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Back Stages / Hidden Worlds in games

 
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Shapermc
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 1:37 am    Post subject: Back Stages / Hidden Worlds in games Reply with quote

Sorry, I'm cross posting this from my blog, but I think it could be a nice thread to start if anyone else has experiences like this.

Trackmania United Forever Screen

Trackmania United Forever has one of the more unique attraction I find in games. In Doom I use to use the walk through walls code just to see what kind of messed up graphics I could make. After hearing about the negative world in Metroid I attempted to get there as well. Things like the highest point in Bubsy 3D interest me. I love to break games and go where I shouldn't.

The most memorable moment I had in Oblivion was when I found a seam in the wall of a city and broke into the area before it properly loaded. In order to cut down on the resources for a PC/Console to display an entire world Oblivion's towns were loaded only when you entered them through designated areas. In order to give the player a sense of scale the size of the city is represented in the overworld, just less detailed in case you peek over the walls. When I was inside the town it was deserted of everything. When I threw or dropped any items they would slide on the ground as if it was ice until arriving at a seam in the polygons, in which case it would disappear.

Sometimes there are small things that let you into these backstage worlds in games. Other times you just have to think a little outside of the box. In Shadowrun (2007) the player is given an option of having glider wings bolted to their back which allows a small degree of flight. The player also has the ability to learn the magic spell gust which can push enemies back with a gust of wind, or can allow the player to break their fall with a cushion of air. A smart player thinking outside the box can combine these tools to get places the developers didn't intend you to go. Besides just breaking the game and gliding around outside the limits of the planned arena there were also some partially built levels revealed by skilled players who explored in the right areas.

Aiming for self set goals is one of my favorite things to do in games, and when the opportunity presents itself even in the least expected places I take it.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
While playing a particularly challenging desert track on Trackmania United Forever I happen to launch right off the track and into the landscape. At first I thought it fun just to see how far out things went.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Notice the awesome custom sheriff's car with the welded-on spikes at the front. So I continued to drive off through the sunset where the atmosphere ends.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
From there I was curious to see where things went. I cautiously crept up to the edge of what looked like all land.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Looking back on it I probably should have tried to drive off the edge and seen what awaited me. Instead I chickened out and turned around back towards the track.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
While not the most interesting adventure off the beaten path I'd ever had, it did at least let me know that it was possible to break the limits of the game and explore secret worlds.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
On my fifteenth million attempt at bay course C3 for the damn silver metal to move on, I happen upon a far more interesting situation than being in the desert. Shortly after a very sharp turn there is a speed boost right in front of a ramp which will launch the SUV (or in my case a Monster Truck) quite the distance in the air towards a small tunnel entrance. In my case the wheel wasn't straightened out well enough before the speed boost which launched me diagonally into the ocean.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
I noticed that my truck had somehow landed upright and was capable of driving underwater. Since the camera was forcing me to look at a small dot at the bottom of the ocean I aimed for land as best I could and hoped that I'd eventually come up for air.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
I was greeted on the beach by a small group of apartments--or perhaps condos--in a state of seeming disrepair. At the bottom of the buildings it looked as though overgrowth had taken the first two floors. Upon examination the growth wasn't vines that climb three stories of the building and cover all the windows, it was actually the trees that would look like they're in front of the building from a long distance away in case you happen to look.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
I found a misshapen and discolored road out front of the condos leading to the city which made up much of the backdrop throughout the race.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
It looks like not just the outskirts have been taken over by the shrubbery.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
On the way out of the city buildings are far more grim--the takeover becoming more hostile.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
With the city far off in the distance fleeing the infested place, I feel a bit better and head for the hills.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
The mountain bluffs surrounding the bay range in size. Some are much smaller than they appear because they are closer. When you finally drive for five minutes only to see that the taller peak is in a different direction. Why are you looking for the tallest peak? no particular reason honestly.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
On the way up a mountain all the way at the back of the bay I found a wrinkle in space.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Following it I found the rift opening into a similar black space that was beneath the desert. I decided to give it a try and see what happens. When I drove over the edge I took many pictures which I will refrain from posting to save the weak at heart.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Strangely enough I happen to graze something with my back tire on the fall into blackness. It righted me in mid air and I safely landed on an absent ground.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
The way that the geometry of the landscape worked under everything was wondrous. It was like ribbons of earth suspended in time over me.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Approaching the city buildings hover eerily in the air over me with their infected green bases all the more macabre in appearance.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Condos hover over me like cavity infected dentures.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Off in the distance is the racetrack where I started.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Trackmania United Forever Screen
Unfortunately my subterranean expedition was ended early. I didn't realize that I would be able to slide out from under these buildings into the water.
Trackmania United Forever Screen
I'm honestly a bit sad that I got to explore so little of it all. I wanted to go check out the area that had even more growth infested buildings than the part I did get a shot of from underneath.

My instinctive curiosity prods me compelled me to keep going on, to look over the edge while still being a cautious enough to hold on to ground firmly. It's a great feeling. Most games now have either unbreakable walls, or artificial ones which keep the player restricted from seeing the man behind the curtain. It keeps the games focused and the fourth wall erect, and for all intents and purposes it's how you want the game to be. That's why when I can I look behind the curtain I do.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good post!

So why is all that terrain there? Is it just background detail you're only supposed to see if you get your car to go high enough?
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Going by any typical Trackmania track I'd imagine so.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

!!

Also, GOOD AVATAR
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Shapermc
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 4:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, basically they're just background items. Here's pictures of how those look in the background of the tracks they're from:





Also, my wife loves your turtles, so I used the one I liked best.
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 5:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One of my favorite memories of WoW, back before the expansion, was when I managed to climb over some supposed-to-be-unclimbable hills into the empty area which I believe is now Quel'thalas. This was territory that wasn't meant to be seen even from a distance, so it was full of completely unnatural terrain formations. Impossibly jagged cliffs, random swathes of texture... basically what the "gods" had scribbled in the margin before they started the real work of creation. Wish I still had those pictures.
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have the old version of Majora's Mask, where if you jump into the water at the right angle you can swim around in the air.

Also, are there any games other than Katamari Damacy that detect when you've fallen through the floor and correct the situation in an interesting way?
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Shapermc
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 6:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wourme wrote:
Also, are there any games other than Katamari Damacy that detect when you've fallen through the floor and correct the situation in an interesting way?

When I was playing Tabula Rasa I would get stuck in the geometry quite often and in order to get out you just typed "/reset" and it popped you somewhere about 5 feet away.

Not quite what you mean, i know.

EDIT: I've also attempted again to find the seam in the polygons and I can't. I drove around back in the bay area again to show my wife and tried to figure out how to get under it to no avail. It looks like that was a lucky find.
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Last edited by Shapermc on Fri May 02, 2008 6:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 6:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Postal 2 detected when you got stuck and reset you and told you not to do it again.

Man, I've done so much stuff like this too (stuff in the first post) but can't really remember anything now. Soemthing that DOES come to mind is when Mario 64 came out and everyone was so desperate to get as much out of it as possible (plus it was one of the only games on the system for ages) that they would try to find as many glitches as they could. Plus it was fun since it was the first game like this.

One magazine I have even had like two pages dedicated to various Mario 64 glitches, I should scan it in.
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Shapermc
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 6:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cycle wrote:
Man, I've done so much stuff like this too (stuff in the first post) but can't really remember anything now.

I feel the same way. The brief list of things in the intro is all that I could think of, but I know that i've done this dozens of times with a wide assortment of games. Most of the time I think that there's just nothing interesting back stage to make it memorable.
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have used the fly code to go everywhere in Jedi Knight. I mean everywhere. There's not a whole lot of interesting stuff, but it's neat how some background items are solid and some aren't. Occasionally at the bottom of pits you'll find the bones of people who were also supposed to die there. My favorite is the giant pool of water that's supposed to kill you (because you can't get back up). Part of it they made solid so it would be treated like a normal fall, but the rest of it just has a 100% damage coating over it. Even if you lightly touch it, you die. Way out in the water, in a place it's normally impossible to jump to, you'll find that the water is just a texture over air. You'll be swimming along and oops, fall.
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Team Fortress 2 can be very frustrating during Dustbowl, because the third map lends itself to people setting up snipers and sentry guns from impossible heights in the sky.
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 7:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There were a couple spots in GTA:VC where you could get between a seam and fall through the world, which could lead to running around this de-textured gray "underworld" or falling into weird lighting structures and blackness before respawing.

I seem to remember that you could do something similar if you managed to get inside the football stadium in GTA3.

And in San Andreas, you could go through the floor of the sea and fall through the world. I forget what happened afterwards. Something like respawning thousands of feet in the air or something like that.
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 7:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, I remeber the GHOST TOWN in GTA3, which was this little island where the intro movie took place. You could fly there with the Dodo, I believe.

There is also some stuff in Goldeneye, such as a cut net map and that island across from the dam (the boat to it was cut) but you could only get those with a gameshark.
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Mr. Mechanical
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PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2008 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah there were ways you could access "blue hell" in all three of the GTA3 games, those places outside the regular game map. In San Andreas you could enter the gym in Los Santos, use a cheat to spawn the jetpack, equip it, and then fly straight up out of the map and even access interior areas that didn't make it into the game for one reason or another. There was also a way to explore the limited portion of Liberty City that in one of those final missions in San Andreas.

I wonder when people will figure out how to break GTA IV in the same manner. Should be interesting.
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PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2008 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I have the old version of Majora's Mask, where if you jump into the water at the right angle you can swim around in the air.


On that note, emulating either of the 64 zeldas can be pretty gratifying with the inclusion of painless pseudo-Game Shark cheats. "Press L to float" is what I'm referring to here, so you can jump all the way up to the moon in Majora and stuff like that. Really great stuff. Sequence Breaking in those games in general is great stuff (getting to the Shadow Temple ahead of time, anyone?).
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