Spontaneous Sunday: The Cave

Welcome to another Spontaneous Sunday, this week I have played The Cave (2013, Double Fine Productions, Xbox One via backwards compatibility). This is a game that I have heard mentioned a lot during my time as a games design student, so when it was offered free on Games With Gold in January, I had to get it and add it to my Spontaneous Sunday game backlog!

"The Cave is a puzzle-platform/adventure video game developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Sega in January 2013 on the PlayStation Network, Nintendo eShop and Xbox Live Arcade storefronts via the PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 consoles and on Steam for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux. The game was created by Ron Gilbert, building on an idea that he has had for nearly twenty years about a cave that lures people into it to explore their darker personality traits."

- Wikipedia on The Cave

What do I expect from the game?

I have heard and seen quite a lot about The Cave and, from what I've heard, its a well-designed and charming game that allows you to pick 3 characters and navigate the cave with them. Each character has different mechanics that allow them to overcome obstacles and take different routes, and the way in which the characters mechanics complement each other affects the gameplay.

I expect the game to focus primarily on puzzles rather than enemies to challenge the player. I expect its gameplay and puzzles to be well-designed and carefully considered by the developers, and I also expect the game to have a nice art style, probably with low-poly models, hand-painted textures/backdrops and some interesting environments.

First Impressions - What do I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game begins with a monologue from The Cave itself, which has a voice and a personality and introduces us to the premise of the game. There are 7 characters, each with their own story, and we will be choosing some to take into the cave and play the game as, while also learning about their personality and story along the way. I was then presented with a line-up of characters stood in a forest-y area just outside the cave. Hovering over each character prompts The Cave to give a short description of them, and their motivation in exploring the cave. I was instantly taken with the game's art style. It has a very nice, stylised, hand-painted feel from the very beginning. The opening environment is charming and detailed, with moving clouds, a crackling campfire, gently waving grass and particle effects. The game is played in a 2D plane, but has 3D environments and art.

The 7 playable characters.

Collecting the crowbar.

My first character pick was The Adventurer as I just liked her "early aviator" vibe. I began to run around the environment and get to grips with the controls. The controls are very simple and all each character could do was jump and move around. I headed left to find the cave entrance barricaded, then right and found a crowbar with which to clear the entrance. My second pick was The Hillbilly, again chosen because I liked the look of him but also because I liked his story (he's trying to find his true love). I decided to pick the last character at random so I mashed the right button to cycle between them and ended up with The Twins. My band of explorers entered the cave and the journey began.

The Hillbilly, The Twins and The Adventurer!

The fact that you have to take only 3 characters is communicated to the player by a bridge above a chasm, that would break if 3 characters stood on it. I placed all of my characters on the bridge, which broke and they fell deep into the cave, ending up in a pool of water next to the gift shop, which contained a store clerk who sadly stated that the cave was closed - but he could let us in if we provided him with 3 items he could sell. So I headed into a different area outside of The Cave proper and completed a puzzle to find the items.

The first puzzle was undoubtedly well-designed, but might actually have been a bit too tricky considering it was the first, and it took a good few minutes to complete. It involved breaking a well to get a bucket, taking a fuse to power a vending machine, getting a hot dog and putting it on a spike to lure a dragon-esque creature into the path of a crane. The next area saw me draw into a big pool, blow up a rockslide with some dynamite, and find the 3 items - a cursed guitar, a thespianship award and a jewelled skull. Returning to the gift shop clerk, he allowed my character into The Cave proper and the game began properly!

The Cave's gift shop.

Characters with the 3 items for the gift shop.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

The Cave has a lot of rather positive points. What stood out most immediately to me was the game's art style. It really is a very nice game visually, with a strong stylised art style including hand-painted and low poly models. The fact that the game features 3D environments adds a lot of depth to the visuals and environments (quite literally!). I've found that almost all the 2D games I've played recently have had at least some level of 3D to their environments - this could be a sign of a wider trend of 2D games incorporating 3D elements so as to "keep up with the times".

The environments and levels in The Cave are one of its strongest features. As I progressed through the game, I realised that the levels you play in a playthrough depend on who you pick to play with. As I chose The Hillbilly, The Adventurer and The Twins, I played a carnival level, an Egyptian-themed level in a pyramid, and a haunted house-style level, for each of the characters respectively. 

Each level was very distinct, both visually and in terms of gameplay, and had its own personality, atmosphere and story. The Hillbilly's carnival level, for example, has a vintage carnival feel, with the goal being to complete puzzles in the form of carnival games to get tickets and win a pink bear to gift to an "amazing two-legged woman" to woo her. This backfires however, and the hillbilly ended up burning the whole carnival to the ground!

The carnival burning at the end of The Hillbilly's level.

Each level ends with it's character committing an evil act like this, as the games creator, Ron Gilbert, made the game as a way of exploring the characters darker personality traits. The environments are further enhanced by the use of particle effects, lighting, atmospheric audio and unique, subtle additions embedded into the rock walls between navigable areas (such as a classic London phone box buried in a mine!).

The Hillbilly's Carnival Level.

The Twins haunted house level.

The characters are another strong feature of the game, and they are very important to the whole experience in that the players choice of character directly dictates what levels they will play. The characters each have their own motivations for entering the cave, their own abilities and their own backstory - which is revealed through "cave paintings" hidden throughout the levels. These cave paintings depict scenes from the characters past which contextualise the content of their level, and collecting them requires thorough exploration. There are 7 characters in total, meaning that at least 3 playthroughs are required to experience all of their stories. This is a creative and smart way of adding replayability while still offering a new experience each time. There are even times, in the areas between different characters levels, that you can get a glimpse of small corners of other characters levels, which adds a bit of intrigue to that character.

The Adventurer's first cave painting.

As a puzzle game, the puzzle design and gameplay is a very important factor, and The Cave does this well for the most part, though puzzles can sometimes be frustrating or require a lot of back-tracking. The puzzle formats are all unique, engaging and invariably challenging (at least for a relative rookie of puzzle games like myself). The gameplay itself usually involve a lot of jumping and climbing ladders/ropes to navigate and interacting with objects such as fuses, machinery and pressure plates to complete puzzles and advance. The puzzles are imaginative and often quirky. NPCs also appear every so often to add to the story, though it seems that their ultimate use is to die at the end of the level so as to cast moral questionability upon the characters. The game lacks any sort of enemies and the challenge comes entirely from the puzzles.

The Adventures Egypt-themed level features pressure plates and traps.

Finally, the overall tone of the game is charming and interesting. The fact that The Cave itself is voiced and acts as a narrator gives the game a handy way of communicating with the player. The writing is creative and imaginative, and the game has humorous elements which make it a light-hearted and engaging puzzler.

What do I not like about the game?

The Cave does have a few minor downsides to it. The puzzles can sometimes be a bit too cryptic and unclear due to the game's lack of direction, which can make for confusing and frustrating gameplay, though I am admittedly not a frequent player of puzzle games. Also, puzzles can sometimes require a lot of backtracking. It also feels like there is a lack of challenge from other means at times. There are traps in some of the levels, such as spike pits, but these are fairly easy to avoid. The addition of some more platform elements and dangerous obstacles could have provided a more varied level of challenge.

Another minor downside is that I expected more from the game's music. The game's audio mostly consists of sound effects and ambient audio, without an awful lot of music. The presence of a more substantial and memorable soundtrack could have really elevated the game's appeal even more.

The control page features images of each characters unique mechanic.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I found The Cave to be an interest and charming puzzle game, which has some very positive features and brings some great ideas to the table. The art style, visuals and environments are my favourite feature, with the puzzles and gameplay also standing out. The imagination and creativity put into each of the levels and the characters makes for an interesting and unique experience. The Cave got me thinking about 2D game design and puzzle design, which is an area of game design I don't often consider as I usually play 3D games of other genres.

In around 4 hours playing, I reached the third of my characters levels (The Twins' haunted house level) so I think I was almost finished and I plan on returning to The Cave soon to finish my playthrough - and maybe start again and meet the other characters too!

Stone Circle Scene Progress - March 13th

Its been a couple of weeks since I last posted about my Stone Circle 3D scene. I've made a fair bit of progress in the last couple of weeks and have been working pretty hard - I've been in the games studio every day Monday to Friday for the past two weeks, a habit that I intend to try and keep. Much of this time was invested into making an academic poster for my Design Research 2 module (which I will make a post about soon), but I've been working on my practical stuff too. Here's a breakdown of whats changed since my last post:

• I've created a cliff-face model that is encircling the playable area and acting as a level boundary, which helps to box the scene in and also contributes to the atmosphere.
• I've created a rock model that I've used throughout the scene as an instanced foliage actor. The rocks vary in size from small stones to big boulders to provide variety without the use of many different meshes.
• I've added ground-level fog, which is actually a fog sheet that I have borrowed from a UE4 content example map.
• I've also used the fog sheet to create a Northern Lights effect in the sky above the level. I achieved this by taking the fog sheet, stretching it out and altering the colour and settings. I think this really adds a sense of intrigue to the environment.
• Finally, I've added a water plane to act as the stream that runs through part of the level. This is from the free water plane content that is available on the UE4 "learn" asset bank.

Perhaps the most exciting development is that I've started using zBrush and Substance Painter - two very important, industry standard pieces of software that will be highly beneficial to my workflow. It's still early days yet and I'm very much still a beginner. I used zBrush and Substance Painter to create the cliff-face asset in the scene. I have to give a huge thanks to my course-mate, Kamil Sroka, for helping me out with this, and inspiring me to start learning the software (check out his blog here).

Spontaneous Sunday: Finding Nemo

This weeks Spontaneous Sunday game is Finding Nemo (2003, Traveller's Tales, PS2). I bought this game in March 2016 so I could play it and learn a bit more about Tt before my interview for my QA position at Tt Fusion, but didn't actually get chance to play it at that time. Tt's Head of Design, Arthur Parsons, visited the UCLan games studio last week, and his presentation has spurred me to dust off the PS2 and play Finding Nemo for this weeks Spontaneous Sunday.

What do I expect from the game?

I expect Finding Nemo to be a 2D side scrolling game aimed at kids, featuring characters and locations from the film, but with additional content added to expand the lore and add longevity to the game. I expect it to be quite easy in terms of gameplay due to its young target audience. I expect some puzzle elements. Traveller's Tales are well-known for their proficiency at creating licensed games, so I expect it to be faithful and accurate to the tone and story of the film. I expect it to be a visually appealing game, with colourful textures and environments and low-poly models.

First Impressions

Before launching the game itself, I had a quick look through the manual, which is itself very colourful and detailed and is consistent with the look and feel of the film. I launched the game and reached the front end, which is a 3D underwater scene with plenty of movement, colours and flashing animated text which makes it interesting and visually appealing.

As in the movie, the game begins on Nemo's first day of school. The first level is called "Going To School" and sees the player controlling Nemo and learning the basics of movement while travelling to school accompanied by Nemo's dad, Marlin.

En route, Nemo meets some of his classmates, finds Pearl the octopus and leads her back to safety, clears a giant clam and some rocks from his path, and races his classmates. All the while, Marlin is trying to find any excuse for Nemo not to go to school. This first level is very faithful to the start of the film, and the designers have done a good job of creating gameplay from the events of this scene, while also effectively introducing the game's core mechanics. The first level also offers nice-looking environments, and the game features clips from the movie and the same voice actors.

Level two, "Field Trip" introduces a few more mechanics such as hiding an anemones and collecting krill which act like guardians/lives and allow you to take more damage from enemies. The level also features sections where the player has to jump on bouncy sea sponges and swim through caves. My first impression of the game was that it is a charming child-friendly game that is faithful to the film, and it offers some simple but effective mechanics and fairly varied gameplay.

What do I like about the game?

Finding Nemo's greatest strengths are its visuals, its audio and its representation of the events of the film and how the designers drew gameplay from these events. The game captures the look and feel of the film about as accurately as it possibly could given the PS2's graphical capabilities and the development technology available at the time of its release in 2003. I can definitely see it being visually appealing to kids and fans of the movie. The environments are particularly interesting, with lots to look at and plenty of movement, and really nice textures and models. There's also a wide variety of enemies and dangers.

In-engine cutscene.

One of the 3D chase sequences.

The inclusion of clips from the original movie and the use of the original voice actors also adds to the game's authenticity and is a testament to Disney Pixar's confidence in the project and the quality of Traveller's Tales' licensed games. As the game progresses, you get to play as Marlin and Dory. The audio in general is pretty good, with the voice acting and music standing out. The music does a good job of establishing a mood within each level, whether its a light-hearted one in the first level, or a sense of peril in later levels.

The game's designers did a good job of creating gameplay from the events that occur in the film. Objectives such as finding Pearl in level one and completing puzzles to open doors in the submarine  to escape from Bruce the Shark make for interesting gameplay while still being faithful to the film and relevant to the story. I was expecting the game to have to add things to the story that didn't necessarily happen in the film, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn't the case and the film did in fact translate very well into gameplay. The core mechanics, such as dashing, picking up objects and collecting things, are simple but well-utilised.

The bonus objective screen.

The levels also feature some bonus objectives, such as swimming through rings of bubbles, placing coloured rocks in the right areas and collecting shells, and these accomplishments are shown in the level select screen. However, the bonus objectives are shown simply as a small picture/symbol, which could make it tricky for the player to tell exactly what it is they need to do to achieve the bonus objectives. Nevertheless, it does add a bit more depth to the levels.

Bonus objectives include placing coloured rocks in the right areas.

Completing the bonus objectives unlocks simple bonus levels. After completing a level, the player is returned to the level select screen where they can now see the time in which they completed it. The simple addition of a completion time encourages replaying and adds longevity to the game. However, with the game probably being aimed at younger gamers, the difficulty of completing the bonus objectives could well mean that they will never get chance to play the bonus levels.

One of the bonus levels.

What do I not like?

Finding Nemo has a number of downsides, the most detrimental of which is its difficulty level. The game takes a rather steep increase in difficulty after the 2nd level, and it soon becomes an increasingly difficult and at times frustrating experience as the game progresses. This is due to a number of things such as there being too many enemies and dangers, too few of the krill that act as extra hits before being killed, disorienting level layouts, too few checkpoints and puzzles that are too difficult - such as sliding block puzzles. I can imagine that young gamers would really struggle with this game. I think that more time should have been invested into regulating the game's difficulty level, especially seeing as it is based on a kid's film.

I think the sliding block puzzles are unnecessarily challenging.

The is mostly played like a sidescroller, but theres also chase/race sections where the player swims either towards or away from the camera, which provides a change of pace and variety, but often doesn't play as well and can be awkward of frustrating. In many of these stages, you have to hit rings of bubbles or collectables in your path, but they can very difficult to hit, and dangers can be too difficult to avoid.

Another more minor negative point is that the game doesn't do enough to communicate objectives to the player. This includes both critical path objectives and bonus objectives. It would be beneficial to have a simple, one-line objective on the pause menu. This lack of direction could cause players to become lost or not know what they are meant to be trying to achieve.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Finding Nemo does a good job of capturing the spirit of the film, with good audio and visuals and well thought-out level goals. The bonus objectives and bonus levels and the variety of gameplay stages helps to keep the gameplay interesting and fresh. However, it really is hampered by its excessively difficult and often frustrating gameplay, which has a negative impact on the overall enjoyment of the experience.

Spontaneous Sunday: Burnout Paradise

Spontaneous Sunday is back after last weeks break, and this week I have played Burnout Paradise (2009, Criterion Games, EA, Xbox One). This is the first racing game that I have played for Spontaneous Sunday. It was one of the free games on Xbox Live in December 2016.

"Burnout Paradise is an open world racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts. It is the fifth entry in the Burnout series. The game was released in January 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and on 5 February 2009 for Microsoft Windows. It was made backward compatible with the Xbox One in November 2016."

- Wikipedia on Burnout Paradise

What do I expect from the game?

I have very little experience with the Burnout franchise. I played a little bit of Burnout 3: Takedown on PS2 about 10 years ago but other than that I've never played a Burnout game. I'm not a big consumer of racing games in general. The racing franchises that I have the most experience with is are Forza (I've briefly played Forza 2, 3 and Horizon) and Gran Turismo (on the PS1 and PS2).

Burnout Paradise is a free roam racing game, so I expect that there will be different races and tasks around the game world which the player must complete to advance through the game and unlock new things. I think there will probably be a variety of different game types.

Burnout 3: Takedown was a pretty chaotic game that had exaggerated crash physics and stunts and focused more on entertainment than realism, so I expect that Paradise will be similar in this regard. I expect that there will be lots of things to unlock and some sort of customisation system.

First Impressions - What do I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game began with a Start screen and Guns 'N' Roses' "Paradise City" playing which is of course very relevant to the game! I started a new game and watched a short cinematic of a bird's eye/overhead map view of the city while a female narrator told me about how the game works; complete tasks and races around the city to progress and unlock new vehicles. 8 important locations were also introduced. I was granted a "learners permit" to the city and encouraged to pass my in-game driving test to unlock a new vehicle.

I started out in a beat-up old muscle car and was told to take it to a repair shop. However, I decided instead to just take off into the city and see what there was to see. I got myself into a race almost by accident and won it easily enough, smashed into a bunch of things, wrecked my car a few times and generally just got to grips with the controls and "vibe" of the game. 

Hunter Cavalry - The starter car

The city is interesting enough in terms of layout and visuals and its pretty well designed for the gameplay that it plays host to. There's plenty of long roads to max out your car on, things to hit, ramps, shortcuts to find and billboards to destroy - there is a total of 400 shortcuts and 120 billboards, which of course encourages extended play and exploration in a simple but effective way.

The core mechanics are easy to get to grips with. You basically just speed around the city, completing races which gets you closer to unlocking new vehicles and upgrades for your license. You get a speed boost mechanic which is replenished by skilful of risky driving. It was very easy to just get into the game and start having fun with it.

The game looks pretty nice and the graphics are decent for a 2009 game. The city and locations are all bright and saturated, theres a lot of lights around and the city is also pretty varied, with docks, downtown areas and even some more mountainous, countryside-esque locations outside of the city.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

I definitely have a lot of good things to say about Burnout Paradise. One of its biggest strengths is how quick and easy it is to start having fun with it. Upon starting a new game, I was behind the wheel pretty much instantly, and had free reign around the whole city.

A post-release update also added motorbikes!

The game has a real sense of immediacy to it, which allows it to quickly begin entertaining the player. This is also seen in the game's mechanics and features. For example, the speed boost (represented by the bar in the bottom left of the screen) replenishes very quickly. If you wreck your car in a crash, you respawn nearby in seconds and can carry on. If you don't like the song thats playing, you can skip it with the push of a button without even having to pause the game. Everything about the game is just quick and to-the-point which allows the player to get straight into the action. It also feels like a very rewarding game in that you unlock new cars quickly and the achievements come in thick and fast.

The game world is another plus point. It takes place within the fictional Paradise City which offers some varied locations and can be seen to take influence from a number of real-world cities (e.g, the Hollywood-style sign reading "Paradise City"). There's also a mountainous, countryside region that offers a nice change of scenery. It's a very well-designed space for the gameplay. There's loads of little shortcuts to find and things to smash into. It is as much fun just flying aimlessly around the city at blinding speed as it is completing the races that progress the game. 

The game does a good job of encouraging the player to explore the game world. There's a load of collectables and challenges to complete such as finding shortcuts, destroying billboards and completing super jumps. These are scattered all around the game world. The way in which races work also encourages the player to make use of the whole playable area. Races often see you driving across the whole city to an area that you may have otherwise not ended up at so easily. In my short time playing the game, I visited each corner of the map at least once.

The game has a pretty huge soundtrack of licensed songs consisting mostly of rock, with a couple of electronic and indie tracks thrown in too. Theres some really good songs on the game, all of which suit it pretty well. It reminded me of games such as Tony Hawk and Need For Speed and how the soundtrack of licensed music was an important selling point for these games.

Burnout Paradise also offers the "Showtime" game-mode, which is similar to the Crash mode seen in earlier games in the franchise, and allows you to bounce your car down the road with the aim of causing as much damage to other vehicles and property as possible. This adds a whole new level of chaos to the gameplay.

What do I not like?

There's a few downsides to Burnout Paradise, such as its lack of a storyline. The crux of the game is simply to get to the highest level of license by completing races and tasks and unlocking everything. Without any sort of storyline, the game feels a little un-grounded and without context, and there's a slight underlying feeling of it lacking something at its core. Not including a story line seems like a risky move on the part of the developers.

Another negative point is that it can be quite disorienting to drive around and complete races. The angle of the camera is just a bit too low and shallow which makes it a bit tricky to see whats coming up ahead. It would be better if the camera was placed higher and at a steeper angle which would make it easier to make sense of whats ahead of you and navigate more easily.

The game doesn't give you any set route for races. The names of streets appear at the top of the screen, with the current street in the middle and any upcoming left or right turns also being displayed. The road name that will take you to your destination flashes to indicate the way to go, but in the heat of a race, its pretty hard to look at it and not end up crashing. It would have been better if a glowing arrow appeared on the road, or if a route was shown on the map for you. Apparently, the lack of a clear-cut route is intentional and intended to let the player make their own creative route, but this didn't really resonate with me and I ended up getting lost a lot.

Finally, theres the fact that the menu systems are pretty dense and full of content, while not being very easy to navigate. Most of said content is just to do with the DLC and online features that EA has become known for.

Final Thoughts

Burnout Paradise is a fun, fast-paced open-world racing game that doesn't take itself too seriously. It throws you right into the playground that is Paradise City and allows you to complete tasks and progress at your own pace and make your own fun. There's very little pressure to progress, which is pretty refreshing. The games graphics, soundtrack and rewarding nature also help it to be a well-rounded and entertaining experience. It's lack of storyline and sometimes-disorienting navigation system aren't big enough problems to detract from that experience too much. I think it was a good game to choose as Spontaneous Sunday's first racing game.

Stone Circle Scene Progress - March 1st

I've made more progress on my Stone Circle scene, including adding hand-painted tileable terrain textures, with normal, roughness and specular maps. I've also done some work on the particle effects to get the fire looking how I want it to look, and I've learned a bit about particles in the process. I got some feedback from Jim today on the scene and he seems to approve of how its going so far! Here's some pictures...

Firstly, here's the diffuse and normal maps for the tileable textures. I checked out a few hand-painted texture tutorials to help me with these and picked up some new Photoshop skills, which is always handy! I used the nDo plugin to generate normal maps from the diffuses. I've also done roughness and specular maps for each material.

And here's the current scene itself. It's very dark right now as I've been playing with the idea of having a dark environment to add a sense of danger and uncertainty to the exploration. I've altered the UE4 first-person character so that the character holds a torch complete with light and particle effects instead of a gun. My theory is that the darker the scene is overall, the more impact the torches scattered around the level will have. A dark scene will also give more opportunities to use object silhouettes for dramatic effect.

As it stands right now, I'm just steadily getting together all of the art/visual assets that I need. In the next few days I will be doing a bunch of trees, foliage, rocks and so on.