Pathfinding Computer Games

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the lack of good pathfinding games that challenge players with difficult terrain.

One of my favorite hobbies is hiking. The more wild and untouched the nature around me is, the more happy I am. Wild nature not only looks beautiful, but it also is more challenging and adventurous to get through it. Finding new paths and ways to overcome obstacles provides me personally with a great experience as I feel more connected to nature and the world around me.

The fascination of exploring the wilderness also plays a major role for me when playing computer games. I enjoyed playing The Long Dark and Spintires. The Long Dark is a survival game that takes place in the Canadian wilderness. Players need to seek shelter from the cold outside temperatures, hunt for food and deal with strong snow storms that quickly can become a dangerous threat. Despite just being a game, being exposed to the virtual elements and finding ways to survive under these harsh conditions provides me with a good substitute for times when I cannot explore the real world.

Spintires challenges players with the goal to drive heavy trucks through very muddy and difficult terrain. Trucks can easily get stuck in this kind of terrain, thus requiring players to find other ways to overcome the obstacles, e.g., using the winch. As a result, Spintires provides me with the aspect of actually being challenged to find a way through wild nature.

Unfortunately, there are not many other games that feature such a focus on exploration and pathfinding. Of course, other games approach the idea of pathfinding, but they mostly create challenges by requiring a certain timing. For instance, the Tomb Raider games require players to find a way through difficult terrain. However, from a pure game mechanic perspective, solving challenges mainly requires jumping or pressing other interaction keys at the right moment.

A potential explanation for this is the problem of finding good game mechanics that provide an exciting amount of choices and a huge degree of variety during the gameplay. This is due to the fact that computer games need to be playable with common control devices. For instance, most games implement the WASD keys for general travel. These four keys however cannot allow for a gameplay that mirrors the challenge of crossing a stream via slippery rocks. Here, one needs to use the entire body to avoid falling into the water which would need a tracking of a players entire body.

Thus, these challenges are reduced to more simple interactions like pressing a button in the right moment to initiate a sequence of events. While this might result in a very polished visualization of the events, it does not provide me with the same rewarding experience as actually being required to deal with the environment directly.

In conclusion, pathfinding games might provide an exciting gameplay, but they require also complex input game mechanics. This, however, would result in a very artificial gameplay as players need to remember a large amount of keybindings. Hopefully, the continuous advancements in computer technology, such as better tracking systems, will finally allow pathfinding games that go beyond the usual jump and run approach.