I recently finished Half Life: Alyx. It took me a little over 9 hours to complete the story, and while I’ll save an experiential review of the game for a later post, I did want to take some time to highlight the systems or mechanics that I enjoyed most, and may be the focus of a Mechanic of the Month later on (hell, one of them already is).
The Backpack
I really love the concept of the backpack. Having a diegetic inventory system is one of the easiest ways for me to feel connected to a game world. I am really excited to develop this for my own mechanic, since its simple and easy to understand design means that it can have a myriad of uses in future projects. I honestly don’t expect it to be a major selling point or focus of future projects, but I see it as a mechanic that can fit into any situation.
The Gravity Gloves
My reasons for liking this mechanic isn’t necessarily due to its convenience, but the activation. I really like the idea of flicking your wrist in VR. It’s quick, snappy, and when it works well, it gives really good tactile feedback. My biggest problem with the gloves is that when you use the gloves the object makes a large arc, which really helps with anticipating where you should hold your hand to catch the object. Unfortunately this arc makes it so if you’re attempting to grab objects in a small, enclosed area, the object will hit the ceiling and just kinda bounce weakly towards you, meaning you gotta flick your wrist again in order to get the item.
In the future I’d really like to work on developing a flick detecting system, something like a template for detection that can easily be extended for more specific uses. Off the top of my head I’m thinking the flick would work as a fast throw, measuring velocity/magnitude or something like that. Major issue with that theory though is how I’d get the system to detect a flick vs a throw.
(Spoiler)
Energy Pulses(?)
I don’t remember if the game actually gave me a name for this, but super late into the game you can pull energy with the Gravity Gloves and then flick green lightening bolts at enemies. Again I’m more interested in the flick design of the move, but the awesome VFX and SFX of the pulses was the thing that made me want to explore the flick more than the gravity gloves, since using the gloves doesn’t always feel great for the reason listed above.
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