Geometry wars is gaming at its purest and game design at its best. A bold statement surely? Well following on from my last post, here is my explanation for that bold statement.
Geometry wars is a brilliantly balanced game, built on a few rules. It’s a twin stick shooter, so you use the left analogue stick for movement and the right analogue stick for shooting. This gives you remarkable freedom in both movement, and direction of your shots. Importantly you don’t need to be facing in the direction in which you are shooting. You start with 3 ships and 3 bombs. Bombs are your only other weapon and clear the screen when used. You gain an extra ship every 75,000 points and an extra bomb every 100,000 points. This naturally makes bombs a scarecery resource, but not necesarilly more important than lives. You see, as you destroy your enemies; you gradually increase a score multiplier. Upon the loss of a ship this multiplier is reset to 1, decreasing the value of each enemy you kill; making a high score more difficult. That’s all you need to know about you and your ship.
You have a rectangular area in which to move around in. This is importantly marginally bigger than the size of your screen, meaning occasionally enemies will spawn out of sight. (But not as I will reveal later, out of mind). That’s the play (or should I say game?) area defined.
Enemies. Enemies come in a number of different types, which I will outline below. Firstly though, it is important to note that each enemy has its own unique sound which plays as spawns.
Wanderer: A purple enemy, shuriken like in appearance. Moves slowly and randomly about the level. Worth 25 x multiplier, points.
Grunt: A blue diamond like enemy. Moves relatively quickly and directly towards the player’s ship. Worth 50 x multiplier, points.
Weaver: A green square. Moves quickly towards you, but is scared of your bullets and thus dodges them. Worth 100 x multiplier, points.
Spinner: Pink square. Moves quickly towards you, but splits up releasing small spinners when you hit it with bullets. Worth 100 x multiplier, points.
Small Spinner: Smaller variant on the spinner which is released when a Spinner breaks up. Moves qucikly towards you, in an orbit around the spinner’s original trajectory. Worth 50 x multiplier, points.
Gravity Well: Does not have a gravitional effect until activated by a bullet. It then starts to pull in other enemies (and your ship if you aren’t carfeul). Eventually explodes upon swallowing enough enemies, unless shot by you. Worth base points modified by number of enemies eaten x multiplier, points.
Proton: Small blue circle, released when a gravity well explodes. Very fast. Worth 50 x multiplier, points.
Snake: Orange snake with blue head. Can only be destroyed by shooting it in the head. Moves towards you in a snake-like fashion. Worth 150 x multiplier, points.
Repulsar: Red enemy that looks like another space ship. Very fast. Moves directly towards you and has a shield in font, meaning it is easier to kill from the side. Worth 150 x multiplier, points.
Mayfly: Tiny enemies, which swarm from all four corners of the play area at once. They move fast and come in huge swarms. Worth 10 x multiplier, points.
That’s it. There are a few little touches, for instance the gravity well gets smaller as you shoot it, everutally to the point where its force of gravity bends your bullets around it from distance, meaning you have to get closer to finish it.
These ingredients are mixed and matched to create organic fights, where you quickly become outnumbered. A game will usually start with a number of wanderers and grunts and ramp up adding enemies roughly in the order they are presented here. The way the enemies all attack you in different ways keeps you on your toes and is really interesting. Instead of being merely a twitch shooter, Geometry Wars quickly becomes a game of strategy. Each new sound heralding the appearance of an enemy has you constantly prioritising and re-prioritising your targets. This extends to the gravity well’s wailing gradually growing to a high pitch which lets you know that if you don’t deal with it soon, it will explode, sending protons your way.
When you combine these base mechanics, with the fact that each enemy makes a pretty explosion when you kill it, you quickly have something really compelling. The amazing light show that is Geometry Wars in full flow is an extra reward for doing well, on top of your ever increasing score. This re-inforcement is a touch of genius. As is the subtle dance track in the background, which keeps a constant pace and rythmn, mimicking that of the eventual game.
The killer touch, is the pseudo-randomness. Geometry Wars is a random game within certain parameters. The enemies don’t spwan identically each time, rather they spawn similarly enough to make the game seem fair; while being different enough to make each game its own experience. The way the simple rules of the game combine within the game to produce dynamic, exciting situations is remarkable.
And the touch of real genius, the thing that shows how much thought went into the game, is the mapping of the bomb on the controller. The bomb is mapped to the triggers, which have a lot of play before they fully activate; meaning it takes a crucial split second longer to unleash a screen clearing, life and multiplier saving bomb. It’s devious genius, but never feels unfair.
This simplicity and clarity of thought is why it is gaming at its purest and game design at its best.