Not Thriving: Antepiece

Worse; antepiece I can at least read as "item set before", whereas conveyance I read as a machine.

I think industry terms are better since they're the ones actually used about the subject. Making up a descriptive phrase that acts as a name isn't what I'd see as preferable when there's an actual name for it in use already, even if many people don't know about it. Part of being a wiki is about informing people of stuff they don't already know.

True, but using a term broader than the trope leads to other problems later on.

"Conveyance" is used to describe exactly what we're describing here, though, with the exception of the bit about "setpieces only", and our examples aren't setpieces only. So we could just slightly adjust the description to match the word and our usage.

(It might be the case that "conveyance" used to mean "anything used to convey the rules of play, including text" but the more interesting "play used to convey rules of play" is seemingly in the process of supplanting it.)

Basically, even if there's a broad sense and a narrow sense of the word conveyance and we're using the narrower sense, it's still an established term. And (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't troped in a while) I think we systematically favor using established terms for trope names. Alternatively, if we really aren't comfortable with the larger sense of conveyance existing, we should at least include the word "conveyance" in the trope name.

There are supertropes probably worth working on here. I'll leave it up to you guys to decide on snappy names for them. You are probably right "Another Duck" about missing supertrope becoming a problem.

The raised step from Super Metroid (currently in the article) isn't quite an example of an antepiece (is this the non-setpiece part you're talking about, Bailey? The rest are for quite specific activities that I recognize as "setpieces"). It does give you help with something you're about to do, but like... it also gives you help for the rest of the game. It can't be described as an "easier version of the escape sequence." What it is is simply a piece of "nonverbal tutorializing level design." Someone also added to this page the fact that at the very beginning of Metroid games, going right leads you eventually to a dead end. This communicates "you have to try going in multiple directions. You can't just go in the direction you usually go in 2D games." This is a great example of "nonverbal tutorializing level design", but is not an an antepiece by any measure.

I have an opinion about how the supertropes are arranged, you can do with it what you like. I don't want to make these articles myself, because as you can all see I am incapable of inventing sufficiently snappy titles. But I wouldn't mind contributing to them if they were made.

The supertrope is "things where game devs using level design to express things to you nonverbally". Antepieces are these.

"Nonverbal tutorializing level design" is another subtrope of "things where game devs using level design to express things to you nonverbally". Many, many games have nonverbal tutorializing level design, and I am pleased to see more games doing it every year. Nonverbal tutorializing level design, however, is not the same as "justified tutorial", which seems to me to be about story integration.

I will give yall another cute subtrope of "things where game devs using level design to express things to you nonverbally". The subtrope is "developer-engineered helpful accidents". There are less of these than there are antepieces, but trust me, it is a thing, and I actually tried to make use of it in a game I worked on recently called "Danny's Alphabet Run". Examples include:

• the second puzzle of test chamber 10 in Portal
• this part in catacomb abyss: [1]
• the wall slide-teaching part that egoraptor talks about in his video [2] - because the player doesn't really INTEND to end up in that little hole.
• The Metroid "go left" thing. As you can see, there's overlap here with "nonverbal tutorializing level design", but test chamber 10 in Portal is not really a tutorial, so you know, "all that gleams is not gold" or whatever.

I don't expect an article to be made out of that unless y'all can think of more examples. I'm just using it to point out the supertrope we're talking about here encompasses a LOT of different things, and the antepiece is itself a very respectable subtrope that should not be lumped in with everything else.

"Conveyance", by the way, is a hopelessly broad term. In the industry, people are more likely to talk about particle effects as the main form of what is recognized as "conveyance", and level design is second to that. I.e: the particle effect of megaman sliding down a wall is dead important for the player to realize that the slide is A Thing. It is arguably more important than the level design that encourages you to discover the slide for the first time.

edited 30th Sep '13 5:57:42 PM by hamishtodd1

If we use Conveyance, we'll need redirects.

That raised step in Super Metroid is the same as the beginning of Super Mario Bros. The only difference is that the latter shows off several more aspects.

Sorry, could you explain what you mean by this? They seem pretty different to me. The first jump you do in SMB is over a goomba.

I don't see any reason why you would contemplate changing this page's name to "conveyance". It is not what conveyance is.

Is there a functional difference to jump over a goomba compared to up on a step?

Yes, this is what conveyance is. But it's also more than this, a Super-Trope, if you want to go by the word as far as I understand its use. And broadening the definition has been suggested, which is appropriate considering the problem is "not thriving".

Well, there's a difference that makes the opening of SMB NOT an antepiece, because the goomba is quite threatening and that goes against our definition. The step is also "innocuous", seeming more like a simple part of the "scenery" than being something that is meant to be challenging (Again though, I don't think the step is a clear example of an antepiece at all)

How much would you say has to be added for the trope to be considered sufficiently "worthwhile"? I notice that since the refurbishment the article has now brought 851 people to tvtropes.org [1] I also made sure there are lots of articles linking to this one!

The way that I understand the word "conveyance", an article for it would have to list literally every video game ever made?

edited 1st Oct '13 2:35:15 PM by hamishtodd1

That's what we would call an Omnipresent Trope.

Now I'm not sure what you're saying. So the SMB is different in that it's NOT an example, unlike the Metroid one which also isn't? Both are examples. And whether or not they're clear examples isn't really the point. In fact, the better the trope is used, the less clear it is. The point is, after all, that it's something you shouldn't notice, as noticing it would break immersion.

I've not said anything has to be added for it to be "worthwhile". (And why quote the word?)

And no, it wouldn't have to list every single video game ever made.

In what sense is the first jump of SMB an antepiece? An antepiece is an easy version of a hard thing to come. The SMB goomba is threatening (you can die), and challenging (you can try to kill the goomba), and carries a reward in itself (you can get points from killing the goomba). Antepieces are innocuous - they are not very striking if you look at them in isolation from the setpiece they are joined to. This goomba is very striking indeed.

I'm really worried that "antepiece" is being mistaken for "any piece of level design that introduces an idea". That's not what antepieces are. That's the supertrope.

And I put 'worthwhile' in quotes because I am not sure how you guys would phrase the question we are asking here. I was guessing the question is "is the antepice article worthwhile?". It's fair enough to ask "is it worthwhile set aside from other level design/game design things?"

edited 2nd Oct '13 4:39:51 AM by hamishtodd1

If it's just an easy thing that's followed by a hard thing, it's just scaling difficulty, so you could essentially list just about ever puzzle game ever.

An easy VERSION of a hard thing. There has to be a very close link between the setpiece and the antepiece. I made these pictures for a reason:

http://postimg.org/image/pby5vy35d/ http://postimg.org/image/punoo1glh/ http://postimg.org/image/8optav9hd/ (you enter this room from the top, so you do the two-door thing before the three-door thing). [1]◊

edited 2nd Oct '13 4:58:58 AM by hamishtodd1

^^ You mean Difficulty Ramp. (Wait what, we don't have that?)

edited 2nd Oct '13 5:11:39 AM by Stratadrake

YOU DON'T HAVE ANY LEVEL DESIGN ARTICLES!

I've found out that someone made an "instructive level design" trope and then put absolutely nothing in it. I am bulking up that into the supertrope that shall contain "antepiece". Change the name of "instructive level design" if you like. Better yet, help contribute to it.

So there are no harder jumps over goombas it prepares you for? For the purpose of the trope, I don't see the difference between an enemy as an obstacle and a stair of blocks as an obstacle. And how explicit does it need to be? Does it just need to contain the same element, or does it need to be exactly the same with only a few differences to make it easier?

I'm sorry, I should clarify the SMB example. It is from the bottom of this webpage by the way: [1]

It's not the jump across the gap that is exactly the hard part. The hard aspect is jumping up the stairs and landing on the top step without overjumping and going into the pit. Do you know what I mean? It's a bit more sophisticated than just "a jump" or indeed "a jump with a small run up".

edited 2nd Oct '13 8:27:28 AM by hamishtodd1

Instructive Level Design and Teaching Through Accident are products of this topic, yes? Because if so, they are draft articles that should be sandboxes or YKTTWs, and not in Main/.

Instructive level design was there before me, I just added stuff to it.

The only other name has only one edit on that page, and it's not the first one.

Are you sure?

I don't see how that makes it different. The level of sophistication doesn't really make it a different trope.

There was nothing on the page, but it was there. I don't know what that indicates.

Anyway I've put "learning through accident" in YKTTW. As for Instructive level design, it seems obvious to me that it is a bonafide supertrope. I don't know what the rules are on supertropes though and I've not been able to find them with basic googling. Would you mind doing whatever needs to be done here yourself?

edited 2nd Oct '13 10:26:03 AM by hamishtodd1

Alrighty, this is worthwhile clarification.

Sophistication levels do matter to this trope. Antepieces exist to give approachability to something that is complex.

The "jump up stairs" setpiece appears only once, and it has that antepiece. The challenge to "jump on a goomba" appears many times throughout the game in many guises - it is not a *single* setpiece. An antepieces is a thing that is paired with a setpiece. When a piece of level design exists to teach you a rule of the game that is relevant to so many things, that's not an antepiece, that's just general rule-teaching.

So I might say it's not exactly about the antepiece and the setpiece being EXACTLY the same, but about a pairing being very clear. Make sense?