Porta Lucis, a small horror rougelike originally created for a seven-day contest, stands out from other similar pieces in several ways. While keeping with the randomly-generated elements that is a foundation of the genre, what is noticeably absent is the presence of character statistics, with the player's numerical elements being few. This presents rather interesting mechanics between the player and the few entities that can be interacted with in the environment. The lack of character advancement and numerical statistics means that the way the player navigates the labyrinth and deals with its dangerous inhabitants becomes a fine circle of interconnected puzzles, in addition to the other mechanics present such as moving around the map, player death, and locating the staircases necessary to advance.
Porta Lucis through the Principles of Puzzle Design
Schell (2008) defines ten principles of good puzzle design in The Art of Game Design, and a majority of them easily apply in the interactions of the player with his or her environment. While Porta Lucis isn't inherently a puzzle game, the simplicity of the mechanics makes many of the encounters in the game very reminiscent of puzzles, with the added allure of the rules of different puzzles being able to impose on each other.
Make the Goal Easily Understood
The base goal of the game, to advance through the floors, is naturally assumed for the gaming-literate. The smaller problems, however, are clearly listed in the game's built-in instructions. While accessing this information would not typically count as being easily understood, it is clearly listed in the player's actions and is one of the few actions they can take. This makes the goal easily understood.
Make it Easy to Get Started
The game introduces its first obstacle, rats, in the first floor. The player quickly discovers that removing them without trouble is fairly easy, and may even fall into the habit of doing so. Later on, the game presents them in numbers large enough to threaten the player, and their previous knowledge meets the complication that constitutes the puzzle. Plotting out the proper steps to remove the rats without coming to harm creates the atmosphere of a puzzle that slowly becomes more difficult as the number of spawned rats increases.
In addition to this example, the entire step-based mechanic makes navigation into a sort of puzzle. The predictable pattern that the enemies move in makes forming mental paths to avoid them a common activity.
Other puzzles exist in the game as well, such as manipulating light with boxes in order to trap light-sensitive enemies, but being purposefully-difficult achievements they understandably lack the pacing of the player's interaction with the rats.
Give a Sense of Progress and Increase Difficulty Gradually
The prominent floor counter increases by one for every floor cleared, and with every floor the game gets more difficult. This slowly builds challenge for the player, until the challenges get so difficult as to succeed in stopping the player. The presentation of how many floors have passed along with the mounting difficulty clearly show progress and serve to challenge the player accordingly.
Pyramid Structure Extends Interest
Porta Lucis' maps are populated with enemies, and they move around the map along with the player. Each of the enemies can be dealt with in a puzzle-like function, such as proper use of steps or light manipulation, or otherwise by simply running away. These situations can interact together if different enemies are encountered together, along separate puzzles to mesh into a more difficult puzzle. In addition, these encounters ultimately tie into the the goal of trying to pass through as many floors as possible.
Hints Extend Interest and Giving the Answer
Two of the only items the player has access to, matches and pills, serve as both a hint and an answer respectively. Matches can hold the more troublesome enemies away for an amount of time, making their respective puzzles easier to solve. Pills effectively allow the player to skip over the puzzles currently placed in front of them, though it has some penalty to doing so.
In these fashions, Porta Lucis contains very finely linked puzzles, and the mechanics surrounding them allow them to build in ways that challenge the player and create emergent situations. The ability for different mechanics and events to interact together harmoniously is a common goal in creating a good experience.
Schell, J. (2008) The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.
Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufman.
To better understand the context of your post (and because I like roguelikes), I went ahead and downloaded Porta Lucis. For such a graphically simple game, it does a great job of building atmosphere and tying mechanical elements to exploration.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember if this is one of the lenses featured in The Art of Game Design, but this game definitely demonstrates the Lens of Simplicity. The game is simple graphically, but also mechanically. This is not a bad thing; there is something very elegant about a game that features no extraneous elements. The blocks serve to barricade entrances, the lights ward off certain enemies, etc. Nothing exists without affecting something else in the game.
I very much agree with your points, and I do apologize for not including a link where the game could be acquired. I was thinking of perhaps making a second bibliography to store the list of games I would do, but I am currently unsure of whether or not APA citations exist for them as a medium.
ReplyDeleteThe game is indeed very simple, but I think that's a very important quality in games. I generally lean towards minimalism in my design philosophy, and if there is an element that doesn't support the experience than I'm usually of the opinion of removing that element. Porta Lucis only consists of elements important to the experience it is presenting (perhaps because of the limited time it was supposed to be made in) which I think makes it a very concise piece.