Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_universe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Fisher

http://mazemaker.co.uk/

http://amazeingart.com/maze-faqs/draw-mazes.html

http://www.lessons4living.com/labyrinth.htm

http://sinisterdesign.net/using-details-to-craft-a-coherent-game-world/ - July 27th, 2011

My Maze

I wanted to include a maze in my game from the beginning, I designed a couple originally to see if I could get a 'natural' feel to it. This was simply because humans have long since become extinct in my game, so how would a maze have come around?

To begin with I stuck down some rocks in my level to try and simulate a chaotic, messy feel to the map. However I found when I asked people to play through my prototype they solved the maze with no heedance whatsoever, they simply walked through. This is when I decided to make it a little more challenging and look into maze design. I began finding things about guiding people subliminally, something I definitely wanted to encorporate. So within the maze, on the second design, I made walls to 'direct' people further into the map, thus extending the time taken to complete it.

I also designed my map to be quite large, I wanted it to be big and quite foreboding, you'd walked up to it and once you entered it'd be disorientating, as my level is quite dark, and the rock textures are all the same, it's fairly easy to look around and not know exactly how to get out. This is where my signifiers come in, as I spoke about Pac-Man and the pills in each corner as a short 'break', I included glowing mushroom clusters, these work as pinpoints or something for the player to use as a mental mind map.

KOTOR: jekk'jekk tarr tunnels

This is a birds eye view of the example I chose. The focus is the right side, the interlinking rooms. Within there you have a set amount of time to solve it and escape before the gases you're being exposed to make you pass out. It took me a while to find this, the maze mechanic itself has to be fairly exact, most of the levels I came across were just that, levels. They'd guide you from one place to another, it was very subtle though.

When you enter the tunnels, your mini map is taken away and you have to figure it out for yourself. You have to take mental notes of which routes you've taken and which rooms led to dead ends, backtracking is also a big part of this maze, as a certain combination of doors is needed to find your way out.

This is almost exactly what I was talking about when I said the developer gives you something to solve as the player, now admittedly there is a 'correct' way to do this but there's various ways each player would begin the maze and figure out what they need to do. It doesn't tell you what to do, it gives you information and then you decide that this isn't somewhere you want to stay for too long. Immediately they create a sense of urgency.

This is why mazes in games are so effective, for a little while, they break you away from the main gameplay and give something back for you to do. This is where my game comes in and why I chose to talk about mazes.

What is a maze and why are they so effective?

A maze is a connected network of winding walls or obstacles that are made to be negotiated to reach a 'goal' or end point.

Mazes within video games can be a very important mechanic. A maze is something that a developer can create and allow the player to figure it out, a lot of games have guidance systems and ways of pushing you through levels or making you go certain ways. A maze is something that is given to the player for them to figure out. It's also a 'safe space' within a game, it's both frustrating and intriguing being lost within a maze, but at all times there is the higher up objective which is to keep the player safe within the games boundaries, no matter how lost you get, you'll never end up somewhere the developer didn't want you to be.
There's a certain 'romanticism' to being lost in a maze, it's the feeling of the unknown. I've only ever come across this in a handful of games but those are games I still play today, for that reason. As the player you want to enter into something unknown to you and get lost within the game world. This allows an escape from the real world.
It's also, therefore, extremely rewarding when a maze is completed within a game. It's your achievement, you completed it by figuring it out. It's that system of giving the player a challenge but in turn they reap greater rewards from having accomplished it themselves.

Mazes have been used in games from the beginning in games such as DOOM and Pac-Man. They're done to create a sense of freedom, a maze has no 'correct' way to tackle it, it's something you have to solve in your own time, whether it takes you a minute of an hour. This was the beauty of Pac-Man, you could figure out your own scheme for tackling the objective of collecting all of the pills whilst avoiding the ghosts. However there was always that one very important mechanic within it, the larger pills in the four corners. I feel these made the game that much better, they were there as a relief, if you were being chased and cornered in, once you collected one of those, the ghosts became edible, you were in control.

I go into this in my game, the mushrooms as the guiding light, your silverlining within the storm.

Presentation

My presentation is going to be covering 3 primary things. Firstly, a little bit on the history of mazes, where they may have originated, anything on them in mythology and folklore. Also why they're universal and timeless, lasting from 4000 years ago to today. Mazes within video games are popular today because they create a safe place within the game that's open to player interpretation.

Secondly, an example of a game with a maze mechanic. The game I chose was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the level with the Jekk'Jekk Tarr Tunnels. In this level you have to navigate a maze of tunnels with various opening doors that can only be opened in certain ways. It's easy to get lost or disorientated as you have no mini map, so you must make a mental map of where you've been before.
Thirdly I'll be bringing it around to talk about my game and the reason for implementing a maze mechanic.

Coherent Worlds

"What distinguishes a fictional universe from a simple setting is the level of detail and internal consistency. A fictional universe has an established continuity and internal logic that must be adhered to throughout the work and even across separate works." (leads quite nicely into transmedia)

- Wikipedia

The coherent worlds presentation was an interesting one. In particular I really enjoyed the bit on the Codex Seraphinanus. This is actually something I used to do as a child, one christmas my brother and I created a book about one of our favourite games to pass the time on Christmas Eve (we were very excitable), we ended up finishing it about midday writing down all the monsters, what they did etc. When we'd finished we played the game and began adding in lots of the smaller details, like objects that did damage, as well as start making up some of our own plants and trees. Even a few NPC's.
The idea of creating a whole world from scratch is certainly a fascinating one. I like to think it's what I've done within my game to a certain degree, having been given slightly more time it's something I'd definitely consider going into at greater depths.

I think these sorts of things work very well as people can and do relate to them, they take the familiar and alter it slightly so its still familiar in its roots but it looks altered.

"Another, more recent, famous fictional universe is that of the Avatar film series, as James Cameron has invented an entire ecosystem, with a team of scientists to test whether it was viable. Also, he commissioned a linguistics expert to invent the Na'vi language."

Things like this I love, it creates an extremely immersive world when this much detail has been put in. I never know this but it makes sense as I didn't want to leave the cinema after I'd seen Avatar for the first time, if ever there was a perfect example of a coherent world, to me, Avatar would fit the role.

I came across an interesting article that talks about another aspect that can be important to a game in order to make it coherant, beyond the visual design. He begins talking about enemies in game...

"Developers really need to ask themselves more questions to suss out details here. How did the Big Bad get access to all of those monsters? Is he paying them? If so, with what income? What about the low-intelligence monsters that don’t need or understand money? Is he breeding them? Why are all of the monsters so perfectly loyal? What about their self-preservation instincts? With so many different species of monsters, aren’t there any conflicts, natural predator-prey relationships, or factional disagreements among them?"

This is something that I thought was interesting to think about, whilst a lot of games do things similar to this, having played Skyrim a fair amount, you occasionally come across NPC battles, battles that take place without any interaction from the player. The game devs have known enough about things like this to know that if a group of elves come across an aggressive giant, why shouldn't they start fighting? I think this is a reason for Skyrim being one of the top AAA games, it thinks about things like this, which ultimately make it a more involving experience.

Another successful example would be Lord of the Rings, the orcs and Uruk Hai in that, they're ferociously loyal to Sauron and Saruman because they were created with that mindset, the Uruk-Hai were literally bread for the purpose of fighting under the white hand of Saruman. However in the scene where they've taken Merry and Pippin, they stop to rest and complain about being starving, the Orks, being slightly more unruly, want to eat the Hobbit's legs. The Uruk-Hai, being ferociously loyal, demands they're not for eating. This is the moment where temperatures rise and they end up fighting each other and killing one of their own. All throughout the films you get this sense of conflict between ranks when it comes to the Uruk-Hai and the orcs. Which is why, ultimately, it makes for a more realistic feel.

Mazes

"A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. The pathways and walls in a maze are fixed."

- Wikipedia

Mazes in games have been a thing for years, Pac-Man being the first notable example. Pac-Man gives the player hours of gameplay based around negotiating a maze to avoid the ghosts and eating up pills. It's a top down, 2D world to show the boundaries clearly to the player.Using a maze in the way that Pac-Man does gives the illusion of extended gameplay due to delaying the action, basically meaning that the ghosts would also have to negotiate the maze and Pac-Man couldn't simply skip from one place to the next, you're forced to 'conform' in a way. This was also the case in early 3D games such as DOOM, in which the player negotiates maze like levels avoiding and killing enemies. Games like this are often made to seem bigger than they are due to the use of mazes.

Mazes are also an absolute, coming across one in game is instantly recognisable to the player thus allowing the player to create an immediate connection to said maze and the real world. So a player would know that they can't simply walk through the walls, they know they have to navigate it to progress. I think this is incredibly powerful as no text would have been necessary; the player just knows.

When you look at most games, almost every single one has some form of maze, I don't mean in the traditional, walk round hedges for half an hour, way. I mean in terms of a levels design you're first instinct is to negotiate and move forward, exploring. Three traits that are identical to coming across an actual maze.

Whilst looking up the design of a maze, I came across a man named Adrian Fisher. A world renowned maze designer. He's designed more than 400.

Labyrinths

"In colloquial English, labyrinth is generally synonymous with maze, but many contemporary scholars observe a distinction between the two:maze refers to a complex branching (multicursal) puzzle with choices of path and direction; while a single-path (unicursal) labyrinth has only a single, non-branching path, which leads to the center. A labyrinth in this sense has an unambiguous route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate." - Wikipedia

"In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (Greek λαβύρινθος labyrinthos, possibly the building complex at Knossos) was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minosof Crete at Knossos." - Wikipedia

I extracted two quotes from Wikipedia that I felt explain perfectly what a labyrinth is as well as one of the most famous examples.

> http://www.labyrinth.org.uk/

This group puts a new meaning on Labyrinths, they use them as something deeper, to do with a spiritual journey as opposed to just a form of entertainment. This is something I'd quite like to incorporate into my game, as it's based around an experience, I'd like to pay attention to the smaller details.

"Labyrinth is an interactive installation for spiritual journeys. It's for anyone who wants a break from surfing the surface of culture to contemplate the deeper things of life.

Labyrinth reshapes a 12th-century ritual for the 21st century. Its maze-like path takes you on a symbolic journey, creates space to unwind and think - in particular about our relationships with ourselves, one another, our planet and God."

Maps

Todays lecture was on maps and their significance to certain game genres. I found today very interesting, I've always loved maps in game as well as physical maps provided in game cases such as the well known Rockstar titles (GTA, Red Dead etc). They allow you to get a mental grip on the world and begin fabricating it within your own head to know where you're going and if assigned something to do, where to go. 

I find the physical maps particularly special because when you purchase a game, you're still jsut purchasing an experience, you're not purchasing something 'physical', but the map makes the game 'real' in a sense, even though it's virtual you begin to make it real. Skyrim came with a map and I found this particularly useful for marking certain locations on it. For example there's an Ebony ore mine near an Orcish stronghold that resets every 45 game days or so, but the amount of ore you can amass can then be smelted and turned into armour and weapons. I remember first stumbling upon it and checking the map to mark it so I could go back there if need be. 
Another reason I adore maps is usually because they represent some form of 'world'. Open world games are my personal favourite as they have the element of exploration that I feel you just don't get with level based games. Within level based games you're 'funneled', if you like, down certain pathways, there just isn't much room for interpretation, whereas with a world map, you're free to go wherever you like right from the get-go. Now admittedly certain areas within these world maps, if you're not high levelled enough, are too dangerous, but it's nice to know you have the option to go there if you feel like risking it. 

I think this is what makes a lot of open-world adventure RPG's so successful, they quench the thirst in players for exploration and being inquisitive, two things which I personally adore doing within new games. I've only ever experienced the overwhelming sense of 'uncharted land' and brand new exploration in two games, the RPG Skyrim and the MMO Runescape, two games which I still play to this day, the latter quite heavily (having in excess of a solid 365+ days of gameplay). This is something I've NEVER come across with a level based game such as Halo, Crysis or CoD to mention a couple, they have very limited longevity factors to me, once I've played them through once or maybe twice, I've never revisited them as I've already discovered and completed everything. 
Whereas with, Runescape for example, I'm STILL doing new things to this day, recently a brand new city was introduced with a whole range of exclusive new things to do. That's the beauty of 'Open world', it can be added to at any time with any degree of size. It could be a new cave or a whole new faction, it doesn't matter, the point here, which I've used several times, is the word 'new'. People like 'new' things, and discovering a world for the first time incorporates exactly that, a 'new' experience for the player. 

There will be parts in here that probably don't make much sense but I feel very passionately about this subject and wanted to get my thoughts out into writing as todays lecture struck a chord with me.