Loading Screen: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
[[File:vcs_loading_8006vcs loading 8006.jpg|link=Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories|frame|''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games give you both a progress bar, and pretty pictures.]]
 
 
{{quote|''Come and take a peep at all these loading screens;
''And tell me have you seen
''All that the load can bring?
''Just a little somethin' while the cartoon loads,
''Watch a looping animation that you can behold!''|'''Coach Z''', '''[[Homestar Runner]]''' }}
 
In [[Video Games]], loading new data such as the next level takes time. Just throwing up a black screen during the process might cause players to think the game isn't working. In order to prevent this, the loading screen was born. It might be as simple as the word "Loading" on the black screen or might include colourful animation or progress bars to show that, "no really, the game ''is'' working on something right now..."
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Loading screens can also be found in [[Web Animation|Flash animations]]. If they go for ''too'' long, it results in [[Loads and Loads of Loading]].
 
{{examples|Examples of in-game justification of Loading Screens}}
* ''[[Command & Conquer]]'':
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* ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'' has the elevators between test chambers.
* Any time you switch the time of day in a town or Entrance Stage in the Xbox 360 version of ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]'', the loading screen to form the new area takes on the image of Sonic switching his current form.
** For the [[PlayStationPlay Station 3]], it was turned into a medallion (same one as in the hourglasses) switching between its sun and moon sides.
* ''[[Hostile Waters]]'' shows its pre-mission loading screens as the Antaeus' current position as it closes on another island in the chicane.
* Lampshaded in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]]'', when Link visits the fortune teller in Castle Town. As she looks into the crystal ball, she chants, "Elihwa sekat gnidaol... tiaw..." (Try reading it backwards.)
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* Loading screens in most versions of ''[[Shadow of the Beast]]'' showed little snippets about your eyes adjusting to the dim light, or returning to the overworld to find its air scorching hot, reaffirming your determination to etc. Simple, effective, bloody rare.
** The original Amiga version had also loading screens with images depicting the present location and text descriptions scrolling below those images. While in the C64 version the loading screens were text-only, there were more of them with more text than in the Amiga version. However, the actual loading times were still shorter in the C64 version, which was released on the cartridge <ref>While some of the early games for C64 were released on cartridges, the storage capacity of these cartridges was very limited when compared to cassettes or disks. However, C64 received later more advanced cartridge format, which was supported by both the original C64 and commercially failed [[wikipedia:Commodore 64 Games System|C64GS]]. Unfortunately very few games were released on these new cartridges despite both the high amount of available space and short loading/data access times. However, Shadow of the Beast was one of these and benefitted greatly from the format.</ref> (although there is at least one cracked disk version based on the data of the cartridge release) while the Amiga version was on floppies with no direct hard drive support.
* Several games show controller mappings during loading.
* The loading screen for the [[ZX Spectrum]] version of ''[[Chuckie Egg]]'' (ask your granddad) included a list of the default keys used for playing the game, making this [[Older Than the NES]].
** ''[[Chuckie Egg]]'' for [[ZX Spectrum]], making this [[Older Than the NES]].
** Another [[ZX Spectrum]] example was ''Quazatron'', which had text loading screens describing some of the concepts and backstory for the game.
** ''[[Need for Speed]]'' games on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
** Another [[ZX Spectrum]] example was ''Quazatron'', which had text loading screens describing some of the concepts and backstory for the game.
* ''[[Mercenaries]]: Playground of Destruction'' displays biographical information on the main characters, factions and "Deck of 52" members, as well as weapon, vehicle and air strike information and gameplay tips.
* Several ''[[Burnout]]'' games display "Have you seen..." messages on the loading screens, giving you a sneak peek at upcoming levels and cars. Of course, it keeps doing it regardless of whether you have seen it or not.
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* The ''[[Guitar Hero]]'' and ''[[Rock Band]]'' series include either general jokes about the music industry, band stereotypes, or factoids about the band whose song you are about to play.
** However, when you try to play [[That One Boss|"Through the Fire and Flames"]] on expert in ''[[Guitar Hero]] III'', the only message the loading screen displays is ''[[This Is Gonna Suck|"Good Luck."]]''
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls FourIV: Oblivion]]'' has this too and moreover, many "tips of the day" are deliberately ''false'', in accordance to the "ambiguous history" doctrine that all in-game books follow: no event in Tamrielic lore is described uniformly across different sources.
** The Xbox port of ''[[Morrowind]]'' shows gameplay tips in the loading screens that would show up whenever you load a new or saved game, or when you use one of the [[Warp Whistle|Warp Whistles]]s in the game. Compare this to the PC version of the game, which simply shows creature art in its loading screens.
** ''[[Skyrim]]'' also displays tips and bits of lore while loading, but also displays a relevant 3D model that can be rotated and zoomed with the right stick.
* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4: Guns of the Patriots'', Snake smokes for twenty minutes while it installs data onto your hard drive. It also has many messages, including one about how smoking will kill you. when it's done, Snakes acknowledges that he "Kept you waiting?"
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* ''[[Star Wars: Dark Forces|Jedi Knight]]'' had the mission's overall objective appear on the loading screen. On new computers reading these are impossible as loading is very quick.
** ''Jedi Outcast'' would show you your stats for the level you had just finished, while ''Jedi Academy'' would show you the objectives for the mission you're loading and what weapons you decided to take with you.
* ''[[BioshockBioShock (series)]]'''s loading screens included a combination of ominous/interesting excerpts from the game's audio-diaries and gameplay tips.
** In ''Bioshock 2'' it's even better,as during loading you can hear golden oldies being played.
* In addition to being disguised loading screens, the elevator sequences in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' often give world-building information either through on-board announcements or in conversations between your teammates.
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* ''[[Naruto]]: Ultimate Ninja'' shows a few things during loading screens, such as Lee doing push-ups, Gamakichi hopping, and Tayuya playing a flute.
* ''Toontown Online'' has a so-called "ToonTip" on each of its loading screens. Usually, the tip is related to the area you're in, such as a racing tip at Goofy Speedway or a general gameplay tip when entering the game (which itself is a longer loading screen that always pauses 2/3 of the way through after a constant rate of movement for the load bar, and then finishes loading, followed by ANOTHER load screen for the place you're going to.)
* After hitting the X button to start loading a level in ''[[Little Big PlanetLittleBigPlanet]]'' (Story, Create Mode or otherwise), the screen shows information about the level on the "Pod Computer" screen. You can move the left stick to change windows between level information, items collected in the level, and popularity and tags (if an online level), with your Sackperson moving the Pod Computer (which is pretty much a [[PlayStationPlay Station 3]] controller) controls the same way. Also part of the loading is the word "Loading..." slowly rotating around the level icon on the planet or moon, and a running, monochromatic Sackboy with two arrows circling him in the lower left-hand corner. Unlike in most games, the loading can be cancelled mid-load by pressing the Circle button. (Sackboy only touches the buttons to load a level or cancel a load. But he always moves the analog sticks in response to the player's controller.) When the loading is done, the level icon literally "unzips" around the edge and the camera goes into it, with a white light followed by Sackboy popping out of the Entry Barrel in said level. Returning to the Pod from a level doesn't take as long to load, but the camera still does the white-light thing.
** The "Loading Sackboy" animation sometimes is switched out for a spinning globe inside the arrows when transferring data to or from the online servers. Frequently appears while playing with other players online, even mid-level.
* ''Star Wars: Empire at War'' and its Expansion give information on whichever planet (or asteroid field in one case, planetary debris in another case in the expansion), including planetary bonus', advantages, some background info, a preview of the battlefield, the planetary conditions, and the name of the predominate species(s), with a picture if that planet has militia.
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* Loading screens before multiplayer matches in ''[[The Conduit]]'' display a screen of the current match settings, along with information text and trivia about the game's various weapons.
* In ''[[Overlord II]]'', Gnarl will provide either gameplay help of odd bits of advice (like "Don't bring a succubus home to meet your mother.")
* The [[Loads and Loads of Loading|atrocious loading screens]] in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 (video game)||Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'' provide a "helpful" map of the area that is loading, or else remind you what buttons to press during gameplay to perform certain tasks.
* [[The Darkness]] uses loading screens to show monologues from the lead character which further the plot.
* ''[[Unreal Tournament 2004]]'' and onwards would show hints and a picture of the upcoming map during loading screens. ''[[Killing Floor]]'', running on the same engine, does the same, though the hints are limited to info on what you're going to be killing for the next half hour or so.
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*** In skirmish and multiplayer for ''Red Alert 2'', a map of your selected country would be displayed, with information on that country's special unit or ability. (Like USA's Paradrop, Russia's Tesla Tank, Yuri's [[Department of Redundancy Department|Yuri Prime]])
* ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield]]'' games typically show some sort of information about the battle you're going to join in its loading screens - ''Battlefield 2'' would show an overhead map of the area, for instance, showing the default placement of control posts. ''Bad Company 2'' goes a step further, where, for instance, joining a server shows its message of the day and has a clickable button asking if you'd like to automatically be assigned to a squad, and loading a new map from that server shows a scoreboard listing the experience and pins you've gained in the last round.
 
 
== Examples of mini-games included in Loading Screens ==
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* Long before any of those was ''[[Invade A Load]]'', the tape loader for several games published by [[Mastertronic]] for [[Commodore 64]] home computers. It was a clone of [[Taito]]'s ''[[Space Invaders]]'' that could be played for five to ten minutes while the main game was loading from the C64's very slow cassette interface. ''Ghostbusters'' on C64 featured this. [http://www.lemon64.com/games/list.php?type=publisher&name=Players+Software Players Software], too, used this kind of loader at least in some of its games (such as [http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=1377 Joe Blade]. C64 loader games have even been trotted out on forums as prior art to potentially invalidate Namco's patent.
* In ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]. Brawl'', when playing online, you get to a training screen after you choose character and stage where you can practice with your character on a simple stage against a sandbag. Not as much loading as waiting for the other players to choose, but still...
** [[Game Mod|Game Mods]]s for Brawl replace one of the tournament-banned stages with that training room so as to have more neutral stages in [[Tournament Play]]: Brawl+ replaces New Pork City, while Balanced Brawl cuts Hanenbow. Why anyone would want '''two''' Final Destinations is beyond us.
* ''[[Phantasy Star]] Online'' has 2. When you first start the game (after picking your character) you get to control a little ball of light until the game loads. When you are going through a warp you can control the "Warp Rings."
** In Episode 3 you get to play a little tune and change the background color while waiting (which isn't as fun as the little ball of light).
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== Other Examples ==
* In the 80's Commodore 64 (along with many other computers from the same period) used tapes as storage medium for both homebrew and commercial software. While the accessories of C64 included also a disk drive and while disks were also quite common medium, many individual owners at least in Europe had only tape recorders. This resulted in [[Loads and Loads of Loading]] with commercial games. Eventually it became common for publishers to include loading screens and music for player to watch and listen while waiting for the loading to finish (while commercial games often used their own loading software to make loading faster, the increasing size of games meant that loading times were still notable). The tape releases of ''The Last Ninja'' and ''Last Ninja 2'' were notable for having individual loading themes for every single level .<ref>Disk release of the former had no music during loading. However, it had separate title screen, which played the loading themes of the tape release in the background for those who wanted to listen to them. While the disk release of the sequel did not play the music during loading, either, it did show the loading screen for the next level and played the respective loading theme of the tape release ''until'' player pressed fire and the disk version would actually start loading the level.</ref>. Other "gimmicks" include slowly drawing the picture during loading (often used by Ocean) and having scrolling text in one of the loading screens with additional information .<ref>Used also in the tape releases of The Last Ninja, Last Ninja 2 and Last Ninja Remix (later rerelease of Last Ninja 2 with new intro and entirely new soundtrack - unfortunately without separate loading themes).</ref>.
* The first ''[[Civilization]]'' is remembered for its epic slideshow during world generation. When ''Civ IV'' came around they got [[Leonard Nimoy]] to do it as a voice-over.
{{quote|In the beginning, the Earth was without form, and void.}}
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** ''LocoRoco 2'' has a MuiMui slowly digging a tunnel for treasure. It is ''not'' related to how much a stage or menu is loaded, though actually makes and keeps its own progress as the game is played and amounts to a [[Collection Sidequest]], although there's a chance the treasure is a dud.
* Loading a foreign ''Pokémon'' [[Game Boy]] game on ''[[Pokémon Stadium]]'' or ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver|Pokémon Crystal]]'' in ''Pokémon Stadium 2'' showed a pic of the player's party in 3D.
* Older games might actually tell you what they were loading. ''[[The Sims]]'' and some of the ''[[Sim CitySimCity]]'' games spoofed this by including ridiculous actions such as "hyper-activating children" and the ever popular "reticulating splines." More realistic in ''SimCopter'', where the stuff that you see during the loading screen is probably close to what's done when preparing a helicopter for a flight.
** ''[[Spore]]'' does this as well ("disinfecting germ cells...", "reticulating [[PunA Worldwide Punomenon|spines]]"), so much that it's fun to see when it's saying what it's loading and when it's a joke. It also shows a "You may encounter" list of critters and buildings at the bottom of the screen.
** So does ''[[World of Goo]]'' on startup, listing its status variously as <small>placating publishers...</small> <small>arguing games as art...</small> <small>testing ozone...</small>
** This also shows up in ''[[The Impossible Quiz]] 2'', which even includes the "reticulating splines" message. This is immediately followed by a message saying "Stealing loading messages from ''The Sims''..."
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** ''[[Garry's Mod]]'' normally tells what it's actually doing during a load screen, but if it takes more than a few seconds to load something it'll start showing nonsense like [[Valve/Memes|"Breaking update" or "Delaying Episode 3"]].
*** Many games using the Source engine has the ability to display a loading screen, and a loading bar with the actual loading messages for debugging purposes. Garry's Mod's load screen can get a little confusing because sometimes it echoes the actual loading message, and other times it shows nonsense. However, the real loading message is also helpful in showing why it's taking so long (it may be downloading a multi-megabyte custom map with several custom models and sounds from a congested server if you're playing online, for example).
** The [[Lucas ArtsLucasArts]] game ''[[Afterlife]]'' does it as well ("Love is: never having to say XX% loaded...").
** Certain Facebook games do this as well, two examples being Zoo World 2 ([[Incredibly Lame Pun|making the cheetahs honest, tocking the ticks]]) and Cat Rescue (stalking a mouse).
** Some games running on ''[[Quake III Arena]]'''s engine do this for multiplayer as well - later games in the [[Dark Forces Saga]] for instance say they are loading various items and whatnot, ending by loading data from each player currently in the server before finally initializing the map.
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* ''Mickey Mania'' has a loading screen animation of Mickey checking his watch while the game decompresses data from the cartridge. And the game is entirely worth the waits.
** The [[Sega Genesis]] version doesn't use this, however, since it loads much faster.
* The ''[[Lego Adaptation Game|Lego Adaptation Games]]s'' tend to have loading screens that are nods to their source material. For example, Lego Star Wars has story-recapping text scrolls, while Lego Indiana Jones imitates the red-line-moving-across-a-map transition.
* It's unusual for a webcomic to get a mention on this page, but ''[[Homestuck]]'' has certainly earned its place with [http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002037 the Sburb loading screen.] Its Flash updates have loading screens too, but they're nothing special, usually.
** It's worth nothing that in the official book, [[Andrew Hussie]] mentioned that it took him hours to complete that flash. Why? Well, partially because flash is time-consuming, but mostly because [[Doing It for the Art|he literally sat down and wrote over a hundred different Sims-style loading screen messages that flash along the bottom.]] If you're attentive, you might be able to catch ''six'' of them.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]
[[Category:Loading Screen{{PAGENAME}}]]