Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design.
2015 was dominated by remakes, remasters, and rereleases.
In the past 12 months we saw recycled versions of Saints Row IV, Resident Evil, Majora's
Mask, the Borderland games, Devil May Cry 4 and DmC, almost everything Rare ever made,
Journey, God of War 3, Dark Souls 2, Final Fantasy Type-0, X, and X-2, the Uncharted
trilogy, Darksiders 2, Tearaway, Dishonered, Gears of War, and Xenoblade Chronicles.
That's not to say they shouldn't have been released, but with so many developers stuck
in the past, it's surprising that there was anyone left to come up with fresh and innovative
new stuff.
But luckily, there was.
We've already spoken about some smart bits of game design from the last 12 months. Like
Nova-111's somewhat successful attempt to marry real-time and turn-based gameplay, The
Swindle's 100 day time limit that pressures you into making wonderfully dumb decisions,
Grow Home's wobbly hand-over-hand-climbing system, and the randomly generated murder
mystery game Westerados.
But you can find scraps of good design in lots of games released this year. So here
are five. Five mechanics or systems or just clever ideas from games released in 2015.
Let's start with Bloodborne: another dark and difficult masterpiece in the Souls series,
which introduced a fascinating new wrinkle to an already sharply-designed combat system.
In this game, From Software wanted to make combat more offensive than Dark Souls, and
less tentative. So not only did they take away your shield, but the team added something called
the "regain system".
When you take a hit, you'll lose a portion of your life bar as usual. But now, if you
strike back within a limited time you can get some of your lost health back.
This encourages you to play aggressively, instead of hiding behind a plank of wood or
running away to chug from your limited stash of potions. But there's risk involved, as
it causes you to act rashly which, as we all know, is what gets you killed in these games.
The game's producer told IGN that Souls series director Hidetaka Miyazaki "looks at the health
gauge not as health, but as your power of will to go on". So, getting hit plunges you into
a state of despair, but immediately getting in your own attacks gives you some hope that
this battle can be won.
Okay, so Metal Gear Solid V's Fulton Recovery System first showed up in Peace Walker on
the PSP. But shush. Most of us only discovered the fulton's pleasures in The Phantom Pain.
Here's how it works: any sleeping, stunned, or surrendering guard in The Phantom Pain
can be attached to a tiny balloon, which whisks them off into the sky and delivers them to
your Mother Base.
You can also Fulton animals and vehicles. But it's the guards that make this interesting.
Because stealth games have struggled to find a compelling reason to deal with enemies non-lethally.
In fact, it's almost always a bad idea because tranquillised or knocked out guards can wake
up. So, unless you're going for achievements or unlockables, it's often better to just pip 'em
in the head with a silenced pistol.
But in Metal Gear, if you spot an enemy soldier with good stats, who will be useful in Mother
Base, you're now given a good incentive to take him out non-lethally, then move him away
from other guards, and... fire him off into the atmosphere on a balloon.
Rubbish guards with rubbish stats can still be killed, but this mad extraction system
will make you think twice about offing every soldier in Afghanistan.
Splatoon's best mechanic is not spraying the battlefield with a thick coat of colourful
paint. And it's not swimming and jumping about as a squid.
It is, in my opinion, both of these. Or, more specifically, the way these two systems work
together in perfect synergy.
Because, you shoot paint to make a path that you can travel through as a squid, which causes your
tank to refill, which you can use to shoot paint to make a path which you can travel through
as a squid, which... well, you get the picture.
Most modern games offer multiple mechanics but it's very rare to see two very different
ways of interacting with the world - shooting and moving - support each other almost symbiotically.
So it's not a case of doing some shooting for a bit, and then doing some swimming for
a bit. One mechanic simply cannot exist without the other, which means the way you deal with
every encounter, puzzle, and boss fight involves juggling two disparate and sophisticated mechanics.
Which is challenging, and fun.
All in all, making Splatoon much, much more interesting than simply Call of Duty with
paint instead of bullets.
We talked this year about how checkpoints can change the level of tension in a game.
Keep them far apart, like in Far Cry 2 on console, and you'll be sweating bullets when
you're pinned down and realise that it's been half an hour since you last saved. Make the checkpoints
too close and you get Prince of Persia.
Well how about giving that choice to the player? In Ori and the Blind Forest there are spots
where the game saves automatically but you can also spend some of your energy to make
"soul links" or checkpoints.
The onus is now on you to decide whether you want to save at every safe spot, or to give
yourself some more challenge and only save at the beginning and end of a tricky platforming
section.
This is different from hammering Quick Save in a PC game, though. Because that stock of
energy is limited, you must unleash soul links carefully, because you risk running out of
the blue stuff when you really need it. And because that same stuff is used for performing
certain powerful attacks, you'll need to juggle your priorities.
It makes deploying checkpoints strategic, and another thing to think about when getting
through the game. It's not something I'd want to see in every platformer, but it could be
used by some designers to give their games a tad more nuance in the way they save your
progress.
And finally: Life is Strange.
This is a traumatic game. It features murder, intense bullying, suicide attempts, and abuse.
Which is why it's so important that Max can, in every episode, sit down. Just plonk her
butt on a chair and take a moment.
She'll spend some time thinking to herself, unpacking the crazy stuff that's happened to her.
MAX: Despite all the chaos and bullshit, I feel so giddy hanging out with her again.
Then, the brilliant soundtrack will take over, and the camera will lazily cut
between different shots.
It's up to you when you make Max stand up again, and throw her back into the storm.
I think this is genuinely important in a game of such emotional intensity. You're given
permission and encouragement to take a break.
But it's also worth thinking about in other types of game. Non-stop action can get exhausting,
so the best games provide moments of deliberate downtime. Without moments of quiet and solitude,
the only way for players to take a break from the action is to turn off your game and walk
away...
So there we have it. Five bits of great design from games released in 2015. And I'll have
one more, from my very favourite game of the year, at the end of this month.
So please look forward to that. Until then, thanks for watching!
I want to hear about your favourite bits of game design
from 2015, so drop them in the comments. Also, subscribe to the channel to get new episodes
the moment they come out. And consider helping support the show on Patreon.