Red Vs. Blue Follow Up

Today I came across this post on Slashdot:

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/06/14/1147214

 

I’d like to expand upon the idea of an Equalized Conflict Generator some more. My thoughts on aspects of a level generating conflict where abilities and interaction with the environment based on which team you’re playing on were originally solely base on Team Fortress 2. However, this idea can be implemented not only in the FPS genre but many others.

Giving teams or players different sets of abilities and interactions with the level presents itself to be quite a task in balancing, especially if the development is still undergoing balancing in core gameplay. This can be alleviated through tight communication between the game designer(s) and the level designer(s). If the teams structure is such that the level designer IS the game designer as well, that is even better. Basically, anyone involved with using aspects of level design that modifies the gameplay in any significant way (and it could be argued that the level itself inherently does modify the core gameplay, which it does (I’ll get to that in a later post)) needs to be aware of the cascading changes that go both ways. Balance is key in any design and using non-quantative ideas such as colour for camoflage in multi-player and trying to balance that with a totally different aspect such as traps or weapons may seem ridiculous. Putting traps in a multi-player map that are accessable to players on both teams is easy. Traps accessable to one team and not the other is an unfair advantage and how in the hell would you know whan that is balanced with the other team’s ability to blend in with their surroundings?

This form of asymmetrical design is harder to balance, but I believe the end result of balanced gameplay through this asymmetry would be well worth thwe extra work and thought involved.

Red Versus Blue!

Is it some innate nature of red and blue to create warfare? It would appear so in multiplayer First Person Shooters (FPSs). Why is it that red and blue are the usual choices? Could it be that both colours when devoid of their ‘colour’, think colour blind, still appear as different shades? Does it make a difference to the gameplay?

 One reason to go with such colours is to take into account the visually impaired by still making both sides look different, even to them.

The question I’m more concerned with here is: Does it make a difference to the gameplay?

 In some ways it does, especially if you take the environment/level into account. If the blue team’s area is the same shade, hue and saturation as the blue teams uniforms they will be harder to see. The game designer purist and traditionalist would scoff at this point. Yes, it would affect the gameplay if one were to tailor the environment to favour one team over the other, however, as long as the favour was given to both sides either by the same method or a different way with the same level of advantage… the advantage becomes a new Equalized Conflict Generator in the gameplay.

Say the object of the level is to capture or control the other team’s base by reaching a target somewhere in their base and eliminating it. The blue team has the advantage of being the same colour as the interior of their base, while the red team does not have the advantage of being the same colour of their base, they do have the ability to remotely trigger deadly traps within their base. This is an example of a new Equalized Conflict Generator.

 

Some game designers’ opinion is that all levels of one particular game should conform to the gameplay. Here I will remind you of the success of mini-game console titles in the past few years and the rising interest in casual games. If a game could be as various as a mini-game compilation with the same core gameplay throughout and still be the same budget, then why not get creative with level design, modifying the gameplay slightly and allowing for more variety!