297: Green Barrels Don't Explode
- Thread starter Tim Latshaw
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It's tricky to design anything right. People have expectations of how things are supposed to work (On button is on, volume knobs turn from left to right, hot water is on the left side, cold on the right, etc, etc.) So often designers forget what people 'know' in order to get something cool-something that the designers feel is instantly understandable because, hey, they get it right?
Look at the Gawkwer web redesigns; roundly and soundly hated. There are two reasons for that: 1) they released the sites without full functionality (commenting) and 2) the design was a clusterfuck. Nobody likes frames-and any proper web designer from 1998 could have told you that-and NOBODY in the US reads from right to left. NOBODY.
But they wanted to do something cool, and insisted (despite evidence to the contrary, from what I've read) that everyone would do what they told them to.
And the user base said; eat shit, we're going somewhere else.
So it is with games; We've been conditioned to understand that red things are harmful or warnings. That's damn near worldwide, not just games. We've been conditioned to understand you press the jump button 2x to double jump, not the jump and an alternate button, etc etc and we need those things because they help us understand and master the world that we enter (in a gaming sense.)
I'd also recommend the book the Design of Everyday Things, if you dig on this stuff.
Look at the Gawkwer web redesigns; roundly and soundly hated. There are two reasons for that: 1) they released the sites without full functionality (commenting) and 2) the design was a clusterfuck. Nobody likes frames-and any proper web designer from 1998 could have told you that-and NOBODY in the US reads from right to left. NOBODY.
But they wanted to do something cool, and insisted (despite evidence to the contrary, from what I've read) that everyone would do what they told them to.
And the user base said; eat shit, we're going somewhere else.
So it is with games; We've been conditioned to understand that red things are harmful or warnings. That's damn near worldwide, not just games. We've been conditioned to understand you press the jump button 2x to double jump, not the jump and an alternate button, etc etc and we need those things because they help us understand and master the world that we enter (in a gaming sense.)
I'd also recommend the book the Design of Everyday Things, if you dig on this stuff.
And yet, the amazing "Things I Learn From My Patients" [http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=257985] thread has multiple people who smoke while on O2.vxicepickxv said:
I'd have caught it, but I'm a thirtysomething geezerTim Latshaw said:
who remembers when OMM were stymied by the original Doom's 0 second Time to Crate. (Er, Start to Crate, now that I look it up.) Was fresh in my mind as well since I've been reading the recent Slashdot threads on OMM and Wikipedia.I never thought of this phenomenon, but it may explain my problem with players when I GM pen and paper RPGs. I run games other than D&D (currently Savage Worlds), and focus strongly on the role-playing part and less on task resolution, combat, or character sheet management. I have found that newer players to RPGs would interact better with my games than players that had been gaming for a long time. I think it may be do to the fact they don't have the same built-in expectations from how they game should work compared to the experienced players. I have been impressed by new players who think how their character would solve the challenge if front of them. Where as experienced players look to their character sheet, rules, mechanics, or even rules lawyer-ing the challenge.
Heh. That's because the Red Cross has a very specific meaning. (And the way it's used in computer games has annoyed the 'red cross' organisation quite a bit, actually.)Phishfood said:
The official meaning of a red cross is a medical service, and basically is mainly intended to be something that you don't shoot at if you're on a battlefield.
Your 'medkit' (or rather, first aid kit), uses the correct symbol for such, which is a white cross on a green background.
...Which is really what games should be using as well, but using the 'red cross' instead has become really ingrained somehow.
Must admit, at first I just shot the reds then I accidentally shot another colour...from then on I just shot them all.megs1120 said:
Huh, learned something new. Wouldn't want to shoot first aid kits on the battlefield though either.CrystalShadow said:
Thinking about it harder, I did (sort of) know that. symbol for a pharmacy is a green cross too. Makes sense - as others have said, Red (or mauve, mauve is much more dangerous) = danger, green = safe. Still, incorrect use aside - we use red for health and blue for mana and green for acid. Its just not something that needs changing. If my health was purple and my mana was yellow it would change nothing except make a game slightly more confusing and harder to learn.
captcha: kovacs onsoup Waiter! Waiter! There's a a Kovacs in my soup. Well don't shout about it, everyone will want one.
Ever shoot a barrel in real life? Usually don't get the same satisfying results, just people yelling at you because you've shot their barrel...
This made me think of one of my favorite series of games. Lost Planet. I've heard a lot of people complain about the strange or unintuitive controls and I never understood why they would feel that way. It's probably because they're used to third person shooters controlling a certain way and I'm not because I've had no prior experience with them. So as I was learning the controls I had no preconceived notions on how they should have been. They were what they were and I was fine with it. More than fine, actually. I've mastered them and very few people are better than me at them. This, foolishly, lead me to think I would be equally as awesome at other third person shooters. Some time spent with Gears of War tore down that idea pretty quickly.
"We tried not doing red barrels, but The Customer is always right."
No, no, no! This is the worst and most tired cliche of all! The customer is often wrong, stubborn, stupid or some combination of the three, and none of those make them right! When creators, and in this case specifically game creators, stop believing this trope, we won't always have to have "red barrels for explosions" and "green crates for health". Hell, when you think about it, green for health doesn't even make a ton of sense, since we've all been conditioned to the red cross of the health symbol, red first aid kits and other red iconography related to medicine. For Pete's sake, the organization dedicated to health and medicine is called The Red Cross! Where did green come from, anyway? An arbitrary decision at some point that other creators started parroting and look where it's gotten us. (I do realize the relation between a green cross on white first aid kit, but most first aid kits I've ever dealt with are red, with white markings, further ingraining the "health is red" conditioning)
It shows a surprising lack of originality and creativity that the developers of Bulletstorm couldn't figure out a way to give players an exploding barrel that wasn't red. What about a barrel with the large "explosive" symbol we find on aerosol cans? Not only is that a common symbol that everyone recognizes, they also would know immediately what it would mean in an in-game context.
Giving in to consumer pressure is sometimes good, but it's often bad. It's why we end up with games like DA2. Bioware and EA wanted a more accessible, "streamlined" product to appeal to more gamers. Well, look at the shit storm that's created for them. If creators stopped bowing to gamers and just did what was "right" for their game, or heavens forbid!, do what they want to do we'd start deconstructing and eliminating some of the hoary old tropes that plague so many games.
I understand that the bottom line and the future of your company is a powerful motivator, but without innovators and people willing to take a chance, we wouldn't have games, successful, critically lauded games, like Demon's Souls, Heavy Rain or Valkyria Chronicles. (just off the top of my head).
Sure, in a fast paced, frenetic gameplay environment clear signals and information is important, but I think sometimes, and this is especially true of modern games, there's too much hand holding going on and developers have made games too easy. Save points and check points are nice, but when there's no real penalty to dying, there's no real sense of accomplishment either. Going back to Demon's Souls, when I finally kill a boss demon and get to that new archstone, I'm stoked, because some of the levels are really hard and it takes a lot of skill and patience to get through. Other games with instant respawn without penalty can be just as fun, but I find the actual challenge is diluted by the lack of penalty for dying.
Personally, I'd like to see more Demon's Soul's and less games with a Fallout style progression where, if you're so inclined, you can save every five minutes in order to avoid having to repeat sections or lose too much progress. (Note, I'm not bashing Fallout, just using it as an example of a very easy to abuse save system)
No, no, no! This is the worst and most tired cliche of all! The customer is often wrong, stubborn, stupid or some combination of the three, and none of those make them right! When creators, and in this case specifically game creators, stop believing this trope, we won't always have to have "red barrels for explosions" and "green crates for health". Hell, when you think about it, green for health doesn't even make a ton of sense, since we've all been conditioned to the red cross of the health symbol, red first aid kits and other red iconography related to medicine. For Pete's sake, the organization dedicated to health and medicine is called The Red Cross! Where did green come from, anyway? An arbitrary decision at some point that other creators started parroting and look where it's gotten us. (I do realize the relation between a green cross on white first aid kit, but most first aid kits I've ever dealt with are red, with white markings, further ingraining the "health is red" conditioning)
It shows a surprising lack of originality and creativity that the developers of Bulletstorm couldn't figure out a way to give players an exploding barrel that wasn't red. What about a barrel with the large "explosive" symbol we find on aerosol cans? Not only is that a common symbol that everyone recognizes, they also would know immediately what it would mean in an in-game context.
Giving in to consumer pressure is sometimes good, but it's often bad. It's why we end up with games like DA2. Bioware and EA wanted a more accessible, "streamlined" product to appeal to more gamers. Well, look at the shit storm that's created for them. If creators stopped bowing to gamers and just did what was "right" for their game, or heavens forbid!, do what they want to do we'd start deconstructing and eliminating some of the hoary old tropes that plague so many games.
I understand that the bottom line and the future of your company is a powerful motivator, but without innovators and people willing to take a chance, we wouldn't have games, successful, critically lauded games, like Demon's Souls, Heavy Rain or Valkyria Chronicles. (just off the top of my head).
Sure, in a fast paced, frenetic gameplay environment clear signals and information is important, but I think sometimes, and this is especially true of modern games, there's too much hand holding going on and developers have made games too easy. Save points and check points are nice, but when there's no real penalty to dying, there's no real sense of accomplishment either. Going back to Demon's Souls, when I finally kill a boss demon and get to that new archstone, I'm stoked, because some of the levels are really hard and it takes a lot of skill and patience to get through. Other games with instant respawn without penalty can be just as fun, but I find the actual challenge is diluted by the lack of penalty for dying.
Personally, I'd like to see more Demon's Soul's and less games with a Fallout style progression where, if you're so inclined, you can save every five minutes in order to avoid having to repeat sections or lose too much progress. (Note, I'm not bashing Fallout, just using it as an example of a very easy to abuse save system)
Doom also had black flaming barrels [http://www.doomworld.com/10years/stc/pics/stc_strain.png] you couldn't shoot.Jarrid said:
Green barrels can explode, but only into acid or poison that lingers and deals damage over time. Don't game designers know anything?
I just paint all my barrels black. Black barrels don't do anything, so I can keep them all in the same shed and not worry.
I just paint all my barrels black. Black barrels don't do anything, so I can keep them all in the same shed and not worry.
Hell, compressed any gas is a dangerous thing.vxicepickxv said:
But you are correct. However, while we do detect bright colours more easily, our eyes are also more sensitive to specific wavelengths. Incidentally, green is the one we are least sensitive to, hence why if you're highlighting anything of importance in text it should absolutely not be in green. Red is the most noticeable colour to us, with blue being in the middle.
Actually I wonder if blue explosive barrels would work...
Actually the Red Cross is a trademarked symbol and I think games that have tried to use a red cross have gotten into some legal issues [http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=016637&tid=001] with The Red Cross over it. It's not just an arbitrary decision.Zom-B said:
Although here a green cross is used for pharmacists (drug stores, to the Americans here) so it sort of makes sense to me.
The stupidity of the whole thing is to have some barrels that explode and others that do not. Why have some versions of the same item that you can interact with, and some that you cannot? Crates are typically used for storage of items. This convention makes sense. But, some you can break, and others you cannot? Why again?
It would be nice if the developers could come up with something more diverse, but if they can't, who really cares. I don't judge the games I play based on the number of exploding barrels or item crates in it. There have been plenty of games that don't even have this element in them that were quite excellent from a play perspective.
How about not blocking our way in a game at all? How about intelligent level design without the need to have invisible walls, or non destructible versions of game items to do it. The color of barrels and what explodes is so completely inconsequential it's kinda laughable.
Why was this a worthwhile topic?
It would be nice if the developers could come up with something more diverse, but if they can't, who really cares. I don't judge the games I play based on the number of exploding barrels or item crates in it. There have been plenty of games that don't even have this element in them that were quite excellent from a play perspective.
How about not blocking our way in a game at all? How about intelligent level design without the need to have invisible walls, or non destructible versions of game items to do it. The color of barrels and what explodes is so completely inconsequential it's kinda laughable.
Why was this a worthwhile topic?
If it isn't red, I'm not shooting at it. If it's red, I'm going to damned want some fireworks from that short burst of virtual bullets hitting that virtual barrel, damn it!
That is just how it is.
That is just how it is.
What's wrong with crates anyway? I mean, granted, not too many people still use wooden crates, but it might be reasonable to have cardboard boxes with logos on them or space-age metal crates or even shrink-wrapped pallets. Guns might be in gun cabinets or safes.
As for barrels... In real life we write things like "FLAMMABLE!" in giant letters with flame logos on stuff that might blow up. Most of these FPS take place in the near-to-distant future, so why not just copy reality for this?
As for barrels... In real life we write things like "FLAMMABLE!" in giant letters with flame logos on stuff that might blow up. Most of these FPS take place in the near-to-distant future, so why not just copy reality for this?
I frequently miss in games when crates are supposed to carry ammo/health. Its many-a-time that as a by-product of getting a good, explodey gun, and killing bad guys, I destroy a crate halfway through a game, go "Oh i didn't realise I could do that," and then find it contains ammo.. "Oh no wonder my obsessive ammo conservation was necesary.."