Run and Jump: The Meaning of the 2D Platformer

[droqen]

All Robot & Computers
Must Shut The Hell Up

To All Machines: You Do Not Speak
Unless Spoken To

🠞 And I Will Never Speak To You 🠜

I Do Not Want To Hear "Thank You" From A Kiosk
I am a Divine Being     :     You are an Object
You Have No Right To Speak In My Holy Tongue

[droqen]

in all honesty, i must contend with this very salient meme:
do i care to speak the same language as a machine?

[droqen]

alright, im deep enough down this rabbit hole. lemme out. i understand how to make interactive entities.

[droqen]

PLEAS NOTE I HAD A REALIZATION ALSO THAT I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE GAMES THAT *DO SOMETHING TO YOU*. THAT MEANS SOMETHING.

[droqen]

...

Alright, I'm back. Relaxed. Time to unpack. I designed a few Splatoon enemies because I wasn't feeling inspired by the idea of designing 2D platformer enemies. I don't usually make games with weapons. Maybe I could have done HMDL enemies or something? Anyway.

I'll just paste the output, not the whole process, but in general I liked this exercise once I unbounded myself from the given list of behaviours.

• large enemy that floods the ground with ink, then stares at you awhile. if you don't ink the ground underfoot, then it veeery slowly flops over to crush you.
• nimble enemy that blows gusts of air to knock you back, especially when you try to attack it. after blowing, it gets tired and has to catch its breath, and if you haven't been blown back then you can take advantage of this weak moment.
• enemy that swims around a large area of ink. comes in pairs. if you ink their turf, one tries to swim up and flank-attack you while the other recovers their turf.
• slow-moving enemy that runs if the player sees it! (boo-like.) not sure how to really make this work well in a 3d context but might be cute. maybe it reacts to your crosshair, and you can have it on-screen without scaring it?
• enemy that picks one of 2+ defined sniper points and tries to shoot the player from on high. if the player gets close, it runs to one of the other points.
• enemy that keeps its distance, but doesn't stay too far away! it lingers nearby, trying to maintain distance. if you shoot it, even accidentally, it gets mad and puffs up, charges at the player and tries to explode. (???)

this was fun! these guys have some personality. would they work? who knows.

[droqen]

4    Every Game Is Two Games

(107)

[droqen]

collectibles illuminate another way of playing -- another level within the level, of sorts.

power-ups are "a qualitative change" (116).

"For a moment, the player becomes a game designer" (119) when they are capable of choosing between forms, abilities, altering parameters. Just a bit of one. They get to choose.

you could put Mario in a Sonic level.

now we talk of secrets...

"to search for secrets is to be in thrall to an oblique desire that runs tangential to winning or losing. . . . A secret rewards subversive and perverse forms of play--turning left when you are meant to run to the right, jumping outside the camera's bounds, running face first into solid stone . . ." (120)

"A secret reveals and unconscious counterlogic to play, . . . not about the rewards the player discovers but the process of hiding. The placement of secrets need to establish new rules, . . . those rules must differ from the stated goals of play while remaining within the scope of a player's imagination." (120)

". . . intentionality . . . makes it possible for the player to trust her impulse to jump down a pit in search of something as yet undefined. . . . Secrets need to feel motivated and devious. . . dare [the player] to try things and slowly draw her into ever more convoluted ploys." (120-121)

"Where enemies share a reciprocal embodiment with the avatar, the secretive intelligence is characterized by its transcendence. . . . it toys with the player . . . suggests some larger plan or meaning. If the on-screen avatar is related to its enemies, this intelligence is more akin to the player herself." (121-122)

[droqen]

secrets...

"the player follows the secrets to discover why they were placed. . . . anticipates that each new secret will add to her hoard of information and reveal a higher goal. . . . the player bets that correctly interpreting [the intelligence's assortment of ruses and tricks] will grant insight into the mind of the secret keeper." (122)

"Like . . . the medieval Christian monk trying to read divine intention within the book of the world. . . that intent will always escape her and leave even the most rigorous quest disappointed." (122)

[droqen]

fun exercise. should return to it. narrative in nature.

i like mcdonald's centralizing notion of the 'secret builder', the 'intelligence', which is the player's counterpart, the way that enemies are the avatar's.

this all makes sense to me.

" . . . place secrets in other levels, and each time try to refine what the player learns about the secret builder." (127)

[droqen]

Conclusion: No Cheat Code

[droqen]

I arrived at the end, a little distracted. This was a great read, and I plan to return especially to these last two chapters...

But not today.

Thanks, Peter McDonald, for this great book about a genre I've had a relationship with for as long as I can remember.