If Possible, Try Not to Let the Way the Player Receives Information Interrupt the Game

Whenever you give information to the player, this can also have the negative effect of causing the gameplay to pause. Quite often game designers supply information or mission briefings in spoken or written forms to the player between levels or missions.

It's worth looking at some successful alternatives. For instance, in GTA III, not only do you get information and mission briefings from the men you seek out to send you on missions, but also over police radios while you drive. Getting information doesn't take you out of the game.

In Deus Ex, you get various people communicating to you through a screen in your helmet as you play the game. In the Command and Conquer games, there's a small square in the upper-right corner of your screen where various people on your side can communicate to you during the game. In No One Lives Forever II: A Spy in H-A-R-M's Way, your commander communicates to you through the mouth of a animatronic bird that seeks you at different points. It's effective and hysterical. In all of these examples, gameplay isn't interrupted as these particular pieces of information are delivered.

We've all heard of a "babbling brook." In one fantasy game I worked on, I put in a brook that actually babbled. It was like the town gossip. You could lean down next to it and hear reports of other things going on elsewhere in the land.

Because the game took place in the land of fantasy, this fit right in with the genre, yet also provided information without taking the player out of the game.

A few other things to remember about information:

• If a person gives you information, make sure that person has a Diamond so they speak with a discernable personality.

• Try to convey information during tense moments. This is the exact opposite of what many game designers do, when they convey information between missions. (In these designers defense, they sometimes do this so that the missions themselves can proceed with an uninterrupted flow.)

• Don't give the player more information than he needs to know. If you've got other great stuff that might enhance the game world or characters but is optional, find a clever way that the player can seek it out and find it but only if he or she wants to.