Game Genres

3. Question: How does a game’s genre affect the way its levels and environments are
designed? Choose one level from three different games—each from a distinct
primary genre—and compare how these levels are designed with regard to
setting, goals, puzzles, and risk–reward system.


Answer:

1. Strategy
Warcraft 3 is the best known Strategy based game, this type of game is ecstatically pleasing to the sky down view because since the units of the game are smaller and the map can be explored by the player quickly (instead of FPS which can take forever to travel 5km by foot in game). For this game the goals vary but most of them revolve around getting to a certain section in the map to finish the level, other goals may include time levels where the player either has to accomplish the goals within the limit or has to survive for said amount of time. The risk reward system is balanced out, such as, if the player encounters a large group of enemies that may be medium, the enemies will drop valuable items that the player can use since it may be difficult to do this, whereas singular easy/ medium enemies won’t drop anything or will drop something minor (unless it helps progress to another section of the level). Bosses will have a high risk reward ratio, since they are the most difficult to defeat and they will have items of great value in this level. Some levels may include puzzles such as finding your way through dungeons and caverns which act as mazes, or flicking switches for certain doors that will allow the player to continue. A strategy game such as this is set in a fantasy land with creatures and being that would not exist in this world, though this is common for many strategy based games, there are some that revolve around historical armies, such as age of empires or command and conquer. But like all strategy based games, the cost system is the common type and uses gold for spending on workers and soldiers and wood for resources for building buildings.

FPS
First person shooters are ecstatically pleasing for the first person perspective because it gives a sense of realism. The most well known FPS would be the Call of Duty series, the most favoured being Call of Duty Modern Warfare (and Modern Warfare 2) since they come with settings that would allow the players character to play the game with the players character taking and dealing damage like actual warfare. The strategies are realistic too as players make decisions that can be similar to official military strategists, which involve strike points for air strikes, calling in helicopters, acquiring U.A.V. support, in battle strategies involve placement of claymore mines, firing through walls and killing the enemy, throwing grenades into areas that will kill an enemy or cooking it to try and get a quick kill (cooking meaning pulling the pin and holding the grenade until the last second). The genre of this game is set in the modern time using modern military warfare which people can understand how the military works in combat and during training and a basic grasp on how the enemy tactics work. The goals for this game would be to reach the designated zone on each map as they have the keys to finishing the levels, each zone will vary, from retrieving secure and secret dossiers, to meeting up with the rest of your team after being separated, getting through enemy lines to get to a pick up spot, climbing to a high point for sniper assassinations etc. There aren’t any puzzles for this game type as it is all about reaching critical areas and killing the enemy along the way, however they do have tactic testing as the player will need to think on how to use stealth to slip past patrolling enemies, using stealth to kill enemies to progress further without alerting nearby enemies and other similar tests. The risk reward system is different between multi player and single player, single player is being able to finish the level using tactics that can keep the player on edge and aware, in multi player, defeating other enemies who may be more skilled than said player will yield achievements that will allow the player to have access to player mods, weapons and upgrades.

Puzzle
There have been numerous game that have incorporated the use of puzzles to test the users creativity rather than their skills at strategy and shooting or cutting up enemies. Though games that are puzzle based straight up can grab an audience's attention for a time, however, the ever popular shoot- 'em- up games take the lead for the gaming community. However, with this being said, there have been actions games, Shoot-'em-up or hack and slash that have incorporated puzzles into their game to make things more interesting and to keep the player on edge and to use their creative reasoning to try and reach the goal of the area. 2 types of these games that do this are the 'God of War' series who use puzzles such as pushing a box to a certain section of the room to allow the player to climb to safety before punji sticks spring up from the ground and kill the player. Or the Metal Gear solid series where the player must use stealth and problem solving to get to the goal undetected by stationed guards, or getting past security cameras, these puzzles are useful to put into games such as that so that shooting or cutting up enemies doesn't get boring and repetitive.