The World Wide Maze

worldwidemaze

Level design is a crucial component of game design.  It is an endless pursuit for the perfect balance of challenge and aesthetics.

There seems to be two competing schools of thought.  To some, level design is a high art form.  Levels are carefully crafted by master virtuosos who create miniature worlds.  The designers of Portal relied upon such virtuosos.  To others, level design is an algorithm.  Levels are randomly generated by sophisticated computer models that take several factors into consideration.  The designers of Sim City employed such computer models.

Google is currently exploring a new option, an oddly beautiful harmony between man and machine.  This option is a Chrome experiment game called the World Wide Maze.  Like Sim City, all levels in this game are automatically generated by a computer.  However, unlike Sim City, these levels are not entirely random.  Instead, the player selects any website in the entire World Wide Web, and an algorithm explodes the components of that website into a 3D maze with real height, width, and depth.  In short, this game translates the artistic flair of web designers around the world into an algorithmically-generated, playable game level.

Once the level is generated from the website chosen by the player, the game play is very similar to the popular 3D puzzle game Super Monkey Ball.  You control a ball that looks eerily similar to the Google Chrome logo.  You start at one end of the maze and have to roll your ball all the way across the maze in order to reach the destination.  There are plenty of pick-me-ups along the way.  If you download an app for your iPhone or Android device, you can take your hands off of the keyboard and control your ball by simply tilting your phone.

Super Monkey Ball is one of my many guilty pleasures, so I really enjoyed this game.  I liked its simplicity and minimalism.  Besides, there is something undeniably captivating about being able to “play” your favorite websites.  However, this game loses its luster rather quickly.  There is little to no difficulty curve, and the simplistic mechanics get rather stale after a while.  This game definitely has promise, but, as the game admits itself, it is more of a Chrome advertisement than a full-fledged Chrome game.

This is definitely a rather powerful idea.  I wonder if this idea will sprout wings and influence the design of other games in the future.  For example, what if levels were automatically generated based on the player’s hometown as seen in Google Earth?  Imagine catching Pokemon or resisting hordes of zombies in a world that looks very similar to your hometown.  As part of another “Chrome experiment”, the band Arcade Fire created a fascinating multimedia music video called The Wilderness Downtown that demonstrates this exact concept.  The listener plugs in the name of their hometown, and the music video integrates clips of the listener’s hometown from Google Earth into the entire multimedia experience.

If you would like to check this game out for yourself, fire up an instance of Google Chrome, type http://chrome.com/maze into your address bar, and have fun!

This entry was posted in Games. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply