The Platform Theme

Mechanics

Before getting to the level-design developments that Half-Life uses, I want to talk briefly about the platforming mechanics at play in the game. Jumping and momentum are—relative to the traditional platformers this game borrows from—a little wonky in Half-Life. On the one hand, the conservation of momentum in Half-Life makes for some fairly realistic interactions (at least by 1998 standards) when making jumps with multiple vectors in 3D space or firing the tau cannon. On the other hand, most platformers are utterly unrealistic. The biggest problem with platforming in this game is that Freeman’s momentum can easily carry him over the edge of his target. Mario games after 1990—even those in 3D—typically allowed Mario to stop on a proverbial dime even at maximum speed. Even Sonic the Hedgehog titles gave the player a totally unrealistic level of control over Sonic’s momentum. The player can divert a very large amount of momentum in Sonic games in a fairly short space. Half-Life does not provide that level of precision in movement control; even when trying to walk precisely, players will often step farther than they want and careen off a cliff. So while I would not accuse Half-Life of having sloppy or inconsistent controls, I would say that anyone who is comfortable with pure platformers will have to make a significant adjustment for the platforming in this game. The difference is not game-breaking, but I can think of no compelling reason for the designers to put it in. Later in Half-Life 2 and Portal, the insistence on realistic physics makes sense, because those physics permeate everything in the game. In this game, however, it seems like the developers set up momentum the way it is just for the fun of doing it, and not for the fun of playing it. What’s more, all of these other problems happen through a first-person camera, making every platformer action more difficult—a problem we’ll see numerous times throughout this theme.

Content

The first thing I have to explain about the content of the platformer theme is that it does not fit the definition of a set piece very well because it doesn’t really have the self-containment factor. Platformer content is more like through content, but I have selected some of the longer and more intricate platformer situations for this theme, because Half-Life does some interesting things with them. Aside from that proviso, the platform theme in Half-Life consists of a fairly classical development that takes place across the course of the game. By development, I mean that the game starts with a few simple ideas and elaborates upon them, mixing and matching different ideas that come out of those elaborations. By classical, I mean that the development of design ideas in Half-Life's platformer sections follows the overall development pattern set forth by 2D platformers of the 1990s, although it does so in an abbreviated fashion because the game’s focus is primarily on shooting. Half-Life begins with simple jumps that establish the game's platformer mechanics in chapter 3. The complexity and length of platforming sections stays more or less flat until chapter 10. Interestingly, chapter 10 is almost entirely made up of platforming content, and it does more for the development of platformer content than any other chapter. In chapter 10 there are examples of almost every kind of platform design technique that the previous Reverse Design found in Super Mario World. Those ideas aren't explored as thoroughly as they would be in a Mario game, but they're quite robust for a game that is primarily a shooter.

This brings me to a very important point about Half-Life's overall design, and platforming's place in it. Half-Life is a very long game for a shooter; it was long for its time and it's still among the longer shooters today. Platforming is what makes this length tenable. In the introduction to this book I wrote about game design history and how Half-Life straddles the composite and set piece eras. The shift from shooter to platformer in chapter 10 is one of the all-time greatest examples of composite design. Half-Life does not follow the typical pattern of composite flow; there isn't a 1:1 ratio of shooter content to platform content. In making chapter 10 a full-on platformer level, however, the game does a great job of breaking up the shooter content so that the player can enjoy that content more. Chapters five through nine are a long series of increasingly elaborate and occasionally laborious shooter set pieces. Chapters eleven through fourteen are the climax for the game's best shooter content. Chapter 10 breaks them up nicely, and gives the player a nice "breather level" that makes the upcoming shooter content seem fresh and distinct. This perfectly-timed switch between genres is one of the most applicable lessons of Half-Life. All of the shooter elements in Half-Life were eventually explored more deeply by one of its descendants, but it's hard to think of any game which so perfectly swerved between genres at just the right time.

Notably absent from everything I wrote above is the content from Xen. The Xen levels feature a great deal of platforming content, but that content is just as problematic as everything else in Xen, if not more so. The biggest problem is the sudden change in physics. If sudden changes in physics were a good idea, full-time platformers would feature them frequently, but they don’t. Even when there are changes in physics in a platformer, such changes are usually limited to a very small part of a level, and only a few levels at most. Because Half-Life’s platforming was imprecise from the very beginning, the Xen jumps are even worse. We’ll go over each individual set piece/series of challenges, but one overarching problem is that almost all of Xen’s big jumps kill Freeman if he fails to make a jump. Earlier in the game, Freeman might take damage from failing a jump, but just as often they simply had to try again. While Half-Life was ahead of its time in the use of auto-saves and checkpoints, the number of quick-loads that players have to make here is still too many because of the deadly newness of the jumps in Xen.

EARLY SET PIECES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP

As we have already gone over the fact that many of the platforming sections in this game are not necessarily in line with the definition of a set piece, I'll begin by saying that the first few set pieces in the game share a very cadence-like relationship. This isn't true for the rest of the game. Beginning with set piece 3-2, however, we can see how the platforming sections develop in a logical and largely traditional way.

This is a short and fairly easy task of hugging the wall. There are a few necessary jumps, but they're all easy. Set piece 3-3 changes things up a bit by featuring harder (and less intuitive) jumping situations.

The water negates a falling penalty, although the many barnacles add an element of danger. This is a common practice in the design of platformers; the penalty for failure goes down when the player encounters something new for the first time, like jumping on a moving box. Of course, the player can simply go around the whole set piece and take the ladder at the bottom of the canal, but that means having to deal with the barnacles that provide no reward.

The next two platforming sections are where things get interesting, although in two very different ways. Set piece 3-4 introduces the first section that really looks like a pure 3D platformer. These hanging boxes would not be way be out of place in a late-90s Mario or Crash Bandicoot level.

Want to read more? The rest of this section can be found in the print and eBook versions. In fact, the print version of this book has been significantly expanded and revised.

The timing here isn't too hard, but why do the platforms have to fall under one another? There are many, many ways to make platform jumps difficult, but obscuring the player's view of them is just frustrating rather than engaging.

Cover Theme pt 2 - Back | Next - The Arena Theme