Walking the Path

In my last post, I discussed the difficulties of developing flow in a game like Left 4 Dead, and the specific challenges I've been facing in the large, open courtyard central to The Office Park. I narrowed my options down to two potential paths, pictured again below.

From Mapping

The first path, aptly-named Path A, seemed the most logical choice to me. Here was a huge open area with a number of dividing structures (the planters), obviously it would be best to have the player explore every nook and cranny of that space, zig-zagging back and forth to get to their destination.

This was fine in theory, but putting it into play brought a number of issues to the foreground. Forcing the player to maneuver back and forth achieved what I wanted, in that you DID see the entire courtyard, but it also had the effect of feeling contrived. No matter what reason I might imply for having to take this route, it was readily apparent that it was all just "designed." This is a real location, at least in the mind of the player, and this is an effect best avoided.

Additionally, all of this walking back and forth made for a lot more work cosmetically. Most players don't mind a long trek - after all, it's just a matter of holding the W key - but nobody wants to stare at the exact same scenery for ten minutes. Populating all of this empty space was, as mentioned in my earlier post, proving to be exceedingly difficult, and my attempts were feeling increasingly forced.

The final issue I didn't notice until calling in a friend for testing. My changes since the release of Beta 0.5 have been tested internally amongst myself and a few others who have been following development since Day 1. When bringing an unversed player into this environment for the first time, Path A often found them wandering off into some non-essential corner of the courtyard. While I do believe that the ability to explore should be encouraged, players should NOT be put into a situation where deviating from the most obvious course will get them lost, and this is what was happening.

That said, I have opted, officially, to develop along Path B, and so far it is working nicely. A number of features have been added to the courtyard (cosmetically) to emphasize this route, and after seeing it all come together I'm beginning to wonder why I needed to take a three month vacation to come up with this in the first place.

The new route will be detailed in a future post, but now I must sleep.