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Game Developers Share Tricks to Fool Players and Create Immersive Experiences

After Starfield players realized that the game’s rain system was simply a “box” that the developers placed around the character to simulate a weather phenomenon, developers from various studios decided to share their “tricks” with which they trick gamers.

It all started with Reddit post, which demonstrated that rain in Starfield is just a limited number of drops falling on a localized space. As it turns out, this is a common technique that developers use to create the illusion of rain everywhere, saving resources on rendering a huge number of drops.

Tom Francis, lead effects artist at Red Hook Games, noted that Bethesda could have avoided this if they had simply attached the “rain box” to the camera rather than to the character model.

Creator of Iron Lungone of the scariest indie games of 2022, was shocked that players found out about this deception.

Other developers joined the discussion to talk about interesting development tricks or just make fun of us players.

Wait until they find out that all those elevator rides, leaning against walls, etc. are just loading screens in disguise

world designer from Bungie, Colleen McGregor

Indie developer Robin Johnson shared that “enemies often intentionally shoot worse when the player’s back is turned to them,” adding, “This has changed the way I think about games. Your goal is not to simulate a world, but to create an experience.”

Every time a AAA game comes out, players lose their minds because it’s not a perfect simulation of reality, but actually one of the best things about games is how they’re made out of a bunch of weird gimmicks

Marika Redmood

Many of these “revelations” may seem obvious to those who have worked in game development, but it’s still interesting when a group of professionals share their unique perspectives and look behind the scenes.

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