How do you create urgency in a video game without an explicit timer? (16:35)
Here’s an example I’ve been thinkin’ about lately… you all ever hear about this HYPER GUNSPORT game? Well, it doesn’t have an explicit timer, but a match is decided by whoever is first to 60 points. Points are awarded for getting the ball into the opposing goals, but as well, each time the ball crosses the net, it adds +1 to a bank of bonus points with no limit which are awarded to the next scoring team. Thus the regular tension of the back and forth of net sports and extending a volley longer and longer continually accelerates as the next point score value is worth more and more points. Offensive and defensive play blurs together and the momentum of the match always movies forward.
That Brandon Sheffield guy at Necrosoft must think about that Valis boss health bar a lot, it’s kind of the same sort of thing where the game is explicitly communicating a parallel gameplay parameter or modifier that continually heightens the stakes of the basic objectives of gameplay. It creates a feedback loop where everything else circles back around to it. I know Brandon has mentioned this mechanic many times on the show, and I’m glad they do because I’m fascinated thinking about it each time.
I know Tim likes to champion this game a lot, and it’s one I really want to get around to at some point because I haven’t played it since I briefly bounced off of it after getting it for a weekend from Blockbuster, but that all also made me think of Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter. Even if you were to say that the background rise of the D-Counter (which, if you don’t know about the game, results in a “game over,” but the game is designed around repeated loops and attempts at getting through the thing) is a bit of an explicit timer, and is just expressed in a weird unit of measurement, then I’d still say there is some explicitness-undermining effect on said timer when the mechanics of the game all revolve around manipulating said timer and using what remains as a resource.
Some other overarching answers are always stuff where risk and reward continually heighten in tandem as you extend a play or quest or something. Darkest Dungeon is always my premiere example, where the longer you can stay in a quest the more resources you can cram into your limited inventory, but the longer you stay the less resources you have to stay alive, the more likely you’ll run into a sudden combat encounter or even a chance encounter with a random deadly world boss, and the less Torches you’ll have to maintain your ever depleting 0-100 Light score, which itself also modifies risk and reward as well. Not to mention that incredible background music and ambient sound effects that play while you’re exploring a quest area and are not in combat that becomes tenser and more cacophonous as your light lowers to nothing.
Lastly I am going to always shout out the Blue Shell, one of the coolest parts of Mario Kart. Your lead in 1st place needs to be enormous to guarantee finishing the race that way when at any moment you could lose a significant portion of it and there’s no way to prevent it. Only solution is to stay focused on what you’re doing at all times.