Bear with me. This post is really about designing open world environments. If you just want the meat, skip to the summary at the bottom of this post.
I love the Zelda franchise.
It is seriously one of my formative artistic influences. When I was little, I got a lot of fairy-stories and wooden swords and toy bow-and-arrows to play with. Power Rangers and the Game Gear ruined me and I forgot about these things for several years.
But playing Link's Awakening at the tender age of 11, reminded me: Swords! Archery! Living in the woods! Rugged, Independent Adventuring! These things are cool!
Since I love Zelda so much, I've had my doubts about the direction franchise. But I am genuinely looking forward to the next installment for one reason:
Hyrule is going to be presented as an Open World.
Open World games, sometimes called “sandbox” games, are becoming more prevalent and popular as gaming systems become more powerful, and can now run large, complex environments and render large parts of it at any given time. Assassin’s Creed, Skyrim, GTA, all of these games feature large, open spaces for the player to interact with. Players enjoy the freedom and sense of magnitude which these games offer. As virtual worlds grow larger and deeper, designers have to invent new ways to simulate freedom and abilities for players to interact in the game world. In contemporary games, characters are commonly able to find work, make a residence, make moral choices, choose a lover, tinker with their possessions, or just walk around aimlessly pestering the local wildlife. It's almost like they're trying to imitate a table-top rpg.
The industry has embraced the open world model of gaming. But it seems that few realize how far back the open-world style goes. The 1986 Legend of Zelda for the NES/Famicom was among the first open-world games. There were earlier precedents to be sure, but none so memorable or influential. In the Original Zelda, the top-down perspective allowed for movement which was not limited by a linear level or “stage.” A player could walk practically anywhere in Hyrule, with only actual physical barriers such as rocks or trees to hinder. Even now, game designers rely on invisible walls, decorative doors and impassable knee-high walls to corral players into the realm of what-has-been-created-and-isn’t-totally-buggy. Zelda’s open Hyrule is easy to take for granted now, but at the time it would have been a big deal.
I love the Zelda franchise.
It is seriously one of my formative artistic influences. When I was little, I got a lot of fairy-stories and wooden swords and toy bow-and-arrows to play with. Power Rangers and the Game Gear ruined me and I forgot about these things for several years.
But playing Link's Awakening at the tender age of 11, reminded me: Swords! Archery! Living in the woods! Rugged, Independent Adventuring! These things are cool!
Shut up Werner Herzog! Not even I am that iconoclastic!
Since I love Zelda so much, I've had my doubts about the direction franchise. But I am genuinely looking forward to the next installment for one reason:
Hyrule is going to be presented as an Open World.
Open World games, sometimes called “sandbox” games, are becoming more prevalent and popular as gaming systems become more powerful, and can now run large, complex environments and render large parts of it at any given time. Assassin’s Creed, Skyrim, GTA, all of these games feature large, open spaces for the player to interact with. Players enjoy the freedom and sense of magnitude which these games offer. As virtual worlds grow larger and deeper, designers have to invent new ways to simulate freedom and abilities for players to interact in the game world. In contemporary games, characters are commonly able to find work, make a residence, make moral choices, choose a lover, tinker with their possessions, or just walk around aimlessly pestering the local wildlife. It's almost like they're trying to imitate a table-top rpg.
The industry has embraced the open world model of gaming. But it seems that few realize how far back the open-world style goes. The 1986 Legend of Zelda for the NES/Famicom was among the first open-world games. There were earlier precedents to be sure, but none so memorable or influential. In the Original Zelda, the top-down perspective allowed for movement which was not limited by a linear level or “stage.” A player could walk practically anywhere in Hyrule, with only actual physical barriers such as rocks or trees to hinder. Even now, game designers rely on invisible walls, decorative doors and impassable knee-high walls to corral players into the realm of what-has-been-created-and-isn’t-totally-buggy. Zelda’s open Hyrule is easy to take for granted now, but at the time it would have been a big deal.
A Big Deal:
The original Zelda, Adventure of Link, Link to the Past and even Link’s Awakening all used the top-down perspective to offer a world as open as the hardware of the time would allow. Then something happened. Ocarina of Time is an unquestionably significant game. But in the transition from 2D to early 3D, the ability to render a truly open world was lost. Go and look again. The whole gameworld of Ocarina is a series of corridors and chambers. Hyrule Field is just a large room, with designated exits to adjacent chambers. Link cannot get from Kokiri Forest to Zora's Domain by walking directly Northward, even though these areas are next to each other on the map. Instead, he must walk through the corridor to Hyrule Field, then the corridor to Zora's River, then to Zora's domain. Hyrule is not vast. It is constricted and rather linear. Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward sword are all like this.
Compare this to Windwaker. One of Windwaker’s strongest points was that it somehow fanned the faint ember of an Open World in Zelda. The open-ness of the ocean did much to catch a glimmer of the tempting freedom that older titles offered. At the beginning of the game, you can see the spires of distant islands from the aptly names Outset Island. You may go to any of them, travelling in a more-or-less straight line, or coming around from any angle you like. It is a simple thing, but it offers a delicious sense of trepidation as you approach strange or threatening new areas. Just don’t try to swim it.
I really caught the importance of this open-world feeling. So when I started to design my own adventures, learning how to simulate them became a priority.
I suppose a note of caution is appropriate here. Your group may not be into a sandbox style game. In order for a sandbox to work out, the players must be able to create their own agendas to pursue in the world. Many players are accustomed to being given clear objectives to follow, with a linear, rail road sort of progression. These players may have hated Navi the Fairy. But in the free-form media of a tabletop, they will need her to tell them what there is to be done. it may behoove you to explain that your campaign is going to be sand-boxy, and will require some conscientious exploration.
It is said that Shigeru Miyamoto, when producing the original Zelda, wanted to create “a garden you could keep in your chest-of-drawers”. I cannot precisely cite that story because, like so much of what is said about Shigeru Miyamoto and the early development of certain franchises, the story is a practically legend itself. But let us assume it is true. Did Miyamoto succeed in creating a virtual garden? Old School Hyrule is not literally a garden. It’s an overgrown wilderness crawling with evil monsters. Desperate survivors hide in caves and grift off the only person brave/stupid enough to go outside. Hyrule is a messed-up place, or didn’t you catch that? But what else is a garden? A pleasure garden is an array of interesting or beautiful things, arranged in such a way as to create a sense of a space apart from the rest of the world. A garden can be large and mysterious, dangerously overgrown, or sublimely beautiful. A garden is also often enclosed, and for its potential it is still a cozy, cloistered affair. A garden is its own little world, just like Hyrule.
So how did they create the garden? Can a casual designer replicate the technique? Yes. The answer is Tiles. Tiles and grids. You could do it for your friends with the same graph paper you use for your dungeons.
Look at the Overworld map of the Original Zelda. The whole kingdom is plotted into rectangles fitting the dimensions of a TV screen! 16 screens East-to-West by 8 screens North-to South. All together it looks like easy poo poo, and very primitive. Then you get down into it and find yourself getting lost in the woods and chased by monsters, which is pretty much a recipe for fun. Koholint Island is also presented as a screen-by-screen grid. Even as late as Windwaker, the map of the Ocean is divided into a measly 64 squares, and each square has something in it: When you realize this, you marvel at how large the game seems while still being very simple behind-the-scenes.
This screen-grid setup was necessitated by the limitations of the 8-bit hardware. It allowed designers to present a larger game world, while using less data to do it. By rendering only one screen at a time, the hardware was saved from having to quickly render the in-between areas. This hardware limitation is actually very similar to the limitations which DMs face when creating their worlds. What the DM uses for his own reference will not be the same as how players perceive the world. This is a sort of man-behind-the-curtain effect where the players know that the DM is behind the curtain. And the DM can see all the machinery he is using to create the illusion of a world.Whether analog or digital, the game designer is trying to create the maximum usable gameworld and relate it in a quick and efficient way.
I was recently running a sandbox game, specifically attempting to see if the table-top format could convey a Zelda-esque feel. To this end, the campaign world was rather small and densely populated with adventure fodder. I used the opportunity to experiment with several styles of mapping the areas for my own reference, and presenting them to the players. I began by doing some research on geological formation, to start with a naturalistic basis. I then made detailed maps of areas with very dramatic geography, and made several drawings by hand to show Players what they might see from their perspective.
The players rewarded my effort by leaving this area as soon as possible after seeing perhaps an eighth of it. I determined that a more chickenwire-and-papier-mâché approach was required.
The Zelda-Grid Technique:
So in another area, I adopted a grid-map, a-la Zelda. I have strong preference for square grids as opposed to hexes. This area was a forest, where characters could only see so far for trees or changes of elevation. The area was divided into “screens” each screen representing roughly how far a party of adventurers can see from a given spot. Each tile of the forest was given an x/y coordinate and this was how it was referenced in my notes. I populated each grid using the random tables from a Dungeon Master’s Guide older than I am. This worked. On my side of the curtain, it was a wonderfully simple framework, easily managed in game. To the players, I might as well have mapped every square inch of that forest, and it was truly open.
This forest was not made of corridors and chambers. Rather, players would find that if they headed North then West, they would arrive at the same place they would if they had gone West then North, or simply North-West. This gives players a sense that the gameworld is consistently and actually there; that there really is a world to be explored (and possible exploited), not simply a series of cardboard standups placed by the Dungeon Master. The Zelda-Grid can be adapted to a variety of wilderness terrains and open environments. The designer need only adjust for scale by determining roughly how large a “tile” of the grid will be. This scale will largely be based on how far the party can see from a given point, hence beginning an encounter. For example, a square of open plains or badlands will be larger and take more time to cross than a densely wooded forest or swamp. After all, in the Zelda-grid system, the tiles are essentially “screens,” and a screen is how much of the gameworld the players can see at once.
So there it is. The Zelda-Grid mapping style. This technique works great for wilderness adventures. or any vast, open spaces. The drawback is that it fails to convey the sense of long, realistic distances. Rather, it is supposed to create Never-Land like spaces, where adventures are cozily packed together. I would suggest using the Zelda-Grid for mapping a forest, not for a continent.
Whether my little campaign seemed remotely Zelda-esque to my players, I doubt. However, the Zelda-grid was successfully adapted to table-top use. And if my source was not immediately obvious to my players, that perhaps demonstrates its effectiveness.
TL;DR
> The area is mapped on a square grid. Not hexes.
> Each square is generally as large as the distance the party can see from one location-hence about one encounter per square. A grid of open plains will be larger than a grid of dense jungle.
> Add natural features such as bodies of water or hills or whatever.
> Features which just have to be there- such as dungeon entrances or the dwellings of NPCs are placed.
> If it is still a little bare, I will run the random monster/treasure/trick/nothing roll for each square, remembering the "nothing" doesn't actually meant "empty". it just means something which is not a monster, treasure or trick.
> Also, gotta have a wandering monster table for when the party is just asking for it.
What this means for the players:
> Whatever players are looking for, they cannot expect to find it merely by walking into the spooky woods. They will have to explore. If they find what they are looking for too easily, it might be a good reason to be suspicious. The game becomes about the journey and not the destination.
> The Overworld becomes a dungeon without walls, with its own series of dangers and rewards.
> If players want to go off the path and just do something else, they have that option.
> There is a set geography which players can actually learn, map out and exploit.
The original Zelda, Adventure of Link, Link to the Past and even Link’s Awakening all used the top-down perspective to offer a world as open as the hardware of the time would allow. Then something happened. Ocarina of Time is an unquestionably significant game. But in the transition from 2D to early 3D, the ability to render a truly open world was lost. Go and look again. The whole gameworld of Ocarina is a series of corridors and chambers. Hyrule Field is just a large room, with designated exits to adjacent chambers. Link cannot get from Kokiri Forest to Zora's Domain by walking directly Northward, even though these areas are next to each other on the map. Instead, he must walk through the corridor to Hyrule Field, then the corridor to Zora's River, then to Zora's domain. Hyrule is not vast. It is constricted and rather linear. Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward sword are all like this.
Compare this to Windwaker. One of Windwaker’s strongest points was that it somehow fanned the faint ember of an Open World in Zelda. The open-ness of the ocean did much to catch a glimmer of the tempting freedom that older titles offered. At the beginning of the game, you can see the spires of distant islands from the aptly names Outset Island. You may go to any of them, travelling in a more-or-less straight line, or coming around from any angle you like. It is a simple thing, but it offers a delicious sense of trepidation as you approach strange or threatening new areas. Just don’t try to swim it.
I really caught the importance of this open-world feeling. So when I started to design my own adventures, learning how to simulate them became a priority.
I suppose a note of caution is appropriate here. Your group may not be into a sandbox style game. In order for a sandbox to work out, the players must be able to create their own agendas to pursue in the world. Many players are accustomed to being given clear objectives to follow, with a linear, rail road sort of progression. These players may have hated Navi the Fairy. But in the free-form media of a tabletop, they will need her to tell them what there is to be done. it may behoove you to explain that your campaign is going to be sand-boxy, and will require some conscientious exploration.
It is said that Shigeru Miyamoto, when producing the original Zelda, wanted to create “a garden you could keep in your chest-of-drawers”. I cannot precisely cite that story because, like so much of what is said about Shigeru Miyamoto and the early development of certain franchises, the story is a practically legend itself. But let us assume it is true. Did Miyamoto succeed in creating a virtual garden? Old School Hyrule is not literally a garden. It’s an overgrown wilderness crawling with evil monsters. Desperate survivors hide in caves and grift off the only person brave/stupid enough to go outside. Hyrule is a messed-up place, or didn’t you catch that? But what else is a garden? A pleasure garden is an array of interesting or beautiful things, arranged in such a way as to create a sense of a space apart from the rest of the world. A garden can be large and mysterious, dangerously overgrown, or sublimely beautiful. A garden is also often enclosed, and for its potential it is still a cozy, cloistered affair. A garden is its own little world, just like Hyrule.
So how did they create the garden? Can a casual designer replicate the technique? Yes. The answer is Tiles. Tiles and grids. You could do it for your friends with the same graph paper you use for your dungeons.
Look at the Overworld map of the Original Zelda. The whole kingdom is plotted into rectangles fitting the dimensions of a TV screen! 16 screens East-to-West by 8 screens North-to South. All together it looks like easy poo poo, and very primitive. Then you get down into it and find yourself getting lost in the woods and chased by monsters, which is pretty much a recipe for fun. Koholint Island is also presented as a screen-by-screen grid. Even as late as Windwaker, the map of the Ocean is divided into a measly 64 squares, and each square has something in it: When you realize this, you marvel at how large the game seems while still being very simple behind-the-scenes.
This screen-grid setup was necessitated by the limitations of the 8-bit hardware. It allowed designers to present a larger game world, while using less data to do it. By rendering only one screen at a time, the hardware was saved from having to quickly render the in-between areas. This hardware limitation is actually very similar to the limitations which DMs face when creating their worlds. What the DM uses for his own reference will not be the same as how players perceive the world. This is a sort of man-behind-the-curtain effect where the players know that the DM is behind the curtain. And the DM can see all the machinery he is using to create the illusion of a world.Whether analog or digital, the game designer is trying to create the maximum usable gameworld and relate it in a quick and efficient way.
I was recently running a sandbox game, specifically attempting to see if the table-top format could convey a Zelda-esque feel. To this end, the campaign world was rather small and densely populated with adventure fodder. I used the opportunity to experiment with several styles of mapping the areas for my own reference, and presenting them to the players. I began by doing some research on geological formation, to start with a naturalistic basis. I then made detailed maps of areas with very dramatic geography, and made several drawings by hand to show Players what they might see from their perspective.
The players rewarded my effort by leaving this area as soon as possible after seeing perhaps an eighth of it. I determined that a more chickenwire-and-papier-mâché approach was required.
The Zelda-Grid Technique:
So in another area, I adopted a grid-map, a-la Zelda. I have strong preference for square grids as opposed to hexes. This area was a forest, where characters could only see so far for trees or changes of elevation. The area was divided into “screens” each screen representing roughly how far a party of adventurers can see from a given spot. Each tile of the forest was given an x/y coordinate and this was how it was referenced in my notes. I populated each grid using the random tables from a Dungeon Master’s Guide older than I am. This worked. On my side of the curtain, it was a wonderfully simple framework, easily managed in game. To the players, I might as well have mapped every square inch of that forest, and it was truly open.
This forest was not made of corridors and chambers. Rather, players would find that if they headed North then West, they would arrive at the same place they would if they had gone West then North, or simply North-West. This gives players a sense that the gameworld is consistently and actually there; that there really is a world to be explored (and possible exploited), not simply a series of cardboard standups placed by the Dungeon Master. The Zelda-Grid can be adapted to a variety of wilderness terrains and open environments. The designer need only adjust for scale by determining roughly how large a “tile” of the grid will be. This scale will largely be based on how far the party can see from a given point, hence beginning an encounter. For example, a square of open plains or badlands will be larger and take more time to cross than a densely wooded forest or swamp. After all, in the Zelda-grid system, the tiles are essentially “screens,” and a screen is how much of the gameworld the players can see at once.
So there it is. The Zelda-Grid mapping style. This technique works great for wilderness adventures. or any vast, open spaces. The drawback is that it fails to convey the sense of long, realistic distances. Rather, it is supposed to create Never-Land like spaces, where adventures are cozily packed together. I would suggest using the Zelda-Grid for mapping a forest, not for a continent.
Whether my little campaign seemed remotely Zelda-esque to my players, I doubt. However, the Zelda-grid was successfully adapted to table-top use. And if my source was not immediately obvious to my players, that perhaps demonstrates its effectiveness.
TL;DR
> The area is mapped on a square grid. Not hexes.
> Each square is generally as large as the distance the party can see from one location-hence about one encounter per square. A grid of open plains will be larger than a grid of dense jungle.
> Add natural features such as bodies of water or hills or whatever.
> Features which just have to be there- such as dungeon entrances or the dwellings of NPCs are placed.
> If it is still a little bare, I will run the random monster/treasure/trick/nothing roll for each square, remembering the "nothing" doesn't actually meant "empty". it just means something which is not a monster, treasure or trick.
> Also, gotta have a wandering monster table for when the party is just asking for it.
What this means for the players:
> Whatever players are looking for, they cannot expect to find it merely by walking into the spooky woods. They will have to explore. If they find what they are looking for too easily, it might be a good reason to be suspicious. The game becomes about the journey and not the destination.
> The Overworld becomes a dungeon without walls, with its own series of dangers and rewards.
> If players want to go off the path and just do something else, they have that option.
> There is a set geography which players can actually learn, map out and exploit.
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