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Invisible video game11/24/2023 ![]() In point one I mentioned how old games were mostly just tubes, corridors and small arenas and the rest was backdrop cut of with invisible walls to prevent people from going outside, well there are also invisible walls to prevent people from going inside certain places at the map and this is probably a much less legit reason to have them, because why limit players when there is no reason? Limiting players to go to places that do not exist is kind of legit, because you cannot go to places that do not exist, well in video games you can and the result is ugly, but to block players from reaching places they could reach, because they exist is very retarded, it is as the game designers create parts of a level and then prevent players from going there and make use of it, intentionally destroying fun. Invisible walls to prevent you from going to places inside the map. In the past the resources were limited, so the game world was basically just tubes or corridors that were textured like cities, countryside etc, but everything beyond that tube was invisible wall, so in the past it was a semi legit way to design games, but nowadays I would say it is an intentional bad game design choices as there are better solutions now and limited processing power is no longer a good excuse for not properly designing the game world.Ģ. ![]() Another semi elegant solution is to make mountains that make some kind of natural barrier, but dedicated gamers often find ways to climb those mountains, well if it is hard they probably earned to see the edge of the world. However always having infinite ocean is unrealistic as well, you can also have an infinite landscape, though this is harder to achieve, of course you can make a simple plane with grass texture, but this will feel unrealistic, so you need to add some kind of terrain. Cry engine for example is designed around this solution, where every level would just be an island in an infinite ocean, kind of a clever design. ![]() I constantly list bad game design choices, but I give you some examples of more elegant solutions to this problem, the most elegant solution is probably the infinite ocean, extremely easy to create, just one click, then a few minutes or maybe even up to hour to adjust the settings and voila, a perfect solution and easy on rendering resources as well, the computer will just render the ocean until infinite and players can even swim as much as they want and they will never hit the unrealistic ugly invisible wall. I list those examples, because as an indie game developer I have limited resources, so I have to make a cut somewhere, some are more ugly others are less. On another level I made 500 meter landscape in every direction that could be explored and then a 10km or so backdrop landscape that cannot be explored, just for backdrop, well it can be explored using the editor, but there is nothing there. ![]() I used this method also in Übergame, sometimes I made a harsh cut, where you could just look into the void and in other levels I designed 500 meters of desert into every direction before I made the invisible wall. This is one of the necessary evil types of solutions, because designing more game world than necessary is just a waste of resources, so you have to make a cut somewhere. Invisible physical walls at the edge of the map, to prevent you from leaving the map, as there is nothing there. ![]() For game designers this is often a necessary evil, because there is no other way to do it based on their resources, but it is an ugly solution, therefore a bad game design choice.įirst this was planned as multiple articles, because there are many kinds of invisible walls, each for different reasons, some physical, some metaphorical, let me make a list of the basic types of invisible walls in games:ġ. Almost every gamer probably also knows this one, it is those invisible barriers that prevent you from going out of the map or going somewhere you are not supposed to go. ![]()
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