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Overview

Evaluation

About

Design Pillars

Mechanics

Strengths & Weakness

Conclusion

Spider-Man

Analyzing the core mechanics, game pillars, strenghts, and weaknesses of the game Marvel Spiderman.

Overview

Context

In this case study, I conducted a Game Design Critique for the Insomniac Marvel Spider-Man game. This was done as part of an assignment for my course INF2300: User Research & Design for Video Games taught by Professor Velian Pandeliav. I was tasked with playing a game that I had not played before and then writing a report briefly describing it, analyzing its core pillars, and critiquing its design.

My Role

Solo work

Time Line
3 days

Project Type
Video Game Critique

Platform
PS4, PS5 and Windows

Game Evaluation Criteria

I was tasked with choosing a game I had never played before, recording the first 60 minutes of my initial playthrough, and then continuing to play the game as long as necessary to understand its core mechanics and pillars. Finally, I had to create a game critique report explaining:

Game Details:
Platform, difficulty levels, other relevant settings.

Game Description:
Explanation about game genre, core mechanics, premise, protagonist description, story synopsis.

Core Pillars:
3 to 5 main elements/emotions the game is trying to explore and make the players feel.

Strengths:
Strengths that sets it apart from other games in the genre.

Weaknesses:
Hinder player's experience or could be improved.

What sets this game apart?

Game Description

Genre

Marvel Spider-Man belongs to the "Action-adventure, Single-player" category of games. This is a typical open-world action game created by a game company called Insomniac.

Premise

An experienced Peter Parker who is more masterful at fighting big crime in Marvel's New York. At the same time, he is struggling to balance his chaotic personal life and career while the fate of millions of New Yorkers rests upon his shoulders.

Protagonist Description

The video game takes place in a virtual 3D world within the city of New York Manhattan.

The Video game time is mostly turn-baseand frozen however, in certain missions or tasks it changes to real-time moment with real-world time limits.

Character, Camera & Control

The specific playable character options are Spider-Man, his alter ego Peter Parker, his friend Mary Jane Watson, and his ally Miles Morales in a few stealth missions that fit the story.

For camera is an third person 3D: Tracking, with both Player-controlled and Game-controlled Space.

Game-controlled Space

Controls highly depend on the platform. The game, I played it on PS4, and I stuck to the default settings and Accessibility Controls.

Platform

This game is available for PS4, PS5 and Windows. I played it on an PS4 supported game.

Difficulty and Game loop

The game combines all its core game mechanics in a way that is near perfection and provides an engaging gaming experience. The game has a negative feedback loop as per the below diagram.

Gameplay Details

Players can earn rewards, upgrade character skills and gadgets, and unlock new suits and powers if they follow the mission rules. The mission outcome will help them earn a bonus and make future combat easier.

However, if a player dies in the middle of a mission or wave of enemies, there is a hard reset where they must face enemies from the starting line again; it also depends on the difficulty one sets when starting the game.

Game Design Pillars

Game Pillars are the core aspects/values in a game that guide its design in order to evoke certain emotions in the player involved with the game. Unlike game rules, which are very specific and exist to constrain gaming, game pillars are more general and exist to reinforce the essence of the game. These pillars are so important that removing even one of them completely changes the game.

The five core pillars of the game are

Pillar 1: Traversal

The core pillar in this open-world game is that it feels easy to learn the basics of swinging and has additional mechanics on top that players could master. It provides freeform movement through complex terrain with unlimited climbing, swinging, jumping, and running options.

Pillar 2: Combat

Similar to Batman Arkham's system, but it's much closer to the console of Spider-Man 2. The game focuses on dodging, jumping around, using gadgets, and launching enemies in the air to perform air combos and survive against several types of armed enemies. As the game progresses, the player needs to have a high level of competency to survive against dozens of enemies.

Combat provides the most internal motivation. It is combat-focused with action-packed, fast-paced gameplay featuring destruction through guns, explosives, and magic. The majority of the player's challenges are overcome through the combat system.

Pillar 3: Story

An impactful narrative focuses on the character's story and enables the player to empathize with the character's situation. This makes the experience great and provides purpose for other game pillars and players' actions, such as Traversal, Combat, and Stealth.

Pillar 4: Stealth

Moving unseen, setting traps, distracting, and developing the right moves in the skill tree, and taking down enemies silently make the gameplay more immersive and engaging. This pathway enables players to complete missions peacefully, and getting discovered brings more enemies, making it a challenging task in combat.

Pillar 5: Scarcity

Although gadgets come in handy when combating many enemies, they're often limited, and one cannot spam the gadgets they have. Players must be creative and selective in when to use them and against whom (types of enemies) to use them.

Core Mechanics

Traversal: The traversal actions consist of walking, running, sprinting, jumping, crawling, sneaking, web, swinging, diving, and climbing. The web swinging mechanics in the game are particularly well-done, allowing players to effortlessly to parkour and transition from swinging to running and jumping.

Combat: The player moves, punches, kicks, dodges, jumps, takes cover, avoids grenades, bullets, attacks, stealth takedowns, heals, webs, finishers, takes weapons, and throws items. The combat system is fast-paced and action-packed, providing players' main internal motivation source.

Core Mechanics Summary

Overall, the game combines all its core game loops in a way that is near perfection and provides an engaging gaming experience.

Traversal and combat mechanics complement each other in the combat system, allowing players to use their creativity to overcome challenges.

For example, players can dodge attacks by sticking to walls, using their gadgets, or engaging in air combat by swinging. Switching between the core loops and effectively using gadgets is key to mastering the combat system. (See Below)

Strengths

Game Pillar x Mechanics

The core game mechanics and pillars consist of Traversal, Combat, Story, Stealth, and Scarcity. These elements are nearly perfect and complement each other from a holistic perspective to granular detail. Half the fun of the game is fitting the theme and the setting, where players swing around New York City, finding ways to maintain Spider-Man's momentum while pulling off some amazing tricks. The game has seamlessly integrated web swinging into the parkour mechanics.

Combat & Swinging

The player can easily shift from swinging to running across the side of a building and then leaping off and going back into swinging.

Mechanics from traversal such as crawling, swinging, or leaping between places help the player be more creative and take down enemies using gadgets and webbing. This makes the player feel authentic with Spidey and gives them an immersive experience, helping to build the character's story narrative and tension within the game.

Game Pacing Analysis

The game has alternative high and low-intensity events, which generate a lot of tension and release while matching the player's skill as they progress throughout the game. The story makes the player engage in calm traversal moments, creating tremendous tension in stealth and high-intensity moments in combat, along with impactful storytelling.

It has varied intensity and similar peaks as the story progresses, as shown in the diagram below.

Summary:
Through various phases and intense moments, one can enter a flow state, where players are immersed and energized, causing them to lose track of time. This is directly reflected in Schaffer's conditions of flow.

Knowing what to do and where to go Knowing how to do it
‍The story has a hook and a detailed description of the destination one must go to. It also provides tutorials when the player struggles or encounters a new situation.

‍Knowing how well you are doing
‍The game informs players to use skills and combos through tutorials periodically to advance with various core game loops. Which helps to earn rewards and get new gadgets.

‍High perceived challenges, High perceived skill
‍Combat is the primary game pillar and catered towards player skill level. As the player gets competent, the game introduces to new challenges through new types of enemies, weaponry, enemy waves, or boss fights.

Side Quests

The game allows players to do side quests to lower the story's intensity and pace. There are moments when the main story mission is unavailable, and the game encourages players to explore other missions. This motivates the player to earn rewards and upgrade character skills, gadgets, and suits.

Weakness

Puzzle Challenges:

Players must solve puzzles to progress the story, which encompass tasks such as fixing broken circuits, triggering multiple pressure plates in precise sequences to unlock doors or uncover secrets, and even tackling audio frequency challenges by adjusting sliders to create specific patterns.

While these puzzles can prove challenging and demand strong problem-solving abilities, some players may find them frustrating and highly repetitive. For assistance, the game may not always offer a readily available "skip" option, adding to the challenge.

Vulnerability to attacks:

Spider-Man's vulnerability to enemy attacks can be frustrating and a significant weakness in the game. Players must constantly contend with gunfire, melee strikes, and special abilities from adversaries, especially when there are a dozen or more enemies attacking you. Dodging and countering these attacks requires precision and skill, making it easy for players to take damage and struggle in combat situations. This vulnerability can lead to repeated failures and diminish the enjoyment of the game, as there are limited options to mitigate this inherent weakness.

What sets this game apart?

The fan-favorite comic book character is a unique fantasy in its own. It makes you feel like a superhero. However, its standard open world is elevated by web-slinging and impactful stories and characters.

The map is littered with things to do, most of them tedious busywork. I would have ignored the tedious tasks completely, but in Spider-Man, they're an excuse to do more swinging, and I can't say no to that.Y

ou liberate towers across the city to open up the map, much like in every Ubisoft game over the past decade. There are plenty of similarities with other open-world games like Rockstar's GTA or Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed or Far Cry.

While many open-world games of late have started to move away from the bloated structure that has plagued the genre, Spider-Man fully embraces it.

A Nostalgia, but better.

Playing Spider-Man reminds me of the original Batman: Arkham Asylum. While the games are very different, they manage to pull off something similar: both star an iconic hero with a lot of expectations, which they somehow exceed.

This is exactly how I want to feel playing as Spider-Man. It shares plenty in common with the Arkham series while surpassing it in many ways. I zip around NYC with webs instead of a flying cape, but I still navigate skyscrapers from high rather than running around on the ground. Fighting with webs and web-based gadgets is different, but still mechanically similar to Batman's array of toys.

Personally I prefer spider man, due to web-swinging through the city which entails dashing forward, doing cool tricks, running up and along walls and zipping is truely glorious.

🙏
Thanks for making it to the finish line, voyager!!

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