The Art Of Collection (or "Shoot The Pigeons")

You can often (not always!) tell how good a game is by the length of time you play it . Most games will try to prolong your game experience using collectible "items" which are collected by the player. These items come in many shapes and forms from skulltullas and heart pieces (Zelda), dog tags (Metal gear) to shooting pigeons (GTA4) : even Xbox achievements and PSN Home trophies could be considered types of collectibles.

Trouble is, for this technique to work, you need to reward the player adequately or they simply wont bother. In "Assasins Creed", for example, you can collect flags from each of the different areas in the game which is fun to start with as you jump around the well designed cathedrals and buildings but there is no reward at all (although, if you play the 360 version, you get an achievement!) : no new combat moves, no new area of the map unlocked, no extras (artwork etc) so what's the point? Where's the initial incentive?

Sometimes you get rewarded but the reward is of little value to the player... obtaining 200 stars in Mario Galaxy takes a lot of patience and time but the reward is the ability to replay the WHOLE game from the beginning to end with Luigi, another character. Umm... no thanks! How about an "unlimited flying abilty" or perhaps the ability to change into any Mario Costume (ie "Bee Mario" or "Ghost Mario") at any time you like? That's surely more of an incentive? Beating Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) means you can eat lizard tails and maximise your grip meter until you are finally able to climb to the "secret" garden.... what a letdown to find just a magic fruit which , if eaten, damages yours health permanently ... thank you, how very thoughtful of you!

There are thousands of examples of bad "collectible design" ... most of them seem to be added as an afterthought or quickly glued on at the end of a development cycle. For me, getting collectible design right is crucial if a game is going to be successful. I can think of two great examples to argue my case :

(1) Call Of Duty 4 : finding all the computers in the game means you can mess around with all the graphical settings, enhance special effects (eg explosions) and obtain umlimited ammo. Infinity Ward even took the time to insert a stats item in the pause menu so you could see how many you were still missing from a particular level. Also note that to obtain the rewards didnt mean that you had to collect them all...
(2) GTA4 - Rockstar, the "masters of Collectibles", took it to a whole new level. Simple as it sounds , instead of finding a collectible, they made you LISTEN for it (pigeons) as well... a stroke of genius , and so simple. Also, at nightime , you can see an orange light glowing around the pigeons. And what do you get for finding all 200? Find out yourself , its well worth it, I can assure you!

Is it a coincidence that both these games are huge top sellers ? I certainly dont think so... it's simply masterful design from skillfull, clever and dedicated developers.. nothing else. I have to go now.. I am off to find some more pigeons to shoot…