LA Noire

LA Noire lets players present notebook evidence to catch a lying witness. Clues go into Cole Phelps's notebook, and when someone lies you can present contradictory evidence to catch them off guard.

Mark Brown uses it as a model for making talking as interesting as sneaking or shooting, imagining a Deus Ex scene where letters found in a cop's house become leverage in a negotiation.

Reading faces and body language gives players a second signal of deceit. In LA Noire interrogations you watch a suspect's face and body for signs of lying, and a nervous character may be lying, so you push harder.

"a character's body language could be just one more weapon in your arsenal"

Gathering clues is the easy part; deduction is where LA Noire struggles. LA Noire lets you spin and handle 3D evidence objects, showing that collecting clues and dialogue trees are already easy to build.

Breaking detective work into gathering, exposing lies, following leads, connecting, deducing and accusing, Mark Brown argues the later steps are the real design challenge. "It's the next bit that's really tricky."

Automating the detective process made players feel like Watson, not Sherlock. LA Noire chooses your questions, witnesses, places and items, then reduces reasoning to a multiple choice question.

Mark Brown groups it with Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes games as automating real-world processes "in ways that take power away from the player".

Limiting interviews to a few questions and three responses cheapened the payoff. Cole Phelps gets a handful of questions and three responses, which Her Story creator Sam Barlow cited as interview games restricting the player and cheapening the thrill of nailing a killer.

Barlow concluded unlimited talking was impossible, so Her Story shifted from asking questions to listening to answers.

Fading the music out tells players a crime scene has no more clues. When you wander outside the crime scene in LA Noire, the soundtrack fades out, signalling that further searching is pointless without any UI message.

GTA's wanted level makes one crime ripple through the world's systems. Killing a civilian matters because it feeds the wanted system, which sends cop cars after you. Mark Brown calls the wanted level a stroke of genius.

"your action actually has consequences that ripple out into the different systems in the game."

GTA's linear, scripted main missions waste its rich systems. The main missions are scripted and full of fail states for not following on-screen commands, ignoring the systems underneath.

Mark Brown pairs this with Far Cry, whose missions are less fun than its open-ended camps, and argues systemic levels should set a goal and not care how the player reaches it.

A huge map works when scale suits the game, as in Los Santos. Grand Theft Auto V's Los Santos works as a goofy playground, an example of size serving the tone rather than the usual arms race for bigger, emptier worlds.

Fallout 3's lonely capital wasteland is the other example given.

Bully's small setting makes character routines visible and meaningful. In Bully characters go to class and go home at curfew, and the compact world makes those schedule changes readily apparent.

Majora's Mask's Clock Town is cited for the same effect.

Red Dead Redemption 2's tactile detail tipped into tedium without gameplay consequences. Hyper detailed animations and menus like an authentic catalogue of cowboy hats rarely changed what the player did.

"at times, it tipped the balance into tedium"

Red Dead Redemption 2 unlocks upgrades automatically, with no skill menu. Skills for Arthur and his horse improve as you play, avoiding a menu that pulls players out of the world.

Downwell is the contrasting fix: three quick upgrade choices between levels.

An optional GPS line helps players who struggle to know where to go. Red Dead Redemption 2 offers a red GPS line to your objective as a navigation aid, cited as good practice for players with cognitive disabilities.

Markerless treasure maps reward players who study the landscape. Red Dead Redemption's treasure maps show only a crude drawing of a landmark, and players must find the real match with no markers.

This lets a mainstream game keep accessible navigation aids while giving devoted players a reason to explore.

Rockstar's hand-crafted level process is not a budget most studios can copy. Rockstar is named with Naughty Dog as one of the few studios able to hand-craft levels at this quality, but reports of crunch on Red Dead Redemption 2 suggest it strained even them.

Mark Brown says the transferable lessons are the design techniques, not the budget of each person working on only a few areas.

Delisting the original GTA games for remasters backfired. Rockstar pulled the Grand Theft Auto games from Steam for remasters that turned out disastrous, a cautionary contrast to keeping originals available alongside remakes.

Capcom kept a moddable Resident Evil 4 HD remaster alongside its remake, and Nightdive released the original System Shock with source code. "it just means we need better game preservation"