Ridiculous Power-Ups

[ZeHa]

Just wanted to know if you ever happened to think about the ridiculous nature of power ups :)

I think, one problem of the so-called "AAA scene" is that they all want realism, but the more realistic the games get, the more ridiculous the power ups get, too.

Why should there be medipacks lying around all over the place? And shouldn't ammo be exclusively carried around by the enemies or be located in one special "ammo place"?

In PacMan, a very unrealistic game, no one asks why there are power pills. In fact, no one really asks, because PacMan is a completely abstract game. But now let's take Doom. It's a bit more realistic, and it seems a little bit strange that there are medipacks in hell. But okay, Doom is somehow an arcade game, and it's also kinda funny and not too serious.

But the first time, I really thought about that, was when I played Tomb Raider. The whole game is rather serious and wants to be very realistic, and it's exactly those two things that make medipacks and ammo seem absolutely misplaced. And now the games are even MORE realistic and serious, but some typcial arcady things still remained.

Now of course, the question would be, how could they be made more believable? Most games in fact NEED power ups, otherwise they would be way too difficult. And as indie programmers, we're free to design funny, abstract, fictional games that don't need to be realistic. But perhaps it might be a good idea to just think about "what would we do if we got forced to make powerups seem totally realistic and fitting", because it actually might give some new ideas to game design ;)

What do you think about that?

[Artinum]

I was always under the impression in Doom that the powerups were there because Hell wanted you to get further. The suffering would be so much more entertaining if you reached those Barons of Hell rather than got chewed up by a few measly imps.

Plus, of course, all those carefully placed bonuses and weapons that trigger traps...

[Cartman]

I like the idea of weapons and ammo only being stored in the weapons locker or ammo dump. Then if someone puts a rocket in there it explodes sending ammo all over the place. It also adds some strategy, because someone could try to control it as well.

I think if ammo was harder to find at least in multiplayer games, the players might learn to shoot better and not miss their targets. But that may not be the experience they are going for.

Interesting thread.

[GolfHacker]

Some of the old Half-Life multiplayer maps (user-created) were pretty good about realism - they put items on shelves and desks, in parked vehicles, in cabinets, etc, rather than laying around in weird places.

But you're right, in most games the level designers put things where it makes sense from a balanced gameplay standpoint, not from a realism standpoint.

That's why I make cartoony games! Then I can get away with arcs of coins hanging in the sky, credit cards and gift boxes that make things magically appear, and whatever else my imagination can think of!

[Midnight Synergy]

I always thought it was funny that you have to BUY items and powerups from the townfolks that you are trying to save!

Penny Arcade's take on RE4 is along that line:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/01/14

[Ratboy]

Awww, I came into this thread expecting a brainstorming session on ludicrous powerups...

I was going to mention the one we wanted to do for Phantom 2040 so long ago. I was doing the powerup sprites, and made a little Phantom head for the extra life powerup. The guy animating the Phantom insisted it should give him an extra head instead.

[GolfHacker]

Awww, I came into this thread expecting a brainstorming session on ludicrous powerups...

In Fashion Cents, our power-ups consist of bleach bottles, scissors, credit cards, and gift boxes! How's that for an unusual list?

[LilGames]

I don't want realism. I want good gameplay.

Simulations can be an exception, but damn, I like to play more than just War sims. Isn't it unrealistic that you can jump off a building in an FPS and, yes you take huge damage, yet can still walk? Shouldn't you be limping around like a lame duck? Shouldn't you be crying like a little girl after breaking your leg? Shouldn't your goggles be fogging up every 5 minutes due to the heat and sweat? Shouldn't you be coughing and choking when walking through smoke?

I really HATE these kinds of criticisms of games, based on "reality". It's the #1 thing NON-gamers observe about video games. But it's precisely the unrealistic things that make games so damn fun. I play for experiences and challenge, not mimickry of reality (though there is room for that, the closer we get to a "holodeck" experience, but by that point, we're talking about role-playing more than video gaming).

The second a game designer starts thinking "that's not realistic" they need to go play Trespasser (http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.22/bent/)to remind them why reality SUCKS!

[ZeHa]

Well, I hope you didn't get me wrong, because I've got the same opinion. I also like unrealistic stuff and love to play funny, innovative and unrealistic games.

But there's some contradiction in today's games - they all try to have totally realistic graphics, totally realistic physics, sounds, motion, etc, basically they try to make a game that looks like a movie or even real life. But then, unrealistic glimpses come in, which then seem - in contrast! - totally ridiculous. For me at least. And of course one very good solution would be to get back to fun games, that are an escape of reality, rather than just producing games which try to immitate reality. That's always something that I would prefer, but the "AAA scene" seems to think otherwise.

Still, there's a second solution, which would be to really make believable and realistic power ups, that don't seem to be located "just for the gameplay balance". But while this is very difficult, it might actually open some new perspectives to interesting ideas which could then return again to some new, innovative, "funny and unrealistic" games (the brainstorming thing) - and that was my real intention.


Ratboy posted something very interesting, although not in the original scope of what this thread is about - but it's very funny and might actually inspire some new game ideas ;)

[Qitsune]

If ammo everywhere is bad, how bad is it when you kill a giant bat to find it was carrying a chain mail suit and a magic wand of bugbear control along with 1 diamond, 34 copper pieces and a scroll of stupidity?

[Infinite Element]

If you were going for realism, ammo would be either dropped by a guy with a gun, taken out of an enemy's gun after he dies, or is on a table where a bunch of enemies are. Medikits could be next to a dead corpse, as if he tried to take it out to help himself.

[Talisman]

But perhaps it might be a good idea to just think about "what would we do if we got forced to make powerups seem totally realistic and fitting", because it actually might give some new ideas to game design ;)


I've always wondered how deathmatch could work without those unsightly respawning weapons.

But the problem is often approached in the opposite direction. Instead of designing the game to be realistic, the game's setting is designed to change what 'realistic' means.

For example, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time has a storyline that revolves around time travel. But they only wrote the story because someone invented a cool "rewinding time" mechanic. The story was invented to fit the gameplay.

I'm sure a clever writer could explain why there are healing items in Hell, too.

[Nikos Beck]

The faster the game pace, the more obvious power-ups have to be. In a game like Unreal Tournament players don't want to have to look in cabinets and closets for power-ups. They want to run down the ramp over the power-ups and get them. I think that's the overriding factor, speed. In a game like Half-Life there is time to slow down and look around so the power-ups can be placed in more logical places.

In futuristic games the player can have nanites or a regeneration pack to heal themselves and they can scour cabinets for more and carry twenty at a time.

In WWII games there can be medics that follow the team and heal as long as the player backtracks and stops to wait.

In an urban combat game the player can just pick up any weapon off enemies until they are used up, then drop them. The player can carry six pistols, two machine guns and a shotgun. The player is responsible for scouring enemies for weapons and ammo. And ammo doesn't disappear over time, the player can backtrack and scrounge the fallen enemies, even create their own cache by dropping weapons behind a dumpster for later.

In terms of RPGs where rats carry orc-sized armour... players want to level up and earn things to sell, that's the overriding factor. I suppose it's possible that each rat has a gold coin and the player needs to find the cache of gold coins and weapons in the sewer.

It varies by genre and theme.

It's a valid point though, some games don't even try to logically place power-ups, they're added after the level designers have done their part when it should be that level designers and game designers are involved throughout testing to make sure that someone doesn't drop a power-up in the middle of the floor because testers need it and not look at any of the design issues involved.

[Spore Man]

I like crates. :D

[papillon]

If ammo everywhere is bad, how bad is it when you kill a giant bat to find it was carrying a chain mail suit and a magic wand of bugbear control along with 1 diamond, 34 copper pieces and a scroll of stupidity?


There's a balancing act there - I don't like my bats dropping chainmail, but I don't like my bats dropping NOTHING either, and it's pretty silly for a bat to be carrying much of anything but its dinner.

Although that's easily enough fixed by making people do what was originally intended in the old d&d modules - find the monster's LAIR, where it has collected various shiny trinkets and the chainmail suit clings to the skeleton of something the bat killed before. If we RPG designers weren't so lazy and fond of making endlessly respawning wandering monsters with no sense of ecology, we wouldn't have so much trouble. :)

... darn, now I feel guilty about that and like I ought to actually make a laired dungeon, which doesn't really fit into Cute Knight 2. ;)

[tolworthy]

I like crates. :D

Me too. I have a website about him, and Diogenes, the other great Cynic philosopher.

[jefferytitan]

I think that if a game is suitably abstract, there is no requirement for realism. For example chess, although commonly represented by a 2D board, has pieces such as knights which do not move in a way consistent with Euclidean geometry. It's only when a game is close enough to "the real world" that differences between the game and reality confuse or annoy the player.

The other thing to remember is that our reality is usually not the target. Sure, for simulation games it may be, but for most other things we want escapism. We want magic and aliens and all of that. Internal consistency is of course nice. If you ask the player to suspend their disbelief on more than a few core things it just gets silly.

Say if there's a whopping big weapon or powerup, but you can't destroy the big boss with it because it would be "too easy". If the weapon just doesn't hurt them for no real reason people will hate it. So you either design such that they are never in that situation, or you make it part of the canon: mythical creatures cannot be destroyed by any mortal weapon. Right. Sorted.

Incidentally, I sympathize with the people who worked on Trespasser. They focussed on giving the player the maximum capabilities (e.g. with the arm) rather than the maximum experience. Controlling an arm allows you to theoretically do much more interesting things than in most games, but our instinctive ability to perform many simple tasks makes manual control of similar abilities with current computer controls mind-numbingly tedious. Plus I hear that the timeframe and budget issues cut out various features which may have had redeeming value, e.g. decent dino behaviours.

[ZeHa]

Say if there's a whopping big weapon or powerup, but you can't destroy the big boss with it because it would be "too easy"

Haha, a friend always mentions a similar thing: "You're the only one out there to save the entire universe, and all they're giving you for starting out is a simple gun with 8 bullets" :D

[bvanevery]

But perhaps it might be a good idea to just think about "what would we do if we got forced to make powerups seem totally realistic and fitting", because it actually might give some new ideas to game design ;)


"Realistic powerup" is an oxymoron. There's no such thing as a powerup in real life. So the 1st thing you have to do, from a game design standpoint, is ask what you're really after?

About the closest you'd come, are drugs that rev up the body so much that the person doesn't know that they're dead yet. Heard some story about that, a friend of a friend, who saw some guy running across a field in Vietnam. With his intestines trailing after him. He was so jacked up on whatever, he didn't know he was dead.

You could implement realistic gunfire. Take 1 bullet to the head and you're dead. Get seriously wounded, and you'd better be somewhere that someone can medivac you're ass out of there. Perfectly fine if combat simulation is you're goal.

You could implement "cinematic gunfire:"

- nobody runs out of ammo. Or they have way more ammo than their weapons would allow them to use without reloading.

- heroes simply can't be hit by most bullets. Doesn't matter how many uzis are spraying, the hero dives behind a bar and the bottles above the bar are what get shot up. Perhaps the constraint upon the player's action is, if there's too much gunfire, then they're forced into some contortionist dive to dodge everything. So then the game wouldn't be about wounding, it would be about fire suppression.

- heroes can't be hit unless they're 3/4 of the way through the game, or they've devolved to minor character status and have become expendable. The hero's vulnerability follows a dramatic arc, which would be contingent upon other actions taken in the game. Basically, they don't die as long as they're following the plot. Or, they're only capable of dying at a certain point in the plot.

So, do you want realism? Or dramatism? Or arcade conventions? These are distinct game design choices; there could be others. One thing I will say, is that gratuitously insisting on realism is a newbie game designer's mistake. It means you're not in control of your medium and you haven't figured out the difference between engineering and game design. One antidote to knee-jerk simulationism: go step outside your front door. Look at how perfectly realistic everything is, and how perfectly boring.

[Agent 4125]

There's no such thing as a powerup in real life.

Ahem, Caffeine. =)

You could implement "cinematic gunfire:"

I did this in my game Non-Stop Action Hero. The enemies shoot constantly, but it's impossible to get hit or die. A few people complained that it made it "too easy", but then the point isn't to avoid dying, but to maximize your score.