I can't see where I'm going! (aka The top-down viewpoint)
by SR · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 05/21/2001 (12:43 pm) · 7 replies
For this thread, top-down will mean any game who's viewpoint is oriented down towards the ground, resulting in NO view of the sky or horizon. Also, I'd like to further restrict the discussion to first-person games (not the viewpoint, before the peanut-gallery says a word). I mean games with a player avatar, so basically any adventure or RPG. Anyone talking about other games/camera viewpoints (except for comparison) will be shot! Now then...
I can't see where I'm going! I'm serious! It occurred to me just a while ago while playing an RPG I found at www.cliffhangergames.com. It was your standard RPG viewpoint, ala Diablo. As I was wandering around the world, I noticed a disturbing lack of...awareness, for lack of a better word: situational awareness. For review, that's when someone has a mental picture of their surroundings and what's happening in it. I couldn't form that picture, and I wondered why.
Quite basically, it was because I could barely see more than a couple of meters beyond me. But I've played games like that before...again I mention Diablo. You really can't see that far. So what was different with this game? First off, it wasn't as hack-n-slash as Diablo; you only fight one or two guys a time. This leads to fairly sparsely populated levels; spotting enemies early is important, but I can't! The game also had fairly specific goals: find this, go to that house, kill those bugs, swat those flys, etc... So most of the time you knew where you had to go, the trick was getting there in one piece. But with such a limited vision, finding those places was just plain annoying (rule #1: NEVER annoy the player). I found myself checking the map every 10 seconds because 1) major landmarks that one normally uses to orient oneself weren't visible from afar, and 2) I couldn't see where I was going in the first place!
What this lead to was a fairly obvious lack of immersion. More specifically, I couldn't do things I wanted to do, like looking around the corner to see if there were any baddies there. Hell, I couldn't even look -ahead- to see if there were any baddies; I had to wait to run into them. This also makes travelling more frustrating than it should be, because you have few hints as to how close you are to your destination. If I have to travel to the village centre, I'd like to be able to see some sign of it off in the distance. This was I can see that I'm getting closer, and indeed still going in the right direction. I -don't- want to feel like a blind man zig-zagging across the land hoping to run into the right house.
When I first thought about making this post, I was going to make an argument saying such top-down/iso games are outdated. But I started coming up with examples of such games that worked very well. So instead I'll throw out some ideas. Tell me when I'm wrong...and why, of course.
- Don't zoom in on the player! Let me see more than 5 feet in front of myself. Zelda 1,2&3 did this well, giving the player a good perspective by keeping the characters small.
- How about making it so the viewpoint goes further ahead of the player, showing less what's behind them and more in front of them (would take some fancy coding, I'm sure).
- Don't zoom in on the player! It's worth mentioning twice.
- Make sure players can find distant locations easily, without referring to a map frequently. Eg. highly visible paths (roads, shorelines, etc..), signs! (ala Zelda), even on-screen arrows work.
- Make prominent landmarks that the player can use to easily locate important areas. While I'm on it, ALL areas should be important. Stop putting empty houses everywhere! It doesn't add to crap! It's not fun to wander around mostly empty levels. Vast levels don't mean anything if you just walk through them (high annoyance factor). Areas should be compact, with everything being useful at some point or another.
Now I'll digress a bit to comment on a related topic. It has been said by some that the only way to create immersion in an rpg is to go first-person (as in shooter). With all respect, this is crap. Third-person can make you feel just as part of the action, as long as it's done properly. Immersion is about situational awareness, simulating the feel of being there:-Feel, not look. Look is an important part, yes, but not all of it. Third-person actually gives some things first can't: peripheral vision, and positional awareness (how your body is positioned).
End long post....
I can't see where I'm going! I'm serious! It occurred to me just a while ago while playing an RPG I found at www.cliffhangergames.com. It was your standard RPG viewpoint, ala Diablo. As I was wandering around the world, I noticed a disturbing lack of...awareness, for lack of a better word: situational awareness. For review, that's when someone has a mental picture of their surroundings and what's happening in it. I couldn't form that picture, and I wondered why.
Quite basically, it was because I could barely see more than a couple of meters beyond me. But I've played games like that before...again I mention Diablo. You really can't see that far. So what was different with this game? First off, it wasn't as hack-n-slash as Diablo; you only fight one or two guys a time. This leads to fairly sparsely populated levels; spotting enemies early is important, but I can't! The game also had fairly specific goals: find this, go to that house, kill those bugs, swat those flys, etc... So most of the time you knew where you had to go, the trick was getting there in one piece. But with such a limited vision, finding those places was just plain annoying (rule #1: NEVER annoy the player). I found myself checking the map every 10 seconds because 1) major landmarks that one normally uses to orient oneself weren't visible from afar, and 2) I couldn't see where I was going in the first place!
What this lead to was a fairly obvious lack of immersion. More specifically, I couldn't do things I wanted to do, like looking around the corner to see if there were any baddies there. Hell, I couldn't even look -ahead- to see if there were any baddies; I had to wait to run into them. This also makes travelling more frustrating than it should be, because you have few hints as to how close you are to your destination. If I have to travel to the village centre, I'd like to be able to see some sign of it off in the distance. This was I can see that I'm getting closer, and indeed still going in the right direction. I -don't- want to feel like a blind man zig-zagging across the land hoping to run into the right house.
When I first thought about making this post, I was going to make an argument saying such top-down/iso games are outdated. But I started coming up with examples of such games that worked very well. So instead I'll throw out some ideas. Tell me when I'm wrong...and why, of course.
- Don't zoom in on the player! Let me see more than 5 feet in front of myself. Zelda 1,2&3 did this well, giving the player a good perspective by keeping the characters small.
- How about making it so the viewpoint goes further ahead of the player, showing less what's behind them and more in front of them (would take some fancy coding, I'm sure).
- Don't zoom in on the player! It's worth mentioning twice.
- Make sure players can find distant locations easily, without referring to a map frequently. Eg. highly visible paths (roads, shorelines, etc..), signs! (ala Zelda), even on-screen arrows work.
- Make prominent landmarks that the player can use to easily locate important areas. While I'm on it, ALL areas should be important. Stop putting empty houses everywhere! It doesn't add to crap! It's not fun to wander around mostly empty levels. Vast levels don't mean anything if you just walk through them (high annoyance factor). Areas should be compact, with everything being useful at some point or another.
Now I'll digress a bit to comment on a related topic. It has been said by some that the only way to create immersion in an rpg is to go first-person (as in shooter). With all respect, this is crap. Third-person can make you feel just as part of the action, as long as it's done properly. Immersion is about situational awareness, simulating the feel of being there:-Feel, not look. Look is an important part, yes, but not all of it. Third-person actually gives some things first can't: peripheral vision, and positional awareness (how your body is positioned).
End long post....
About the author
#2
By the way I think another big rule should be (rule #2) dont ever ever ever take control of the avatar from the player! It is so annoying when the game suddenly stops you and moves you around against your will, it doesnt matter if its for the storyline or not. I don't remember what game it was, but this happened while i was being beat up on by enemys and I died. This happened several times, and I ended up having to time it just right so the story would happen while i was far enough from the enemys to not get killed. I think the game might have been revenant but I am not sure.
05/21/2001 (5:22 pm)
I am a little partial to the 3rd person not-quite-so-iso view in black and white. If one is going to use a 3d engine for an isometric game, then why not allow scaling/zooming/rotating. In my project. "Zombie", I will be using a combination of this and 1st person depending on what the player wants to do. Some situations will call for 1st person, some for third. I hope it works without breaking your rule #1!!. By the way I think another big rule should be (rule #2) dont ever ever ever take control of the avatar from the player! It is so annoying when the game suddenly stops you and moves you around against your will, it doesnt matter if its for the storyline or not. I don't remember what game it was, but this happened while i was being beat up on by enemys and I died. This happened several times, and I ended up having to time it just right so the story would happen while i was far enough from the enemys to not get killed. I think the game might have been revenant but I am not sure.
#3
I understand what you are saying about immersiveness, that just a feel for your suroundings should be enough, but I can't for the life of me say how I would acheive the same immersiveness from top-down as would be acheived using a 1st person view. Problem is though, your 1st person view should have a visibility of miles, not meters (I know - mixing scales, but it sounds so much better:).A 3rd person view with enough range would do it I suppose, you could have it top down when you want, but you could angle it up when looking out.
You CAN acheive immersiveness with a top-down view, but I think iso seems to help, and a large view-range. But for highest straight-off immersion, I would say that the best way is a long distance 1st person view. If is has to be 2D, then like I said, iso, but zoomed right out. Maybe adding LOS if it's done well. An overlay map is very helpful however, like diablo. It's better then nothing, you can see large distances, but keep detail on the main view. It's less immersive to have a mini-map, but it's very helpful, and a game really has to be about fun, not realism.
05/21/2001 (5:24 pm)
hmm, I was going to go on about how trying to acheive awareness of surroundings is very hard whereas a 1st perrson view lets the player see what they want, but then I though about your landmark thingie. I agree, landmarks should be just that, viewable from a distance so as to be useful in navigating large distances. Thing is, most 1st person games I've played, you can't see far at all, due to fog usually. All that 1st person offers over top-down, is the ability to focus your view in one direction, and see horizontally. Top-down views really irk me, I find it highly unusual that the player has a 5 meter, 360 degree viewing area, but I suppose that poor eyesight, and 15 eyes could account for it though. Anyway, Nox had an LOS in top-down, better, but still a very limited view range.I understand what you are saying about immersiveness, that just a feel for your suroundings should be enough, but I can't for the life of me say how I would acheive the same immersiveness from top-down as would be acheived using a 1st person view. Problem is though, your 1st person view should have a visibility of miles, not meters (I know - mixing scales, but it sounds so much better:).A 3rd person view with enough range would do it I suppose, you could have it top down when you want, but you could angle it up when looking out.
You CAN acheive immersiveness with a top-down view, but I think iso seems to help, and a large view-range. But for highest straight-off immersion, I would say that the best way is a long distance 1st person view. If is has to be 2D, then like I said, iso, but zoomed right out. Maybe adding LOS if it's done well. An overlay map is very helpful however, like diablo. It's better then nothing, you can see large distances, but keep detail on the main view. It's less immersive to have a mini-map, but it's very helpful, and a game really has to be about fun, not realism.
#4
I took a look at a couple of movie clips from Zone of Enders, and the camera did look very nice. Tracking was like Zelda, but it fixed itself in place for fights (which lastest for all of 3 secs mind you). If I had a PS2 (or a TV) I'd like to try it out.
Entropy:
Remember rule #1, always! :) And I don't know if the argument for allowing camera control, 'do it because you can' is a good one. I prefer using the rule, 'do it if it adds something useful to the game'. Most of the time, having a selectable viewpoint is just as good, and avoids the complication of allowing the player refined control. Personally, I hated controlling the camera so much in black & white (of course, I had many issues with the game). I only really used two: up close for micromanagement, and a bit zoomed out for overviews. And always having to make it go between the two was annoying. Only give the player what they need.
William:
Hey, got that web page up yet? I'd like to keep going on that AI stuff.
Zelda did landmarks really well: it used the skybox for something useful. Along the horizon, the textures on the skybox indicated what was in that direction. When you got close enough to it you went through an entrance of some kind to a detailed version (aka. level load).
05/21/2001 (6:15 pm)
Scott:I took a look at a couple of movie clips from Zone of Enders, and the camera did look very nice. Tracking was like Zelda, but it fixed itself in place for fights (which lastest for all of 3 secs mind you). If I had a PS2 (or a TV) I'd like to try it out.
Entropy:
Remember rule #1, always! :) And I don't know if the argument for allowing camera control, 'do it because you can' is a good one. I prefer using the rule, 'do it if it adds something useful to the game'. Most of the time, having a selectable viewpoint is just as good, and avoids the complication of allowing the player refined control. Personally, I hated controlling the camera so much in black & white (of course, I had many issues with the game). I only really used two: up close for micromanagement, and a bit zoomed out for overviews. And always having to make it go between the two was annoying. Only give the player what they need.
William:
Hey, got that web page up yet? I'd like to keep going on that AI stuff.
Zelda did landmarks really well: it used the skybox for something useful. Along the horizon, the textures on the skybox indicated what was in that direction. When you got close enough to it you went through an entrance of some kind to a detailed version (aka. level load).
#5
This game succeeded mainly by having that all-important radar, as well as being essentially a 3d engine with a 2d viewpoint... meaning of course that you could lean up against a wall and 'see ahead'. It also allowed Konami to make it's cutscenes using the 3d engine and thus didn't detatch the player during cutscenes as much as, say, FMV.
-Alf-Life/Martin Badowsky.
05/22/2001 (5:31 am)
Also viable to throw into the mix is Metal Gear Solid.This game succeeded mainly by having that all-important radar, as well as being essentially a 3d engine with a 2d viewpoint... meaning of course that you could lean up against a wall and 'see ahead'. It also allowed Konami to make it's cutscenes using the 3d engine and thus didn't detatch the player during cutscenes as much as, say, FMV.
-Alf-Life/Martin Badowsky.
#6
05/22/2001 (12:51 pm)
Automatic camera control is usually a good thing. A mixture between control and automated is good... Having to move the player and the camera would be a pain, and not having the camera point where you want it to would be a pain as well...
#7
Scott: glad someones interested. I wish I could get on with my site, but I've been in and out of hospitals lately, and the pain-killers I'm getting make it very hard to concentrate :). I have most of the main site done, but I'm still trying to do my login in PHP, can't be too hard, but it'll be a while before I can get back to working on anything :(
05/22/2001 (1:23 pm)
(BTW, this post is nothing to do with the topic)Scott: glad someones interested. I wish I could get on with my site, but I've been in and out of hospitals lately, and the pain-killers I'm getting make it very hard to concentrate :). I have most of the main site done, but I'm still trying to do my login in PHP, can't be too hard, but it'll be a while before I can get back to working on anything :(
Torque Owner Scott Casey