Affordance using camera animations

During the past few weeks, I experimented with manipulating the affordances of certain objects using UDK’s camera anims, which let you move the player’s viewpoint around while still letting them move it around by themselves. I created a map where the player crosses over different wooden and metal bridges in order to collect glowing magenta crystals, which in turned are used to open a door.

The crystals in question

The player needs to place a crystal on each of the stand to exit the level.

During the first semester, I created a map which showed that players didn’t approach wooden and metal bridges differently, or have different expectations between them. What I tried to do with this map was make the wooden bridges feel dangerous to cross. I used the camera anims to make the players viewpoint sway from side to side as they crossed them, making it feel like they were teetering precariously or that they had difficulty balancing. Additionally, one of the wooden bridges broke after being crossed, one broke while being crossed and some of them had planks missing. 

Conversely, most of the metal bridges were made to look as safe as possible, with guard rails and a canopy.

I placed fog in the level so that players wouldn’t be able to clearly see what was on the other side of the bridges, making it feel more dangerous and putting the players focus on the bridges themselves and not what they would be arriving at.

This was all done with the hope that players would avoid crossing the wooden bridges, and start crossing the metal ones first.

I put in a mini – experiment as well, out of interest.

The extra crystal in the distance cannot be collected. There are in total 7 crystals in the level, but to finish the player only needs to collect 6. The only way to collect this crystal is to cross a broken looking bridge, which will collapse if crossed.

I wanted to see if players would give up or would carry on trying to collect it.

I’ve had two players play this level so far, both of which have very little experience in 3d games. My main takeaways from the results ended up having less to do with how players navigate, but more to do with how they interact with the environment and the level's mechanics.

When the first player approached the first crystal, the first thing she said was ‘how do I pick it up’. In this level I had made it so that collecting the objects was as simple as walking over it, with a sound acting as feedback. However, the player was hesitant for a while, wondering what to do, before I ended up telling them how to do it. For this player, the fact that the brightly coloured object could be picked up was obvious, and how to perform the act of picking up was obvious too, it just didn’t match with the level’s mechanics. I had made picking up objects automatic to make it simpler for the player, but it looks like making hassle and frustration free level is less a case of making interaction simpler for new players, but making it more realistic. The problem of informing players of the controls would need to solved as well.

There is a section of the level with some water flowing across the ground.

I added this in purely for aesthetic reasons, however, the player felt that it might push them off the edge of the level. Looking into the natural world for indirect controls might be a good idea, however it might just show that this player is exceptionally cautious as they were the only one to think this.

In terms of which bridges the player crossed, it again mainly depended on which bridges they could see first, rather than anything to do with what is was made out of. The use of camera anims, even though the player mentioned that they ‘didn’t like’ going over the wooden bridges, didn’t necessarily influence them to go over metal bridges first. In fact, the camera anims seemed to increase the immersion and attention grabbing qualities of the level, as the player started physically swaying in time with the animation, and only moving the character forward when the view was momentarily in the middle of the bridge. This novelty did wear off after a while. 

What was successful in deterring the player from crossing the wooden bridges were any holes or missing planks, as they thought that they would fall through them. What was interesting was that they didn’t ask if they could jump, which does go against the previously mentioned idea of new players thinking that they would have realistic interaction with the environment. Perhaps it would depend on the player. A young, extroverted boy’s first thoughts might be to jump over the bridge, but that wouldn’t be instinctive to older, more mellowed out adults who don't physically jump on a near daily basis.

I had placed two different types of wooden bridges in the level, ones with planks and ones which were more like rope bridges. The player did have some hesitancy going over the first rope bridge (which wasn't repeated with the others in the level). At that first bridge, there were no other bridges to cross. So in a future experiment I would like to see which bridge a new player would cross if met with a metal bridge next to rope bridge.

This player also had a similar reaction to my Dad when encountering similar looking objects in the environment.

First, the player encountered this area.

And then this area. To get to it, the player needed to cross a couple of bridges, and turn a through a couple of right angles. Even though the bridge itself was the same, the surrounding structure was different, yet some however both player still felt that they had been in the area before. I would like more evidence, but it closely becoming a conclusion that using similar structures or environment types can confuse new players. This could be that they do not have the confidence that the game itself will linearly guide them through the experience, and that they must always be thinking about where they are going.

This first player did not finish the level. In order to direct players to the finishing point, I placed a wooden bridge leading up to it. One of the planks falls after the player steps on it, which was a pretty dumb decision on my part, as then the player didn't believe it could be crossed. 

For the second player’s go at the level, I kept the bridge from breaking, and thus they managed to get to the finish. However, they ended up finding the finish confusing.

When the player approaches the finish, the number of crystals they have collected so far appear floating above the pedestals, and the door opens. If they haven't collected enough, they need to turn back, get the rest, and return make the rest appear on the other pedestals.

The main issue came from the automation, as with the first player picking up the first crystal. When they appeared on the pedestal, the player wondered what had happened, asked if he had finished, and then asked if he could pick them up again. Using a simpler, automatic form of mechanical interaction in a realistic setting looks like the wrong thing to do with new players, as there seems to be a schism in what the player intends to do and what the game will do for them.

The second player followed a similar response to the level to the first, they got confused by similar looking areas, felt in danger going over the wooden bridges, avoided bridges with holes or missing planks and were hesitant going over the rope bridges. However, they seemed to choose metal bridges more often than not. This could just be luck of the draw, but it if this player didn’t like camera anims or found them a nuisance, then it would make logical sense that they would choose the metal bridges first. I would have to run the experiment again with more people.

The mini-experiment, involving the uncollectable crystal gave interesting results. The first player tried to get around to it, using spatial navigation skills to find the correct bridge to cross. They hesitated before attempting to cross. The second player also tried to collect the crystal, but instead of finding the correct crystal, they found another one, but ended up assuming that it was the same one they were looking for.

What should be noted is that both players felt that they had to get the crystal, and that the amount of crystals on the level was the amount that they need to collect. From this, it looks like new players use their expectations from other games, like sports and board games, to estimate the goal of the game, if it isn’t presented to them explicitly.

Here are my main takeaways from the experiment:

Having automated interaction is a bad idea, it’s confusing to new players.

There’s increasing evidence that new players are confused by similar looking areas, because they feel like they’ve been to the same place twice.

Using an animated camera is a good way to grasped the players attention, and can be used to make something feel dangerous, however it seems unless that danger affects the mechanics of the game, or the player resources, or if it actually a nuisance, it won’t affect how they approach the rest of the environment.

There is a question that the experiment has brought up which I’ll look into moving forwards:

Do new players need natural feeling controls to engage their real world knowledge and expectations?

This is interesting, as usually games are made more accessible by making them simpler, but instead it looks like the same if not better results could come from making rules and mechanics more represented of how we interact naturally, the popularity of touch controlled games could be further evidence of this.