Red barrel problem
You probably know about the poet’s fear of a blank sheet – this is a person’s psychological state when it is necessary to start something new. It can appear in a variety of situations, from drawing to making music, to any activity that requires creativity and starting without prompting. Behind this fear lies a reluctance to make mistakes or high expectations, fear of criticism and negative evaluations, and a lack of a clear understanding of where to start.
In game development there is also a similar problem, but in relation to existing things, and it is called “red barrel”, I have heard this term several times from my English-speaking colleague game designers. The fears are the same: criticism, negative attitude towards changes, lack of a clear action plan.
If in the heat of battle, for example in a shooter, you see a red barrel, you will definitely shoot at it, because 9 out of 10 games offer exactly this behavior – red barrels explode. The barrel will explode and cause damage to the enemies, who (very stupid) not only have the barrels with fuel and lubricants placed on the level, but also smoke nearby (everyone knows that smoking kills). I’ll tell you why barrels have become a problem below.
The history of red barrels
The mechanics with barrels are simple and straightforward, but this was not always the case. Red fuel barrels are approximately the same all over the world; you can definitely recognize them by their appearance. Since childhood, we humans have associated the color red with danger, with fire. Therefore, red barrels are easy to read in battle and fit perfectly into the environment of shooters. In the 80s and 90s, in the wake of the success of films about James Bond and Rambo (License to Kill and Rambo III), barrels appeared in games, they were scattered throughout the level and served decorative functions
Designers, in search of new gaming solutions, brought everything to the level, from wooden boxes to Godzilla. But the barrels are not yet red and do not explode. In 1986, the racing arcade Speed Rumbler was released, inspired by the Mad Max universe and the post-apocalypse, the barrels exploded beautifully and many people liked this idea. So after a year, this mechanic begins to appear in all more or less well-known projects, but for now as inactive objects.
Since the early 90s, barrels have been frequently used as an element of game mechanics. Especially after the release of Doom in 1993, where barrels were carefully placed in places where mobs appeared and exploded from one pellet, mowing down the heels of enemies around. Other developers, in an attempt to repeat the success of Doom, copied these mechanics, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much. It was after the release of Doom that barrels became an integral part of most shooters.
And of course Half-Life 2, which not only provided the barrels themselves as a game element, but also allowed you to interact with them through a physical model. It was a particular pleasure to throw a barrel at enemies with a gravity gun. Over time, game developers have tried everything possible with this mechanic. Barrels became a cliche, and interaction with them returned to the level of shot – exploded.
More doesn't mean better. Better is better.
Returning to the “red barrel problem” – this is the name of a mechanic or a typical game object, a cliché that has long been familiar in games and is difficult to improve without breaking the general perception, but their absence will be even more noticeable. Trying to do them “differently” or diversify them with new ideas does not always work. As a result, when the designer finds himself alone with his “red barrel,” the list of issues that he will have to solve grows exponentially.
Often these “red barrels” become unsuccessful mechanics from previous games in the series, they wander between games, they try to refine them, fit them better into the game, but if the mechanics were initially unsuccessful, no changes will fix it. Several times I was present at this conversation between game designers who were trying to change such mechanics.
Brainstorm designers decide to improve the old game mechanics:
Do you even need barrels in the game? – Of course, there were red barrels in all games.
Can the player throw them, explode them? – And throw and explode
Can a player throw any barrels? – No, physics won’t work for us, only the red ones.
Then some barrels are not thrown (concrete, nailed to the floor)? – Yeah, let them be concrete
How will the player understand that the barrel is concrete? – Let it be a different color, green
What if the barrel is yellow? – Let it explode with a delay
Does the player know how to blow up a barrel, shoot, throw a knife, kick, wait for the script? – We need to include this in training.
What are the enemies doing next to the barrels? Do they smoke? Are they just standing there? – Then we’ll decide and load the level of designers
How does a player explode barrels? Can enemies blow up barrels? – Both options, but we need to ask the physicists, we may not be able to do both.
Do barrels damage the player? – We need to find out from gameplayers that the death of a player from a barrel can be a bad decision
What should the enemies do? Should they run away from the barrel or sit behind it? – Well, they were smoking there, let them hide already
And as barrels affect the level, they can damage the geometry. What to do in this case? – Let's ask the lead
What size are the barrels? – Let the concepts with the environment decide
Should the barrel block passage? What if you run out of ammo? – We need to give it the opportunity to move it
What about enemies, can they move barrels too? – No, don’t let them move it yet
What about the helpers, can they move the barrels? – Yes, but only according to the plot
With bosses, will we come up with special mechanics for barrels, like throwing them? – This is interesting, we’ll put it off for the next milestone
The comrades left the office well after midnight, the sheet with ideas was covered with writing on both sides.
But the most interesting thing begins later, when the designer sold his idea to the team, this red barrel begins to do good to everyone indiscriminately. The team, overcoming technical problems, rewrites half of the engine and adds support for these mechanics, and as a result, players simply do not use it.
If you remember what “red barrels” were in the games, write in the comments.
