Hello dear community!

(I hope this is the right forum)

So, we’re working on a game that uses a very detailed city map, it’s basically 1 to 1 with the real city. Of course it’s only a small district – but exactly like in reality.

The problem with this is that, to avoid people leaving this “zone”, we have to block some roads of some sort. Some games did it the simple way: putting a building at that place.

We don’t want that, because realism plays a big role here. We want to leave the city the way it is.

The problem: there’s around 30 roads to block…

Now we need some “arguments” why these roads are closed. An example: there’s a construction site in this road, and therefore it’s blocked. We could place concrete barriers like these at this place:

Of course also with everything else that goes with a construction site, behind the barriers.

I also often noticed walls blocking the view on a construction site, a bit like this one here:

I’m unsure what these are called, but that would be a solution too.

I’ve thought about road accidents as well. Maybe concrete barriers again, this time with police and rescue vehicles behind and some wrecked cars. Now that I’m thinking of it… the same concept with some fire trucks behind could be a solution too, not with fire in real-time, but maybe with black buildings hinting something was on fire here.

For the idea with the accident: perhaps even a long truck (a petrol tanker for example) flipped, which takes the whole length of the road, could do the job as well.

I’ve basically tried to take ideas from other games. I’d have more ideas, like this one: the road blocked again, eventually also with police vehicles, and people demonstrating at the back. Basically hinting that this road is blocked because of a demonstration. I’m not sure how hard it would be to do this, but I don’t think anyone of us knows how to. Well, it doesn’t matter, we can always hire someone, so it’s not completely off the list.

So my question is: does anyone have more suggestions?

Thanks!

I think you might have too many roads to block. You could design the map better and use other than building and road blocks that will just become too unrealistic in that extent.

If you look at real cities there aren't that many roads leaving the denser city center so this is also a matter of city design. They are main roads and they are big. Perhaps they have underpass going below the railroad or highway etc. You could use water on one or two edges which almost all big cities are situated near. Or terrain level differences. Other than that if you have a basic grid pattern for your city don't be afraid to do an occasional T- or even L-junction to break lines of sight and especially to eliminate the excess roads to need blocking.

So basically if you put your city area between a highway/railroad and a sea shore with few bridges collapsed that's 2 sides easily solved. Then block couple of roads using your ideas.

Haha yes, our problem is that we have too many roads to block!

The collapsed bridges… we had this idea already because one part of the city is located next to a river. On the other side of the river starts a new district of the city which we do not want to cover because we only want to do one district, which is the city centre. We had the idea of collapsed bridges but finally some of us didn’t like the idea because a collapsed bridge kind of sends “negative vibes”, and this isn’t really a war game, it’s a racing game actually. So that’s how I got the idea of the construction site the first time, basically to make the bridge under construction. Ironically, this bridge was under construction for real (in the real city) not too long ago — leaving only space for trams. The trams in the game could block the road (they wouldn’t move from there in that case).

Finally I’m starting to wonder if it might not just be easier to place some “half-transparent” walls around city, and once you pass them, everything would turn black & white and you’d have 5 seconds or so to return, what do you think of this? Is this overdone? Does it have a bad image?

5 seconds @ racing speeds, how much extra map content would that mean to you per blocked road? I suspect a lot.

Nice graphics, did your team develop that in-house?

Ideas to block roads ...

1) car crashed into corrugated iron work hut and knocked over scaffolding holding uniform grey cement blocks. You could have fun making a mess out of the effect of a smashed block turning into a dust splat.

2) Bus tried to do a U-turn and got stuck in the road, everyone except the driver got out and walked (on the other side of the bus - the doors aren't facing the player)

3) road works

4) building exploded leaving rubble everywhere

5) police have put plastic tape up and stand guarding the road, if you fire your rocket launcher at them - you die.

6) earthquake.

7) I'm bored, get a copy of hl2 and some of the mods.

1. Road dips down, but was flooded with water. Where's there's one dipped road, there's bound to be more than one, thus more than one road flooded.
2. Raised highway collapsed, so you can't use the highway.
3. Raised highway collapsed ontop of the road you are trying to use.
4. Tunnel collapsed
5. Sinkhole in non-raised highway
6. Building fell over
7. Traffic jam of cars
8. Railroad crossing with the train parked on the railroad (I hit the *same* train three times in one day at three different crossings about a month ago).
9. If it's a long train, it can block more than one road.
10. If it's a really long train (they do reach a hundred or more cars, meaning thousands of feet long), it could block three or four.
    “Conventional freight trains can average nearly 2,000 metres” - Wikipedia (2000 meters = ~6500 feet)
11. Toll-booth blocking arm thingies are down
12. A tree fell over
13. The road is a dirt road, it's rained recently, and is too muddy.
14. A garbage truck tipped over and spilled a wall of garbage. If that's not enough material to block, maybe it crashed into a cement truck that also spilt the cement.
15. Rioters strewn park benches and grocery carts and other stuff across the road forming a barricade.

These, in addition with the other excellent suggestions mentioned above, and the knowledge that you can use a good blockade idea more than once as long as you have different art for it, ought to go a good way towards covering your thirty roads!

[Edit:] Ah, negative vibes - alot of these wouldn't work for that then.

I’m unsure what these are called, but that would be a solution too.

I think those are just chain-link fences (or a similar type of portable wire-mesh fencing) with stuff put over them to obscure the view (maybe to prevent theft of tools just lying unoccupied?), as well as to provide a more "presentable" sight then a big dirty hole in the ground.

Some kind of "fog of war" that doesn't lets you see beyond the limit of the playable zone and a "Go back!" message if you go too far. Simple as that.

Otherwise you're going to find a bigger excuse for all the blocking or it wouldn't make any sense. Some sort of catastrophe. Killer is on the loose, plage of some sort, etc.You can't have locked a whole district for no reason.

Otherwise you're going to find a bigger excuse for all the blocking or it wouldn't make any sense. Some sort of catastrophe. Killer is on the loose, plage of some sort, etc.You can't have locked a whole district for no reason.

Good idea. If it's a racing game, and a sanctioned race, the police would've cordoned off the roads out of the urban racetrack with black and yellow striped concrete dividers.

If it's a 'street racing' game, maybe just have the ways out of the racetrack blocked by cheering crowds and cars that they've parked to intentionally delay the police.

I thought of something else,

1) comic book (batman) style alleyway dead ends.

2) parallel roads could link up to another road ( U turn links etc )

3) entrance to large scale city area ...i.e. the park, the zoo, a large train station/ monorail, sport stadium, freeway, construction area

4) City centre apartment area with members only gate

Wow some great lists here!

Thanks guys for all the ideas, definitely some useful and also funny stuff in there