It’s all in the Details: How Little Things make a game Better

There’s a saying that goes, “God is in the details.” There’s another that says “The Devil is in the details.” Theologically confusing? Yes, but it does tell us about how important details are. Details add color and richness to experiences that you can’t get if you’re just looking at the whole thing. Games are no different in this regard. Details keep you involved in a game’s story, it’s world, or its characters.

Each of these shops is a little bit of detail that made the world a little richer, if confusing. Who do these shopkeepers sell to?

How do small details enrich a world? What are some good examples?

Mass Effect 3 is the epic end to a space opera that took our Commander Shepard from a special ops soldier to the hero of the Galaxy. You meet companions, fight enemies, and even find love along the way. In such a large series of games, one might assume that the little things would be left out.

Mass Effect 3 is the story of a person very in love with shooting things and chest high walls.

After all, who the hell has time to figure out why the spaceships still make noise in space? Mass Effect 3's writers, that's who.  In a scene with your dropship pilot, Steve Cortez, on the Citadel, Steve relates you to how he comes to the viewing port to relax. He has a line, “When I was alone, I'd turn off the auditory emulators and just watch them drift by silence.” The ships in Mass Effect 3 don't make pew-pew noises, you just thought they do because of the emulators!

in fact, because they have sound in space, they can take it away at crucial moments like in Mass Effect 2 when your ship is destroyed and you walk through it's hull.

The writers know that people expect to hear something when they see something on screen, even if real life physics would disagree. With one little line, the universe of Mass Effect becomes that much more concrete, unrealistic expectations of sounds in space and all. It's nice to know that not everything will change when we figure out how to punch holes in the fabric of reality.

Also a strong entry into the "generic white guy holding a gun" poster contest.

Alone in the Dark (2008) is not a particularly well made game, small details or otherwise. The story is meandering, most of gameplay is dull and repetitive, and the numerous set pieces wear out their welcome quickly. Alone was not without it's good qualities, however. The fire in the game behaved so realistically that it was shocking at the time, and the melee combat was more visceral than anything most triple AAA games feature.

The moment it really shined for me, however, involves one of the most common tropes in gaming: a locked wooden door. In most games, you'd have to go find a key, or find some way around.  Alone in the Dark threw me for a loop. When I swung my axe at the door, I busted a piece of the door right into the next room. I stared, totally shocked, for about 30 seconds. Then I gleefully hacked out a protagonist sized hole in the door and walked on through.

You swing melee weapons by moving the thumbstick back and then whipping it forward. Awkward? Yes. Better then pressing the mouse? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Most games will tell you you're a super powerful warrior or mage, but when you try to knock down a damn wooden door the whole lie the game built up around you falls apart. Alone in the Dark says, knock yourself out kid. Beat down that stupid door. Maybe even burn it? Shoot the lock out! Be a real person! Reality is funny in games; we want all the good parts without any of the bad parts. Alone in the Dark actually delivered what I would argue is a better version of game reality than most games. Bit of a shame the rest of the game had more technical issues than a giraffe trying to use a fax machine.

The Witcher 3 is full of things to amaze you, big and small. You can lose hours of your life to Gwent or just walking around the countryside. One of my favorite little details is one that many people might not have even found.

Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, or "how to make all other open-world RPGs look like yesterday's trash"

Doesn't this guy look trustworthy? What with the drying blood and general look of hate?

On one monster hunting quest you are sent to deal with a Leshen (a kind of forest spirit) that was aggravating a small village. Once you get there, you find the whole village slaughtered. On closer inspection you find a little girl alive, who says that a man with eyes like yours did this. Eventually you find the witcher Gaetan. He took the quest before you and killed the Leshen, but the villagers tried to stiff him on payment. Two of the villagers tried to kill him with a pitchfork when he argued. Enraged and wounded, he slaughtered the whole village. The whole tale is deep and winding, but the best part comes as you approach Gaetan. If you're wearing the School of the Cat witcher armor he will remark “Well well, what have we here? Feline armor, wolf's head medallion- a crossbreed?”

Witcher Schools are notoriously strict in their traditions, so it makes sense that he'd be more than a little amused with your copycat style. In fact, he's one of the few people who would actually know anything about different kinds of witcher gear. His one line makes you think differently about him and consider your options for completing this quest much more carefully. He's not some mindless brute, he has a sense of humor, and he appears to regret what he did. Any way you chose to end the quest, that one line made Gaetan a little more human.

Video games have gone from little pixels on the screen to massive, engaging, sprawling wonders of technology. No matter how long or massive games get, little details are what is going to engage people. Nobody is going to remember the 85th firefight in Halo: Combat Evolved, but they'll always remember Sarge's pep-talk in the first level. God's own anti-son-of-a-bitch machine indeed.

Where the Hell do I Go?: Direction in Games

Figuring out where to go is one of life’s really big questions. Choosing a career, romantic partner, or even a place to live can be difficult, frustrating, or just plain confusing. You would think that games, where somebody can design everything exactly so, would be easier to navigate, but you’d be wrong. Whether deliberate or not, a lack of direction can harm your enjoyment of a game just as well as bad controls or a boring story can.

But, what is good direction? How does direction make a game enjoyable?

Halo: Combat Evolved is a revolutionary FPS with lackluster direction. Out of the eleven levels, seven could easily lead you to confusion and frustration. Several of the levels are made up of identical corridors, so you can’t figure out which way was forward or backwards if you got turned around.

Aliens really love the color purple. Ever notice that? Why is that? Also, how do they know where they're going in this stupid ship?

Since Halo has no cover system, movement is very important during a firefight, which does play well with the level design. Assault on the Control Room (5th level) has glowing arrows on the ground, but in Two Betrayals (8th level), you have to navigate the whole level backwards so the arrows just confuse you. Also, if your levels are confusing enough to warrant arrows everywhere, you might already have a problem.

The level looks pretty straightforward, but you'll definitely spend a few minutes saying, "Wait, did I come from here?"

The alien design the areas in Halo could be a reason for their confusing nature, but as a game designer, you have to make sure your players can find their way through the game easily. The lack of direction here is a problem because it prevents you from progressing in the story, or fighting new enemies, which are the two principal fun parts of any shooter.

Okay, so I'm a green dot in a grey void. That's helpful for my adventuring.

The Legend of Zelda is another genre-redefining game that suffered from too little direction. Much of this may be due to the technological limits of the time and to their credit, the designers did a good job making the game world memorable enough to navigate, but the “map” in LoZ is useless.

It tells you your general position in the world, but only some of the time. Several areas of the map will not let you past until you have walked through them upwards of three times. Without any sort of landmarks on the map, how are you supposed to distinguish one green (or blue/red if you upgraded your armor) dot on the map from any other position? I think the game designers realized this, because there are several times when you get a hint along the lines of “GO FIND THE OLD MAN IN THE GRAVEYARD.” These hints are an example of the right kind of direction in LoZ; they point you to a distinct place, so it’s easier to figure out where you are and where you’re going. However, the main goal of the game are hidden behind hints like “SPECTACLE ROCK IS AN ENTRANCE TO DEATH.”

Where the hell is Spectacle Rock? Which rocks? There’s like 50,000 rocks in this game world. Are they ones shaped like eyes? Are the rocks a spectacle because they’re impressive? Stop telling me nonsense, Old Man!

LoZ has very impressive scale and exploration for its time, but it also has a mission: defeat Gannon, become the hero of Hyrule. Wandering about aimlessly can be enjoyable for a time, but eventually you want to make progress on your journey and a lack of direction prevents that.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game aiming to capture the playstyle of classic shooters while feeling modern. It’s a pretty tall order, but Wolfenstein did very well in terms of scores and sales, so maybe they managed it. On the surface Halo and Wolfenstein: TNO might seem pretty similar. Both are FPS with a sci-fi bent where you travel to a world unlike any you’ve known. Both take inspiration from older FPS and both are regarded highly.

Wolfenstein: The New Order shows you a truly chilling future, but hey, at least it gives you plenty of firepower to deal with it.

Wolfenstein succeeded where Halo failed, however: direction and level design. Designed by (in-game) Nazis they may be, but the areas in Wolfenstein are very easy to navigate. Part of this is due to the fact that the areas are all very conventional. You spend your time in hospitals, prisons, and cities that are all lain out how you would expect them to be. Want to go up a level in a house? Find the stairwell. Want to find a first aid kit in a museum? Go the bathroom.

Hell, even the literal-actual moonbase is easy to navigate. If that's not good level design, I don't know what is.

The areas also change drastically as you progress through them, so remembering where you’ve been is much easier. The designers could have easily made the world very alien, given that 20 years pass under Nazi rule, but their choice to go with familiar environments means that you’re never unsure about where to go. You’re free to concentrate on the story, the gameplay, and finding secrets.

Hyper Light Drifter is a game in the same vein as The Legend of Zelda, focused on exploration and adventure. Much like in LoZ, you’re just dropped into the game with no real understanding of who you are, where you’re from, or why you’re here. Much like LoZ, Hyper Light Drifter focuses on simplistic combat with a few items and a big world map.

It's also a beautiful game if you're into pixel art.

Unlike LoZ, HLD starts you out on a linear path and then opens up to a huge world. This gets you more centered in the world and also makes choosing a direction to go that much less daunting. HLD also has a map that shows you the general world location, but it has landmarks that give you some idea of where you are in relation to everything else. There’s no stated “main quest”, but “objectives” are marked on your map so you have an idea of where to go.

You will be spending a looooot of time here, so get used to this map.

Their exact location is still a mystery, and given the several tiered nature of the world map, exploration is still more than required and encouraged to beat the game. If Skyrim is the preschool teacher holding your hand as you walk around the park and The Legend of Zelda is the person who puts a black bag over your head and throws you out of a moving car, then Hyper Light Drifter is hiking with a map and compass. You might not know exactly where you are, but at least you’ve got an idea.

Direction is important in life and in video games. Nobody wants to spend their whole life doing something they hate and nobody wants to wander around a game world pointlessly. In games like Elite: Dangerous, the exploration might be the point, but for most other games, some semblance of a path is needed. The next time you’re playing a game and don’t know where to go, ask yourself what the designers could have done to make finding your way feel organic, or if the lack of direction was a design choice, what are they trying to achieve?