Blogs Thoughts on Clutter and Junk

this is quite an interesting topic i have been making a game over the last month which is ticking along nicely.

the main issue i have tho is whilst the core mechanics are working fine nothing really happens when you perform an action.

i have been aiming to try and make the screen as busy as possible to make the user interested in what they are acheiving.

 

I would say it's down to good SDK's for level design now days. Being able to generate good lod prefabs seems to be effective even if its only a slight variation of 3 or 4 models.

Half Life 2 was rather good for amount of rubbish you could pick up.

*fires off paint can at zombie*

 

It's not necessarilly junk, but just simply detail, that's important in games I think.

The JK games always did suffer from being grey and angular any time a level was based in a building. Just variation and bright colours were often enough for a game not to feel sparse - I don't recall playing Doom 2 for instance and feeling it felt empty.

 

Joe, what parts of KOTOR did you find gruelling and adding pointlessly to its length? Just curious because its one of my favourite games ever and I didn't find it gruelling. Having said that, I've not played it in years so I might see it differently now.

 

My biggest complaint about all the worthless junk in Oblivion wasn't that it was there... After all, life is full of useless clutter... But that it was spread around so randomly. Somehow opening a container and finding a shirt, a shovel, 2 apples, 4 arrows and a healing potion never made any sense. Not even my most disorganized friends live like that!

 

You've sold me I'll try Star Wars: Jedi Academy

 

Play Jedi Outcast first, it's the better of the two for story wise. Combat is for me better in JK:JO but that is more down to personal preference.

 

Woaaahhh... what? It's a Bioware RPG, they're meant to be long.

 

Clutter effect depends on the possible interaction... if you can't do anything with it it's just atmospheric decoration. A step further, in Oblivion you could stick anything in your inventory but it was useless. But then in HL2 and Fallout 3 mugs and rocks actually became projectiles--now that's what clutter's all about!

 

Hmmm, yes, and it was pretty effective too, never collected so much junk before Fallout 3

 

SPOILER: Jedi academy features in my top 10 gaming moments. I still remember the immense satisfaction of killing that annoying ***** of a classmate (yeah I realise I made things harder for myself, but damnit it was worth it)

 

Definately

Absolutely agree with this. Fear was one of those games that utilised its environments to give the game that extra little wow factor when you played it. The phone falling from an overturned table in slow mo just added that little something extra to it.