The doors of perception ------------------------ General discussion of perception related issues. ie. about ways of building atmosphere, and conveying the essential information that the player needs to know. Just some ideas.. Point of View.. In an immersive 3d shooter game, n battles with tough monsters you will usually be so busy running away from a creature / checking for other hazards. that you won''t always see when it dies (ie. you will be looking the other direction). Important info (relevent to decision making).. the player should be able to guess the properties of things by sight / sound, they can see if the plank is rotten. That the enemy has a good defensive line. Descriptions of locations.. by text or narration?

I think that there are many different ways to convey this kind of info, but depends on the context. In general, use the other senses that are available to you.

For instance, you cna have your dying monster groan loudly and breathing heavily, then the sound from it stops, signifying its death.

As for the plank, have splinters falling off it, or have it creak when they first step on it.

For some higher information, you could have the character think outloud, like "hmmm, they look pretty well dug in there", or have a messenger/scout report the info and have a map available with those markings on it.

These would be similar to the Real World way of getting the info that most people would just accept them (except for the thinking outloud, which could come off contrived if overused)

I think Thief had the most amazing examples of this. You had to use so many of your senses at the same time to get information i.e. listen for guards, look for dark places in the room

It had very little interface and made you use your real senses to find info.


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