Invisible Walls

Obstacles in game worlds that limit the players' movement, but not vision.

It is not practical for all types of games to make their entire game worlds possible to visit for players since this would require either extensive production costs or similar gameplay everywhere. Even so, game designers may wish to show players somewhat more of the game worlds than is playable. One way of achieving this is to put up Invisible Walls that separate the gameplay areas from other, often less detailed, areas, so that an illusion of a greater game world can be created. Typically game designs try to steer players so that they do not become too interested in what is beyond the Invisible Walls since trying to get there will make players aware of their presence.

Examples

Some of the early flight simulators, e.g. the first installments of the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, used Invisible Walls to limit the area the player can enter. When encountering Invisible Walls planes essentially remained in the same location, even though it still seemed to fly over the terrain. However many much more recent games, e.g. Super Mario Sunshine and the Assassin's Creed series, that also wish to portray large game worlds make use of Invisible Walls at certain places. The Half-Life series and Portal 2 in the Portal series does this as well to give an illusion of a larger world than the players can actual enter.

Using the pattern

Invisible Walls are typically used for production or gameplay reasons - in the first case to avoid having to develop to much content and in the second case to ensure that gameplay stays located with a designed part of a Game World.

Invisible Walls can be used to create Inaccessible Areas. Although Invisible Walls may break Immersion they can be preferable to having Deadly Traps, such as bottomless chasms or a sea of lava, to limit the area within which the player can move.

Invisible Walls can be fitted within the Consistent Reality Logic of a game using scientific explanations (transparent plastic armor or force shields) or magic (hexes and pentagrams) depending, of course, on the nature of the game itself. Further, these explanations can be used within the game area to create puzzles requiring Memorizing.

Consequences

Invisible Walls limit how players can move in Game Worlds or Levels, either by being Obstacles or creating Inaccessible Areas. However, if players reach or notice the Invisible Walls they can easily loose their sense of Spatial Engrossment as the walls typically breaks the Thematic Consistency of the game.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Inaccessible Areas, Obstacles

Can Modulate

Game Worlds, Levels

Can Be Instantiated By

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Can Be Modulated By

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Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

Spatial Engrossment, Thematic Consistency

History

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

Acknowledgements

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