We had to use Red Barrels
We’re trying really hard to make an awesome and innovative game with Bulletstorm. There’s no shooter out there like it and I want to discuss the process of one of our most ground breaking features:
Exploding Red Barrels
I know, I know, it sounds craaaazy! However, tests have shown that they work and people “get the idea”. You shoot them, and they go boom! In fact, at first we tried something else…
It seems like it’s a game development curse. Pretty much every action game has red barrels that’ll explode if you shoot at them. One could easily argue it’s because of a lack of imagination on the developers side; to go with the tried and proven way. But as it turns out, it’s not that simple. We made a stab at trying something different, instead of going with the cliché. In the beginning we had green barrels, but people didn’t get it right away.
This is the green version.
They got completely ignored by the players and no one guessed or assumed that they were explosive. Why not? Because they weren’t red. Everyone knows that only the red barrels are explosive. There’s a lot of stuff going on in Bulletstorm at the same time, so it’s vital for us that the player can quickly read the environment and act intuitively. This is especially true since you can leash and kick objects as well so they can be flying all over the place. There’s no time to analyze objects on a detail level, so the shape and color have to be enough. It became apparent for us that the most efficient way to communicate its purpose was to make it red.
“Just making it red” seems like a straightforward approach, but apparently it wasn’t as simple as I imagined. I’ve done some research on the process on how we reached the “final red barrel”-look. I’ve never had much to do with the barrels, so I had to ask around.
I asked Karolina, our Art Producer if I could get a picture of the old one and the new one. She sent me a picture with several different ones, so obviously I asked why and that’s when it all broke loose.
Karolina came to get me and brought me to the artists, whereas a group of three then discussed internally about what happened, how and why.
Which one?
Above are the barrels she sent me. One would assume that the one to the right (number 4) is the one that was made, considering the circle and the checkbox? But nooo, guess which one finally got into the game?
You probably guessed wrong. None of them.
Number 4 was the intended barrel, the one they decided on. That change would only require a new texture (the “painting” on the 3D model). But then, sometime, somehow, someone decided to do a new 3D model as well. This would mean they made either Number 1 or 2, right? Wrong.
It ended up being in the shape of Number 1 and 2 but with the texture being a mix between them with the flame-logo from the first one and the window from the second one.
This one!
I’m glad I’m a game designer and not an artist when it comes to finding the best match of shape, logos and colors. For me “red cylinder” is enough. Regardless, the artsy people did a great job in the end, as now everyone expects the barrels to blow up and they do!
We tried not doing red barrels, but: The Customer is always right.
You're so gonna get it!
This game will be Badass!
true…true
lol I didn’t know how many possible red barrel designs there could be.
I agree on the thought process, but I would think the green barell could be another installment in the “barrel ammo”! What about introducing a plasma barrel? The red barrels are great as we know they are explosive, but maby introduce some new explosives aswell?
Anyway, nice to see the process behind the artwork.
why do make it green but a t the very beginning of the game u put an image of the green barrel and put a tiny description on that says only this barrel explodes.
It’s not the graphical design of the barrels that make the developers seem to lack imagination. It’s that a sci fi setting needs frickin exploding barrels!
The point with imagination is that people enjoy discovering new things, Bulletstorm looks amazing in providing just that: imaginative ways to play.
So tell me: why do you still need exploding barrels?
Doom needed them because if was the coolest “static” object they could make (and even than they weren’t red), shooters in the passed 5 years only use them because the devs can’t be bothered to think.
In the meantime, can I make a real order (nonexplosive though) for barrel #3? I loved that design so bad I want to sit on it!
Believe it or not, but the barrels actually make sense in the context of the story. They are in this world for a reason. It’s not your typical “game barrel” stuff.
hmm, my guess is that they’re some kind of a thash can that burns stuff you put in, and with a side effect of exploding when shot…?
Is it just me or does the wireframe have some insane number of polygons? i mean- for a barrel?
That’s a pretty cool red barrel actually, though i dunno how many polys a normal barel have… But this one definately have what it takes to be cool.
OMG what im sayin gimme bulletstormNAO!1
I think if barrels were using Yellow/Orange and Black (A lot more of Orange and Black than on your first barrel), then players maybe see that they should be dangerous objects
Something maybe like this: http://img291.imageshack.us/i/innovationredbarrelsbar.jpg/
And to be sure that players know what it is add label “higly explosive”, “danger” or “Don’t shoot me! I’m ordinary barrel”
when i first saw the green one it reminded me of the highly explosive nitro crates in the crash bandicoot series. just saying
Nice to see that so much thought and research was put into just the freaking exploding barrels. Says a lot about how much heart is being put into this game.
Yeahh, that barrel has an extremely high number of polys. But modern games have huge numbers of polys per object so maybe it will be fine. Or they might be using that model to bake to a lower poly one?
UE3 only needs to render geometry once, so it’s not that high actually.
Barrels are the sorts of objects you’ll get right up to, having them right in your face. At that distance, you need a barrel to just as good as everything else, no?
If I saw that green barrel with the ooze like material inside in a game like Bulletstorm…I would hope for a caustic fluid inside, honestly. More games need acids to melt foes
*sigh*
Why don’t you let the barrels be green, and then people can LEARN? It’s not as if the game won’t develop a community who will understand the barrel situation.
Play-testing is only going to get you through on first impressions.
Because the game has to be immediately intuitive to new players. Sure, people can learn to deal with a bad design if they have to, but why should they? If the developers find a way to make the mechanics of the game more immediately obvious, why not go for? There’s really no point in making things more difficult than they have to be.
Also, I should point out that the sooner players learn how the game works, the sooner they can start enjoying the game and stop just trying to figure out the mechanics of it. You say it only gets you through the first impressions, which I suppose is true, but you’re forgetting that first impressions are VERY important. As the saying goes, “You only get one chance to make a first impression.” Better make it a good one.
As a visual artist, this particular compromise of artistic integrity (not to sound too high-falutin) just doesn’t sit well with me. I certainly can’t speak on the extent of their play-testing, but having red barrels is just one more thing that fits the game painlessly and unnoticeably into the groove of every other FPS ever.
I blame the design of their “green” yellow-ish barrels for not implying explosiveness. There is a solution to this green-barrel design dilemma, which allows them to remain green; How about taking the current red-barrel design, changing its reddish hue to green with the exception of the fire logo, and then making the fire logo twice as large- giving it space by eliminating the two bands of rivets immediately above and below it?
Just as much, I’m sure the design team can easily concoct a scenario to demonstrate the green barrels are explosive.
Bulletstorm team, I dare you to make your game good enough to have green barrels.
For artistic integrity!
For someone all about the art, you sure seem to have missed an obvious artistic reason to prefer red over the originals. Go back, look at the screenshots, and consider which one sticks out of the environments shown better. Bulletstorm has a lot of yellowish-brown color in the envrionment. that first green-yellow barrel doesn’t say “part of gameplay” so much as it does “part of background”.
It’s not just about teaching the player what’s explosive. It’s also about making sure they can easily see it’s there in the first place.