Articles

“Exploration
is perhaps what I love most in adventure games. That feeling of getting
lost inside a large and complex world that is ‘out there’
and waiting for me to come along and discover it.” This is what
a friend said to me about first-person adventure games shortly before
the development of Baron Wittard began. Since that discussion, the
idea of ‘exploration,’ and of the sense of anticipation
that it can create for the gamer, have been important ideas and influences
to us in building the game world for Baron Wittard. The primary principle
driving us was to create a game world that was not only large, but
that presented itself to the gamer in such a way as to invoke within
them that same sense of being lost or of the expectation of more secrets
to come. However, identifying that we wanted to create a large game
world was the simplest stage of the design process; the challenging
part indeed was in actually creating it; in realising such a world.
In this third and final part of the developer diary, I would like
to share with you some of the thoughts and insights that guided and
helped us realise the strange but interesting world in Baron Wittard:
the great city that is Wittard Utopia.

Planning
the Game World

Baron Wittard is a first-person
adventure game in which the player must travel to and explore a vast
and abandoned indoor city; a city designed by a deceased and eccentric
architect who kept a terrible secret. As might be expected, there
is more to Baron Wittard’s grand city than first meets the eye.
It is a place both of intrigue and of mystery. Step inside and hear
the creaking floorboards, the squealing rats, the crumbling ceilings,
and the faint sound of movement in the distance, perhaps around the
corner. Something else is here, among this dead and deserted place;
something very much alive; something malevolent.

This, in short, is the
setting of the game, and it is a scenario that promises to the gamer
a large, claustrophobic environment to explore as well as a mystery
to solve. The fundamental challenge for us as developers in bringing
this world to life was to strike a harmonious balance between: A)
The size of the world, in terms of the number of rooms and locations
and corridors; B) The detail of the world in terms of the contents
of those locations that can be examined and inspected, such as journals,
boxes and machines; and finally C) The way in which that world ‘communicates’
to the player so as to arouse interest in exploring further.

Many beta testers mailed
us to say how impressed they were with the size and detail of the
locations. Baron Wittard is certainly a comparatively large game,
with plenty to explore and examine. Firstly, there are the damp and
cold subterranean tunnels carved out deep beneath the Utopia. These
are unsettling places; places in which evil seems to lurk and in which
a sense of foreboding hangs in the air. In these places, the traveller
must traverse through winding and labyrinthine corridors, walking
close to the cold and dimly illuminated brickwork searching for whatever
clues and remnants previous visitors might have dropped or forgotten.
In contrast to these tunnels, there are the clean and modern luxury
apartments nestled away comfortably on the upper floors. These have
a feeling of sadness about them; of having been abandoned and forgotten
entirely. At this place, the player can almost feel at ease, perusing
through old journals and books and brochures, taking a pause or brief
respite from the evil that lurks elsewhere.

Secret
Passageways, Locked Doors and Sneaky Peeks

It is not, in my opinion,
enough however to simply make a game world large in order to make
it interesting and enjoyable for the gamer. In addition to being large,
the game world should also feature other qualities. It should have
the ability to ‘communicate’ with the player; to respond
to their actions; to ‘tease’ them as it were. By ‘tease’,
I mean that the environment should offer the player the promise of
new secrets and sights that are yet to be uncovered; the promise of
further sections and areas waiting to be reached and explored. This
suggestion raises the reasonable question of “Exactly how can
the game world communicate such things to the gamer?” How can
it ‘tease’ in this way? How can something as lifeless
and inanimate as bricks and space and architecture promise anything
at all? There are a variety of methods for doing this, and Baron Wittard
turns to some of the genre classics, such as Myst and Shivers, for
inspiration. Inspired by these greats, the world of Baron Wittard
features: (1) Locked Doors, (2) Secret Passageways, (3) Suggestive
Maps, and (4) Sneaky Peeks.

Locked Doors
Locked doors are likely to be a familiar sight to the experienced
adventure gamer, for they represent obstacles and are also teases.
They are obstacles because they stand between the gamer and new
and unexplored locations, and they are teases because they almost
boast of their being an obstacle. Travellers to Baron Wittard’s
Utopia shall encounter locked doors on their journey, and those
doors shall prevent access to new and unexplored regions until a
means of unlocking them can be found.

Secret Passageways
Like locked doors, secret passageways are obstacles promising a
pathway to new and hidden locations. But unlike locked doors, secret
passageways do not announce themselves openly. Instead, they lurk
in the darkness and stay silent to all except those fortunate or
unfortunate enough to stumble across them. There are secret passageways
too in Baron Wittard’s Utopia. The traveller can recognise
them by their subtle signs: architectural anomalies, walls that
do not seem to belong, walls that even seem to move. One might not
notice them at first glance, but a closer inspection of the Utopia
can reveal them. For this reason, it is important to remain alert
throughout your travels.

Suggestive Maps
Maps are charts or diagrams that can help travellers find their
way from one place to another. The map of Baron Wittard’s
Utopia is no different. It marks walkways and rooms and walls, and
it helps and instructs on the routes between destinations. But it
also alerts the careful reader to locations whose whereabouts and
size were known to the mapmakers but which, at the ground level,
seem unreachable or inaccessible. Places that would be unknown or
thought lost by most if it were not for those mapmakers who took
care to mark them on the map. Such places are difficult to reach,
but not impossible. There are such places in this game, and some
of them hold momentous secrets.

Sneaky Peeks
The final main device that we used to convey hints about further
locations that await exploration is what I call the ‘Sneaky
Peek’ technique. This technique states that the player must
in some way be given a taster or a quick or distant view of some
location that can be reached, if only the player knows how to get
there. With this technique the player might be standing on a bridge
looking to the distance, or standing near a window looking out.
The view they see might at first seem unremarkable, but closer inspection
of distant details reveals, perhaps, a building or a room or a structure
that can be reached somehow, though the route there is not entirely
clear. The player can travel there, certainly, but how? Sneaky Peeks
are like doors in that they are teasers, teasing problems. But they
are teasers and problems in a more grand and masterful sense because
they tease without offering any clue as to their solutions. They
announce that a solution exists, but offer no guidance on how to
bring about that solution.

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Concluding
Thoughts

One of the most important
elements of an adventure game is without a doubt exploration. The
excitement of discovering new locations, hidden buttons and drawers
filled with objects is part of what makes a game interesting. Because
Baron Wittard is not an inventory-based game, the exploration of Wittard’s
Utopia is not focussed on finding objects so much as about finding
clues, some very subtle, some more obvious. It is also about finding
hidden passageways and buttons and switches to operate machines. This
approach is similar to the exploration type used in the Myst series.
Everything you find brings you closer to unravelling the mysteries
of the place you’re in.

That exploration is critically
important was something we had to keep in mind right from the start.
While we were designing the Utopia, we had to make sure that the building
and every single room in the building would be interesting enough
to explore. We have also used puzzles to invite the player to do some
thorough exploring; puzzles that do require the player to search every
floor and every room to come to a final solution. There is a lot to
be found, some things are of vital importance to the game, other things
are not. So every object the player finds should be considered as
something to remember. Even if it seems unimportant or strange at
first glance, it can turn out to be a vital clue.

We hope that you have enjoyed
reading and considering this three part development diary for Baron
Wittard: Nemesis of Ragnarok. Baron Wittard’s city is a dangerous
and menacing place, but it is awaiting your exploration. Take care,
traveller, because all is not as it seems there.

Part
1 | Part
2 | Part 3