Prey is officially out and I had to struggle with Triton (digital download) but I finally managed to make it work, even if there are still some problems with that client. For me, still thousands times better than retail since I hate translated games over here and ordering a copy at release from Play.com would always mean having to wait about a week for the copy to be delivered.

So, despite the flaws, the digital download will be always my choice. And not only. If a game is available on digital download it is also more likely that I decide to purchase it.

There are three basic advantages:
– Being able to play right the minute the game is released. Sometimes with the possibility to preload
– Avoid to wait about one week for the delivery, and/or having to pay for the shipment (which can be more expensive than the game itself)
– Can pick the language/version you want

With the game out the most heated debate everywhere is about how long it is and if it’s worth the price. As always the playtime varies considerably, but most people agree clocking it at about 10 scarce hours. Some people finished it in around seven, some even less than five. The demo with the first five levels was about one hour of play. In my first run I spent there more than two hours, while in a second, sperimental run I finished it in less than half an hour, also considering all the narrated parts that slow you down quite a bit. So you can imagine how the playtime can vary so much.

On Q23 this spawned a discussion about “quantity” and “quality”. My opinion is that, in particular in this kind of FPS, quality and quantity are deeply interconnected.

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The point is that a “quality” FPS is about offering a fun experience through visceral, frenetic combat. Quality and quantity, with this kind of games, are EXTREMELY interconnected.

That “FEAR” that people praise was almost ALL filler content. It looks all made with the same art assets with nearly zero “level design”. You exit a room and enter another that it’s exactly the same.

But the game was fun, supposedly even long.

So the point is that the quality of the FPS also leads to quantity. FEAR had an AI system so satisfying that it didn’t need much else to entertain for a good period of time. Even if the locations finish to be all the same, the combat is so involving that people do not care.

What matters is the support for fun variations IN the gameplay. If the gameplay is complex and deep enough, then it will be easier to make a long game that doesn’t feel just redundant.

Now this thread is about Prey. Prey, beside setting and story, is about the introduction of new interesting mechanics, such as wall walking, gravity flipping and portal technology.

So, guess what? This technology was thought and introduced for ONE REASON: add variations.

See? See how the discussion about quality and quantity is so deeply interconnected, in particular when Prey is the subject?

The point is: Prey introduces a technology so powerful that you can do a WHOLE LOT with it without making the game feel repetitive. It’s a support for variation. It’s an “enabler” for content. Good, fun content is only possible when in the game the technology has built-in support for a good variation. It is ALL about that.

That’s what is relevant discussing. If Prey is too short it will be disappointing not because of “pacing”. But because the game had the support for a long and involving game. They have the right resources.

And it is even more interesting discussing how strong is the technology behind. Because while the implementation of the new possibilities seems solid and powerful, I still didn’t see ANY MONSTER being aware of it. Monsters cannot use gravity flipping because they just die, monsters have limited movement, monsters don’t walk in/out wall walking pads, monsters seem to use portals only when scripted.

Now take these limits. Work on the technology so that the AI makes those mobs use seamlessly those possibilities like a player. Voila.

The game can easily now double its length because there’s now support for a lot more FUN variations.

And that’s, really, the point.

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That’s a premise to what I wanted to say. I’ve already written my opinion about the demo and all the details about the innovative ideas it introduces (links here). I think I was right on those points but there’s to consider the potential behind those ideas and see if the implementation betrayed them or not. As I said it’s all about having support for variation. A FPS is a game that relies heavily on the technology because (before Half-Life) the game was all about the mechanics and possible variations. So the engine was directly an “enabler” for content.

The basic point is that the design is completely powerless if the engine doesn’t support interesting patterns. So this is why with this kind of games there’s always a very strong tie between abstract game design and the technical realization. In fact the technical realization IS the game design of the game. Technical execution above all, sophisticated graphic engines. In particular in a game like Prey where it is the use of the new possibilities to make the game stand out among the competition.

While I’m still not very far from the point where the demo ends, I was still able to recognize some limits and some design choices that I think do not let the game express itself fully.

The problem about the game design is probably the one that could have been fixed easily and it’s about the “death walk”. Tom Chick describes it best, so I’ll quote:

Prey manages to keep moving at a steady clip. It helps that you never had to save or reload, thanks to a gimmick called “deathwalking,” which is apparently the Cherokee ability to die, visit limbo for about 10 seconds, and then just pick up where you left off. And it actually works pretty well. Prey has its share of boss fights, most of them clustered unceremoniously at the end, and deathwalking is a great way to circumvent the hassle of getting stuck at a really hard part. Plug away long enough at any fight in Prey, and you’re going to prevail.

The design goal behind this idea was about preserving the “flow” that was usually broken by encouraging the players to save/reload often. In some cases we have seen games with no saves and just checkpoints for similar reasons, but that choice has always been criticized. Prey has a much better solution since now the action never breaks or stops and you play from the beginning to the end without having to worry about repeating a fight just because you haven’t executed it in a optimal way. Similarly to a mmorpg, you are projected forward and the mistakes aren’t something that forces a repetition, but are instead incorporated in the gameplay. In a word: no downtime.

That solution has a problem, though. The “death walk” goes very close to a god mode. Dying has absolutely no penalty and you can keep respawning as many times you want. It is quite obvious that, while the action is continue, the combat encounters are trivialized since you aren’t required to fight well or “fear” anything. But just to persist. There’s nothing to “win” or solve, which makes the game feel a bit cheap.

My opinion is that this mechanic could have been implemented better, and it could have even helped to make the game last a bit longer, since its scarce duraction is also due to the way the death was handled. Without anything holding you back, the game is even too much straightforward. My idea is how I actually expected the system to work.

Proposed “death walk” changes

– (Normal difficulty) Instead of just respawning the player, all the monsters spawned and still alive would have their hit points completely restored.
– (Nightmare difficulty) Add consequent power-ups to the monsters (hitpoints or resistence) after each consequent death of the player in a short time span (a minute should be good).

This is a simple change that wouldn’t disrupt the original idea (not breaking the action), but that would still require some attention during combat, because if you don’t kill the monsters then you’ll be back with them fully healed (at standard difficulty), or even stronger (at “nightmare”). Combat, and then more combat without downtime. But combat that would be meaninful, instead of just redundant.

Sadly that’s not the way Prey works and it’s one element that ruins the game for me. The other solution wouldn’t have been much harder to implement and it would also have given the “nighmare” difficulty a lot more appeal. As it is currently in the game the only difference is that there is no healing around the levels and that the monsters do more damage when they hit you. Which doesn’t really add anything particularly interesting or fun.

That’s the first problem. The second problem is instead a structural one and that is about the interdependence between technology and design I pointed out above. So it’s a significant limit in the game that cannot be easily solved.

While the new gimmicks suck as the dimensional portals, wall walking and gravity flipping are interesting *for the player*, I was disappointed to discover that the monsters are completely “blind” about them. In the cases they use them actively it seems just as result of a script and not of a seamless, spontaneous interaction.

In particular I observed that monsters cannot see you through a portal and they usually just keep shooting into it at the direction you entered it. So if you can put a portal between you and them you can exploit this by shooting at the right angle without getting hit back.

Now join these observations with what I wrote above and you can arrive at the conclusion. Those new mechanics that Prey introduces are definitely interesting (old post) but they still have to face the limit of the lack of real interaction. They are passive objects because the monsters still “understand” only a very simple, flat space. So still suck to a 3D trick as the original engine that powered Duke Nukem 3D. In my review of the demo I complained about the staticity of the mosters and I fear that was the obligatory solution they had to made to avoid those mosters to get stuck in odd behavious due to the new elements that Prey has and that the monsters still do not understand.

That limit I described about the monsters being “blind” against a portal is more significant than how it appears since it basically forbids a level designer to use two-ways portals in a combat situation. Exactly when they could offer fun and interesting variations in the game.

So all those ideas are meant to add variations, but while the team did a great work with the rendering engine to make all that possible, they still hit against the wall of the monster AI. Because it is probably too hard at this point to “teach” the AI how to use those devices and understand a different kind of space. So cutting consistently on their real potential and “faking” the gameplay through the smart use of scripting.

Prey is a wonderful game, but at the same time it exposed some weaknesses that, when solved, will surely power the games of tomorrow.