The Platform Theme

Mechanics

Before getting to the level-design developments that Half-Life uses, I want to talk briefly about the platforming mechanics at play in the game. Jumping and momentum are—relative to the traditional platformers this game borrows from—a little wonky in Half-Life. On the one hand, the conservation of momentum in Half-Life makes for some fairly realistic interactions (at least by 1998 standards) when making jumps with multiple vectors in 3D space or firing the tau cannon. On the other hand, most platformers are utterly unrealistic. The biggest problem with platforming in this game is that Freeman’s momentum can easily carry him over the edge of his target. Mario games after 1990—even those in 3D—typically allowed Mario to stop on a proverbial dime even at maximum speed. Even Sonic the Hedgehog titles gave the player a totally unrealistic level of control over Sonic’s momentum. The player can divert a very large amount of momentum in Sonic games in a fairly short space. Half-Life does not provide that level of precision in movement control; even when trying to walk precisely, players will often step farther than they want and careen off a cliff. So while I would not accuse Half-Life of having sloppy or inconsistent controls, I would say that anyone who is comfortable with pure platformers will have to make a significant adjustment for the platforming in this game. The difference is not game-breaking, but I can think of no compelling reason for the designers to put it in. Later in Half-Life 2 and Portal, the insistence on realistic physics makes sense, because those physics permeate everything in the game. In this game, however, it seems like the developers set up momentum the way it is just for the fun of doing it, and not for the fun of playing it. What’s more, all of these other problems happen through a first-person camera, making every platformer action more difficult—a problem we’ll see numerous times throughout this theme.

Content

The first thing I have to explain about the content of the platformer theme is that it does not fit the definition of a set piece very well because it doesn’t really have the self-containment factor. Platformer content is more like through content, but I have selected some of the longer and more intricate platformer situations for this theme, because Half-Life does some interesting things with them. Aside from that proviso, the platform theme in Half-Life consists of a fairly classical development that takes place across the course of the game. By development, I mean that the game starts with a few simple ideas and elaborates upon them, mixing and matching different ideas that come out of those elaborations. By classical, I mean that the development of design ideas in Half-Life's platformer sections follows the overall development pattern set forth by 2D platformers of the 1990s, although it does so in an abbreviated fashion because the game’s focus is primarily on shooting. Half-Life begins with simple jumps that establish the game's platformer mechanics in chapter 3. The complexity and length of platforming sections stays more or less flat until chapter 10. Interestingly, chapter 10 is almost entirely made up of platforming content, and it does more for the development of platformer content than any other chapter. In chapter 10 there are examples of almost every kind of platform design technique that the previous Reverse Design found in Super Mario World. Those ideas aren't explored as thoroughly as they would be in a Mario game, but they're quite robust for a game that is primarily a shooter.

This brings me to a very important point about Half-Life's overall design, and platforming's place in it. Half-Life is a very long game for a shooter; it was long for its time and it's still among the longer shooters today. Platforming is what makes this length tenable. In the introduction to this book I wrote about game design history and how Half-Life straddles the composite and set piece eras. The shift from shooter to platformer in chapter 10 is one of the all-time greatest examples of composite design. Half-Life does not follow the typical pattern of composite flow; there isn't a 1:1 ratio of shooter content to platform content. In making chapter 10 a full-on platformer level, however, the game does a great job of breaking up the shooter content so that the player can enjoy that content more. Chapters five through nine are a long series of increasingly elaborate and occasionally laborious shooter set pieces. Chapters eleven through fourteen are the climax for the game's best shooter content. Chapter 10 breaks them up nicely, and gives the player a nice "breather level" that makes the upcoming shooter content seem fresh and distinct. This perfectly-timed switch between genres is one of the most applicable lessons of Half-Life. All of the shooter elements in Half-Life were eventually explored more deeply by one of its descendants, but it's hard to think of any game which so perfectly swerved between genres at just the right time.

Notably absent from everything I wrote above is the content from Xen. The Xen levels feature a great deal of platforming content, but that content is just as problematic as everything else in Xen, if not more so. The biggest problem is the sudden change in physics. If sudden changes in physics were a good idea, full-time platformers would feature them frequently, but they don’t. Even when there are changes in physics in a platformer, such changes are usually limited to a very small part of a level, and only a few levels at most. Because Half-Life’s platforming was imprecise from the very beginning, the Xen jumps are even worse. We’ll go over each individual set piece/series of challenges, but one overarching problem is that almost all of Xen’s big jumps kill Freeman if he fails to make a jump. Earlier in the game, Freeman might take damage from failing a jump, but just as often they simply had to try again. While Half-Life was ahead of its time in the use of auto-saves and checkpoints, the number of quick-loads that players have to make here is still too many because of the deadly newness of the jumps in Xen.

EARLY SET PIECES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP

As we have already gone over the fact that many of the platforming sections in this game are not necessarily in line with the definition of a set piece, I'll begin by saying that the first few set pieces in the game share a very cadence-like relationship. This isn't true for the rest of the game. Beginning with set piece 3-2, however, we can see how the platforming sections develop in a logical and largely traditional way.

This is a short and fairly easy task of hugging the wall. There are a few necessary jumps, but they're all easy. Set piece 3-3 changes things up a bit by featuring harder (and less intuitive) jumping situations.

The water negates a falling penalty, although the many barnacles add an element of danger. This is a common practice in the design of platformers; the penalty for failure goes down when the player encounters something new for the first time, like jumping on a moving box. Of course, the player can simply go around the whole set piece and take the ladder at the bottom of the canal, but that means having to deal with the barnacles that provide no reward.

The next two platforming sections are where things get interesting, although in two very different ways. Set piece 3-4 introduces the first section that really looks like a pure 3D platformer. These hanging boxes would not be way be out of place in a late-90s Mario or Crash Bandicoot level.

The cable in the middle of the boxes would be a little strange for those other platformers, but in this game it actually serves a purpose beautifully. Because the platforming and movement control mechanics in this game aren't as tight as they would be in a pure platformer, the cables help the player to not over-jump the hanging boxes. As soon as Freeman collides with them, his motion stops. This is a nice touch, because the penalty for failure in this section is high. The other nice touch is that while this game is built around set pieces rather than cadences, this section actually has a kind of mini-cadence. You can see in the screenshot above and right how each platform jump gets successively further apart and with less surface area available per jump. That's a classic expansion-by-contraction of available safe space, right out of the platformer vocabulary of the day.

Set piece 4-1, on the other hand, is a classic example of an evolution. In 4-1 the floor is electrified so that Freeman will take damage while he stands on it. While the past three set pieces have presented platforms of typical size, shape and orientation, this set piece uses a much different kind of architecture.

This is one of the best instances of the convergence of fiction and level design for which Half-Life is so famous. Everything in this room would be totally appropriate for an office, and yet it also all works as good platformer content as well. The platform/counter is narrow but not too narrow; its shape offers clear directions on where to go, and the penalty for falling off is not too high. Everything is laid out perfectly without overdoing it, which is exactly how many of Half-Life’s best moments are done.

SET PIECE 4-4: In the Fridge

This set piece is one of the longer platform sections of the first half of the game. The player starts on a long ledge leading all around the interior of a giant refrigerator.

The real challenge is getting off the ledge and onto a moving platform that bridges the gap between the ledge and the exit. It’s a fairly simple moving platform puzzle and it doesn’t even require a jump, merely a well-timed step. The only real obstacle is that the player can glance off the boxes on the platform, and so needs to bash them in. This challenge seems like it requires speed at first, but really calls for precision and proper timing, as many moving platform challenges do.

The second part of the set piece is similar in that it asks the player to slow down and be precise rather than trying to use speed and momentum. The platforming itself isn’t terribly hard, although the landing areas are very small. The ladder is also a red herring, and much more difficult to use than the bends in the piping as platforms.

The real problem is not rushing into one of the dark corners where the barnacles wait. With patience they’re not hard to see, but any player moving around at full speed might collide with one and not even know it until taking damage; the ceiling is relatively low and the barnacles do not have to extend their tongues very far. Again, it’s not a high level of danger (which would be inappropriate for both this chapter and this theme), but the designers did have a few tricks to keep the platformer content interesting.

SET PICE 6-3: The Generator

This set piece features a variety of platformer challenges that all serve the purpose of turning on a generator. The first task is to jump to the emergency ladder on the side. This is a common enough task, but the angle of the surrounding walls makes it seem a little trickier than it really is. After that, the player has to pass a periodic enemy which swings in high-speed circles around the ledge that surrounds the generator. There are safe spaces by the bulges in the walls, but getting hit by the moving platform can damage Freeman or even knock him off the ledge.

Although the malfunctioning platform moves quite fast, its loop is so large that the period the player has to work with is more than long enough to travel the whole ledge in two passes. This is followed by another low-difficulty challenge, wherein the player needs to hit the generator activation buttons, and then jump off the connecting arm before two rods prevent it.

This is another fairly easy, low-tension task; all of these jumps are simple and obvious. The point of this set piece, and platforming content in general, is to break up the tension and/or monotony of shooter set pieces. The encounter with the tentacles is definitely one of the tensest encounters in the game because of the player’s powerlessness to kill the creature. Thus, the ease of this set piece and the other platforming content around this section helps to break up the tension.

SET PIECE 6-4: Iridescent River

Like the set piece that immediately precedes it, this is really just another way of breaking the tension created by the encounter with the tentacles. There are a few precise drop-jumps here onto relatively wide landing areas.

These drops are followed by a max-height/crouch-jump. The player has just had to do a couple of these in the process of reactivating the rocket chamber mechanism, and they were fairly easy. In this case, there's no space to run, so it’s a little tougher. Finally, this section ends with the game's largest pit-jump to this point.

All of the jumps, including this last long one, are essentially fatal if failed. Most of them are fairly easy. The last jump is a little more difficult because the fractured pipe makes it tough to tell where the jumping and landing points are, but nothing here is that difficult or that advanced, it’s just more focused and linear than other platformer content in the game.

SET PIECE 8-9: Tripwire

This is a short set piece that asks the player to do something they've never done before—or die. The jump in question is a dismount from a ladder over a turret-activation beam. This is really the first time that the player has had to do anything special involving a dismount off a ladder. There are plenty of instances of jumping onto a ladder, and that task is easy and unremarkable. This is different.

The second set of trip mines is totally in line with what the game has already introduced, but the laser just below the ladder is lethal and new. It probably wasn’t meant to be especially deadly, but the turrets can easily deplete Freeman’s health or even blow up the adjacent mines. There are plenty of instances of a new task being introduced above a damage hazard. Here, the player has to execute a new action or die. This isn’t a hard jump, but still, designers normally train players on the methods of a new jump without killing them at first. The thing that makes this forgivable is that this trip-laser is obvious. Because it's clearly visible as the player descends the ladder, the player has time to save his or her game before attempting it. While Half-Life's checkpoint system isn't uniformly robust by modern standards, an obvious warning of lethality like this one accomplishes the same effect as a nearby checkpoint would.

SET PIECE 8-11: Box Jump

The real trick is to move the two metal crates to the right of the stairs so that Freeman can jump up them and over the laser beam. This presents us with one of Half-Life's occasional problems of extension. In several other places, I've noted that Half-Life asks players to make a leap in skill or intuition, and that the leap is sometimes too much. I don't think the intuitive leap here is too far, but rather that it's badly placed. If the player had completed some box-moving and/or platformer tasks in the recent past, the player's intuition would be primed to do exactly this. So while this is not really a stretch for the player's intuitive abilities, those abilities are cold right at this moment in the game. And it's never a good idea to exercise a cold muscle, so to speak.

SET PIECE 9-3: Slippery When Wet

This set piece is, on its surface, very much like a classical platformer challenge. There are some important differences which stand out upon further investigation. The setup is a catwalk that wraps around a pool of water; the pool contains an Ichythyosaur.

A series of hazardous platforms above a deadly fish is a setup straight out of the Mario series. The problem is that this set piece pays no heed to platformer orthodoxy, whereas most of the platformer content in this game actually tries to do so. The biggest problem is the cartoonish physics that suddenly come into play. Each of the “wet spots” on the catwalk is slippery, but their slipperiness is strangely out of line with Freeman’s momentum. Whereas in a pure platformer the player character’s drift on a slippery surface is directly proportional to the momentum the character has, here the drift seems to almost have no relation to Freeman’s initial momentum at all. Those physics are fine if the player has been trained to expect it, but this hasn’t happened in Half-Life. There have only been two examples of jumping on wet surfaces, and one of them was several chapters ago. That’s not the worst offense, however. There is also a catwalk which falls away, dumping the player in the water. This misses the point of a falling platform entirely. The point of a falling platform is to force the player to make a jump, not to prevent them from making one.

This walkway, and the spawn that occurs beyond it, accomplish the latter rather than the former.

The final jump does a much better job of staying within the bounds of platformer orthodoxy while also adding a twist idiosyncratic to Half-Life. The last jump requires that the player make a slightly longer-than-normal jump through a smaller-than-normal aperture.

The player has had several opportunities to use and practice the jump/crouch maneuver, but each of those jumps was made in order to gain extra height. Here the point of the crouching jump is to shrink the size of Freeman’s collision box so that he’ll fit through the aperture. This is a classic evolution by inversion of the parameters of a normal jump, which is a staple of platformer orthodoxy.

SET PIECE 9-4: Smashers

This is a short set piece featuring three platforms made from smashing industrial pistons. The set piece begins with a couple of scattered Bullsquids that the player has to snipe at long range, although neither of them is as challenging as the jumps to come. Once the player activates the mechanism, it becomes possible to get Freeman across by some well-timed platforming.

The jumps appear much easier than they really are because of the most common problem in first-person platformers: it's hard to see them. Early in the days of 3D platforming, there were plenty of jumps that were difficult because of odd shapes, wonky mechanics or bad camera angles. This set of jumps is beset by the latter two problems. The first person viewpoint makes it hard to see the lip of the platforms as Freeman leaps off them and also makes it difficult to sense when Freeman is in danger of being crushed by the top portion of the piston. The mechanics are no looser than anywhere else in the game, but the small size of the platforms and the haste necessary to complete the task without dying mean that the whole operation feels ambiguous. On the other hand, the timing of this set piece is quite good; it breaks up a chapter otherwise entirely in the shooter genre, and prefigures the challenges of chapter 10. Many of chapter 10's challenges are similarly structured (although most of them are better executed than this one), but this still works as a lead-in or warm-up for that chapter.

CHAPTER 10

As mentioned in the introduction to this section, this whole chapter operates more like a platformer level than it does a series of set pieces. If you were confused about what the cadence of a level is from the brief coverage given to it in the introduction to this book, this section will actually make things much clearer through its examples. The important thing is to see the relationship between each challenge, rather than looking at the challenges themselves, as brief as they are. The first section of the cadence consists of these three jumps.

In the first set of jumps, the landing areas are small but totally stationary. A few precise jumps like the ones from set piece 4-1 will make this quick work. It’s important to recognize that the jump to the pipe itself is actually the hardest jump of them all because of the landing area’s deceptive narrowness and extra collision objects. In the second screenshot we have a classic evolution, in which there has been a qualitative increase in difficulty. The stationary platforms of the first challenge are now moving platforms; jumping at the wrong time can kill Freeman. The platforms have gotten a lot bigger to compensate for the limited timing window, which is a very common move for a first evolution in a platformer. The third screenshot, meanwhile, is an expansion and evolution of the second screenshot/challenge. In the third challenge, the simple up/down motion of the platforms has been transformed into circular motion, and the platform sizes have shrunk noticeably.

The moving platforms are interrupted by a swimming section and some fights with Bullsquids. Half-Life does a variety of things with its swimming sections, and while some of them are very annoying, this one is brief. Swimming can often be a lot like platforming. While suspended in water (at least in a videogame), the player is essentially in a jump that never ends and can move Freeman up or down at will. There’s only a few real “challenges” here, though.

The player has to swim under these obstacles quickly and surface before running out of air. It’s a lot easier than the other platforming action of the level, but that’s a good thing. Levels can’t always get harder in linear fashion, or else the game will fall victim to all the weaknesses of the arcade era. For difficulty, though, there are several fights with various Bullsquids in the wings of this section, and they serve to keep the tension at a necessary minimum. The player has barely any ammo, and so while these fights aren’t terribly dangerous, there is a palpable sense of risk.

These fights are also interesting in that they’re especially Quake-like. The long hallways with medium-sized apertures and no object cover—that’s all stuff more typical of Quake than Half-Life.

The second half of the level develops a variety of challenges based on conveyor belts. Although this section doesn’t involve jumping, it’s straight out of the platformer classics. The smashing pylons that move in regular cycles are periodic enemies, like the Whomp or Chomp of Super Mario World. The challenges begin with a button-and-sprint combo to get onto the conveyor belt before the smashing pylons resume their impenetrable barrage.

The next gauntlet features side-to-side smashing pylons that don’t strike quickly, and telegraph their movement. What’s more, Freeman can “rest” against them while they’re fully extended, breaking his conveyor-belt momentum. The second set of smashing pylons is more interesting; they’ve evolved (progressed qualitatively) so that they smash from above, a position that makes it a little harder to work out their timings because the player can’t lean Freeman against the side of the smashing object while he waits.

There are subtler evolutions in each pylon, however. The first pylon does a “double tap” motion, the second pylon stays in the extended position for a longer time (breaking up any sprint the player might try), and the third pylon makes a false retraction—followed by another killing extension—before actually retracting. Each pylon is an evolution in itself, in addition to being part of an evolution as a unit.

In between the two platformer sections there is what would properly be called a crossover challenge. A crossover challenge is (in the context of Half-Life) a shooter challenge occurring in the middle of a platformer cadence as a kind of break to keep the platforming from getting too monotonous. The Bullsquids also served this purpose, but here the crossover happens while Freeman is still on the conveyor belts. The conveyor belts take Freeman into another nondescript junction, except that this junction is filled with laser trip mines.

I repeat myself when I say that surprising the player with instant death like this is not a great idea. Half-Life and its checkpoint system would have seemed very forgiving for its time, but there’s just no reason to hide these mines in the dark the way the designers do. The thrill of this challenge isn’t in knowing that the mines are there, it’s in blowing them up from afar by jumping backwards against the movement of the conveyor belt. If the player can simply see the mines coming and then blow them up before the conveyor belt drags Freeman to his death, that thrill is still in play. The surprise death is superfluous.

The conveyor belt idea receives a final evolution, although it doesn’t build upon the previous smashing pylon idea, but rather adds jumping and removes periodic enemies. If the conveyor belt is the parent idea, the jumping and periodic enemies sections are diverging branches of the family tree. This part of the level starts as a simple drop-jump and ends as a series of fairly precise forced-momentum jumps.

Jumping downwards tends to be the easiest kind of jump in a platformer, but Half-Life often makes it hard by obscuring the target below, especially in Xen. (This is a common problem in early 3D platformers, generally.) Fortunately, this jump is fairly easy to see because the platform is so long. Jumps between long conveyor belts are neither dangerous in terms of penalty because a safe floor is just below. The second set of jumps between the parallel conveyor belts isn’t especially deadly either (there’s no reason they should be if this is a breather level), but they are a bit more difficult because of the narrower landing area. The jumps in the parallel belts are a little more rapid too, but the clear field of view means that the player can at least quickly predict all the jumps Freeman will need to make in order to get through the entire section.

The momentum Freeman gains from the conveyor belts is conserved when he jumps, and this momentum can easily fling him into the objects he’s trying to avoid, or cause him to miss the conveyor belt altogether. This is, in my opinion, the best use of physics in the game, because it’s fairly easy for the player to take this momentum into his or her mental equations when reattempting this sequence.

The chapter ends with another periodic enemy challenge: a chomping grate over the exit. This is a very minor challenge, but it’s a good example of composite-style design.

This is a good example of an A+B evolution, in which a normal periodic/smashing obstacle has some enemies (Headcrabs) added to it. Again, it’s not a very dangerous evolution, but this is not a very difficult level and wasn’t meant to be.

SET PIECE 12-5: Cliffs of Insanity

Except for one positive and one negative aspect, this set piece is very traditional in its application of platforming design ideas. The negative aspect, to get it out of the way, is the difficulty in seeing many of the platforms that the player has to drop to. The first two in particular involve some edge-hugging.

My own opinion on platforms is that it should always be easy to see them. The difficulty should be in execution, not visibility. Neither of these jumps is terribly difficult to execute, but they can be a bit hard to see because of the angle. That's just not necessary. On the other hand, the positive aspect which isn't totally traditional for platformers is the presence of sniping enemies along the cliffs.

These enemies can easily surprise the player, but none are instantly fatal because they come one at a time. Although plenty of games had mixed platforming and shooting before 1998, Half-Life does it in its own unique way. Each of those sniping enemies is tucked away in places that the player won’t notice at first, but which are easy to see once the fight starts. As you might recall from the introduction, this tendency to hide enemies in slightly unexpected places is an important development in the history of the FPS, and it's something the player has seen a lot of so far in the game. It's a totally logical step for the designers to combine the hidden-enemy corner with platforming in an A+B evolution, and the designers do so.

Those two things aside, the platforming in this section is fairly standard. The jump distance gradually expands across jumps and the size of the landing area gradually decreases.

The last jump is a little bit deceptive, in that the nearest slice of landing area it presents isn't really viable. Trying to land on the thin triangle highlighted above is nearly impossible because it’s too easy to bounce off the cliff-side. Instead, the player needs to over-jump it and land on the farther, wider area. It's the only real deception in the platforming here, but it's a good one.

As a last note, the bridge at the end of this section falls away and kills the player without warning.

Do not repeat this in your own game; it is unfair, un-fun, and unnecessary. Falling platforms are fine and have well-established precedents, but they need to fall at an escapable rate and with clear warning signs.

SET PIECE 12-8: Chain Reaction

There are few universal rules about the design of videogames, because the value of any single design idea is heavily dependent upon its context. It's true that the game should never bore the player; it can excite, frustrate, please, enrage, frighten or even cause laughter, but it should never bore the player. It can even do many of those different things in the same game, as is the case in this moment in Half-Life. This set piece is a jumping puzzle, with heavy emphasis on the puzzle aspect. The building in which this takes place is rigged all over with laser trip mines, such that any mistake will mean instant death.

The reason that instant death is acceptable here is that this set piece is clearly a puzzle, and because when the player makes a mistake, it's obvious what that mistake was. The puzzle is made up of a maze of lasers, and the means to navigate that maze is platforming and deductive skills. Many of the lasers are easy to avoid, requiring only a simple jump or crawl to pass. There's a little unnecessary tension in some of those easy ones, though, especially in this one where it's not entirely clear if crouching will get Freeman under the beam.

Aside from that fairly minor problem (quicksave, trial and error will clear it up very quickly) the puzzle is very satisfying in its design, being neither too hard nor too easy. There are many instances where Freeman will be obliterated because of the player's hasty or unthinking actions. Several boxes cannot be destroyed or else they will set off the bombs, although it may be hard to tell which boxes this is true for, at first.

Another good example of unusual puzzle elements that the player can quickly learn is this elevator trap. Raising the elevator without destroying the box will result in a huge chain reaction that kills Freeman. Like all the other deaths available in the room, it's pretty obvious to the player what he or she needs to do next time around. The first detonation following a mistake is always obvious, and so the player will notice it before the whole room is engulfed. With every death, the player learns an obvious solution to the problem just encountered. That kind of "aha!" moment is the essence of the puzzle context, and the reason why so many deaths are tolerable in such a context.

The real key to the whole puzzle is the fact that the player can break the front and back panels of the box below without destroying the whole thing.

In one sense, this is unfair because the rest of the boxes in this game don’t actually behave this way, so the player may never think to try it. This inconsistency was the very same problem I cited in the falling bridge of the previous set piece. In this context, however, it’s not that unfair because the whole puzzle relies on careful examination. The appearance of the special box is in place to show players that there are unsual properties to objects in this set piece. In the previous set piece, the player had to worry about enemies firing on Freeman and bumping off the irregular edges of cliffs. In this set piece, there’s plenty of time, space and calmness to allow for trial and error. The player knows to slow down, quicksave and try various methods of solving the puzzle, because the designers have communicated that message well.

SET PIECE 14-9: The Core

Although this set piece looks flashy, it's actually a very simple, very orthodox platforming challenge. The first thing you might think when reading the preceding sentence is that there is no jumping here, so how could this be a platforming challenge? Climbing ladders has been, from Donkey Kong onward, a big part of the classical platformer formula. Moreover, this set piece is really "about" another important design idea to come out of the platforming genre: periodic enemies. In this case, the enemies aren't really "enemies," but rather beams of energy.

The first type of beam pictured above and left rotates in a circular fashion around the central pillar of the room. The second type, pictured above and right, toggles on and off on a timer. The first ladder challenge has only a rotating energy arc to deal with, whereas the second (an evolution) has both kinds of arcs threatening the player. The trick is to make sure to pick a time when Freeman can get up the ladders without either the rotating beams or the on/off beams hitting him. It wouldn't be that hard, except for the common problem facing Half-Life: the first-person disadvantage. Once on the ladder (in the ready position) it's hard to track the rotating beam's progress, meaning that it's hard to know when to shoot the gap in the two periods. A challenging, syncopated set of timings is part of the orthodox platformer vocabulary. In most platformers it's a failure in the player's internal timing and coordination that kills the player character, rather than a failure to see the danger. A see-through catwalk or any of a dozen other design ideas could have mitigated this effect.

SET PIECE 14-11: Radi-Go-Round

This section has a lot of different kinds of content in it through its teleportation/exploration mechanics, rather like the Nihilanth fight which it prefigures. The shooter and maze content are unremarkable. The platformer content is interesting in the context of the rest of the game. One of the big problems we’ve seen all throughout the platformer theme is the difficulty presented by a first-person viewpoint. It’s difficult to land in the right place when the player can’t see the character they control. It’s difficult to make a series of jumps when the player can’t see more than one platform ahead. The beginning of this set piece gets around that nicely, though, in that it separates timing from precision.

The player has to make an abstract jump—a jump that involves dropping down onto a higher object via teleportation. To do this, he or she must time the movement of distant platforms to coincide with Freeman’s movement into the portal that connects them. Discovering the nature of this puzzle is a little unfair (“what does this portal do?”), but the timing jump itself is straightforward and the penalty for failure is low. The second jump has a small evolution included in that the player has to make Freeman duck shortly after landing to avoid being knocked off by a bar that isn’t present on the first level.

The second platform challenge is a lot more typical, although it doesn’t look like it at first. This carousel structure can be solved with just a few fairly easy jumps.

All of those platforms are moving slowly and, despite its narrow appearance, the middle ring is easy to land on. The only challenging jump is the one into the core of the machine itself, as it requires more precise timing and a quick ducking motion to get inside, but the designers have required crouch-jumping of the player several times now, and so this is a totally appropriate challenge for the skills the player ought to know.

SET PIECE 15-1: Orbits

This book observes that almost everything in Xen is inconsistent and a problematic, and the first set piece in that world is no exception. Xen features gravity physics that allow for longer jumps. The designers are cognizant enough to give the player time to adapt to this upon arriving in the world, with two particularly long jumps.

The long jump mechanic was given to the player only a few minutes ago in game time, and having to practice it now at maximum range and over an instant-death pit is unnecessary. Such a late start in the usage of the long jump, too, is strange in a game that has so methodically developed every other design idea, even in its platforming sections. Nevertheless, these first two jumps are an opportunity to learn the new physics and the new jump technique at once. The second jump even has a small evolution element added in, in which a Vortigaunt and Houndeye appear on the platform after landing.

After the first two jumps, things really fall apart in the game design. The failure of this section isn't punishingly unfair difficulty but rather a lack of clarity. That lack is actually twofold. Firstly, the myriad rotating platforms that make up the descent to Xen's surface are hard to interpret. What is the path here?

Experienced players know how to get through this, but first time players can easily get lost on the wrong platform as there are several here which are superfluous. Superfluous platforms are pretty rare in this game and in platformers generally. The kind of confusion they generate just isn't fun. Moreover, many of these platforms have orbital periods that are way too long. Although it could be helpful for the platforms to move slowly enough for new players to track them, the long period really just ends up boring players who missed their chance to jump on the first loop. A platform can be slow and still have a short period; all the designer has to do is shorten the loop it moves along. That doesn’t happen, and the result is an unnecessary wait. As I have said many times, boring the player is the greatest crime a game can commit, and the designers really run the risk of committing it here.

Even as the player starts to progress through the platform puzzle, there's another moment lacking clarity. Many of the best platforms to jump on fall directly under the one that Freeman occupies, resulting in instances like this.

The timing here isn't too hard, but why do the platforms have to fall under one another? There are many, many ways to make platform jumps difficult, but obscuring the player's view of them is just frustrating rather than engaging.

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