Negative space in combat design
Players see and mentally divide the game world into safe and unsafe areas. Positive and negative space. Space they want to be in and space they want to avoid.
Take a step back and analyze the mental process that goes on in a player. The primary goal is NOT to defeat the opponent, rather it is to stay alive long enough to see it happen.
Staying alive is the primary goal. How do you do that? By avoiding spaces that could hurt you and knowing where it is safe to be.
If we apply the concept of positive and negative space of the bullet-hell genre unchanged to a 3rd-person perspective, we get something like Witch Thief:
It is still very much about bullets, but it doesn’t have to be. In games such as Sekiro or The Surge, the attack range of enemies is unsafe, positive space. The primary behavior of those enemies is usually to get close to the player and attack.
What if the enemies instead were primarily concerned about manipulating the negative space the player has access to?
My favorite examples are from Diablo 3, where enemies can spawn these spinning laser beams on the ground. It’s not an attack directly aimed at the player, but it is a manipulation of the negative space.
Another great example from Diablo 3 are these temporary walls that trap the player and prevent them from escaping easily.
Enemies can have a modifier on them that chains them together. As they navigate the environment, they are constantly and dynamically changing the layout of the negative space.
It is about expanding the combat experience through the most fundamental aspect of your game — the movement system. We know that players across all genres enjoy the simple action of just moving around.
Yes, level design and geometry is the primary driver of player movement, but combat encounters that actively and dynamically manipulate the negative space could greatly increase player’s enjoyment of moving around in that geometry. It would be exciting to see systemic interaction between enemy and environment that alters it in predictable, rule-based ways.
Next time you design a combat encounter, try not to kill the player, instead think how you can keep them alive in interesting ways. There is incredible potential in this regard and it is ready to be explored.
