The On-rail shooter: Complete Curation

Open world and exploration based games are more popular than ever. They offer a sense of freedom and control to your experience and give the player a chance to create there own experiences. These experience are unique because the players gets to express themselves and act however they want to.

As a result Linear game design and set piece design are usually considered to be a smaller part of a game experience than minute to minute gameplay. There is however a unique opportunity given to the developers in linear design : total curation of experience of the visuals the sound design plus player control can be simplified without the need for camera control and complex controls.

I assure you taking any option to avoid player controlled camera was a good choice in early 3D games, Because every game tried something different and often failed in new and exciting ways! Games choosing to side step camera controls difficulty meant that 3d rendered objects could be draw and dropped in ways that ensured the limits of the system were kept in check. I feel that's why Sega chose to prominently feature Panzer Dragoon at the start of the Sega saturn's life. These restrictions also meant other areas could be carefully shaped and stylised to dramatic effect.

On-rails shooters are the best example of linear game design to me, so lets talk about 3 of my favourite stages and experiences within this.

Star Fox 64: Aquas

Having been soaring though the sky's of destroyed cities, massive space battles with a huge free feeling we are suddenly sunk into the ocean planet Aquas a dark and claustrophobic space made all the more so by its limited depth of view even for an N64 game. Your fellow pilots seem to be unsure as the safety of your submarine which also moves slower than the Arwings and Tank giving a tense feel immediately.

The atmosphere is thick and hazy the music helps the punctuate this, giving us a slow and dark introduction and as you battle your way through the stage the music becomes less hesitant and brooding and soaring strings begin to impart the sense of wonder and beauty that comes as we travel through the ancient sunken city scenery.

One of the things that makes this shine is the music perfectly matching the pace of the level the start you can barely see ahead you of and the music hold a gentle mysterious arpeggio as we venture further in and begin to see the alien fish poisoned by villan Andross's bioweapon. As we see the pillars of a past civilisation and large swarms of enemies begin to attack a sweeping orchestral swell with choirs timpani and strings giving a beautiful yet sombre sound to maintain the combination of beauty and corruption this stages atmosphere already creates.

By the end though its business as usual as the boss battle kicks in as we fight a giant armoured clam bioweapon. Star Fox 64 is full amazing stages like this but this one stands out as its most unique to me.

Panzer Dragoon Orta: Gigantic Fleet

Prior to the stage Gigantic fleet we are largely travelling through cramped caves, running away from the enemies flying low to the ground to avoid being found while being advised by others. For the first time in the game we are on the offence and the shear scale is overwhelming as energy bullets fly everywhere. Before long we're forced to carefully skim the side of the largest ship. We see its huge array of weaponry along side it, filling in every detail of the absurd challenge we're facing and reinforcing how even on offence we are massive outmatched, this is made all the more spectacular by the freedom to look around seeing the unending back of the ship.

Breaking through the middle shows us even more weaponry, and as we emerge atop the ship the enemies are frustrated as they are damaging there own ship trying to stop such a small target.

And this also sets up the main character questioning her relationship to the warship an a vast uncaring tool being created as a weapon too.

Our victory is immediately subverted as we get ambushed by a second boss, a small squad using tactics similar to your own who are just as desperate to win. Leaving behind a sensation of hollow victory despite the shear scale of our success.

And the music is so damn good, a careful blend of otherworldly sound represented by synthesizers with a huge 80's flavour, it's that kind of familiar otherworldly-ness that brings to mind the PS1 RPG Jade cocoon.

The music starts with a bombastic battle cry with epic synth horns, huge sweeping strings and arpegio that give a sensation of non stop driving energy while the alien sounding lead synths give us an uneasy feeling leading into a hesitant but driven section punctuated with battle music with a brief aside showing hesitation and fear before renewing our drive weaving between gentle soaring sounds reflecting the feeling of excitement that attacking a giant battleship while flying on an armoured dragon creates in gameplay before erupting into outright epic atmospheric music as 80's synthesiser create an almost basson like sound* as we fight the boss the music continues triumphantly until we win, the music shifts highlighting the struggle and continues into our unexpected second boss.

*Synthesiser's cannot recreate the complex sound of a basson

Rez: Area 5 Fear is the mind killer

Rez Area 1-4 are great they have huge upbeat energy and carefully act and react to your input utilising a layer system to add more musical elements its world starts empty and slowly fills with more details.

Area 5 suddenly changes that starts empty with even the music being very slowly introduced and for the first time text appears detailing the creation of life as slow beats continue to punctuate our travel, soon a dirty baseline starts as the most realistic approximation of reality is shown, though still abstract. small snioetppets of text increases the surreal essence of the moment as uplifting synths are dropped. While not progressing as we do through other areas we linearly travel through the history of humanity we sure as to our progress.

Overt looping of the phrase'fear is a mind killer' becomes more prominent and we continue to seemingly travel through historic events of all of human evolution, its a slow build and a longer stage than all that have become before creating a sense of increased scale.

Music is given and taken in intensity as we emerge over the trees. gentle arps as we gaze over 'earth'. Before entering a boss rush punctuated by unconformable questions from the computer we came to destroy. The music becomes techno like again for the battles. We being to question if what were doing is right as the AI is shown to be scared not able to understand why it must die. As each chunk of the bosses health is taken we get spectral and ethereal sounds seeing the change that is coming form your actions, lending the battle haunting and emotiona overtones at complete odds with our goal. We start out feeling like the hero we did through area 1-4 but by the end having no choice but to fight and continue leaving a emotionally charged win tinged in sadness.

in conclusion:

These experiences are so carefully tied to the lack of player choice and being forced to keep going even when the game imparts hesitation via sounds and visual design with the pacing dictating our experience and the music gets to be completely representative, its like a movie scene but our gameplay keeps us engaged at all times. or in the case of rez a conceptual music video!

As the limitations that created genres like on rail shooters become less relevant its important to learn from and use older styles of game design, by recognising its perks and flaws.

Given enough time players and designers can create further refined examples of game genres considered old or outdated it's why theres a retro boomer shooter revival, its why there's freedom planet and even experimental collections of indie games like the Haunted ps1 demo disc which takes low poly art and retro design to produce similar styles to old games with a modern sensibity.

Open World design offer freedom in gameplay with many advantages but restriction offers unique perks for experience curation of design, sound design and narrative design, in other words a Complete Curation of the experience.

Acknowledgements: I captured the Star Fox footage, and I used these 2 source for Panzer dragoon and Rez clips

Panzer Dragoon footage source: Panzer Dragoon Orta Gigantic fleet Source

Rez footage source Rez Stage 5 footage Source

Frinkiac used for simpsons gif Friankiac

Before I go just a quick shoutout to Ex-Zodiac an indie on rails shooter on steam, it leans in the SNES Starfox visual language and plays like a blend of Starfox 64 (Lylat Wars) and panzer dragoon so check it out if thats something you like. It's currently in early access and seems to be about 70% complete but its already a solid and fun game with a lot of levels and secrets.