Multiplayer adds potentially infinite replayability to a game.  The problem is, once you have all your players connected together, you need to think up something for them to do.  You risk players getting bored if you don’t give them a clear goal.  Generally, there are two things they can be doing:  cooperating or competing.  Today’s post will focus on one specific type of competitive gameplay:  control point maps as made famous in Day of Defeat.

Day of Defeat

Day of Defeat

At first there was deathmatch.  The idea behind it is simple:  lock all the players in a map and give them guns and tell them to go at it.  This is fun at first, but doesn’t involve any kind of group dynamics.  It can quickly grow stale.  So, along came team deathmatch, capture the flag, and finally control point maps.

Control point maps require the two competing teams to occupy various nodes on the game map.  The nodes are arranged in a linear fashion and the proceeding point must be owned to capture the next.  The first team to capture all of the control points on a map wins the round.

Why do I think control point maps are interesting and an example of good game design?  They directly involve the geography of the map.  They allow the map creator to place control points near natural bottlenecks and force players to think strategically.  They also force players to reevaluate their strategies constantly, as when one control point falls or is captured the “front line” with the enemy shifts to a new place on the map.  It creates a very fluid experience which is exciting for the players.

I think we will continue to see this style of gameplay evolve.  Day of Defeat and Team Fortress 2, the two main games that use control point maps, are huge successes.  Other gamemakers would do well to emulate the thought put into their multiplayer modes, as well as think up new ones.