Enemies and super powers - Part
I
What
is a game designer and an info designer, and how do you work together?
Benjamin
A game designer defines the game rules. He creates the different elements
that go to make up the game - how an enemy attacks the player, how an obstacle
works, and so on. The info designer translates what the game designer created
into computer programming.
Yann
But, in practice, this process
is much more empirical and incremental than that, because an idea that looks great
on paper may turn out to be boring to play, or it could be far too specific to
be usable in a lot of situations.
That's why, as soon as a game element
has been programmed , we test it on a real level, we take note of all the problems
we came up against, then we review the design accordingly and reprogram the character.
We go through this operation again and again until we start getting behavior that's
both fun and likely to be used in plenty of situations. During production, some
characters are reprogrammed 5 or 6 times in this way.
Benjamin
Conversely,
the ideas can come from graphic designers or programmers. For example, some characters
were so appealing from a graphic point of view that we pulled out all the stops
to get them into the game system.
Yann
At one time, we were
looking for a platform gameplay which would push the player to really forge ahead,
like we had in Rayman 2. With this end in view, I programmed balloon platforms
which explode and throw Rayman up into the air. I presented them to the level
designers. The component was adopted and we based several levels on this principle.
Benjamin
In short, the game design's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration! What
makes for good game design isn't just writing up the original Bible on which it's
based. Mostly, it's all the little decisions that are made throughout the production
of the game.
Why did you decide to develop the
gameplay around the enemies in Rayman 3?
Benjamin
When
we began working on the project, we wondered about the things that were missing
from Rayman 2. We found that there wasn't a great variety of enemies and this
point needed to be improved.
What's more, one of the great novelties in
Rayman 3 is the acquisition of new offensive powers. So we had to develop swarms
of enemies to exploit these new powers to the full.
Yann
I
must also admit that, at the start of the project, Half-Life was still fresh in
my mind. In this game, the enemies seem highly intelligent, whereas the programming
principles aren't very complicated. I really wanted to pick up on this principle,
all the more so because it was likely to make for a richer gameplay and a sense
of immersion unlike anything in previous platform games.
How
did you go about creating all the enemies?
Benjamin
At
the outset, we began by doing research into the enemy principles. We flew off
in all kinds of directions. We had enemies that attack on contact, others that
attack from a distance, offensive enemies, defensive enemies, and enemies who
neutralize Rayman's fists and turn them back on himself. Broadly speaking, we
had to produce between 25 and 30 different enemy principles. At the same time,
Stéphane Zinetti created the graphic universe, using a fair number of our ideas.
Yann
Then came the difficult time to do the programming. Quite a few of our
enemies were too complicated and didn't fit the technical specifications. Others
didn't work all that well in the end when we showed them to the focus group. And
then there was a small number that really worked well. At that time, we were really
disillusioned.
So we adopted a somewhat Darwinian strategy. We ditched
all the characters who really didn't work at all, and we simplified the others.
To begin with, for example, the Hoodoo had three main actions:
-
He protected another Hoodlum, by creating a protective screen.
-
He sent out fireballs.
- He caught Rayman's fist
and blocked it temporarily.
Having a character who attacks the player, neutralizes
him and, at the same time, defends other enemies, was rather unclear. So we decided
to make him a purely defensive character by keeping only the first action.
Benjamin
Fortunately, Stéphane and Stanislas, our lead animator, came to our aid.
They both managed to come up with attitudes for certain enemies which made them
fun to fight, and which gave us new ideas.
For example, we found the Hoodstormer
game principle pretty good, but it wasn't revolutionary. So we were prepared to
abandon it. Basically, this flying character could avoid straight shots but not
curved shots. Stéphane had the idea of creating an ultra-fast character with a
flush cannon. Stanislas's animation made him very lively and comic. Nicolas, an
info designer, completely reprogrammed him and the character now works wonderfully
well.
Yann
At one time, we were looking for a platform gameplay
which would push the player to really forge ahead, like we had in Rayman 2. With
this end in view, I programmed balloon platforms which explode and throw Rayman
up into the air. I presented them to the level designers. The component was adopted
and we based several levels on this principle.
Benjamin
In short,
the game design's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration! What makes for good game
design isn't just writing up the original Bible on which it's based. Mostly, it's
all the little decisions that are made throughout the production of the game.
Why
did you decide to develop the gameplay around the enemies in Rayman 3?
Benjamin
When we began working on the project, we wondered about the things that
were missing from Rayman 2. We found that there wasn't a great variety of enemies
and this point needed to be improved.
What's more, one of the great novelties
in Rayman 3 is the acquisition of new offensive powers. So we had to develop swarms
of enemies to exploit these new powers to the full.
Yann
I must
also admit that, at the start of the project, Half-Life was still fresh in my
mind. In this game, the enemies seem highly intelligent, whereas the programming
principles aren't very complicated. I really wanted to pick up on this principle,
all the more so because it was likely to make for a richer gameplay and a sense
of immersion unlike anything in previous platform games.