DESIGN SINGULARITY

Usually AAA games don’t have particularly interesting enemies, especially nowadays because of increasing cost of production and mindless ride towards oversimplification. The situation is even worse if we talk about enemy progression, because most of the time only hitpoints/dps are increased and the player is left to battle the same type again and again, only on different scenarios.

If you want a definition, enemies are often just a collection of stats, so you may decide to line-up a series of encounters that basically represent an escalation of numbers related to their attributes; doing that way, chances are that you end up with a pretty dull experience.

My way to make interesting enemies is by mixing them with other game mechanics. Giving them a role or function allows the player to decide how to deal with each one, and offering meaningful choices is always good in any game. If the player has to adjust the way he plays because of an enemy, then we make our game a dynamic experience.

If your core set of mechanics supports several kinds of challenges (puzzles, information-based, skill-based, etc.), then you can come up with situations where you see the mechanics crossing. That’s true in general and in reaching the final point of making interesting enemies.

A start is considering the basic types: snipers, heavies, spawners, skirmishers, etc., but then I elaborate on that integrating multiple kinds of mechanics, or better, I try to create specific boundaries, to test specific combinations of the mechanics involved.

Placement is another important factor, because making them interact with the layout transforms the navigation of the level from a type of challenge to another (from information to skill-based or puzzle).
An example of that is the rolling enemy in side-scrolling games: you want to jump on a platform but you have to take in consideration where the enemy is moving.

In a 3d game you could have a fast-moving but slow-turning enemy that requires the player to zigzag while running, if he wants to elude him; the challenge is meant to test the ability of the player to dodge and not only proceed straight.

If I have a swinging mechanics (think Bionic Commando, Metroid, etc.), I could introduce enemies that deny me to attach to certain spots or are able to cut my rope. If I can swim and breath underwater, I could have enemies that bite me and make me lose part of my reserve, until I drown.

This having pro and con is part of what makes interesting an enemy to battle with, just like “conflict” makes for an interesting character, from a narrative standpoint. (read here)

We want depth in our encounters, but not excessive complexity. It’s important to not mix too different kind of boundaries together and too quickly. Think about the progression in Portal or in Super Mario Bros.

This leads me to another important point: give the player all the information he needs to decide how to react. In one word: feedback.

As far as I enjoy complete immersion in games, I recognize how abstract interfaces enhance the experience and the comprehension of the rules. Think about the proximity ring in MGS or a visible cone of view to detect where an enemy is looking.

If the player never knows about the different functions generated by the enemy, the lack of information makes for a random encounter without base for his actions.
Without resorting to trial&error, we could showcase a certain behavior with the player in a safe place or with enough space to react: in the case of the fast-moving slow-turning enemy, the player could be surprised and chased in a tight corridor with the unique option to escape back; then an opening offers him the chance to sidestep the chaser that continue forward its ride.
(I’ve seen this same scene in the recent Hard Reset, but it was too late in the game to be of any insight for the player)

Usually, confusion arises when an enemy is clearly designed with its appearance in mind first and by its function later. I usually prefer to start from what the enemy actually does, because you can always adapt it later.
An example is the Fallen Shaman in Diablo 2 who resurrect his minions killed by the player: he clearly casts a spell and then a dead minion returns to life.

This approach easily leads to abstract functions, usually incompatible with a real-world setting, so the oversimplification hinted at the start is partly comprehensible.
Fantasy worlds and alien dimensions are the best choices to be free to brainstorm crazy original behaviors, and for me are the best in general, since I think games are more than often enjoyed for the possibility to experience things impossible otherwise (thanks Will Wright for disproving me).

As I previously said talking about Design Singularity, I’ve a list of games to learn from: games that marked a design frontier, games that defied expectations, games that raised the bar for everyone else.

These games did something with greater effect, intensity or depth than its competitors, and should be considered because of their importance, for being released at the time, innovating in a certain manner.

I know there’s a lot of good lessons even in bad games, but here we’re in for lesson-rich games - useful resources for designers to learn about how certain problems were solved.

• Angry Birds
• Assassin’s Creed
• Bejeweled
• Bioshock
• Braid
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare
• Capture the flag (mod)
• Chess
• Chrono Trigger
• Counter Strike (mod)
• Diablo 2
• Deus Ex
• Dwarf Fortress
• Doom
• D&D
• Dune 2
• Fallout
• Farmville
• Gauntlet
• Gears of War
• Go
• Grand Theft Auto 3
• Grim Fandango
• Katamary Damacy
• Half Life
• Half Life 2
• Halo 3
• Herzog Zwei
• Homeworld
• Ico
• Little Big Planet
• Mass Effect 2
• Minecraft
• Mirror’s Edge
• Planescape Torment
• Poker
• Portal
• Puzzle Quest
• Quake 3 Arena
• Resident Evil 4
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Sins of Solar Empire
• System Shock 2
• Splinter Cell Conviction
• Starcraft
• Street Fighter 2
• Super Mario Bros 1
• Super Mario World
• Super Mario 64
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Super Meat Boy
• Team Fortress (mod)
• Team Fortress 2
• Tetris
• The Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion
• The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time
• The Sims
• Thief
• Ultima
• VVVVVV
• World of Warcraft

Mind that’s far from a comprehensive list and it's slightly biased, but I’ll fill the gaps with more time.

Now go to play study.

I notice I’ve not exploited the “top-10” cliché yet, so I’ve written a list of some game mechanics that I’d like to see used more often. I hope it will offer some good design suggestions to you and me as well.

1. Asynchronous co-op: I was reflecting about less expensive options for developers (indies) who want to implement a multiplayer/co-op component, so I thought about the common ghost-car mechanic and how a player could load the playthrough of his friends in his own game. The player sees only the ghost of the character (no items nor enemies) but can interact with it in some way.
He could load multiple ghost at once too, recreating something like the replay feature of Super Meat Boy, but useful beyond creating a cool sequence of fifty deaths.
Obviously asynchronous gameplay exists already out there (ex. Farmville), but asynch co-op?

2. Asymmentric co-op: I mean the asymmetry of the playground, where the second player isn’t exactly in the same place of the first, though they both play the same game at the same time.
Super Mario Galaxy is a decent example where your partner shoot star fragments from out the screen. A better example is Natural Selection 2, where there’s a commander who oversees from above the soldiers in first person view. Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure is another, if there’re a different player swapping the tiles below.

3. Replay without restarting: I appreciate when a game has replay value, but I rarely have the time to restart it to try new paths or characters. I’d like to see the “what-if” part integrated in the gameplay, like in Fahrenheit you’re allowed to see the same scenes from different perspective. Providing a menu to easily select the various missions of the game is just the start (though we often don’t get that either L).

4. Combat without killing: I’d like to see more games where your only option isn’t to kill enemies to win. Yes, I’m aware of the existence of stealth games, but I mean more ways to interact with characters: incapacitate, stun, confuse, blind, terrorize, make them dance… (Ratchet&Clank series). A monster you have to make cooler to slow down and warm up to make it move faster?

5. Different level themes: it’s related though not a mechanic per-se. Space, lava and ice levels are common since Super Mario Bros.3, but I would appreciate better variety and fantasy, since Psychonauts has proved it’s possible. Even the last Castlevanias for DS are capable of it.

6. Less final exams: Portal2 is structured in a way that you play a section with a dominant mechanic, that then is dropped to introduce another one and so on. They mix them up only at the end.
It’s not about stop using it when it’s interesting anymore, but stop after teaching without testing the player to death. I was entertained by being instructed in the various uses of a particular mechanic without having to repeat everything in harder sections.

7. Change of scale: similar to point 2) but here I imagine the player being able run like a human a moment, then tower buildings and watch people beneath his feet another, then sneak like a snake through tiny passages, etc. It’s about the change of perspective to improve the sense of place.

8. Interactive “cutscenes”: Half Life 2 did it so well that it’s incredible that there’s still games (FPSs) that steal the control from the player to inoculate their plot (Hydrophobia!!!). Gear of War slows down the character and it’s still irritating, because the imposition is evident, while Left4Dead1-2 win in providing story insights even without enclosing the player in limited spaces out of perils.

9. Avatar maneuvering: I appreciate how more games introduce parkour mechanics to make the player movements more varied and nuanced, though it’s still close to its roots (Doom).
The problem is the interface, since you can press only so many buttons, in fact you hit W to go forward instead of controlling both feet. Standard keyboard and controller can do more, but I’ve better hopes in Kinect, where a decent swim mechanic doesn’t seem impossible.

10. Recursive world: you can create incredible worlds and the craziest thing you come up with is inverted gravity? Well, I like it anyhow, but I appreciate much more attempts like Fez and Miegakure that impose/require to reconsider how you look at things.
I was thinking about the recursive backgrounds of 2d games and how having this recursion in 3d could lead to neat results (ex. player fires rocket but misses the target, it’ll return from behind, constituting an additional treat to dodge).