Driving Around in Circles

One time, late at night, some friends and I found ourselves lost in the country. We drove down seemingly endless stretches of road between cornfields that our imaginations decided looked ominous and threatening. Roads wound and looped around trees and we were sure we passed the same farmhouse at least a couple of times. Our minds conjured all manner of horror scenarios every time we contemplated stopping at a lit farmhouse to ask for directions.

Eventually, we noticed that a particular group of clouds seemed to have a sort of glow about them. We reasoned that it was light being cast from our nearby home city, so we aimed the vehicle in that direction. Finally, we got to some buildings that we actually recognized and a huge weight was lifted from the pit of our stomachs. We weren’t lost anymore. We knew exactly where we were and exactly what route we needed to take to reach our destination. It was the moment we went from, “Where am I?” to, “I know where I am!”

I’ve experienced something similar to this while playing a game, except the fear and uncertainty was replaced with irritation. When I first played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I hated it. I couldn’t find my way around. Everything looked the same to me. No matter what area of the game I was in, I could never quite picture where I was in relation to the rest of the world.

This was especially frustrating because I didn’t have this problem with the previous game. After spending just a little bit of time in GTA3, I could survey my surroundings and mentally map my way to my next destination on the fly.

I attribute this to landmarks. What I mean by that is there was always something nearby that I could easily recognize. The junkyard at the bottom of the hill, the cafe on the corner at the top of the hill, that sort of thing. I never gained that level of familiarity with Vice City, at least not in all areas.

Though the nature of our current project at Bladed Cyber Technologies doesn’t really lend itself to landmarks, I’ve already been thinking about what I can do with potential future projects. Maybe it will be a hollowed out tree in a forest level or a complex bridge structure in a water level.

Whatever the case, I think it’s important, especially in lengthy levels, to give the player a sense of familiarity, a place they can get to and think, “hey, I remember this.” Doing so gives the player a place of attachment where they can map out their strategy or even just regroup for a brief down time. There are few things more frustrating in a game than being completely lost and having no idea where to go. You don’t have to hold the player’s hand and you don’t necessarily have to give them a map. Give the player enough recognizable landmarks and they’ll store the map in their head.