Backtracking and Level Design - Making a Way Out - Extra Credits
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Forcing a player to backtrack through an empty level after they've defeated everything inside it is bad level design. Level designers have several tools to address this problem, which can be easily avoided if the game design team plans for it.
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In "Hotline Miami" backtracking is added intentionally. It feels kind of scary how the music suddenly stops and you walk back through the massacre you created :)
Yes! You get chills down your spine with the ominous music playing and the corpses everywhere
It also uses that time specifically in one level to lul you into a false sense of security which still gets me every time. Hotline Miami is very interesting when it comes to using game tropes and turning them on their head.
In any artform, when you know and understand the rules ("avoid inactive backtracking" being an example in this case), you can deliberately and carefully break them to create interesting and unique effects. This is definitely a good example of that! With Hotline Miami's extremely high tempo and tension, the quiet that follows is really offputting.
Actually, it's partially because of its "One hit = death" main mechanic. Because of it, you move very carefully and slowly. So levels are pretty small, so when everyone is dead, and you can move freely, you run through levels in no time.
And in 2D Metroid games backtracking is good because "where the hell do I go next" is actually an interesting puzzle.
A Metroid method: At the end of a path, get a cool new item. Let the way back be designed in a way so you need to use that item in an interesting way to get back.
The only problem with having small escape routes at the end of dungeons is that it kind of weakens immersion. After noticing the amount of secret tunnels and barred doors in Skyrim, I kind of started to tell that they were thrown in there for player convenience and not for world building reasons. Sometimes, they were done in ways that made sense, like one that lead to a treasure room, or ones that lead to a caved in wall that leads to a separate cave or river exit. The best way I've noticed that Bethesda handled the problem was when it was actually the front door that is blocked. Its logical you have to fight through the entire dungeon to get around it, and when the boss is dead you can take his keys and stroll out the easy way.
Well, that just stole my comment idea! It somewhat annoyed me that they kept showing Skyrim as an example of open world games when it would be possible to skip 90% of most dungeons if you were only able to carry a ladder with you! That always seemed somewhat contrived and "gamey" to me.
Surely a better way to it would be to make the whole dungeon circular, with the payoff at the half way point so that you still have half of the dungeon to fight through on the way back or the option to go back the way you came if that bossmonster left you too low on health?
i came up with the idea that these shortcuts were excaperoutes incase of lets say guards or the army came to arrest or kill them(you are just one or two people so obviously they won't run from you)
I used to make a sort of dungeon crawling game that had this exact problem.
But I didn't notice it until I finished designing a dungeon. I didn't want to design it again.
So I used the Raiders of the Lost Ark solution:
Enhance back-tracking with a gigantic boulder chasing down your ass lol.
The boulder itself ended up taking longer to code than the actual dungeon T.T
***** It was canceled because my company didn't believe in braincells.
***** The game was deemed too complicated for the intended players.
Namely cuz of the boulder.
Among other things,
rip u
I guess companys don't belive in having a "target audience"...how sad.
***** Yeah, exactly...It's why AAA games are so boring.
I completely disagree with the notion that we as players never notice contrived or unreal building/dungeon design.
One of the absolute WORST things about Skyrim was just how far the designers went in the effort to avoid backtracking because it made every single dungeon feel horribly "game-y" and like something that would never exist in a world that people actually live in, why the hell would EVERY mine and cave be a corridor that loops back on itself with some kind of path from the end that can't be accessed from the entrance, it's just stupid and completely destroyed my ability to believe in the world.
I think it's a rule that works in general but not in extremes. The same way that plot holes don't really matter, except when they're so bad that they really do.
Backtracking sucks, level design that builds in exit points is much better and players mostly don't notice unrealistic environments (for example, shooter fans never notice that all the rooms and doorways are 3x too wide), but if the environment is _so_ unrealistic and contrived like Skyrim's were then it doesn't work.
I agree I liked the short dungeons in Skyrim that forced you to backtrack. It gives me more chances examine items that fallen foes had, and after I have taken all the treasure I wanted usually over cumbering myself forcing me to walk out of the dungeon the way I came so I have one more chance to see the carnage that I had made. It is those moments in Skyrim that made me feel like a badass.
You dont know what you are talking ... Its not a problem of not being real, its a problem of not having any logic.
I keep hearing this, but dragons, elves and draugrs don't break immersion because they are part of the logic of the world.
But even in fantasy worlds, there can still be illogical things and they do break immersion, like a door that can only be opened with a normal looking key, while all others doors can also be opened with lockpicking...
At least the devs should have made the effort of making those keys special, so it would make sense you couldn't open that door with a lockpick.
Same applies with a door that is blocked by a simple wooden beam behind it. Do you really think thieves, bandits, robbers, adventurers,... would go via the front door and fight all sorts of monsters if they could go in via the back door with a simple axe?
Now ofcourse, I still like the system of not having to backtrack the entire dungeon, but it should be done immersive.
RicFlairSaysWOOO "I'm an actual, literal illiterate who has no idea how story-telling works."
I'm not sure I agree with respect to the looping part. I remember that, when I first got Skyrim I enjoyed not having to backtrack through the whole thing just to get back to the start like I did in Oblivion, but after a while it just started to take me out of the experience, as if it were screaming "THIS IS A VIDEO GAME," because it breaks my suspension of disbelief when literally every single dungeon in the game has a secret door back to the entrance.
Yeah, I know the feeling, but I think I'd hate having to go back through all of the dungeons more, especially the longer ones
And... the menu system, levelups, teleporting map and repeating NPC lines did NOT constantly remind you it was a video game???
kin2naruto They do, but there are different levels of suspension of belief. You accept that there are parts of the game that will always be unlike life, but when the environments which have been made to appear as lifelike as possible don't quite add up you notice more
I think Skyrim just did it sooo badly that it's the first game people think of that does it. Lots of games have done it better, but you don't tend to remember those games because, well they did it better and so people didn't notice.
Because things like menu systems have no pretension of being lifelike. They're a part of the game that has intentionally been abstracted away. And the player knows that the menu isn't really a part of the game's world, so that's fine. But the dungeons, by contrast, are *supposed* to seem believable and real, so when they aren't, it becomes a problem.
Two words: Zelda dungeons. Almost every single one in every Zelda game, 2D and 3D, had shortcuts in place to cut back on backtracking. Not only that, but in certain dungeons like the Forest Temple from OoT or the Arbiter's Grounds from Twilight Princess the shortcuts all converge in one or two rooms, giving the dungeon a maze-like quality.
another good example is dodongos cavern. You go at first the left half circle around the main room, opening the door to the right side. then you go the right circle getting bombs and coming out a floor higher. you gain a shortcut up there. then you bomb the eiyes of the Skull and open the path into the last part of the dungeons.
Let's not forget that in every game after you beat a boss there's a portal to the exit. That's about as convenient as it gets.
Also the entirety of the lost woods
TheSongOfStorms
And the warpsongs. and the waterfalls near gerude Valley, the tunnel from the Zota domain to lake hylia.
Thag Game gives plenty of shortcuts even thogh the world is relatively small compared to newer Games.
What I like is players have to discover those tricks for themselves. Once you know the shortcuts you can cross the map pretty efficiently but they still make you work for it. Much more satisfying than just unlocking a fast travel point in your latest rpg.
The big example that pops into my mind when talking about backtracking is hotline miami. Backtracking in that game after every level added to the atmosphere tremendously, but at the same time they weren't too big as to allow you to become bored of the atmosphere. It forces you to look at your actions without the lense of adrenaline that's present while actually playing the levels, and they even throw in twists at a few points using backtracking. Just thought that game was an example of good backtracking.
too soon
Can't there be any meaningful context to back tracking? Like how quiet moments are or lull in action can put the player at ease? I feel back-tracking can have some great mechanic or create atmosphere for the player from killing monsters endlessly to moments of a breather. Just a thought.
Hotline Miami has done this to set a atmosphere after you massacare, well, alot of enemies. But overall, you should typically avoid it, since yes, it can be used artistically, but it can't always, and if it isn't, back tracking is just a boring slog.
It really depend on your game.
Pokemon Gyms. I want to be able to flip every one of these trainers off as I leave.
Also the original Dragon Quest, where after you defeated the bad guy you got to have a victory parade through Rimuldar and the Castle, where literally everyone is cheering and throwing confetti for you as you go tell the king of your success.
That's what backtracking in a game like Doom does - after a big battle to get to a key, you now have a quiet walk over to the door it opens to get a moment to catch your breath, collect supplies you hadn't previously, and maybe deal with a minor monster closet if you've got quite a trek to do. The key point to this, though, is that you don't make these backtracking moments feel too long; they're meant to be brief pauses in the action, so the trip back to the door should be short if you don't utilize any repopulation tricks.
I agree in the sense that I think the issue with backtracking is not that you've already killed/looted everything, but that you've *experienced* everything. Even if enemies or, god forbid, loot respawned, I still wouldn'T like the backtracking section just because I've already seen everything there is to see. Worse yet, in RPGs I'd feel obligated to kill everything again out of fear of ending up underleveled if I don't.
In the example concepts you give, I'm sure I wouldn't mind backtracking if you had implemented a different musical theme or atmosphere and maybe made the character comment on the situation in some way. It would be a pain (and fail to communicate what you want) if the section is 100% the same as I left it minus the interesting, engaging content.
Bwahahaha, you guys are awesome! There was a whole section in here that I had to cut for time reasons about how it can, like everything, be done poorly (contrasting Skyrim's ham handed approach to the Dark Souls 1 approach). Maybe someday that would make a good design club 1 off.
-JP
Please do! Those were the first two games I thought of when I saw the title of this episode haha
What about games like castlevania (Post SoTN until LoS) or metroid where backtracking is an intrinsic part of the level design. Those games are my favorite types of games and yes there is backtracking that isn't done well but the pacing of those types of games relies on the backtracking. No individual room is difficult and often you are blazing through each room looking for upgrades, goodies and bosses so you can access later rooms. This level of exploration and getting lost is a big part of the fun of those styles of game darks souls even adopts some of these points even with their shortcuts especially pre bonfire warping. Granted enemies do respawn but still backtracking is involved unless you are clever and look around for shortcuts or alternate routes which players may not do their first go round. Both games use backtracking to set some pacing goals and they are examples where backtracking is done well and can either be circumvented with clever play or isn't a main inhibition or can actually be a feature by allowing players to get lost in the levels which can be a fun experience depending on how well its designed.
I would very much like to see this. Your content is really enjoyable.
"can actually be a feature by allowing players to get lost in the levels which can be a fun experience" If a game let's me get lost too often, or to the point I'm stuck searching where to go for over an hour, that's usually the point where I drop the game out of frustration. I do not see why you consider getting lost to be a fun experience, can you provide a couple of examples where you had fun getting lost?
Was fantastic
skyrim does do this also by the way, but it is in EVERY SINGLE dungeon. I mean im no fan of backtracking but always going "ah im back out at the entrance" just destroys any suspension of disbelief. I mean did every bad guy digging a cave need a back up plan that brought him back to the entrance?
It does break the immersion a bit, but it's still better than Oblivion, which required you to backtrack through every dungeon. I'll take the slightly immersion-breaking shortcuts over the endless backtracking any day.
Although, to be fair, I'm more critical of Oblivion dungeons in general, due to them all being basically the same.
K IRA yea, should be some middle ground.
I'm guessing Skyrim's interior designers thought to themselves "Ok we made it to the bottom of this cave. Well this sucks. Just blow a hole in the wall and cover it with a movable rock. They'll never notice!" Lazy Nords.
How doesnt that make sense?
"Guys! (insert enemy here) has an army marching into our cave, what are we gonna do?!"
"Quick take the back exit!"
Beastwolf1
"What back exit?! We didn't build any back exit!"
**Boom**
"This back exit."
In some cases I don't really mind back-tracking if it's not too long. Almost gives a chance to reflect on getting through that cool side-bit. Celadon Mall can bite it though.
So is it just me, or is Audible sponsoring absolutely everybody these days?
I was surprised that the ad at the top of the show didn't have a recommendation, like every podcast ad for them I've heard does, but they did their recommendation at the end.
They are!!!!!! Why???
Well, it's not like content creators are uninformed. So it's pretty obvious Audible must treat their sponsors well if everyone makes sponsorships with them, plus combine that with the fact that what they ask you to do is barely intrusive at all and there's really not much of a reason to take them up on their offers.
Also, RUclipsrs are really cheap advertising, compared to a TV spot. The same money that you would spend on one TV spot could get you maybe a few hundred thousand views, versus spreading that cost across hundreds of RUclipsrs, you can reach millions, easy. Plus it's much easier to reach a specific demongraphic if you control the channels you reach out to.
ONE OF US! ONE OF US!
Backtracking CAN be done well though, like all things in game design. In my game concept, the game loops back from the endgame, to the first few levels. No escape sequence, no alarms, no music, even. Just you walking through these first corridors and remembering when you felt weak and small. There are enemies too, but you tear right thru them. It’s a neat moment before taking on the final boss (in the game’s first room, no less!!)
There is another alternative: make the previously explored areas interesting again. Doom and Hexen did this with "monster closets" and scripts to spawn in new monsters (respectively). It may not be the best way all the time, especially if it starts to seem cliche (like Skyrim's convenient but often joked about back doors). Perhaps the best solutions is not one solution but to mix them up -- back doors or escapes in places where such a thing might make sense, alternate (either shorter or interesting, or both) routes, or new enemies getting home (or however you want to explain it) in other places -- variety in methods to keep the world as a whole interesting.
How do you make a video about backtracking and never once being up Metroid?
Isn't that a pretty glaring omission?
Metroid is designed around Backtracking. I'm sure they'll touch on that when they talk about this subject again, which may be next video.
While metroid is a very clear example of backtracking I don't know if this episode would have gained much by bringing it up. I mean what point would they have made clearer or more consize by mentioning metroid?
well, apart from Prime 2 and Other M, backtracking was never an ISSUE in Metroid, since enemies are repopulated, and sometimes new enemies appear. Also, you get a chance to pickup upgrades and expansions you didn't get the first time. Metroid is, in a sense, open-world.
Well that depends on how it works in the game (sorry never played Metroid), because in other Metroidvania games (like Ori or Shantae) do enemies respawn when you return to an area, so yes you are backtracking, but you have stuff to do while doing it, where in all the cases they shown in the video is where there are no obstacles while going back which is very boring.
Metroidvanias are a great example of how to make returning to new places interesting, sure.
You will never notice those rooms are cobbled in a floor plan that just makes no sense for any real world industry ever...
Unless you're playing a Resident Evil game. How the Hell do those mansions and labs operate effectively with all the color keys, traps, special locks that need special items, hidden passages blocked by waterworks, and in RE2's case, lack of restrooms?? LOL
One of my favorite things in games is when you revisit somewhere you've already been but new circumstances or equipment make traversing the area a completely different experience. So, for instance, you trudge through a dungeon or something and at the end you get, say, a grappling hook. Then you turn around and the environment was already built to be traversed backwards with a grappling hook with new stuff to discover, or it could serve as a mini tutorial on how to use the new item that's safe because you've already cleared out the enemies. It's probably a lot harder to pull off but it's always really cool!
I NOTICE THE WEIRD FLOORPLANS. Yes, I'm in a tiny minority, but I *do* notice when a dungeon loops round oh-so-conveniently or a factory assembly line is chopped apart by maze like corridors too small to actually fit the product they're building through...etc
Symphony of the Night and Metroid both had enemies to fight when you backtracked, and with new abilities some of those enemies are suddenly a lot easier, with puzzles that give that ah ha! feeling when you figured it out. Wait, are we only talking about 3D games of the current generation?
This video was specifically about games where the backtracking was through empty areas, devoid of enemies or loot. Metroidvania games let you re-experience old areas because it helps with the power curve, where you get to feel stronger because now you can easily defeat enemies that used to give you trouble, that plus you have new power ups to access new areas which you got to see early because of good foreshadowing.
I always take note of the floor plans in video game (cause nerd), I think it's funny to setup little scenarios where someone has to justify building a drawbridge activated by killing a giant robot or dangerous explosives in a normal hallway.
tim:"so john.... why have you just left big red barrels full of nitro all over the place?"
john:"because...... we're evil?"
tim:"by god john.... your the new CEO of evil corp......"
jimmy:"i did the acid pools because we are evil"
tim:"no one likes a kiss ass jimmy"
Goddamnit Jimmy, just because you were Employee of the Month ONE TIME doesn't mean you have to go and brag about everything.
Tom Franco shaddap lol
"YES! I beat the dungeon! ...Now to walk back out through these boring empty hallways again." >:(
Skyrim was great at avoiding that with its dungeons. There was always a shortcu back to the start and it was often unexpected and hidden at the start. I absolutely love Dark Souls, but when exploring a level, I often find a locked door and know "This is going to be a shortcut later" that reduces the surprise and excitation you get when lowering a secret passage that looks like a wall and you didn't see earlier to discover it leads back to the entrance.
You can just use a homeward bone you know ...
Funny, it seems to me that this type of shortcut solution is just side-stepping the problem for many types of games.
IMO The world environment is the most important character in a game when attempting to deliver truly immersive experiences. A well-designed environment has its own character or personality, hints at its own history and backstory, is covered in subtle clues as to the nature of the current or previous inhabitants. If backtracking in a game is boring then the developers have failed to create an interesting character in the environment that engages the player instead of simply being a stage for other game mechanics.
Another way complimentary solution to this backtracking _problem_ is to design interesting and engaging traversal systems that aren't combat orientated. If you know that a player will be backtracking then make sure the player is kept engaged by running, jumping, swinging, sliding, wall-running, vaulting, rolling, teleporting, bashing, charging or any number of other types of traversal systems. Both environmental character and traversal systems can also go a long way to fleshing out various characters strengths and weaknesses, role, backstory and personality.
Sure this type of shortcut solution works well in Dark Souls and the like because they are HacknSlash or predominately combat orientated games, the players focus 80-90% of the time is on combat, the environment is for the most part just a stage for the combat to occur, so it makes sense to ignore the environment. The goal of the developers is to keep the player engaged with the combat, not to deliver immersive, interesting and engaging characters and environments. In these games the environment and characters loosely support the combat, not the other way around.
Please don't tell developers to implement these types of sidestepping shortcut systems as industry best practice when they should be solving the problem itself. Namely creating better characters, environments, backstories, story-telling techniques and traversal systems because there is so much potential for story telling and fleshing out these game worlds and characters when backtracking through areas. Shortcuts work for some genres, definitely not all genres.
TLDR: IMO In many types of games backtracking is only a problem if other game systems are poorly designed in the first place. In poorly designed games these types of shortcut systems don't solve the problem, they avoid it, side-stepping it completely and consequently miss out on an opportunity to expand and improve the game experience itself.
how about the ways borderlands does it where even when you backtrack new enemies will spawn making it less boring
Captain ZombieLL but that can ruin your immersion, like okay i just killed 50 enemies and took this weapon buff , but now i have another 50 enemies to kill who came out of nowhere
I love backtracking
In the immortal words of Finn the Human: "We don't HAVE to. We GET to!"
I love the way that Metroid Prime 2: Echoes did backtracking in the first area or two. What happens is that you see a bunch of passages or things of the sort that you can't go through currently. You get a tool at the end that allows you to go through them, making backtracking something you'd want to do.
Same thing with the other Metroid games such MP1, Metroid, Metroid 2, and Super Metroid, but I find the way backtracking worked was more obvious in MP2.
I like the way they solved this problem in Watchdogs when it came to their ctOS tower puzzles. When you managed to get into the final area, there'd be a forklift that'd allow you to get over the razor wire fence that was impassible from the other direction or similar. Another game which solved the problem in an interesting way was Warioland 4 where when you reached the level goal, instead of warping home or somesuch, you instead had to race against the clock back to the start.
Another interesting thing in WatchUnderscoreDogs is how you traverse some environments through the cameras. When you get to a dead end, it's as simple as cancelling out of a menu!
That game had interesting ideas even if I think they're wasted in an overall slog of a game.
+DoubleATam I'm looking forward to Watchunderscoredogs 2, that's for sure
your likely the only person that looking forward to wastedogs 2
+129das maybe dude but I have low standards tbh
we'd all be happier if we had lower standards man, i found that game so damn dull, even though i really wanted to like it ;-;
There also arises a problem when the exit too is easy or bizarre. You tranverse a huge dungeon in Skyrim or Fallout, and wrap back around to a mystical shortcut or chained door that doesn't make any goddam sense. That opens more questions than it solves by stopping you from having to backtrack. Witcher 3 found a good middle ground: the exits could often be stumbled upon to quickly make your way in; the exit is a clearly one way affair like a set of broken stairs you're now at the top of; or magic portals are involved and weren't active yet.
Personally I think the way they did exits in fallout 4 makes perfect sense considering many of the exits were just the the back doors buildings in real life generally have.
Not when there's easy access to heavy explosives which would normally blow open doors only closed with chains.
I like the 'dungeons' in F4 where you have 2 choices. Guns blazing through the front door or sneak through field of booby traps and guard patrols through the back.
Rock Steel Fallout 4 was way better about it because they can rationalize technology as the issue like broken or unpowered elevators. Skyrim was the big culprit, with magical switches moving rocks out of the way next to dungeon entrances all the damn time. So dumb. I still contest the chained doors were stupid, but some in FO4 are perfectly fine.
Or you could do it how Xenoblade Chronicles does it: Let the player teleport between landmarks at any time they want to.
Not all games would be able to do this due to issues maintaining game immersion though. Of course there are many genres that can take advantage of that one way or another (Sci-Fi, Science Fantasy and Fantasy genre games, for example), but for games that don't want to take away from immersion, that might not be an option.That being said, I definitely agree with you and you see a lot of people doing that through Fast Travel systems and such (but again, immersion breaking often times and breaks the pacing of games). Also, I really want to play Xenoblade Chronicles...
Fast travel is a copout and drastically shrinks the game world. An actual shortcut gives the player something to engage with and feel clever for exploiting.
And the mechs! I thought the whole idea of combat as both the pilot(?) and the mech is really cool. But I do agree that from what I've seen of the game, the landscapes are absolutely gorgeous.
Personally, I'd rather have fast travel in a game like Xenoblade X (or most other open world games, i.e. Skyrim) since being forced to take a "shortcut" in a world of that scale will still be too much walking around (unless it's _really_ short, in which case there should've just been fast travel). One could argue that skells in Xenoblade X could be counted as a "shortcut," but even then flying around in a skell takes forever due to how massive the gameworld is. The problem is, is that even if a shortcut gives the player something to do, the player will still feel like it's a waste of their time if it's not what they want to be doing (like advancing the story, side questing, etc.).
I'll take an actually smaller game map over one that is bloated to the point of needing to automate travel.
One thing that this reminds me of is Sonic 1's Scrap Brain Zone. To make the level feel extremely huge, the top of the map connects with the bottom of it, so a transport tube you think is taking you to the next floor down is, in "real" terms, sending you through to the top floor. It's ingenious and in gameplay you'd never notice it.
You never addressed the "Chase Sequence", which I think is one of the best ways to keep backtracking interesting. If you don't know, a "Chase Sequence" is a part of a game where (in the scenario I'm proposing) the character has beaten the baddie, but all of its friends showed up, and now you have a purpose for backtracking, other than collecting loot that you missed: you're being chased.
This was done brilliantly in the final level of the original Spider-Man game for PS1. I still remember that epic horror of frantically webswinging away from the Big Bad
Nolan Byer Alternatively, you can have the building/cave/whatever collapse in on itself, which makes the experience feel more complete (since the level is now destroyed, and there's no new enemy that just popped up to chase you away)
Your little segment about how as long as levels feel right players won't question it reminds me of Dead Rising. The Willamette mall is a nightmare from the design perspective of any actual mall. The Hardware store in the North Plaza means if you bought a lawnmower you'd have to carry it like ten full minutes to get it to a parking lot - it'd be terrible.
Metroid Prime on the Gamecube was an immersion killer with the amount of back tracking.
+Larry Psuedonym Yeah , I can see your point but it also made people really bored. A Morph Ball track would of been a great way to quickly back track (which did happen but rarely)
to an appropriate area to quickly move from stage to stage would of been nice especially since that game in particular which required you to traverse from one end of the map to the other repeatedly for a single door really obscurely put door, which could be upwards from 15-30 minutes away, it did hinder how engaged you would be.
Like everytime I got an upgrade to Samus' suit, I put the game down for a bit ; knowing I would be halted from progressing and have to explore every nook and cranny of all the previous stages for the next few hours
( Per upgrade o,...,o of which there were over 20 of)
True, but wouldn't they also benefit to some degree by having shortcuts as well? More importantly, there could be shortcuts that are only accessible via new skills you acquire. They wouldn't need to be everywhere, but players would probably appreciate having the occasional shortcut, kind of like the teleport points in Symphony of the Night, to allow you to shorten time spent traversing areas you've explored before.
Of course, shortcuts should definitely be optional so you can still re-explore areas after getting new skills.
They do that in some areas with Spider Ball tracks or Grapple points (Magmoor has a particular room with a Spider Ball track on the roof that lets you zoom past the whole room without having to do morph ball platforming). Space Jump Boots can also help you skip some platforming which saves a little time. Being able to move through the same area but in different ways is good level design which Prime could have done more of. The bigger offender is Prime 2 which has you backtrack to the Temple Grounds after restoring the energy to each area so you open the path to the next area. Worst is the Seeker Missiles which force you to exit Torvus Bog to the Temple Grounds to get a (stupid) power-up so you can go back to Torvus. Same thing happens with Power Bombs but it at least allows you to use the elevators that connect between areas without having to pass through the Temple Grounds first.
Getting a new upgrade also gives you a choice similar to what Daniel talked about in Dark Souls; you can either continue into new areas you can now access with your new upgrade or you can go back to older areas and find things like missile expansions or energy tanks which will help you for what lies ahead, although if you plan to 100% the game you'll have to do that at some point anyway. When you backtrack to these areas you will retread some old ground but you will also be doing new things in the area.
"made people really bored"
ADHD affected people, yeah. Not so much most people. Thankfully Prime was the game it was, CoD fans can just play CoD instead of a game around exploring.
Exploring every nook and cranny to progress is the point in a Metroid game.
+Fen Y Don't go there. That is not how ADHD works at all. Using it like you just did is immensely disrespectful.
There’s also the most obvious way to prevent backtracking through empty rooms: add more enemies/objectives on the way back. Many excellent level designs send in enemy reinforcements and/or introduce stage hazards to draw your attention. Some of my favorite games, like Bastion and Transistor, even take the opportunity to add narration about what you’ve just done or where you’re off to next.
A lot has already been said, but I wanted to mention the "Indiana Jones" solution (this mainly applies to linear games, but can be useful in open worlds): when the player reaches the end of the side corridor, trigger an event that makes retraversal interesting. This could be a trap that forces them to speed run their way back, new enemies spawning on the way back, or maybe a mini boss or ambush. You could maybe add an unforeseen jumpscare. Or (like someone else already mentioned) make the journey through the destruction the player caused contemplative and emotional - like Undertale or Hotline Miami. Just throwing some ideas around.
Just wanna say, I am unbelievable comfortable with you getting sponsored episodes.
Usually I feel like that this will be just a long ass commercial for something or "product placement" but this just feels right
Despite the argument that we "buy into" game spaces that don't really make sense, I feel the need to point out that, as I have worked in many of the common game environments like industry, offices, health centers, hospitals and a mental institution, it really ruins my immersion when these areas in games don't make any sense.
My most common reaction to any of the above areas (offices mostly excluded, because developers actually work in such spaces) is simply:
"Well, the people who built this have clearly never actually been to one of these places, because it makes no fucking sense at all and you couldn't even work here".
You try enjoying a game where the environment around you is offensively stupid, I can't do it.
Please make a video about: "The beginners guide" it´s a remarkable game! Very unusual design - actually meta-game-design
since when does extra play do videos about just one game?
Somewhat often, actually. Call of Juarez, Witcher III, Dark Souls II, just to name a few.
+TotalTimoTime The destiny videos
They've mentioned it in James Recommends.
do you have a link?
Another solution to the backtracking problem (which one should be cautious not to overuse) is enemy spawns on the way out. Say you went in to get a quest item, but in getting it, you set off an alarm or woke up the dead, etc. Then your escape could basically be a new level in itself, but with available cover spun around and perhaps a few terrain changes from whatever hornet's nest you stirred up (falling debris, etc.). I wouldn't overuse this since it would lose the effect, but it works for special occasions.
Some minor backtracking is okay, especially if "dungeons" are short and it is the sort of game where you need to go back to loot and manage inventory after a prolonged fight (like Elder Scrolls and fallout games).
This is one of my favorite types of backtracking
Some of my strongest memories of Dark Souls were the bits before you get access to bonfire travel and you're going deeper and deeper into a new area, knowing that to get back to Firelink Shrine you'd have to do a ton of backtracking. That was lost in Dark Souls 2 and 3 and the darker, scarier areas in those games never felt as oppressive anymore because of it. So I wouldn't say giving the player an easy way out is ALWAYS a positive.
Pokemon escape rope?
that was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this video.
Don't forget Teleport
I'm surprised they didn't mention the ledges that are often used in Pokemon. Or hell even in games like Borderlands the side ares generally have a cliff to jump from right back down to where you started the side path.
Yes! This is something i fondly remember!
Similar ledges are found in 2d Zelda games
I kinda like being lost in a game... kinda, it's like, you really are working your mind into it and making sure you really are intimately familiar with a virtual place.
today even the biggest sandbox games make sure you never get lost with easy peasy prompts every moment to remind you exactly where the next course of action they never give you an opportunity to really ever think about the level as a place at all.
i think backtracking can be good, especially in games that focus on obstacles that require good movement to clear rather than engaging with enemies, because then you have to clear those obstacles in different ways in order to get through them, or it lets you notice how effective a new movement-based utility or powerup you've acquired is.
I went back to play the old-school doom games, and one of the other ways they approached this was to re-populate the areas you cleared with more enemies. It provided an interesting experience that always kept you on your toes.
I love EC and most of their videos, but this felt like THE most under-researched and hastily put together one in a looong while, focusing pretty much on two games / genres.
I'd loved to see a mention of a survival-horror (ie RESI1) or oldschool shooter (DooM), and how they actually USE "backtracking" as an element of exploration, and a way to expose player to NEW dangers. Especially Resi:REmake and Doom love to put you run back to old areas (though their maps are not exactly linear in any way), only to add a surprise or two in the places you thought you'd emptied and explored.
As a sidenote, I feel like the only person on this planet who totally HATES the bitching and whining about "backtracking". The whole term is a huge red flag for me nowadays, partly because I enjoy games like those I mentioned earlier, where re-entering old sections is obligatory for a reason. Even in some more "linear" games, like Serious Sam, I've spent tons of time going backwards, exploring every nook and cranny for secrets and eastereggs, having a great time. Sure, if the game has no such things whatsoever, then it's just badly designed.
I love to explore the crap out of visually interesting games. It's what most of my all time favorite video games have in common. Backtracking can be bitchwork in a game that's not interesting to look at. New Vegas' small, ugly, largely empty map had incessant backtracking punctuated by constant loading screens that made for a right pain in the ass. But in games like Tomb Raider, Arkham City/Asylum, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess exploration is the name of the game so one should expect to spend a lot of time in one place.
While I disagree on your first point and very much enjoyed the episode, I wholeheartedly agree with your second.
I think that "backtracking" can help establish a very palpable sense of atmosphere. I would point to Arkham Asylum and the first Dead Space both as exemplars of this point. Backtracking when it occurs out of poor design decisions is one thing but to create an enclosed space that the player gets to know intimately and using that to effectively draw them into the "play-space", if you will, is something else entirely.
Here's an interesting example from the soon-to--be-released game Starbound. In one of the main missions/dungeons, you have to initially take the long way in to find the macguffin, but as you go you can open up previously locked doors to take a more direct route out.
I think Half-Life did a great job dealing with this issue.
I think that Half-Life did a mixed job with this issue.
While chapters like Blast Pit and Power Up are good examples of this issue being avoided, like skipping sections that the has player already completed or adding new challenges while revisiting area's.
On the other side of the coin you have On a Rail, a chapter that is made almost entirely of long looping sections, confusing alternative pathways and big sections that leads to nowhere that is a (bad) good example on how not to handle backtracking.
My 2 cents on the matter.
yeah, i was going to say that. It put you in a different part of the same room or area or changed something about the area (like before and after the resonance cascade). It never just put you back in an identical area without having something change.
it is, but it backtracks a bit.
One way I thought you would mention is the respawning of enemies. Have you ever driven down a new road but when you try to drive back it seems like a new area? This can be design too with angle of corridors and different alternate routs in the same room. One example would be a path that branches off in three ways. Going one way offers multiple paths but the other way sets up ambush points for you.
I think every single Skyrim dungeon either looped you back around to the start point (often using that verticality) or else had a little side-exit at the end. IDK about the "midway exit points" but that game nailed avoiding backtracking completed levels.
Always good to see the Soulsborne games cited as well.
Not a lot of mid-way exit points, but mob respawn takes a few in-game days, so you end up not having to fight through a whole dungeon again, which helps. There aren't many things in the middle of dungeons either, apart from some chests and some nodes--most of what you need will be at the end, so backtracking is less necessary.
It's true that Skyrim avoided backtracking like a plague, but I wouldn't say that they nailed it. Those predictable loops made dungeons feel gamey and immersion breaking. Weird little cliffs to drop down off of, and locked or hidden doors from the last chamber to the first. I definitely appreciate that I don't have to hike the long way around, but I wish they could could have done it with a little more variety and subtlety.
I've always wanted a game where, after heading into a progressively more grotesque area for an objective, the player has to walk back out and soak in the beauty at its zenith. I've always wanted to recreate that feeling I get when I walk a bit away from set trails, getting annoyed, and finding some beautiful scenery, and all the better it would be when juxtaposed with that mundanity of re-traversal.
Personally I always felt a little weird when a small dungeon I'm playing through does a loop back to the entrance. Big dungeons can be fine because you spend so much time in it that you don't really notice and at the end when you come out that locked door you say "Oh, THAT'S what that was!" But there have been times I walked into a cave with two directions I could go down, and it was a literal ring (I think that was in Skyrim) and I thought I'd accidentally doubled back and went down the loop again to find the rest of the dungeon. That's more of a problem for the side content though.
Suddenly, Etrian Odyssey comes to mind, between the items that grant easy exit for anyone in a pinch or who needs to clear their inventory, shortcuts throughout the level that must be opened from the other side before they can be used on trips in both directions, and Geomagnetic poles that warp the player directly to specific parts of dungeons to begin their next trekking session.
A good way to avoid backtracking, an Zelda has done this alot (many games have), give the player the option to warp to previously visited locations.
if you do that though, design your levels like you don't. while the utility is great, it can lead to lazy and simply linear design. Compare the First half of DS1 with DS2.
+Elemental_Phoenix I don't understand which one you're referring to, I mean I've played both and to my experience i find both of them equally great in terms of level design. Both of them have the 3D platformer-esque feel to their environments...
DS1 and 2? Dragon Squad?
+PikaLink91 dark souls
***** Ah, sorry
When I went to SDCC one year, I encountered a game called "Glid", where you control a little spider who uses tethers to navigate through a 2d maze (One of those black-colored artsy games)
They were convinced that retraversal was impossible. Thy watched in awe as I proved them wrong and broke their game's mechanics in the process.
Funny thing is, in the real world you'd have to backtrack, but it's an immersion killer.
"The dungeon is going to self-destruct in 30 seconds, GTFO"
This is one of my few complaints about Earthbound. They partially addressed it by, late in the game, adding a mechanic where you can teleport anywhere you have already been, but it breaks immersion and feels forced.
I think the best example of this done right was when playing Hotline Miami, and after clearing the level, you have to trek back to where you entered from, then walk past all the blood, and gore. While at the start of the mission you had this fantastic upbeat music playing, then right soon after the upbeat music stops, and left with the aftermath.
Can you do an episode about menu design? I've been playing the Assassin's Creed series and AC3s and AC:Rs crafting menus are terrible. AC3 just has many too many things going on, it's very tedious and not very rewarding, it would need to be completely overhauled to be fixed. But Rogue's problem is so simple, they put a bunch of stuff that I craft all the time way at the bottom of a list, and I can only make one at time. Just putting that stuff at the top and making it possible to craft more than one at a time would solve it completely. Basic design oversights like that really annoy me, especially from a company as big as Ubisoft.
Immediately when I saw this episode I thought of DS1 versus Skyrim. That ladder you kick down, blew my mind the first time!
Backtracking is an issue? Since when? I don't mind it. Some of the best games ever created have lots of it. Not a problem in my eyes.
There's nothing fun about backtracking, unless there's some new reason to re-explore the area, like in metroidvania games. Some of the best games have needless backtracking, true, but they're the best despite that, certainly not because of it.
What do you mean there's nothing fun? Backtracking is usually the only time you get to look at the scenery in a combat based game.
stardude692001 You don't need backtracking as an excuse to stop and smell the roses.
Vordaq You do if you are getting shot at. Though you could clear an area then walk around it, that still feels a bit like backtracking.
Backtracking done right is a great tool for pacing, the added quiet time helps to switch up the gameplay.
The way back doesn't have to be a boring slog through empty hallways. You could shake up the composition of enemies, or throw in a cool puzzle, or take the player through an entirely different path out. With clever design, nothing has to be entirely boring.
Ratchet and Clank actually goes around this pretty well, where almost every end of the level happens a stone's throw away from the start that you can reach with something you earned during that level.
Firs.....
You know what, nevermind.
the humans! they are learning!
lol Good call
Also worth mentioning is that looking at floorplans for real world locations can help with this, as most regional building codes require a person in a building to be either a certain distance from an emergency exit, or with at least two means of exiting from anywhere (except smaller rooms) in a building.
In Lufia II, there is a dungeon where at the end, there is a boss room with chests and the battle ends with you leaving before you get control. Your first option is to retread the dungeon. Your second option is to go to the dungeon as soon as possible and get the chests before the boss is there.
One way to make backtracking interesting is to redesign the level itself. The Egg Corridor in Cave Story is completely different in so many ways the second time you go through it.
I don't think that the destroyed Egg Corridor are qualified as backtracking. But it count as backtracking after you save that bunny lady and have to go back to the teleporter.
They were talking about the latter, yeah. The level is designed in such a way that there's a second set of traversal puzzles when going back through it.
I never felt like backtracking is a problem, I love just exploring new areas and go back the way in peace without any other conflicts. In fact I don't like when the enemies respawn or something.
Yes, I play Borderlands and Rogue Legacy.
I heard it as "reach reversal" every single time and was confused
Personal experience here- Baldur's Gate.
The deployment of assassins in that game was amazing. They were often located at Inns, and one (Nimbul, the one in Nashkal after you complete the first dungeon).
By placing him at the nearest Inn to the dungeon, after the first real protracted fight you'd have in the game, and after another assassin encounter (leaving the mines you can run into an extremely strong assassin squad rather easily) it produced a tangible sense of the dangers of the world. More importantly, it made it feel like you were being hunted, and that no area was certain to be safe, empty, or the same.
Never seen a game make me feel that invested in a game world before.
4:22 Actually, I recently was playing an old RPG, and I really had to question the sanity of the architect of this one place. Like seriously, who makes the second floor accessible only from the basement? =P
Skyrim was so great about this. When I had to go back through a dungeon to find some small artifact I missed, it felt very strange because you never have to backtrack through a dungeon in that game. Every lair and cave has an exit back to main entrance at the end.
In Myst games (and Obduction), a small reward for solving a puzzle in a particular area is often a shortcut to a previously visited area - an unlockable door or a lowering bridge. Which saves a ton of time at the end of the game, where you still have to do quite a bit of backtracking.
Speaking of getting from the roof back to the ground, I'm reminded at how effective Hotline Miami was in actually changing how the player experienced the space specifically by changing the pace at which they retraverse the building. Retraversal can break the pace you have, but you don't always want to maintain that pace.
İ was playing a game called exiled kingdoms, and in first dungeon you are facing with a goblin general, and it drops a magical scroll when you killed it called "calling back" scroll. When you read this scroll it teleports you to nearest town or village and in this case it teleports you to lannegar (tutorial village) where you can complete the quest with giving goblin generals head to town guard.
I like the solution in some Zelda-like Dungeons:
Instead of a linear dungeon, you have a central hub connected to a bunch of branches that always send you back to the central hub and the boss is behind a door in the central path.
Aftear beating the boss, you have almost instant access to all the dungeon areas and the exit.
I really like the ad read placement after the title card. It makes the new title presentation a whole lot less awkward and out of place now that there's a buddy there with it.
I was having flashbacks to Halo, when I was watching this video. catching your player off guard by forcing them to remember things that they normally wouldn't is an awesome way to immerse a person, and in Halo, it worked especially well for retraversing that ship. (as a big fan of horror, also, II loved that section)
The Uncharted games handle this really well. Every time you have to traverse back through something, it's usually that you had to platform your way into it and your have to fight your way back out once the baddies catch up to you. You're traveling through the same hallway, but these two styles of gameplay make the "backtracking" feel like progression.
This reminded of the countless occasions in Witcher 3, when everytime I thought "I really hope I won't have to go through that whole cave/sewer again" an alternative way appeared.
I love those parts in Botw when you climb, sneak, or hack your way up a hill, get your reward, then you have all this vertical height to work with! Your can soar off the way you were going or go after something cool you couldn't see from where you were!
In the game i'm working on right now, after you get to the end of a dungeon, you travel back in time using the crystal at the end of the dungeon, and so when you are backtracking it's a whole new level
I'd argue that backtracking in itself can be creative (assuming that this next example counts as backtracking). It's mostly in the horror genre where I see this take place.
For example, you go down a creepy hallway that has a few lights. There aren't any enemies but you don't know that, there could be an enemy lurking in any room you see the door to. Then, you get to the end of the hallway and do whatever the game asks of you, look at security monitors for example. Afterwards, the power goes out. You have to make your way back to a specific area and the game forces you to go down that same hallway... but this time without lights and with enemies. It's one of the best ways I've seen to get the player feeling slightly secure, then immediately take that security away. It's even more impactful BECAUSE you felt safe(ish) in that area, and now you realize that it was deceptive.
I do however agree with most situations though. It's almost shocking how easy you CAN make backtracking super quick and still completely logical... or at least almost completely logical.
Kirby's Return to Dreamland really improved on the series' level design by having doors that progress you through labeled with yellow stars, while doors that led to a side path were labeled with orange stars. That way you at least had a better idea of whether or not you missed something.
Another thing to consider in fromsoft games is that whenever there is backtracking, it's almost always filled with tension, if you get far in a new area and run out of estus, and decide to go back to the last bonfire, with all those souls, the stakes are high and just walking around can be quite scary indeed.
I love that you guys put out this video right when I started studying this topic myself, especially since I just beat Salt & Sanctuary and I was trying to figure out what processes people would go through for this. Thanks for the great vid!
Also if you haven't splayed it, I highly recommend it!
A couple ways to combat this: you could have the trip back take place in the same area, but perhaps the military followed you and is setting up camps along the way as you speak to a captain on your trail back, meaning you get some story and a new environment in the same place you just shot to oblivion. Another option is to have a lot of forks along the roads and simply cut off the hall you went with as you leave, meaning you have new areas to explore and fight through as you leave!
This kind of concept in level design is explored in Destiny, where many missions and areas overlap between public areas and private ones, and even different missions use the same private areas and branch them off in different ways so there is a sense of consistency in each location, and you get a sense that these are real places you eventually learn the layouts of and not just random maps that are connected by cutscenes or impossible tunnels (Dark Souls 2 and 3, I'm looking at you on that one >_> ). Then again, this could be interpreted as Bungie looking to recycle their level design as much as they possibly can lol. But I personally enjoy the idea; and let's be honest: the Bungie team are masters of content recycling xD
YAY SPONSORSHIP!!!! (seriously, no sarcasm here. you guys rock and anything that can keep the lights on and the videos coming is a great thing)
I don't think creating well design exits are the only method to keep pacing.
- Design encounter on the way back
- Allow for the level to change as the player go though it.
As much as I loved exploring the sprawling stages in DOOM 2016, there were a lot of times where I was frustrated and bored with the backtracking to find secrets before I moved on to a new stage.
I like the kind of backtracking where you encounter new things in levels you've already played through like in Banjo-Tooie or DK64. But just walking back the way you came without doing anything else, that's really boring.
Golden Sun is an overhead RPG where most of the dungeons have shortcuts the player can create by moving a rock or pedestal for easy travel on a return visit.
allot of Skyrim's dungeons are wonderful because they loop back around. you get to the end of the dungeon, find all the loot and bosses or whatever, then you find a lever that opens up a secret passage whether it be through a coffin in the wall alongside other coffins, or you find a section of the cave wall move aside. the best part of this is, afterwards it leaves off to another cell in the game with a small bit of a walk , that leads to a lever which opens up another secret cave door meeting back into the room just before the exit! sometimes you even passed by that section of wall and don't even realize it when initially exploring the area.
The Price of Persia:Warrior Within did an amazing job with this problem: separating the game through time instead of through space. Also, the end of the game when it intentionally forces you to walk back had an amazing effect on tying all the events of the game together.
the rareware games of old dealt with this well i feel. every world was big enough to have content but small enough to escape quickly, and later on they added the teleports to help further
Ok whoever decided to animate the section at 5:30 deserves a medal because that was hilarious
Immediately I thought of Hotline Miami. It makes you walk through the level once you've depopulated it, but just by keeping all the dead enemies in place and changing the music, it recontextualizes it as this grisly-ass horrorshow of an emptied-out building, filled will people splattered all over the floor and walls that you caused. S'pretty neat.
I guess it also helps that each level is pretty tiny, too, though.
4:43
The one time I noticed the pathway I was walking on made no sense was on The Stanley Parable. At one point the Narrator makes you walk down a pathway, and you run over what LITERALLY looks like you're running in circles. But then the pathway just continues out of the circle and you move forward.
And this one place where you enter a door to a square-shaped hallway with two doors in it. and you can run around in circles while the Narrator rambles. At one point both doors open, and both lead to the same place.
You can enter the door you just came out of, and end up somewhere else entirely.
However, this room weirdness fits the overall feel of the game, so it didn't break my experience. It just made it better.
Heck, it was even done on purpose on the demo!
It was probably done here on purpose too...
Good game design is ALSO doing what usually causes bad game design in such a way it actually works...
For an open world game Morrowind had my favorite system for backtracking. You can get a spell or item to mark a spot like at the quest giver and another spell to teleport back to where you marked it. There is also my favorite method where you enchant an amulet with an outrageously high acrobatics effect and just jump back to where I needed to go.
Side paths looping back to the main path - And then, after looping back, if they're me, go through the main path backwards to the branch in case there was any cool piece of content that the side path skipped them past.
Seeing the master of missing shortcuts in Souls games praise From for having shortcuts that cut down on backtracking littered through their levels is hilarious to me, though.
Insomniac Games does a great job with this in their Ratchet and Clank series, as well. Every planet typically has 3 paths that branch from the start and all 3 loop back to the ship creatively. The only problem with their implementation is that the games have secrets that need future power-ups, like Metroid games, but coming back with the new power up still has the area cleared out (likely to prevent grinding weapon levels).
They allow you to remember the secret and come back with proper gear, but it's a lonely, quiet walk to and from the secret.
You could always pull a "dead space" and offer the threat of danger every time they enter a room, no matter how many times they've been there
i always notice - and am extremely appreciative - when dungeons in WoW have ledges you can jump down from or other ways to get back on the road through the dungeon. of course, being a mage, i probably don't even know about all of the backdoor exits there are. i didn't even know about the one in Deadmines until a couple months ago!