Introduction
Open world video games are notorious for having big worlds where much of the game is mostly empty. This makes the world itself an obstacle to be overcome rather than something to be enjoyed. For example, in The Witcher 3, you are often expected to ride on your horse over long distances to get around and complete quests. It's the classic "hold W and switch your brain off until you're there". Fast travel is no better. Contrast this to Forza Horizon 5, an open world racing game where you can race to get to the next race. This is fun!
Generally, transport systems are more fun when they require more involvement from the player. Racing along in a car requires more brain power than walking. Planning a journey using public transport is more difficult than simply setting off in the car. Furthermore, if getting around is fun, it doesn't have to be fast. I found this in my Satisfactory world - despite it being faster to fly to places, I found myself driving to most places as it required more involvement to operate a vehicle and navigate around junctions than to simply hold W while flying through the air.
PokéVenture is a Discord bot with a custom Pokémon game. This game includes a map with various locations and travel times between them. In this article, we will explore the original design for the transport in PokéVenture, why it was boring and what solutions were implemented to make it more fun.
The First Version
The game was initially released with a very simple transport system - you type ".travel [location]", then wait, and after a certain period of time (varies depending on the locations), you arrive! However, players found this boring. It involved a lot of sitting around and waiting, generally for 20-30s but sometimes in excess of a minute. This is a long time to be doing nothing at all.
You may ask why the durations aren't reduced, let's say to 5 seconds per journey. While this would solve the problem, it would remove a key aspect of the game and remove the sense of scale on the map. It was important to ensure the map felt large, and each location felt different from each other, and this travel time between locations supported this feeling.
Magic Shoes / Booster Packs
After recognising that the previous transport system was boring, an improvement was devised in the form of booster packs (also called magic shoes). The idea was that each location would have a booster pack for sale, which would provide a small but permanent increase in speed. This allows the player to move faster as they progress, however this does not fix the root of the problem. It doesn't matter how fast you can travel if it's still boring. 10 seconds of boredom is better than 20 seconds of boredom, but both are far worse than 20 seconds of interesting content.
It's worth noting that I did genuinely think that this was going to make transport far more interesting. Just a quick reminder that playtesting is super important - it's easy to get carried away thinking about an idea but, until you implement it, it might just be terrible.
The Final Solution
The final solution involves a multimodal transit system, including:
- Walking: The default, travels at 1x speed.
- Cycling: Purchasable at level 15 for a substantial cost, travels at 1.5x speed along existing roads.
- Driving: Unlocked at level 60 for a substantial cost, travels at 2x speed along existing roads. Fuel costs a small amount.
- Helicopter: This is a premium exclusive mode of transport that works particularly well over long distances as it flies over everything, but is slower than other modes of transport for short journeys.
- Buses: Operate on fixed routes, travel at 2x speed. No level requirement. On a fixed timetable so you have to wait for the bus, making this especially suited to going multiple stops (encouraging people to travel longer distances instead of just exploring the locations nearby).
- Airplanes: There are a few fixed airports, from which you can fly to any other location. This is the fastest but most expensive mode of transport.
- Trains: These are essentially shortcuts for locations which are located geographically close to each other but for which there isn't currently a path, allowing the player to bypass a long journey on the road.
- Taxis: Great if you need to get somewhere fast, or if you're just really lost! A taxi will automatically calculate the fastest route to your destination and take you there, at 2x speed. However, you do need to wait for a very short amount of time for the taxi to arrive, and it's not cheap!
That's pretty much it! As you can see, this is mostly copied from real life. The solution is simply to give players lots of options about how to get around. Then, they can choose the best mode of transport for their journey. And if they're finding it boring, they can switch to another mode of transport!
It's important that each mode of transport is not just visually distinct but meaningfully impacts the way you navigate the world. You can drive around in lots of different cars, but this doesn't change the way you interact with the world. Whereas using public transport or walking is a completely different way of interacting with the world.
This made getting around much more interesting, and is far better than simply making things faster. It gives a sense of progression as new vehicles are unlocked, and provides plenty of options so the user feels like they made a choice to use the mode of transport.
Improvements
The bus is my favourite mode of transport in PokéVenture, however most players chose not to use it because it has a cost, even though this cost was really low. We observe this effect in many games - players are often wary of using limited resources when not strictly necessary, such as with drinking potions in Terraria. This could be resolved by simply giving the player a bus pass and making the buses completely free.
Other costs could potentially be reduced too. However, the costs of the bike and car feel right. Most players managed to save up the money, and were heavily rewarded as a result. Unlocking the bike/car is a significant milestone that leads to a permanent reduction in travel times, one of the most rewarding milestones in the whole game. This is far better than booster packs, which would give lots of incremental upgrades such that each upgrade would not be that noticeable.
There is also the risk that some players will be too lazy to engage with the transport system and will be stuck walking long distances instead of opting for faster modes of transport. This is an issue in Satisfactory, where many players do not build suitable transport networks and instead choose to walk for much of the game, and hence find getting around the map to be frustrating and boring.
Conclusion
Overall, a good transport system provides the player with meaningful options and occupies the player while travelling. Public transport networks tend to offer more options and more engaging planning, however driving in a car is better at occupying the player during transport. This is why it's best to offer as many options as possible, where appropriate for the theme of the game, to make getting around more fun. By providing different options, the player is able to engage with your world in different ways and gain a deeper appreciation for the world design.