Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

C H A P T E R 4
locking down these features involves placing actors (hero, enemy, and NPCs), props
(environmental features like chairs, boxes, and altars), and items (like power-ups and
collectibles) and tuning specific camera details. Your camera details determine how
the camera or player view will move or function in a scene. Thus, in this chapter,
we’re going to take a closer look at the placement of actors, props, and items, as well
as camera considerations.
PLACING ACTORS
Once you’ve built up the world or environmental shell (the environment that will
host your game) for your level or mission by the process described (or something
quite similar), much of starting to make your game take shape involves placing objects
and then testing or scripting them. We’ll cover approaches to scripting in detail
in Chapter 6. For now, let’s take a look at what it means to start placing different
kinds of common actors.
Hero Actors
Your hero actor is typically the star of your game. Mario, Crash Bandicoot, and
Samus (Metroid) are perfect examples of hero actors. Not surprisingly, hero actors
often have the most extensive animated abilities, and the most complex range of interactions
with the environment. Since the hero actor will be controlled by a player
throughout a given level, the placement of a hero actor normally begins by placing
the hero at a default start point in the map or level (such as a garden at the center of
the level). This is commonly called a spawn point, because the character is born or
brought forth from this physical point on the map. This is where the player begins his
or her adventure with the character. It also might be the point that a character returns
to in order to start playing the level again if all the character’s lives are exhausted and
the player has not reached a “save point” further into the level.
The point at which you place your hero actor or actors (for multiplayer games) becomes
the origin of action. There is a natural domino effect of action that occurs as
the hero character traverses the level in any direction away from the start point.
Different tools handle the placement of a hero character in different ways, but essentially
you load the actor into the scene and define a physical starting position as
the birthplace of your hero character. Often, the player is guided through a level or
mission introduction and/or cinematic, and then the game scene cuts to the character’s
wait-state animation, showing the hero character waiting to be controlled by the
player. Maybe the character is folding his arms and tapping his foot.
Characters often have several wait-state animations. Which wait-state animation
is played can be controlled randomly so that the player sees a different one from time
87
Actors, Props, Items, and Camera Details