Project Proxima Developer Diary 003 (Patreon)

Over the Hump and Into the Ceiling
Slopes and collision response have been a sticking point for the project so far but it’s looking like those dark times might finally be over. Behind the scenes I’ve also implemented - or at least made great progress on - two other concepts which form the basis of Proxima. Lets just say one has to do with level design and the other with enemy design. The pieces are in place, all that’s left is to make the game.

Proxima is intentionally simple. That said, the aforementioned challenges (which now seem small in hindsight) made me estimate coin flip odds that I’d already be working on Betelgeuse by now instead. Thankfully Proxima seems promising. This month gave me a growing impression that it’s actually worth making which is great news but also a dilemma because now I have to ask another question, how far should Proxima go? No doubt feature creep is a killer but the solution can’t always be sheer minimalism. For example I don’t want the protagonist to be a cyan rectangle.

Baba Is You smacked of genius right from the first trailer. Even so, seeing such a promising concept also caused me concern because it would be that much more disappointing if the final game failed to do the idea justice. Thankfully my worries were unfounded in that particular case but it illustrates my point. Having a worthwhile idea imparts a kind of responsibility to do that idea well. Now I’m not saying that Proxima is innovative, in fact you could probably understand the concept entirely if I gave you an ingredient list of three games to combine. Regardless, it’s a combination I haven’t quite seen elsewhere. As presumably the only chef making this particular dish, I’d like to bring out as much of that flavour as possible. This is why I’m torn about the future of the project, it was designed to be simple but it’s getting a little more complex recently.

Baba is good.

Maybe complication is only natural when the approach so far has been minimalism to the extreme. I added a walljump when it became clear I’d need one but apart from that the player can only move and jump. We’re talking three buttons here. To help me work out my feelings on this topic I began playing N++ since it takes a minimalist approach to movement. It was a valuable experience which demonstrates how basic movement options alone can be compelling provided there’s enough complexity under the hood. At its most fundamental, it’s a game where you attempt to precisely control the rate of change between x and y values. I suppose that’s the basis of any platformer but simply adding nuanced momentum provides a skill ceiling which a player can inch toward in a satisfying way. Maybe that’s all you need.

Many games technically have a skill ceiling beyond human attainment, if you’re doubtful just watch any tool assisted speedrun. Granted, those robo-runs often use tricks that would be unenjoyable to perform. When I talk about a skill ceiling I’m not talking about what happens when you abuse some ultra precise setup to clip through half a stage. I’m talking about the skill ceiling as it was intended to be played. With that in mind, what is the skill ceiling for a game like Bayonetta? Even the mere inclusion of jump cancelling must make it so enormous as to be beyond human reach. I don’t even mean a jump cancelled aerial combo, I simply mean jumping from a grounded position to reset Bayonetta’s priorities, allowing for the input of a new move immediately. Using this trick optimally would be a frame perfect input which opens up new options. Keep in mind, this is just a single example of the complexity that game has to offer. So now I ask, does Bayonetta have a higher skill ceiling than N++? The answer may surprise you.

Consider this, every input for N++ is frame perfect. If a single one of your actions is not optimal, then you fail to attain the best possible completion time for the given stage. If mathematicians are to be believed, some infinities are larger than others. It might be best to think of skill ceilings in this way. One could argue that Bayonetta inhabits a larger infinity but both are beyond human grasp. Rather than striving for the largest possible skill ceiling, perhaps we should instead strive for a large enough skill ceiling and let other developments happen naturally. What truly matters for both Bayonetta and N++ is that they’re enjoyable on a moment to moment basis. They’re engaging,  that’s the primary goal.

Perfect play is hard to achieve, especially when momentum enters the picture.

How does this relate to Proxima? Well, rather than adding more obstacles or player moves, I mostly want to mess around with core movement depending on the stage. Think of the water levels in Mega Man as a positive example. A more contentious choice might be ice blocks which are slippery. I’ll need to experiment before I decide if either of those ideas make the cut but I was initially drawn to them (and several similar ideas) because changing the player’s physics raises the skill ceiling. If I listed the pros and cons mentally, this skill ceiling increase would’ve counted as a pro. In light of everything I’ve just discussed, I’m not sure this pro is much of a pro after all. Once the skill ceiling exceeds human reach, raising it further is arguably unimportant. As such, the survival of ice or water physics will now depend entirely on whether I find them to be enjoyable on a moment to moment basis. Provided the implementation is good, I can see some altered physics being a worthwhile inclusion. I know that’s not to everyone’s taste so you might be disappointed by my choice to include them but at least now you’ll know I did it for the right reasons.

E-motion
Lately I’ve been thinking about a comment I saw on Meta Microvideos.

To be honest, I didn’t expect the Many Years Later segment of that video have such a strong impact on people but I did hope it would arouse some emotion and I knew the back half of the video was largely melancholy. It had the desired effect, just stronger than I anticipated. Maybe I’m pretty good at that in video form but I honestly don’t know how I would craft a game to achieve an emotional result. It’s just not the way I default to thinking about games. At first I was disappointed in myself for this perceived failing of mine but I’ve been mulling it over for the last week and I’m wondering if emotion is a kind of trap.

I don’t need to tell you how much respect I have for games like Ico, Journey or Rain World, all titles which seek to resonate on an emotional level at one point or another. Despite my appreciation for them, it also seems like there’s a tendency to put emotion on a pedestal. Those games mean no more to me than Alien Solider, Resident Evil 4 or The Wonderful 101. When I sit down for just one more game of Pac-Man 99, I’m not overcome with emotion. This is where we could quibble about what it means to be emotional in the first place, after all Pac-Man 99 must provide some kind of payoff on an emotional level. Whether that’s the relaxing trance of being in the zone or the satisfaction of a hard earned victory. There’s some emotional rationale for playing any game. Even so, games which tug the heartstrings are more inclined to stand out, assuming they succeed.

It’s possible I’m underselling myself, after all my approach to videos has never been emotionally driven. That only becomes a priority later in production, once I’ve figured out what I want to say. Perhaps the same is true of development where I’ll get into a habit of building emotion in later. Personally, I think a theme is more important than an emotional payoff though because a theme keeps on giving. The Sopranos is my favourite TV show but I wouldn’t say it makes me emotional. It just explores certain themes and day to day life in a compelling way. A theme might be nice.

In recent years I’ve had the misfortune of vividly conceptualising a 3D game I don’t have enough resources to make yet. Such is the life of a wannabe designer. This imaginary game has a theme which I’d attempt to convey through its audiovisual elements, without the use of a traditional narrative. I’d really like to make it some day. In the meantime it’s been nothing but poison because other projects feel lacking in a thematic sense, comparatively speaking. Proxima in particular had zero thematic substance until recently. This is another way the project has grown more ambitious, the setting has recently been altered in a way which will need more assets. Assuming this new setting sticks, I think it will make for a much more compelling premise. If I’m lucky people will find it just weird enough, if I’m unlucky, it’s too weird. Regardless I must remember to be blunderful in all things so I'm following my own taste to the bitter end. I like the new direction and most importantly to me, it’s inching tantalisingly close to a theme, even though I can’t quite see what the theme could be yet.

Right now I’m Team Theme rather than Team Emotion. Even so, I’m wondering, is it always worth trying to find a theme? Returning to Pac-Man, you can see how people have elaborated on its concept over the last four decades. We might make jokes about Pac-Man popping pills or whatever but nobody in their right mind could say it has real thematic substance. Ultimately it’s a game where a yellow circle runs away from ghosts. Likewise for Tetris which is even more barebones in its presentation.

Does it matter that Pac-Man makes no sense? Not to me.

There’s a subtle but important shift which needs to happen when changing career from critic to creator, you need to hold beliefs. I’m not sure critics do, in fact it might be better if they don’t. Games deserve a chance to win a critic over. Rain World is the most famous example for me. My resistance to its unfairness was eventually overcome to the point where I would now praise it for being unfair. Except the instant death pits, those can still fuck off. Point is, you need to stake a claim. For example, I don’t believe that random outcomes are ever acceptable in a competitive game. As a critic, I need to entertain counterarguments and try to see the bright side. As a developer, I don’t have to. As a developer, random numbers are not acceptable in a competitive environment. You might disagree but you’re not making my game.

Here’s another belief, emotions and narrative are overrated. That’s not to say they’re bad - they can be extremely valuable - but they’re more icing than cake. Nobody really cares why Pac-Man pops pills or Mario eats mushrooms, they just do and it’s alright for games to work that way. Sometimes I miss that nonsensical simplicity which seems harder to come by these days. Maybe this is actually the right direction to take Proxima. Maybe it just is what it is.