Thursday, 27 November 2014

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.

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