Blogs - pangoweb

Cameras?

The great thing about 3D is that you can more or less control the camera like it's a real camera. I mean, in 2D, from my very short experience, there is not much of a concept of camera, except now in things like Unity, but you just draw the tiles so that it's on screen or not.

In 3D, the camera is a point with position, rotation, and the camera moves in a world coordonate system. The setting then remains at the same place. Not saying I particularly love 3D over 2D though. But this feels more natural, and allows to start to think, from time to time, as a film director, choosing the right camera angle...

So, what if, say, I was making a 3D third-person RPG like Dreams of Ylina and I had to choose a "camera"? Let's list some possible options:

• Close behind: a camera behind the controllable character, close to him, allowing the player to see in front of the character
• Not-so-close behind: same, but a bit further
• Top-down: see the character from top, reminiscent of my beloved old-school RPGs,
• Anywhere between the first three
• Freelook: allow to control the rotation of the camera around the character with the mouse.

Now, how could I choose between all these possibilities? Well, let's ask myself: what do I want the player to feel, to see?

Well, I should add that I don't really like Freelook 3rd person cameras. I don't know, this kind of control is not for me, it seems.

I want the player to be able to see the horizon, and the landscapes. So, top-down is off the list.

I also want the player to see the feet of his character and what's on the floor, even close to the character. So, not too close behind.

But wait, there's more! What if the player runs down a hill, or climbs a slope? If the camera is too far behind, it will enter the ground when running down a slope, and if it's too close, you will not be able to see where you're going when climbing a slope.

That leaves me two options then:

• Carefull adjust the distance and height of the camera to fit all the needs of my terrain and game
• Have a dynamic camera that doesn't go into the ground, maybe lifts up a little when doing down, and why not rotating a bit upwards to see where the player is going when going up

I haven't really chosen yet, although what I've used for now is more of the first idea than the second, but, well I just wanted to share these thoughts.

As always, my blog articles are rare, not very well thought in advance, and written in the middle of the night, as I'm very tired.

See you space cowboys.

In the not-beginning, there was...

In the same idea than my previous and first article in the Dreams of Ylina indieDB page, I will write a little bit about my gamer experience, back in the days when The Offspring was about to be famous but still independant: the early 90s.

If I ever write other articles on this blog, I may write about the 80s too. So why not write chronologically if I'm talking about my gamer experience? Because the game I had chosen to write about is what I consider now, for good or bad, the turning point of this gamer experience.

And the winner is:

The game I'm thinking of, the chosen one, is [in the title of this article]: Zelda: A Link To The Past. AKA Zelda3.

Before that I had played Sonic, probably Flashback on Genesis (Sega Megadrive here in France), and Street Fighter II on Super NES. With Zelda, I found what I'm still looking for now when I play games (at least the games I love the most): Story/Exploration/Dialogs. Which I may call: SED. Or DES. Or EDS. Whatever.

Comparing

Let's see: Recently I have tried: Skyrim/Oblivion, The Witcher, Mass Effect/Bioshock Infinite/Life is Strange, to say only a few. Yes I said recently, because, well, I had stopped gaming between the Playstation 1 and Skyrim, basically.

• In Bioshock Infinite: the story looks great, the context looks awesome (I'm just loving the Steampunk universe, although this steampunk is more a US steampunk than a UK, Victorian steampunk, but still), and the action reminds me of famous FPS which I was really bad at when playing online (I'm looking at you, Counter-Strike). But: what I personally miss is the dialogs aspect of the trinome I talked about earlier. But that's just me. I actually have a hard time feeling immersed in the world, since you can barely talk to people. I so wish the hero could talk to people, and have choices to make in dialogs, just to interact a little bit more with the environment. I have not yet finished the game, maybe it's all a dream and the people around are only limited creations of the hero's own mind... Who knows.
• The Witcher, now: apart from the fact I'm really not fond of/used to the third person+freelook camera, well, I actually haven't played enough for me to talk about it.
• Mass Effect: I love the universe, so far (I'm still at the beginning, yeah, I haven't finished a lot of games yet). In the "city", there are tons and tons of dialogs and side quests. Almost too much. You can visit some places, which reminds me of the second stage in old Flashback. Very pleasant. The combat parts are nice. And there is the story. What I miss a little bit, is a greater exploration aspect. Like the next game I'm going to talk about.
• Skyrim and Oblivion: I started with Skyrim, which has probably been the first Action/RPG I've played since Crono Cross on PS emulation. And for me, it has all the three aspects I had mentioned. Like a friend (let's call him: Binome) told me: the first hours are magical. And he was right, after a few hours, some "magic" disappear, I am not sure why, but pondering about it may be beneficial to my own game designs. The few things that come to my mind are for example: the ability to fast-travel a little too much, and the ability to rely too much on the map to find quests goals. Of course, you can choose not to use them, but when you're playing, you just try. And some quests items of what are too lost in nowhere not to look at the pin on the map. But yeah, they are great.
• Life is Strange: Life is Strange is to me a little different. I didn't think about it back in the 80s/90s, but the music and the atmosphere... They are useful, if not making a game go from great to sublime. The music and the atmosphere in Life is Strange are awesome, to say the least. The story is good. You're more or less free to go wherever you want in the current map. We'll see how Life is Strange: Before the Storm will go. But the music makes it absolutely awesome. And this brings me back to what I may consider the greatest gaming memory I currently have (not Zelda, though):

Now what?

What can be taken from that in making an indie game?

Well, first of all: Pleasure: if possible: playing my own game after a while, to see how I love playing it. Just exploring things for example.

Then, balancing between exploration, and side quests, items, special places, etc.

Then: dialogs, many dialogs, or not too much? Or many dialogs but only a few for the main quests, and a few for each side quests, and a few casual others, which in the end makes a lot?

Then: the story: complex, complex, I'm loving complex stories. I love multiple endings too. The story for Dreams of Ylina was originally linear. Now, I'm thinking of making a few moments/choices, where you can change the ending, therefore I have to make different endings. Cinemachine and Timeline in Unity3D 2017 are just in time...

Finally: music. I write rock/metal songs for almost 20 years now. I've studied classical (baroque) writing (you should definitely listen to Bach and Corelli, among other, just saying). I use EastWest Composer Cloud. I have almost everything I need, now I just have to work on original musics for Dreams of Ylina, and convey as much emotions as the story allows me to.

After finishing playing the game, I want players to feel empty and as confused as after a good Twilight Zone episode.