Lunchtime Discussion: Animals
It's not all tiger attacksPublished: 12:00, 02/09/2010 by Kris [Halbpro].
44I’ve talked a lot about the environment in games recently. Last week I talked about the weather in games, and how it doesn’t really effect you. This week I’d like to take it from the other direction when looking at animals, they effect you too much compared to the real world.
The issue is that animals aren’t really part of the environment. Typically if you encounter an animal in a game it’ll be attempting to kill or hinder you in some way. Tigers will leap at you, dogs will try to bite you, spiders will pump you full of deadly toxins. You’ll rarely see a monkey scamper across your path, or some birds flutter from a tree as your gunfire startles them. I know that, like weather, that’s a lot to model but I’m not asking quite as much as I am with weather.
With animals you could easily get away with a few pre-scripted encounters to build tension. Imagine a horror game set in the jungle. As some huge beast you can’t see chases you down the local creatures scatter, perhaps giving you some indication of the beasts location. That’s a fairly simple example, but it’s a lot more involved than “and now the tiger pounces on you”.
I am of course missing out the third option, which is pets. I don’t know of a lot of games that actually feature pets, Fable II is the only one the springs to mind immediately. Whilst it’s not building animals into the environment, at least it’s a bit more interesting than being attacked.
Perhaps an interesting pet mechanic would be taming an animal, perhaps even taming one that attacks you in a similar style to capturing Pokémon. Of course the taming process would probably be a bit more involved than stuffing your potential pet into a tiny ball, but the same general idea could apply.
Would you like to tame a pet in a game? Would you at least like animals to go a bit deeper than just an enemy type? Lets your opinions spill forth.
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02/09/2010 at 12:01
Member since: Forever
Chickens in Zelda. I think you should be able to keep one as a pet.
02/09/2010 at 18:11
Member since: May 2010
You get that dog in Fallout 3, which doesn’t last long in the Wastelands really.
02/09/2010 at 19:36
Member since: Apr 2009
I had Fawkes in Fallout 3, who is almost indestructible and loves shooting anything that he perceives as an enemy. A sort-of pet, really.
02/09/2010 at 20:28
Member since: Aug 2009
You must be kidding. He is a living shield and you can shoot him and fry him and he won’t bite you back! The only time he died for me was when he fell through a gap in the bridge that was way above the ground… Which brings it again Fallout 3 and bugs aren’t separate entities.
02/09/2010 at 21:14
Member since: Forever
That dog had TONS of health. Had it for nearly the whole game and health never went below 90%. It would be pretty hard to make it die.
02/09/2010 at 12:02
Member since: Aug 2009
A general cat walking across your path or so while walking in town would be great!!
02/09/2010 at 12:42
Member since: Aug 2008
Just don’t put it in a bin
02/09/2010 at 12:06
Member since: Jul 2009
There are dogs/birds/loads of animals in RDR. Just saying.
02/09/2010 at 12:08
Member since: Jun 2009
You had to break horses in Red Dead, that was fun for about 5 mins. Not quite a pet but i did reload my game when my horse died
02/09/2010 at 12:11
Member since: Jan 2010
I think Shadow of the Colossus and ICO are both perfect examples of how animals should be implemented.
Where in ICO there’re birds fluttering (is that actually a word?) around and the NPC will actually somewhat interact with them. And they’re just there to add to the realism and ‘decoration’ of the world.
In Shadow of the Colossus you ride a horse which actually feels like an animal, instead of some kind of extension of the character which reacts unnatural to every button you push. And in the case of Shadow of the Colossus the absence of any other animals, except for the few lizards and birds (not sure about the birds), actually add to the feeling of solitude.
02/09/2010 at 12:16
Member since: Dec 2008
there’s a place you can grab onto bird and ride it until your strength runs out. fun.
also, spent ages trying to hit one with an arrow, but when I hit it I immediately regretted it.
02/09/2010 at 12:22
Member since: Jan 2010
Ofcourse, you’re right. I totally forgot about that.
02/09/2010 at 12:49
Member since: Jan 2010
Turtles too in SOTC :) Argo was and still remains the best videogame horse, I was very surprised that Red Dead hadn’t learned ANY lessons from it and instead went for the Assassins Creed style Meat-Tram.
SOTC and Ico remain two of the best, most believable gaming spaces in my mind and I’m hugely looking forward to Last Guardian.
Loved that you could grab the fishes and birds and similarly to you spent ages trying to shoot a falcon before feeling immediate guilt upon success.
02/09/2010 at 13:36
Member since: Jul 2009
With the guys on this one. Agro was phenomenal. The isolation only added to the relationship you had with him. The bond was tremendous. He was your transport to the most baron-looking lands. You could do just the basics but it was perfect. Pat him to make sure he was ok. Call him over, run over to him when you were both thrown to the floor. How much you cared about him showed when something major happens later on in the game.
Dogs, in general, are usually as daft as brushes. Fable’s no exception. I’ve watched countless moments where I think “daft sod” but that’s probably about right.
I’ve just been off reading other peoples’ reactions to Agro and one chap caught me off-guard completely. When the “moment” comes he had to pause the game and walk away for a few moments to process what had happened. Seriously, holy shit. That really says something.
I’m hoping The Last Guardian is going to at least equal this, if not trump it superbly.
02/09/2010 at 15:14
Member since: Jan 2010
Yeah, the way you only had to give him gentle direction whilst he took care of most pathfinding was brilliant. Made him a believable animal as opposed to a meat-tram. I led him to water, patted him and everything, whereas in Red Dead the bond is so non existant that I usually execute my horse from the saddle rather than dismount. There’s no consequence, I just wave a bit of paper 2 minutes later and “hey presto, he’s back from the grave”.
I went through SOTC with a couple of mates and made a bit of a fool out of myself leaping up and shouting “NO!” at the aforementioned “moment”.
02/09/2010 at 12:12
Member since: Forever
Shadow Dancer!
The best dog in a videogame ever, if it got hit it turned into a puppy
02/09/2010 at 13:39
Member since: Jan 2009
I loved that game (and the dog) so much :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjPKiaBuQ-Q&feature=player_embedded#!
(although me and Kev actually had it for the amiga)
02/09/2010 at 14:07
Member since: Forever
Holy crap 10mins to finish a game? WTH?
I know you often had a to finish a game in one sitting because of the lack of saves but I distinctly remember it taking several hours
Although I’m just watching him play through Ghouls n’ Ghosts which is a rock hard game and he’s done that in 2 YouTube vids (20mins)
02/09/2010 at 12:18
Member since: Jan 2010
I like your idea of having animals escape from some great feared enemy, it would give a little more intense scene.
Now, I haven’t read your blog about weather, but I disagree that it doesn’t matters. A game like Heavy Rain would be really weird, and nowhere near as intense if the sun was shining all the time.
I guess a lot of these extras is making an effect on us, but some of them may be more obvious than others.
02/09/2010 at 12:51
Member since: Jan 2010
That happened in Stalker on the PC, you’d get a whole load of rats hurtle past in the opposite direction and it worked very well, taking you by surprise the first time and giving you the fear thereafter.
02/09/2010 at 12:21
Member since: Jan 2009
UC2 in the mountains, stroking the huge cow things :p
02/09/2010 at 12:46
Member since: Aug 2008
They are called Yaks
02/09/2010 at 12:22
Member since: Jun 2009
Lets not forget Okami
02/09/2010 at 12:26
Member since: Feb 2009
Metal Gear Solid 3 (which im re-playing) had lotsss of animals all of which you could eat. You could even through them as bait for guards, or throw rotten food (it goes rotten depending how long its been in your inventory) to make the guards ill. Not to mention them hindering you with venomous snake bites and huge crocodiles. It even has birds flying out of trees when startled by gunfire, or a guard is coming close.
All this on a last gen console. Everything you could ask for except a pet, which if you think about it you have in mgs4 with the Mk II and even MGS1 on the PS1 had those wolves that follow you if you smell of their master Sniper Wolf.
Metal Gear Solid 3 Raen, Metal Gear Solid 3!!!!
02/09/2010 at 15:14
Member since: Jan 2010
MGS3. This game incorporated animals perfectly. You go in the lake, A croc eats your face! you go in the long grass, a small snake slithers away while a large one bites your shins! Not to mention the vultures feasting on the corpses of the guards you recently disposed of. No game has do anything like this since, and that saddens me :(
02/09/2010 at 20:30
Member since: Aug 2009
Yes, i wanted to mention that game, too. Still, the animals were there purely for your own (or a – SPOILER – certain boss’ – SPOILER) pleasure, and they didn’t hunt each other.