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Jennifer Scheurle opened up a can of game-design whoopass on Thursday.
Scheurle, a designer with Opaque Space (whose current project is the virtual reality game Earthlight) tossed out an open question on Twitter that will make you question what really is underneath the hood of your favorite game.
Assassin's Creed and Doom value the last bit of health as more hit points than the rest of it to encourage a feeling of *JUST* surviving.
— Jennifer Scheurle (@Gaohmee) September 1, 2017
Given the chance to confess their sins of rubber-banding, regenerating boss health or worse, many developers took it.
Is it ok to mention something we're proud of in our own game? :P In Firewatch, a player not responding to dialogue prompt is a noted choice
— Jane Ng (@thatJaneNg) September 1, 2017
Ng (the lead artist for Firewatch) went on to explain that ignoring someone in Firewatch had a consequence and thus made other characters “real.”
the game reacts to non-response, and it helps create a feeling that ignoring someone has social consequence and the other person is "real"
— Jane Ng (@thatJaneNg) September 1, 2017
Ever wonder if ratings were meaningful? Alex Trowers, a designer for the racing/car-combat game Hi-Octane on the original PlayStation, also confessed his sins.
Not a mechanic persee, but in Hi Octane we simply displayed different stats for vehicles without ever actually changing them under the hood
— Alex Trowers (@BulkPaint) September 1, 2017
Paul Hellquist, designer on BioShock, admitted to goosing the player’s health meter to contrive desperate confrontations.
In Bioshock if you would have taken your last pt of dmg you instead were invuln for abt 1-2 sec so you get more "barely survived" moments.
— Paul Hellquist (@TheElfquist) September 1, 2017
Then Rick Lesley, a designer for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, confessed to the same thing:
In Shadow of Mordor, I would add additional health back to dueling uruk, to artificially extend their fight a bit, for spectacle!
— Rick Lesley (@Rick_Lesley) September 1, 2017
Developer Chevy Ray revealed that there is a thumb on the scale when applying the law of gravity.
We have a term called "coyote time" for when the player walks off a platformer ledge and presses jump too late, but the jump still works
— Chevy Ray (@ChevyRay) September 1, 2017
Tommy Thompson revealed the secret of Alien: Isolation.
The Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation has two brains one that always knows where you are and gives hints to the second that controls the body :D
— Tommy Thompson (@GET_TUDA_CHOPPA) September 1, 2017
and Left 4 Dead.
Oh and Left 4 Dead keeps you on edge by deliberately targeting the player either farthest from the group or who has received less aggro.
— Tommy Thompson (@GET_TUDA_CHOPPA) September 1, 2017
Sometimes, it isn’t about the game’s design. Lee Perry, a gameplay designer on Gears of War, Gears of War 2 and 3, offered this fact.
In Gears, found out 90% of first time players don't play a second multiplayer match if they don't get a kill. That first game's important...
— Lee Perry Yo! (@MrLeePerry) September 2, 2017
Even Ken Levine jumped in with this jaw-dropper:
First shots from an enemy against you in BioShock always missed...that was the design, think it got fully implemented. No "out of blue!"
— Ken Levine (@levine) September 2, 2017
Steve Thornton, who has worked on five different LEGO video games for Traveller’s Tales, spilled these beans:
In some LEGO games, ranged enemies have hit/miss probability - on a miss the projectiles are offset but also have no collision just in case
— Good Stevening (@_SteveThornton) September 1, 2017
On and on it goes.
It’s like finding out Santa Claus does not exist, but still admiring the lengths to which Mom and Dad went to preserve his myth. There’s much more within the original thread.
But I am still waiting for Bob Whitehead to admit that he tried to make it impossible to throw a perfect game in Hardball! on the Commodore 64. Tried. Because I threw one anyway.
