Understanding the combat design of Lizard boss fight in Spiderman 2

The Lizard boss battle in Marvel’s Spiderman 2 is one of the more interesting boss battles in the game. It not only fulfills multiple functions that define a good boss fight in a video game but it’s also one of the best on screen renditions of the Lizard character. This is why I decided to break down the combat design of this boss to see what it does well.

How do Assassin's Creed games encourage players to use parkour?

Assassin’s Creed is a franchise built on the idea of a grounded protagonist who can free run and parkour through the environments. Encouraging players to parkour is a key gameplay goal of these games. A lot of core design decisions need to focus on nudging players to use parkour rather than running through the streets. This can be achieved by simply making parkour more convenient and interesting as compared to running through the streets.

Game design analysis: The frustrations of Mary Jane missions in Spider-Man

The first Marvel’s Spider-Man game introduced a few playable characters other than Spider-Man. While playing as a non-Spider-Man character, most of the gameplay was focused on stealth where the main idea was going from cover to cover without being spotted by enemies. Spider-Man 2 still has these stealth missions, though they are now mainly focused on Mary Jane. The new game tries to address the frustrations of the stealth missions in the previous game.

Level design breakdown: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

In this article, we’ll take a look at the level design of Challenge Tombs from Shadow of the Tomb Raider and try to create a 2D map of a tomb of our own.

At the end of the article, we successfully we end up with a 2D map of a challenge tomb.

Evolution of stealth in Spider-Man 2: the web-line mechanic

In the first installment of Spider-Man, stealth combat was very limited, mainly to wall, ceiling and perch takedowns at predetermined points or areas and lacking much player agency. Spider-Man 2’s web line mechanic aims to revolutionize this, offering players increased freedom while maintaining the quintessential feeling of being Spider-Man by allowing players to place webs (which act as perches) between two points.

halo infinite multiplayer level design series: FRAGMENTATION

For the fifth and final article in the Halo Infinite level design series, we’ll take a look at the largest map among the initial launch multiplayer maps. It’s large size invites some interesting design challenges and solutions. It’s level design also approaches vertical grapple based platforming in a unique way.

halo infinite multiplayer level design series: DEADLOCk

For the fourth article in the Halo Infinite level design series, we’ll take a look at another fun multiplayer map called DEADLOCK. An outdoor big team (12 vs 12) battle map focusing on several long range and mid range engagement areas along with multiple vehicle play opportunities and some short range engagements. Let us look at how the level design of the map achieves this.

halo infinite multiplayer level design series: BAZAAR

The third article in this series looks at the BAZAAR, an outdoor map featuring an iconic arena in the center with two bases on either side and several paths weaving in and out of the central arena like a spider web. The map focuses on short range encounters with opportunities for multiple players to fight together in a single spot. Let us look at how the level design of the map achieves this.

halo infinite multiplayer level design series: aquarius

In this second article in the series, we continue to look at elements of multiplayer map design in Halo Infinite. Last time we looked at the Behemoth map which is focused on small team vehicle play and more mid-range combat engagements. This time we are going to look at Aquarius, a small team close quarters combat focused map.

Halo infinite multiplayer level design series: Behemoth

After having played Halo on a regular basis for more than 7 years now, the new Halo Infinite multiplayer maps feel like an absolute breath of fresh air. It still gives off the vibe of the old Halo games but the gameplay and design of the maps are absolutely fresh. With the addition of abilities like grapples and repulsors, the map designs are more complex and interesting than ever. Let’s start by breaking down the design of one of my favorite maps to play- Behemoth.

Design analysis: The first encounter in Ghost of Tsushima

First encounters in a combat-heavy video game give the players a glimpse of what the rest of the game is going to play and feel like. A lot of times we see games treating the first fight as a tutorial for the basic combat controls while others skip over the tutorial completely and leave the players to their wits. Ghost of Tsushima takes somewhat of a different approach to this common design pattern.

Shrine design in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The concept of shrines in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the cleverest gameplay pockets I have come across in recent times. This is because of its game design functions, visual language, and how it ties with the overall world design.

Function of traversal actions in level design

While playing through a typical action-adventure video game, you might have come across interacts like squeeze-throughs, cave crawls, duck unders, etc, while traversing a game level. I’ll call them traversal actions.

A lot of players complain about how games overuse them and how they slow down the feel and speed of gameplay. Let us take a look at why these traversal actions exist in level design.

Function of Vistas and Views in Game Design

Certain games use vistas as one-off moments (like Uncharted) where a special camera move will highlight the vista for the first time. Other games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild allows the players to look at views and vistas as they like without a special camera move. These views and vistas perform some important functions in game design.

Making combat spaces for SpidermanPS4

Combat spaces with verticality are difficult to design and Marvel’s Spiderman for PS4 does it masterfully. So I decided to study it’s different arenas and develop a process to create some of my own.

Finally, I was able to design and create four Fisk construction site arenas of my own.

Analyzing Spyfall

Below is a small analysis of the card game, Spyfall, based on the framework provided by Stone Librande that focuses on Start, Goals, Obstacles, Decisions, Rules and Interactions as major components of a game. The analysis also explores a little bit of Mark Le Blanc’s 8 types of fun.

MARVEL’S SPIDERMAN LEVEL DESIGN

Some level design insights from Marvel’s Spiderman here.

A GAME IN AN HOUR

This blog outlines a framework taught by Stone Librande, Lead Designer at Riot Games, in his game design class at CMU, that allows for quick development of games and evaluation of their design. More specifically, by following the framework, you can start developing your game in less than 15 minutes and iterate on it quite a few times by the end of the hour.

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ASSASSIN’S CREED BLACK FLAG?

The game touted as the one having the best gameplay in the Assassin’s Creed franchise had something wrong it. The story mainly never worked for most players and there were two major reasons behind that - player motivation and the protagonist’s relationship with his targets.

God of War’s Level Design

Started replaying God of War during Christmas 2018 to better understand design techniques being used to carve the beautiful world.

How does Journey evoke strong emotions?

Journey does an excellent job of evoking emotions within the player in a short period of time. Feelings that the designers wanted to evoke within the players — first, a great sense of awe; second, the feeling of being small compared to the vast world; third, the feeling of an unknown and mysterious world and fourth, a sense of companionship that is free from all biases. Everything related to companionship should be in the context of the game, and no real-world biases like gender should affect the players’ perception.

What comes first: the Theme or the Mechanic? — Developing a Game Designer’s Pipeline

When beginning to design a new game, it is always a dilemma for the designer to choose between the theme or the mechanic as starting points. I have recently come across a few situations where all the members on the team had highly differing opinions on where the design of the game should start from. I aim to establish a fairly rough pipeline on how to tackle this dilemma and will do so by talking about two cases here; one is a game jam and the other is a semester long academic project.