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A method for pacing analysis. The talk:. Background How I used it in personal projects Final words . Background. Background. Make a 25 minute Half-life 2 episode as a final year project in 10 weeks. Add academic value as an excuse to make the episode.
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The talk: BackgroundHow I used it in personal projectsFinal words
Background • Make a 25 minute Half-life 2 episode as a final year project in 10 weeks. • Add academic value as an excuse to make the episode. • Is there a way to measure the variation in gameplay in a way that could be replicated? • Analyze and distinguis different types of gameplay present in Half-life 2
Background • Dialogue – Player is passive listening to story or mission briefings. • Puzzles – Non combat areas where the player has to solve a puzzle in order to proceed • Roaming – Areas in which the player progresses and occassionally stumbles upon enemies • Arenas – Heavily scripted areas where the player has to defeat a large amount of enemies in order to proceed • Vehicle Rides –Areas where the player is riding a vehicle
Background • Played through the half-life 2 series with a stopwatch taking notes. • Remove parts where you die or get lost • Put the data in to a chart
Conclusions • New chapters starts with introductory dialogue. • The player seldom spends more than 10 minutes doing the same thing • They often mixed the different types of gameplay to avoid becoming repetitive.
Only 10 weeks, no room for error • Get first iteration up and running in 2 weeks • Focustested once or twice every week always with new testers • Improve next iteration by feedback from testers Project 25 – Workflow
Project 25 – Final product Added an extra room to give the player more time to get immersed in the beginning Added a small puzzle to avoid 13 minutes of combat Added a challening sniper puzzle at backyard Split the final battle into two parts to avoid player fatigue
Can be used as a visualisation tool when dealing with publishers • Can also be used by QA to ensure quality of the gameplay Final words – Additional things to consider
HOWEVER Be careful with this
It is very elusive data • You cannot just from the charts make any sort of judgement of actual quality. Final words – Be careful