"Nullify" - Far Cry - hobby singleplayer level
'Nullify' is a Singleplayer Far Cry level I made back in early 2005. Back then, I wanted to briefly get away from corridor-based design and try outdoor terrain-based layouts. That, and the tech was absolutely stunning - lush jungles, gorgeous water, CryEngine had it all.
) |
) |
) |
My main focus on 'Nullify' was to create a number of Optional Objectives to allow for more creative missions that could be failed. Games like 'GoldenEye', 'Hitman' and 'Grand Theft Auto' allow failure and therefore, in my opinion, more varied and interesting objectives.
The first optional objective was to Sabotage the V22. This was perhaps my favourite of the three because it was the most readable. If players didn't complete this objective, the V22 would take off near the end of the level, and drop some Special Forces troops for players to deal with. In a game where this objective would be 'non-failable', the Designer would have to provide players with counter-immersive items like a cache of infinite explosives.
The second optional objective, to Contact Val, was quite cool because it gave players a different outro cutscene (and I really enjoyed working on the cutscenes) and, I feel, was pretty readable. It was also failable meaning that if players destroyed the radio, they could no longer use it. If this had been a main objective in another First-Person Shooter, this radio would have had to have been indestructible, which, again, breaks the immersion. If I had to do this again, I would have maybe made a later variation once players had done this once in safety, and placed explosive props near the radio as an extra obstacle to be wary of (and something to note when surveying the area).
Finally, the third optional objective was to rescue the hostages, and required players to get to a small hidden enemy camp in the dense jungle and free some tied-up prisoners.
The reward; an airstrike being called in later on (and an enemy vehicle's driver not spawning, allowing you to commandeer it) suffered from not being particularly readable, which is something I would change if I did this level today.
With hindsight, I would have tried to make the reward for Optional Objectives more readable. Knocking out a power generator to cut an encampment's electricity would be a great example if sign-posted well enough and if conducive to the game's design.
Aside from optional objectives, I really enjoyed toying around with the main objective too - that of a General riding around a specific path in a humvee that players are tasked with killing. A lot of strategies emerged from this based on the brilliant game design inherent in Far Cry - players could take out the driver, whereupon everyone except the gunner would exit the vehicle (including the General), they could take out the General in the passenger seat right away with a scoped weapon, or they could simply blow up the entire vehicle with c4 or a rocket launcher. Where this got cooler was when I began provoking alternate ways - for example, I placed an explosive barrel along the route players could roll down and blow up, or other physicalised props canny players could use to attempt the block the route and slow the AI driver down.