water.) I think it's for a variety of reasons, but mainly, it comes down to control and movement in a completely 3-dimensional environment. Sky-oriented games like Ace Combat are the same way, but there, you have a sense of gravity. If you've ever been scuba diving or even just let yourself sink in a large pool, it's like zero-gravity. There's still gravity of course, but it's force doesn't feel as strong.

I think the problem developers have with designing controls around an underwater environment, is that they haven't yet achieved that feeling of zero-gravity, of slowly drifting through a current, or sinking. We can see sinking and drifting achieved in some 2-D underwater levels, so why can't 3-D games do it? (Some probably do, but I haven't seen many examples.)

Mario can do it.

Maybe it's another reason... maybe as terrestrial animals, we're afraid of the depths, and many of us are. We rather look to the sky than to the sea. Up rather than down. I think because of this fear, developers don't make games that cater to people like me that often, the ones who would rather go scuba diving than sky diving. (Both can be equally scary if you ask me.)

The ocean: It's scary.