![\"space_109\"](\"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/space_109.jpg\" "\\"space_109\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nIf you\u2019re lucky, it can be:<\/p>\n
But even that is boring, because the \u201cAlpha Centauri\u201d system has this background, and the \u201cBetelgeuse\u201d system has this one tinted red or something like that\u2026<\/p>\n Space is huge and it\u2019s mostly empty space\u2026 if we consider the scales involved, we get other problems; it would be highly unlikely wandering out and finding other ships to attack, etc.<\/p>\n Of course, there\u2019s solutions to these problems\u2026 limit the wandering, make the interesting places more confined, give the players\/enemies some reason to be around specific places. That works pretty well, but I wonder if there\u2019s a better way!<\/p>\n Thinking about the \u201cbetter way\u201d has led me to World of Warcraft\u2026 The game world there is \u201chuge\u201d, but that\u2019s just a matter of perception\u2026 the world seems big, but it\u2019s not that large; cities only have space for 100 people tops, you can trek a \u201chuge\u201d plain in some minutes, but still the game retains an aura of \u201clargeness\u201d. If the game world was indeed of the correct size, it would take days walking from one end of the Barrens to the other\u2026 and it would be boring; the world would be barren, devoid of interesting landmarks that make the world recognizable and that lead itself to lore and history.<\/p>\n From what I can gather, the game does this by playing with the viewing distance\u2026 from most points of interest, you can\u2019t see any other, but as soon as you walk in one direction and lose clear sight of the place you were just now, you have something interesting in your view, effectively making the world feel big, but at the same time playing with distances so it is in fact small (and more interesting).<\/p>\n So, can we adapt this to space games in general? It\u2019s a harder endeavor, since space is orders of magnitude bigger than a continent (even if we play it small!). The \u201csimple\u201d way is to play with the concept of hyperspace, making it almost impossible for the player to wander off without boring itself to tears\u2026 this way, the player will probably use the hyperspace lanes to travel, specially if we do something I\u2019ve never seen done: give control to the player during hyperspace. In most games (if not all), the player selects a destination and presses the hyperspace button, or jumps into an hyperspace gate and ends up in that destination. Then we reach the second problem: making interesting stuff in space. Well, planets and stars are so big, they either aren\u2019t the correct proportion or you don\u2019t see anything of them except the general shapes from space\u2026 and from that perspective, they\u2019re not that interesting. Even if you allow for planet landing, we\u2019re talking again of huge areas that aren\u2019t that interesting, except you have an army of designers, or procedural generated, which aren\u2019t that interesting after a bit.<\/p>\n Asteroids are\u2026 well, brown and grey\u2026 not that interesting as well\u2026<\/p>\n Space stations and ships are the main points of interest, so that can be used as basis for \u201cinteresting\u201d areas, but even that it is not enough to make really interesting places, compared to what you can do on a \u201cground based\u201d game.<\/p>\n Of course, I\u2019m talking in relative terms\u2026 if you had alien races that have giant space bases around space, each of them with different looks and functionality, you can offset some of these problems, but I\u2019m talking about the \u201cgeneral\u201d idea of space, not special cases\u2026 You can also have space whales, but that\u2019s not what most people expect in a space game (not that they aren\u2019t cool)\u2026<\/p>\n Space is a curious beast, both drawing us with its sense of adventure and repelling us with its nothingness\u2026 I think the the role of the game designer when building a \u201cspace game\u201d is mainly to create an interesting environment where people won\u2019t get bored to tears from looking at screens and screens of blackness with some stars\u2026<\/p>\n For example, I like what Cliff Harris<\/a> (of Gratuitous Space Battles<\/a> fame) has done with the backgrounds on his game:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nIf hyperspace would be a different \u201cdimension\u201d that the player could navigate at will, that had some holes for the player to drop into normal space, where space was shortened to make for quicker navigation, the player might feel a sense of wandering, while still keeping him into the confines of the game world.<\/p>\n
\nGenerally speaking, space has space stations, asteroids, planets, stars, and space ships\u2026 and that\u2019s it\u2026 that\u2019s all you can play with to make interesting settings\u2026<\/p>\n