Lately I've been working on the design and prototyping of a space-based game of colonization and exploration. The player controls his own ship, moving from solar system to solar system exploring planets, meeting aliens, and building colonies. If this sounds like Spore's space stage you'd be on the right track, although that's only superficially what I'm going for. Alien Legacy is probably a closer match and larger inspiration. Since the game is going to focus almost entirely on exploration and construction my goal is to make both of those aspects equally deep in terms of gameplay. The colony building portion is easy enough: city builders are (or were) a common genre and I can look back at practically two decades worth of games for inspiration and ideas. It's not difficult to see why some city builders simply "work" and where their appeal lies. The exploration side of the coin is more difficult. Plenty of games use exploration to great effect (see the aforementioned Spore), but very few provide any sort of gameplay depth on that front. I feel like I've hit a serious stumbling stock in regards to this portion of my game design, so I was hoping a thread on the appeal of exploration-based gameplay might get the creative juices flowing. I'm not necessarily looking for advice on my game in particular, just general discussion on exploration-based game mechanics. To start off, I've been looking at a few games that make use of exploration in different ways: Spore- Spore is almost devoid of actual gameplay depth on the exploration front, but its presentation more than makes up for it. Exploring in Spore is visually fun because you encounter a wide variety of planets and player-created art assets. There's also a bit of a coin-hunt aspect going on here with the artifacts and unique items scattered around. Exploration in Spore tends to be more an idle activity than an actual gameplay mechanic. It's part of the "toy" aspect. Noctis is fun for similar reasons. 4X Games - Most 4X games use exploration as a game mechanic in the early game. Exploration in games like Civilization 4 is fun because it reveals map features that can potentially have a major impact on later gameplay. A blob of flood plains tiles surrounded by useful resources is an awesome find. There's also a time and resource management aspect to it - you're forced to balance spending turns exploring versus using your units for other purposes. Exploration in 4X games is a means to an end rather than an end in and of itself. Roleplaying Games - Ostensibly non-linear RPGs generally have quests and items scattered in hard to find places. This is a kind of "canned exploration." The purpose is for the player to go out and discover things the designer has placed, in turn being rewarded with some gameplay benefit or extra content. RPGs that are heavily presentation based (see: Oblivion, Morrowind) also provide some of the same incentive as games like Spore; exploring can be fun just to see what there is to see. This post is getting long enough already, so I'll end with some questions: what other examples are there of exploration-based mechanics in games? What makes exploration appealing to you? Do you think exploration can work in games that skimp on presentation and rely mostly on simple, functional graphics? Are there any games where exploration is meant to be a central, challenging gameplay mechanic?

I think the best example of that is Knytt.

Download it for free at : nifflas.ni2.se

The thrill of exploration is not about the actual act of exploring. It's about what you may possibly find. It's about randomly wandering into something and interacting with what you find there. You never intended to go there, but there you are, changing the universe. All according to chance.

Good exploration is like opening presents.

I think Kest's mostly right. Exploration, from a practical standpoint, is a lot like research. You set it up, and then it's such a mundane, repetitive practice that you may as well automate it or, better yet, replace it with a progress bar and a dice roll that yields some result.

If your game is single-player, then you don't have to worry about the map being balanced in favor of one side or the other, and can have it be generated randomly as the exploration occurs. So when your probes go to a spot, the game generates that part of the map on the fly and reveals it to you.

You could allow it to be done manually, letting the player "do it himself" and sidestep limitations that would be placed on NPC explorers, but that would be time consuming and maybe boring.

But just because its repetitive doesn't mean it's not valid gameplay. People play WoW, after all. If you structure the exploration to be like a grind, with a long string of interactive nodes or harvesting operations or surveying to do, and then give the player some token reward for each successful action, they'll grind it out.

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Do you think exploration can work in games that skimp on presentation and rely mostly on simple, functional graphics?

I think it can. I'm researching this topic myself for my Citizen project which will essentially give the player control of a ship an the freedom to explore a 2D space world. I think the key question to ask is "What will the player be looking for?" In a slightly rough description I'd like to divide games with exploration mechanics into two cases based on that question:

x The player will be looking for something specific.
The player knows what this is or at least how to recognize it when he finds it. He could be supposed to collect things like coins or find things that benefit his further gameplay like quests, or a suitable location to found a city. Just as you stated above, this may be very entertaining but it is based on a means-to-an-end kind of thinking. I think it's crucial that the player has some idea of what he is looking for, and why, and that he finds it fast/often enough to not lose interest. On the other hand it mustn't be too fast/often. It's a delicate balance that would need to be well tested.

x The player is not looking for anything specific.
This is more the kind of entertainment where the player casually travels around the world looking at the scenery, talking to people, listening to it's sound and explores for the sake of exploring. It's limited by the fact that it's exciting as long as there is something left unseen, but on the other hand it's very self-motivating. Once the player gets a glimpse of the world you can expect him to go explore at least some part of it. This kind of exploration relies heavily on provided content. I think it would be very hard to motivate a player to casually explore a generated world.

Of course in reality most games with exploration mechanics uses a mix of the two. I think it's very rare that any one of them are isolated in a game. They are used in conjunction to cover for each others flaws. I.e. the player might initially head out to casually explore an area, but once the initial excitement fades he might be tasked to find something specific. Then by the time he finds that he may have ended up in another area which he is excited to explore, etc.

I realize this post overlaps yours to an extent. Hopefully it brings something new though.

Staffan

This has been my favorite subject since the days of Starflight. Far warning-- this response is long enough to make your eyes bleed...

It's been my goal for quite some time to beef up exploration so that you can explore for discovery's sake. The mantra I've been designing by is "utility, utility, utility."

When you create terrain or geometry or add items or entities, ask yourself what the underlying purpose is? Most games are heavily biased toward combat, so an enemy or terrain or geometry end up serving as barriers / challenges (and terrain / geometry as cover or strategic modifiers like sighting and elevation). I think this is the central reason that exploration is so shallow-- not because it has to be, but because there are too few axes of interaction. You end up quickly running through all there is to explore because what you find can only pertain in some way to combat.

Just as combat taps into the visceral fight or flight survival meme, I think exploration has the potential to tap a meme just as compelling: "What's out there?" And it's best if it taps not only the "want to know" but the "must know." The former is suited to idle curiosity and more relaxed gameplay, but the latter is quite compelling. It's what feeds the manic scouting gameplay in strategy games like Civ, promising a greater chance at early death if you don't. Of course, this mechanic could be recast into to any doomsday scenario: Starflight did it perfectly by having suns slowly going nova, and I've seen books do it with disease or some alienating corruption of society. Even a race against competition where you can lose the game would work.

So ultimately, I think you have to ask the same question about exploration as is so well answered by combat: Why do it?

I think Kest is partly right in that it's about what you find, but I wouldn't just leave it at that. Here are some additional ideas I've been working with:

Give Nothing For Free: Don't make your starship sit there like the inert graphic asset it is.
What does movement cost? As in Starflight, exploration can be very challenging if you're teethered by (and trying to break) a barrier to your range caused by having to scavenge for fuel / resources. It makes you have to plan and strategize (a "must know") or you'll end up marooned in the cold or in debt from a tow.
Why are the crew so docile, going everywhere you want? Think about all those sailors that panicked over finding the edge of the world. What effect does it have to be all alone? What about simply having to pay them?
Why is the ship immune to all the hardships of just hanging out in space, like radiation and vaccuum ablation? If there's a constant, driving need to do something (like find material or experts in a strange galaxy), and that something MUST be satisfied by exploration, then you've got a powerful motivator.

Abstract Planets And Make Them Count: Others may disagree with me, but I think it's stupid to try to make a realistic planet, let alone an infinity of them, unless you're making terrain to fly over. Eye candy doesn't cut it because it fades in value; it takes too long to assess the search space for utility; and having too large a play space ridicules player power because (baring a Genesis Device) they can make little impact on such scale.
I don't think, especially for an indie project, you have to provide the graphical profusion you see in Spore, either. For instance:
What diseases does the planet have?
What traps or hazards were left behind by other explorers?
What minerals are here (and make dozens, some with special purposes)
What field based status effects exist, like radiation or electromagnetism, or even more science fantasy-based effects?

Exploration Isn't Just About Objects: Is that planet up ahead the lost world of Earth, the finding of which will galvanize demoralized humans? Did I find a planet with an ocean and obscuring atmosphere which makes it the perfect place to hide from my pursuers? Is this region of space fraught with weird dimensional singularities that will slice my ship to ribbons?

Consider Making Exploration Not Just About Space: We focus a lot on spatial strategy and interaction in games (again because of combat). What about simulating other dimensions?
What non-spatial barriers can you erect to exploration? Where's that retired physicist who can give you the coordinates for entering the wormhole, and what does he want in return? What do you have to accomplish to persuade the powerful ancient guardian to allow you to land on the treasure planet? What combination of artifacts linked together will yeild a shield strong enough to fly into the core of the galaxy?

Build Mechanics Out of Real Processes: Think about what exploration does to us, and what happens to us as people when we do or do not explore. Do we become incurious and parochial? If so, how does that affect humans in general, and how is the player dependent on his own society?
Since you're building in city / society elements, maybe this will be of use to you: What if you have to explore to keep the society itself supporting exploration?
If there's a significant inward component to your society that wants to scrap your ship and focus on problems at home, how do you stop Congress from cutting your funding?

There are other aspects to look at, but this is already the Great Wall of Text so I'll stop. I'll just say that I think there's plenty of room for doing exploration in ways few have done before.

(hmmm... just noticed Alien Legacy was created by Starflight's designer, btw-- blast, it's a shame I've never played it!!)

I think staaf is onto something that I need to think about more indepth in regards to my own project.

That the act of exploring generated or procedural content is very different the exploring set worlds. Take Diablo as an example- the exploration is there just to find the monsters and thats it. Or what jools said about 4x games: that the exploration is just sort of a time delay or randomizer as to when that resource is found and who gets to use it.

As to Oblivion; its exploration is so shallow because every dungeon feels the same and ever hill looks like the one you just walked over. It might as well have been like daggerfall where it was totally random.

have you looked at the MMO love? Its not out yet be it seems to be a procedural exploration based game..maybe.

BUT- personally I love exploring in games. A lot of that joy comes from finding the unexpected or feeling like your off the beaten path. In a space exploration game, however, it may be difficult to have a "path" to go off. It doesn't sound like your game has a plot exactly, so maybe it would be worth having some mechanic that points you in some direction- that you can chose to ignore or not? I remember in freelancer they had something like that in the form of rumors you could get at bars- not quite quests, but tips.

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Original post by Divan I think the best example of that is Knytt. Download it for free at : nifflas.ni2.se

I didn't really like the first Knytt game, or at least I never explored beyond the constraints of the original goal (collecting parts).
Maybe it was that there wasn't much reward for exploring beyond non-interactive backgrounds, or that you could tell they weren't of relevance due to your rader-like pointer showing you where to go for the parts.
The second Knytt games, Knytt Stories, I enjoyed much more, I think that might have been because the gameplay was much more focused on puzzle solving/platforming though.
I think I had the same problem with Shadow of the Colossus, I couldn't motivate myself to explore the world beyond where the sword pointed me, again that was probably due to knowing exactly where to go and the world itself being quite devoid of content/interactivity.

I don't know but I'd probably say the metroid and castevania games, to me at least, offered a sense of exploration with secret areas, and even just the normal path that takes you through a variety of areas.

I dunno if any of that is constructive or what not, it might just be because of where I live, but I'd rather be outside exploring real scenery rather than virtual, if the amount of interactivity or interesting features is lacking in a game.

I wouldn't mind if exploring offered rewards, even that of lore about the area or people who live/lived there, rather than featureless ruins or plains that don't say much than 'something was here but we didn't bother to flesh it out'.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this is an interesting game mechanic to discuss. I'm probably going to reply to a bunch of things here when I have time later, but for now:

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Original post by Wavinator Abstract Planets And Make Them Count: Others may disagree with me, but I think it's stupid to try to make a realistic planet, let alone an infinity of them, unless you're making terrain to fly over.

I absolutely agree with you here. My solution, at least for the moment, is to break each planet up into nodes called "sites." Sites represent points of interest on a planet, anything from a good spot to land a shuttle to an alien city. The idea is that you need to unlock the sites; only the most obvious ones are immediately available. When you enter orbit around a planet you can see that towering city and you might be able to pick out flat terrain to land on, but those buried ruins of an ancient civilization aren't going to be easy to find.

The goal here is to create a sort of "drill down" gameplay. You explore by looking at some general information and working your way out towards more specific, interesting sites. Once you put down a shuttle on that nice landing site you can build a small base camp there. Now that you have a base camp you have access to land-based vehicles which you can order to search the surrounding area. Searching the area might reveal other sites that you couldn't see from orbit. Now that you've uncovered those sites you can use your vehicles to investigate them, possibly revealing yet more sites or something more interesting.

This also goes back to what you said about putting a cost to everything. There's a time and resource management aspect to exploring planets and unlocking sites. If a planet seems uninteresting do you bother doing a detailed survey just to be sure or do you move on to something else?

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Since you're building in city / society elements, maybe this will be of use to you: What if you have to explore to keep the society itself supporting exploration?

It's funny you mention this since I've had the same idea. My current design has four different factions that sponsor the player's charter. Each has its own idea of how to explore and exploit new planets and one of the core gameplay elements is keeping each of them just happy enough so they don't all turn around and vote down your charter.

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(hmmm... just noticed Alien Legacy was created by Starflight's designer, btw-- blast, it's a shame I've never played it!!)

Alien Legacy is a bit of a mediocre game, but it has some really great ideas. It combines an adventure game-like plot with colony building, real-time strategy, and action game elements. It also has a novel research system that I intend to borrow from. In Alien Legacy you build laboratories in order to gather research points, just like most games, but you can also find research "objects" by flying around the surface of a planet. Finding the remains of some crashed meteor might give a few points in material research, for example.