Spawn Points

Locations in game worlds where avatars, units, or enemies appear.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Examples

All game elements that appear in a gamehave a first initial location, their Spawn Point. The Spawn Points are most noticeable in multi-player games since their effect is most apparent to the players already in the game.

Example: the classic arcade game Gauntlet has Spawn Points, which will pour out monsters until the players destroy the monster generators.

Example: many roleplaying games and massively multiplayer online games use Spawn Points for the player Avatars but also have spawn points for Enemies.

Spawn Points are heavily used in multiplayer first-person shooters such as the Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, and the Battlefield, Quake, Team Fortress, and Unreal Tournament series. Some of these games offers additional variations on Spawn Points: Battlefield 2 lets players spawn on their squad leaders while Battlefield Vietnam lets players spawn in vehicles that can be steered around the game area and players can create tunnel exits that function as mobile Spawn Points.

Using the pattern

Almost all games that use Spawning in Game Worlds or Levels make use of Spawn Points. The main design choice to be made about Spawn Points is where to locate them. The suitable locations are usually restricted by a number of factors: what is being spawned, what is the intended Right Level of Difficulty, and what should be chance for Surprises be. It may be of consequences whether the game uses Lives, and how many Lives a player has left, when determining what Spawn Point will be used. Further, the effect of being able to do Camping close to Spawn Points should be considered when placing Spawn Points.

Coordinated placement of Spawn Points belonging to opposing sides in team-based games can be used as Balancing Effects by placing them in equal relations to other Strategic Locations, often by using Symmetry.

Battlefield 2 and Battlefield Vietnam show how Spawn Points can be linked to the position of Avatars and Vehicles respectively.

Consequences

Spawn Points are a form of Producers that define where Spawning occurs in Game Worlds. Spawn Points are in themselves Strategic Locations as the introduction of new units appears there. They can challenge the Consistent Reality Logic as there may be no real world equivalents for such locations, an exception being Spawn Points located near the edge of the Game World, which can represent access points to an expanded Game World.

Relations

Drop-In/Drop-Out Levels Game Worlds Encouraged Return Visits Safe Havens Vehicles Game Items Inaccessible Areas Strategic Knowledge Strategic Locations Death Consequences Spawning

Can Be Instantiated By

Avatars, Privileged Abilities, Vehicles

History

An updated version of the pattern Spawn Points that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.