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No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: Difference between revisions
No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom (view source)
Revision as of 16:27, 23 November 2023
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[[File:linear.jpg|link=Star Wars: Dark Forces
{{quote|''"What's that? You still have the illusion of freedom? Nope! Go take a long walk down a straight hallway for forty hours!"''|[[VG Cats]] #[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=293 281]: ''Subtlety'', as a reference to ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]''}}
Just as a gamemaster in a [[Tabletop Games|tabletop game]] may create [[Broken Bridge|artificial rules, boundaries and obstacles]] to keep his players on the game track that he has designated (a procedure known as [[Railroading]]), so too a video game may employ such tactics in order to force the player down a [[
Technically, '''No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom''' is the polar opposite of the [[Quicksand Box]]; it describes level architecture which forces the player down a singular path. This trope is most common in [[First-Person Shooter|First-]] or [[Third-Person Shooter|Third Person Shooters]] (except, usually, tactical shooters) and platform games, wherein the challenge is generally supposed to be the enemies and/or [[Malevolent Architecture|obstacles]], not in figuring out which way to go. It can also crop up in RPGs as a very visual form of [[Railroading]]. The trope is forgivable in 2D [[Platform Game]]s such as ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'', which allow only forward progression due entirely to the limitations of the geometry; not everything is a [[Metroidvania]]. It only applies in situations where, intuitively, you'd ''think'' there might be other areas of a place to explore, but these are [[The Law of Conservation of Detail|not implemented because they are not plot-important]].
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Not to be confused with scripted games such as [[Adventure Game]]s or [[Action Adventure]] which use more subtle techniques to keep the player from going [[Off the Rails]] of the game's plot. Some of them do have levels that resemble this—Compare [[Maze]]—or a [[Closed Circle]] series of rooms; but it's generally frowned upon in [[Interactive Fiction]] unless it's essentially a [[Cutscene]].
See also [[Broken Bridge]], [[The Law of Conservation of Detail]], [[Space-Filling Path]], [[
{{examples}}
* Most of ''Makeruna! Makendou Z'', with the exception of the jungle towards the end (where you could end up going in circles). Only one item pickup in the game, and you can't even revisit old areas. It's even mentioned in [https://web.archive.org/web/20100311084034/http://www.pcenginefx.com/PC-FX/html/pc-fx_world_-_game_reviews_-_m.html the review]
* In ''[[Final Fantasy]]'', beginning with the first game it's traditional to start with a nearly linear path, and either ease up over the course of the game or just dump you into a 'sandbox with a story' after a few hours. Once you get the ship or airship, the world opens up and [[Sequence Breaking]] is sometimes possible.
** ''[[Final Fantasy II]]'' is the only one that gives you total freedom of exploration at the start, and even then, [[Beef Gate|accomplishing that is a feat in itself.]]
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