Video Game Tropes Essay

Video Game Tropes Essay

1. Tropes

2. Experimentation in Unreal Engine 4

3. References

1. Tropes

Trope 1: Health Regeneration

Regenerating health systems are one of the biggest emergences in recent years in video games. Popularised by games such as Call of Duty, regenerating health slowly became integrated into many games. While the implementation is different between games, the recurring mechanics of how it works is mostly shared between games, with some exceptions which will be discussed. Regenerating health-based games often hide the player’s health and merely represent it with on-screen effects such as the player’s vision turning red and covered in blood as they take more damage. Unlike games with health-point based health systems, there’s usually no way to tell exactly how close you are to death, but also unlike most of those games, your health can regenerate.

After the player sustains damage, their health is reduced accordingly and after a period of not taking damage, they begin to slowly, or quickly regain HP. The time between taking damage and health regenerating, and the speed it regenerates at, varies from game to game but overall it mostly takes the player out of direct combat for a few seconds. This system allows players to take short breaks behind cover to regenerate health, and then immediately resume combat without having to search the level for health items.

Regenerating health devalues the need for traditional health kits and healing items present in HP-based games, and as such games using the regenerating health system are often devoid of health kits completely, or using them sparingly. Furthermore, the system changes how designing levels works for these games: The player’s health can regenerate infinitely if given enough time to do so, as such levels don’t need to be designed around health kit placement but instead cover placement and abundance. If there is an abundance of cover, the player will have many places to safely regenerate health, making the game easier, whereas limited cover will force them to be more considerate with how they sustain damage.

In games that don’t use this system, level designers must place healing items with consideration, and levels can often see many revisions to balance out how much is given to the player in rooms. For example, DOOM’s difficulty for players can often be decided by how many health items are available before, during, and after each combat encounter.

Wolfenstein: The New Order, released in 2014, is a game that is unique for its health system mechanics. Being the reboot to one of the first popular first-person shooter games, the game features both a regenerating health system and health kits, but the health system mechanics have been designed in such a way to make neither system redundant. The player’s health regenerates after a certain amount of time spent not taking damage, but only regenerates up to multiples of 20. For instance, being reduced to 21 HP and not taking damage long enough to regenerate health means the player’s health will eventually regenerate to 40 HP.

Where do health packs come into this? Health packs are the only way for the player to heal beyond the limits of their regenerating health and beyond. Not only do health packs allow the player to return to 100HP if their health was reduced to below 80, but it also allows the player to ‘overcharge’ their health, allowing it to go beyond their limit and slowly tick back down to their HP limit. I believe this mechanic perfectly blends the two styles together as it ensures that there is always an incentive to regenerate your health when possible, keeping you in combat longer, but also gives health packs the importance they have in games which only feature healing items.

Even when at full health, health packs still serve the purpose of overcharging the player, and are usually placed before combat encounters to allow the player to begin combat with overcharged health.

Trope 2: Suspicious Videogame Generosity

Another trope is ‘Suspicious Videogame Generosity’. This trope involves the purposeful placement of healing items and ammunition before boss encounters to prepare players for the spike in difficulty. Doing this helps players when they encounter a boss for the first time, making the battle more forgiving. This trope is notorious for how blatant and obvious it can be in most games, where players can find an abundance of all items in the room just before a boss fight. This is also for convenience, allowing players to get prepared without having to backtrack, if possible, to find any healing items.

Some games are notorious for this, such as Serious Sam, Doom and Half-Life 2, for different reasons. Serious Sam places healing items in remote locations and will proceed to spawn dozens of enemies around the player. Doom notoriously gave you an abundance of all items before the final boss fight, and often places a good amount of ammo before you enter a room containing a large number of enemies.

Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 use this trope in every finale level. The finales of these games often revolve around surviving in a single area against an overwhelming number of enemies, weak and strong, since the players are clearly at the disadvantage here the level designers provide a fair amount of items to give the players a chance at surviving many of the situations they’ll have to deal with. This is also used to a lesser extent at the start of each level, the players start off in safe rooms and there is almost always a pile of ammunition for each weapon they have and a health kit to heal the player to full health.

Half-Life 2 isn’t as obvious with this trope in general, ammo and health placement is relatively sparse and is done so that it seems natural, with the only exception being the large, infinite ammo crates that the level designers place so you do not run out of ammunition for weapons you need to use to pass the battle. An example of this any of the many battles against enemies that can only take damage from explosives, such as helicopters or ‘striders’. These battles usually have at least one of these infinite ammunition crates for either the RPG or grenades, meaning players will never run out of ammunition, if they did it would be impossible to advance any further.

This trope can make or break the balance for certain battles, some battles may be incredibly unfair and be impossible to win if the player doesn’t have enough ammunition or health, while some may be too easy due to the game giving too many items. Finding the balance between these two is integral for making battles challenging but also fair. Older games are notoriously for their brutal difficulty and that was often due to not providing the player with the items they might need if they are low on health and ammunition from their journey to the boss room.

Coincidentally, the usefulness of this level design decision is almost invalidated in games with regenerating health as the player’s health will have probably regenerated by the time they’ve passed the room. The only use this trope would have is restocking ammunition, if the game uses an ammunition system.

2. Experimentation in Unreal Engine 4
http://tjoyceuog.blogspot.com/2016/11/unreal-engine-4-experimentation-with.html
3. References

References

"Gamasutra - Understanding Balance In Video Games". Gamasutra.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.

"Regenerating Health - TV Tropes". TV Tropes. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.

"Suspicious Videogame Generosity - TV Tropes". TV Tropes. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.

"Videogame Tropes - TV Tropes". TV Tropes. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.