XR Design Analysis: Pistol Whip’s Aggressive and Chaotic Gunplay
Note: Updated article on April 19th, 2021 to reflect how scoring for pistol-whips (melees) were dependent on the velocity of the players’ swing. Thanks to the Pistol Whip team for this correction!
Preface
Hey! I’m Tejas, a professional XR developer who has been working in the industry for a little over 4 years. When learning more about my craft, my attention has always zipped back to the field of games and game design. Not only are games pushing technological change in entertainment, but the range of games produced varies from hit blockbusters to smaller emotional stories.
In learning more about how games are made as well as the design involved in structuring a game, I’ve decided to start writing blog posts that reflect my thoughts on immersive design, which in turn make me reflect on my own design choices when building my own experiences. As a starting point, I’ll be talking about one of my favorite VR games, Pistol Whip by Cloudhead Games.
Introduction
Pistol Whip is a rhythm-based shooter where you shoot, dodge, and pistol-whip your way through a series of EDM-sourced levels and are rewarded by how often your shots line up to the beat of the music. The game then tallies your score based on several factors, including the accuracy of hitting enemies and how many times you were hit by enemy bullets.
There is a lot to unpack when talking about the design of Pistol Whip, from its introductory space, its cinema-esque menu system, in-game UI, and level design. Today we are going to talk about one of the core elements of Pistol Whip; its gunplay. Let’s get started.
Pistol Whips gunplay is chaotic and sometimes messy, but if the game wants you to do one thing, it is to be aggressive and active in taking down the swarm of faceless enemies you encounter. The game encourages this type of playstyle by allowing you to shoot, dodge, and pistol-whip in a way that feels satisfying and fulfills that John Wick fantasy.
Shooting
Let’s start with shooting, one of the more basic concepts in Pistol Whip. Not only is it easy to do via using one button, but it is an action that should be very familiar with a majority of players.
Now, I’m sure most of you have heard of game loops, which is a diagram that presents how a player could be engaged in a continuous loop. But game loops usually lack the details required to adequately analyze how a game pushes the player using systems. As an example, this is what Pistol Whips’ shooting game loop might look like. It describes the core loop of how players earn points for shooting enemies.
In contrast, here is a flow of the players’ action to shoot. This shows more of the details and decision points presented to the player, including when they should fire their weapon and how the game responds to the player if the player hits an enemy. This flow is simplified for this conversation, but let’s go through it together.
Deciding To Fire
Before the player fires a shot, they have to spot an enemy, then they have to check if they have enough bullets to fire their gun. Assuming they do, the player fires their gun at an enemy.
Taking Down Different Enemies
Let us assume that they successfully hit an enemy. Depending on the type of enemy hit, the enemy is killed or loses some armor. Enemies with no armor on their bodies will take 1 shot to kill, enemies with vests take 2 shots, and enemies with helmets take 4 four shots to kill. If the enemy is killed, the player receives some points based on accuracy and rhythm.
Replenishing Armor
The player also has a health system in the form of armor. This armor is depleted when players take a hit, and if players are hit without armor, the game session ends. One of the ways a players’ armor can be replenished is by shooting a specific number of enemies. In this way, shooting an enemy can potentially replenish the players’ armor. This also encourages the player to become aggressive instead of defensive when they are hit.
I hope you can see the difference between loops and flows, and how flows can provide more details to developers and designers around what is going on when players take specific actions.
Dodging
Dodging is a way to get your entire body involved with responding to enemy actions, because as we mentioned, taking an enemy bullet depletes our armor, and taking a hit with no armor means game over.
Because of how enemies spawn into the level, the player has to constantly move around in their space, sometimes making it difficult to shoot at the right angle without getting clipped. But this difficulty adds to the players’ vulnerability and raises the takes that push them to avoid a game-over state.
The act of avoiding bullets could have been implemented using some sort of shield or block action, but I don’t think that would push the player to be as active as they are now.
The only suggestion or addition I would have made to dodging is giving the player a score depending on how close they grazed a bullet or had a close call. This reward would push players to have more of a daredevil personality and provide an extra challenge that could boost an overall score.
Pistol-Whips (Melees)
Lastly, we have pistol-whips or melees, when the player bashes their gun into an enemy within their spatial range. Pistol-whipping an enemy automatically replenishes the players’ armor and gives the player points based on the velocity of their swing.
Along with the crunchy satisfaction of pistol-whipping an enemy, enemies are designed to give their player armor back after moments where dodging bullets is difficult. For example, the following is a section where enemies continuously spawn to the sides of the player, increasing the chances of the player being hit.
The enemies rushing towards the player allow players to replenish their armor if they do get hit. Without any enemies to pistol-whip, this section would be punishing and creates a barrier to achieving that John Wick fantasy.
Conclusion
The combination of shooting, dodging, and pistol-whipping keeps the player engaged, physically active, and participating in the overall fantasy the game creates, adding to its satisfaction and replayability.
I hope this post helped to deconstruct Pistol Whips gunplay design, and I’ll see everyone in the next one.
