Fengol
11-06-2009, 04:20 PM
Busy watching an old GT review of Shadow of the Colossus and the gameplay seems to revolve solely around multi-layered boss battles who's body also acts as the map. I've also been playing Super Paper Mario with bosses you need to climb aboard and navigate to defeat.
Living landscapes still seem to be a novel idea in games. Besides Shadow of the Colossus and Super Paper Mario, Mario Galaxy makes some concession towards living landscapes with the micro worlds and curved surfaces and Gears explains spiky, decending ceilings as teeth of a giant worm.
Nearly all platforms have "interactive" worlds; with moving platforms, lifts, doors, etc but I think nearly all just have "magically floating" platforms and doors that look like doors. A living landscape will also have these interactive objects but they'd be so well disguised and be a natural part of the world that in fact they'd be alien to the player who'd have to to learn how to use them.
The second part of a living landscape is the background. Again, Super Paper Mario has the player actually travelling to the background image to travel and interact with what you thought was unnecessary and Shadow of the Colossus shows an earth-like landscape through which the colossus (i.e. the map) moves. The background of a living landscape should be part of the gameplay, either percieved or real as a threat (e.g. falling off) or interactive (e.g. traversing through the background).
While I'm just musing about this at this time, I hope to put together a little demo which can maybe better explain what I'm thinking about
Living landscapes still seem to be a novel idea in games. Besides Shadow of the Colossus and Super Paper Mario, Mario Galaxy makes some concession towards living landscapes with the micro worlds and curved surfaces and Gears explains spiky, decending ceilings as teeth of a giant worm.
Nearly all platforms have "interactive" worlds; with moving platforms, lifts, doors, etc but I think nearly all just have "magically floating" platforms and doors that look like doors. A living landscape will also have these interactive objects but they'd be so well disguised and be a natural part of the world that in fact they'd be alien to the player who'd have to to learn how to use them.
The second part of a living landscape is the background. Again, Super Paper Mario has the player actually travelling to the background image to travel and interact with what you thought was unnecessary and Shadow of the Colossus shows an earth-like landscape through which the colossus (i.e. the map) moves. The background of a living landscape should be part of the gameplay, either percieved or real as a threat (e.g. falling off) or interactive (e.g. traversing through the background).
While I'm just musing about this at this time, I hope to put together a little demo which can maybe better explain what I'm thinking about