Pedro Vargas
Sean Pessin
English 114B
May 13, 2012
Project Space
The world of videogames is shaped primarily by
its usage of space. This space is in charge of providing the boundaries and
rules to which a player must adjust to in order to be successful. These rules
can range from the perspective of the game (if it’s a first person or a third
person) all the way to what spaces the character has access to. Naturally, some
of these rules may be similar for some videogames of the same genre but they
are also different in various ways. The fact that they are different is what
makes the experience for every videogame unique. To determine how the rules of
a videogame impact the player’s experience, it is necessary to analyze the way
programmers use space in a videogame. For this analysis I will focus on the
usage of space in the game Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.
Castlevania
is an adventure game which takes place in the 11th century. I
figured that adventure games would be the best to use for this particular
analysis because they generally allow the player to roam around and explore the
space without a time restraint. Because Castlevania takes place in a giant
medieval castle, it is obvious that the castle walls would be the boundaries of
the entire game. There is a world beyond the castle that the programmers added
but it is not a world that the player has access to. This world can be seen
when the player is at the top of the castle but because of the distance from
the ground, the game doesn’t allow the player to jump off; or at least that’s
the thinking. I also think that the limited boundaries keep the player on track
to reaching the ultimate purpose of the game: Finding Dracula and killing him.
By narrowing an entire world to just one castle, the player now has no choice
but to fulfill the purpose that the game was intended for. The interior of the
castle, however, is also filled with boundaries and obstacles.
One of the
major obstacles of the game is the enemies that the player has to face along
his quest to slay Dracula. Every space in the castle has its own unique set of
enemies that are specific for the environment. The gardens of the castle, for
example, are filled with poisonous man-eating plants and giant insects. This is
relevant to the game because the player has to change weapons according to his
enemies. Holy water won’t kill plants so it is useless in the gardens of the
castle. To add to the difficulty, these enemies put one at a natural
disadvantage because they can do things in their specific space that the player
can’t. Every room and corridor in the game is designed this way. In the
gardens, for instance, the plants can use the vines growing on the walls to
restraint you so they can kill you. In other areas, enemies hide in the dark
and use the element of surprise to try and bring you down. Some enemies can fly
and others are so big that the player has no other choice than to slay him or her
before they can advance. Logically, one would think that it is just easier to
avoid any confrontation with enemies but the game isn’t designed that way. The
programmers made it so that the player has to defeat certain enemies to obtain
valuable objects, like keys. These keys or objects are necessary to advance in
the castle and find Dracula.
To balance
the position of a natural disadvantage the rules put a player in, the
programmers also included special weapons, armors, or power-ups. These perks,
however, are difficult to find because they are hidden in areas that are not
present in the player’s map. In a way this symbolizes that these perks are a
way of cheating the game. Because they are not in the map which is the space
that the programmer wants the player to focus on; then they are not intended to
be found but are made available anyway. Some common places to find these perks are
behind walls, paintings, or statues. To know exactly where, the programmers
added some small clues like a crack on a wall or the slanted position of the
painting that the player should look out for. The hardest secrets to find,
however, are those that the player can’t see because they are out of the camera
angle of the game. Because the game is a third person (the camera is behind the
character), the player can only see what’s in front of the character. Some
secrets are behind the camera and to find them one would have to pay real close
attention to the secret clues the space gives out. One example of these secret
clues is the lightning outside which a player can see by looking through the
window. This lightning appears after the character defeats the only enemy in
the room who happens to be a very powerful one. The fact that there is only one
very powerful enemy in the room is suspicious but the clue is that the
lightning appears after he is defeated. This means that the player is close to
something important and it is related to lightning. Sure enough, there is a
secret room behind the camera which contains a whip of lightning that has the
power to defeat just about any enemy. The irony is that the whip can break
through any enemy except the most powerful one: the Castle itself. So maybe
power-ups give a player certain advantages but the character is still vulnerable
to the dangerous spaces and boundaries of the castle.
Castles are
known for having hidden traps and dangerous areas. The designers of this castle
turned the entire thing in to a giant trap designed to eliminate the player.
Because the programmers made the boundaries, the player has no choice but to
enter the trap. This trap consist of moving objects, flying weapons, lasers,
giant sharp pendulums, closing walls, spikes on the walls and floors, lava, and
many other things that can kill the character. Ironically, these dangerous
traps don’t harm the enemies. This means that the player will have to be much
more careful while advancing in the castle. The only spaces that don’t have
traps are the points where the player can save the game and the entrance of the
castle. Everywhere else has dangerous traps that become more abundant and
dangerous as the player gets closer to passing the game. Perhaps the most
dangerous trap is not one that has a trap condensed space, but one that uses
the least traps in a given space. In the castle, there are some areas that show
only a light on the character and the entire room is completely dark. Besides a
couple of steps scattered around the room, the floor is bottomless. In this
trap the player has to guestimate where the steps are so that s/he may cross.
If the player misses the steps and falls, s/he will be instantly sent to the
beginning of the level. This is worse than dodging giant pendulums or getting
struck by spikes because it’s an automatic death. The other traps give you a
chance to live but the bottomless traps instantly kill you. One can learn the
patterns in the traps to predict how they will operate but some spaces of the
castle don’t have any specific pattern that a player can learn. These areas are
made this way by random movement.
The castle
has some dangerous areas where the space constantly changes and rearranges so
that the player is never comfortable. These areas are some of the most
difficult to get by in the entire castle. One very interesting thing about
these areas is that the boundaries constantly change. Sometimes the walls get
closer which gives the player a narrower area to fight the already adapted
enemies, other times the ceiling gets lower which limits the player’s ability
to escape enemy attacks by jumping. What’s frustrating about this change of
space is the fact that the player has no way of controlling it. The walls and
the ceiling will move randomly and the player can’t do anything about it except
to go by the change and defeat the enemies. The fact that the player can’t
break the walls or the ceiling symbolizes that the castle has ultimate power
over the individual. This control of space is also evident when the player
reaches the boss of every level of the castle.
Fighting
every boss in the game is difficult because every arena is designed to protect
the boss. Ironically, the player fights through many dangerous spaces to get to
an even more dangerous space so that s/he can reach the most dangerous out of
all the spaces. In every level the most dangerous space is the one where you
fight the boss. Usually, a player can’t
attack the boss of a level directly because every boss is protected by some
sort of shield. In one level, for instance, the boss was a vampire who
controlled these giant swords which protected him. Before the player can strike
this vampire, s/he must first destroy three magical orbs which give the vampire
his power. These orbs, however, are found in every corner of the room. This
means that the player will have to dodge and block attacks from the vampire while
s/he destroys these orbs in the furthest ends if the room. This also applies to
level in which the player fights Dracula. Because Dracula is supposed to be the
final boss of the game, fighting him would naturally be far more difficult. In
order to strike Dracula the player first has to go to the furthest corners of
the entire castle to gather the necessary ingredients to create a weapon that
actually hurts him. Then after the player has this weapon, s/he must fight
Dracula in a very small room. By
increasing the space between each of these ingredients, the player is exposed
to many more attacks and dangers. Then by decreasing the space in which the
player fights Dracula, it makes dodging and blocking his attacks far more
difficult. Only after a player actually manages to defeat Dracula under these
conditions can s/he pass the game.
In
conclusion, the usage of space in Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is primarily
designed to expose the player to all the dangers of the castle so s/he can
reach Dracula and kill him. This is done by bounding the player to the castle
using the giant castle walls as boundaries and making it so that the player
must travel around the castle so s/he can collect vital items. To get these
items, the player will have to face countless enemies and a dangerous castle
which was designed to use its space to kill you. The player, however, has no
choice but to try and survive these traps so that s/he can get to Dracula and
kill him. At the end of the game, the player watches as the castle crumbles
down which symbolizes that it has been defeated. Ironically, this is the only
time in the entire game that the player leaves the boundaries of the castle but
the player still isn’t allowed to explore outside of the castle. This
ultimately means the programmers still have ultimate control over the space and
they decide what part of it the player can explore. In a way it’s like a tease
that keeps the players wondering what lies beyond those walls. The forest might
be filled with more mythical creatures or it might be filled with other kinds
of creatures. It’s one of those mysteries that keep the players interested in
this universe. At some point this universe was just a part of someone’s
imagination but thanks to the technology, we can now be a part of it. Space is
something filled with many mysteries but for the first time in history, we are
able to create it.
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