Blog Post

Orcs Must Die! Design Analysis

I haven't been moved to write one of these for a while, as you might have noticed. However, I started up a game called Orcs Must Die! today, and I am enjoying it pretty thoroughly. I had just finished hurling a column of hunched, waddling orcs into a pit full of acid with a wind spell and was watching my character drop some ridiculous dance moves when it occurred to me that the game was, on the whole, pretty silly. Orcs Must Die! uses silliness pretty effectively to create a fun and satisfying game, and that's what I want to examine here.

Watch this so you know what I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pioXot-rQ2U

Orcs Must Die! is a game about an apprentice whose master has just died defending a Rift from invading hordes of orcs. In a departure from tradition, said apprentice is not wracked with grief, but is instead rather excited to have acquired his master's tome of traps and spells ("Rest well, crazy old man!"). He takes up the task of defending various Rifts from the aforementioned hordes of orcs who would like nothing better than to fling themselves into them.

The reason Orcs Must Die! is so successful as a game is that it knows exactly what it wants to be. By that over-used saw, I mean that the developers had one guiding goal or theme for the game, it that theme is present in all parts of it. For Orcs Must Die!, the theme is "just have fun!" The short introduction cutscene sets the tone quite nicely, and the effect is maintained by the gameplay. At every point in the game, the design maintains in the player the sense of non-seriousness it begins with. Between the orc graphics, which are certainly cartoony in a Bastion sort of way, to the trap designs, which include such things as plates that fling orcs down the hall and the classic falling chandelier, there are certainly enough reminders of fun anywhere the player turns. Perhaps the best, though, is the character himself. The game is third person, and the main character has a definite identity seperate from the player. He keeps up a stream of snarky comments ("Here, mister orcky orcky") ("Gee, I hope no one gets hurt. Eh...not really.") that are the best anchor for the well-crafted atmosphere of "just have fun".

Of course, I don't believe that games that don't say "just have fun" are bad. Amnesia, for example, is themed after mystery and horror and of course suceeds in creating a game focused on just that. Where games fail is when they lose sight of the overarching themes they began with. The serious opening cutscene narrated by the character's master serves only to make the main character even more comical by contrast when it becomes clear that the game is not as dire as he makes out. A game similar to Orcs Must Die! that is, in my opinion, less successful in this field is Dungeon Defenders. It is strikingly similar, in fact, so it makes an excellent comparision. It has the potential and the setup to be a comical and fun experience like Orcs Must Die! - the opening describes how the four heroes that protect the land are lost, and it's up to their apprentices (miniature and caricaturized versions of the heroes themselves) to do so. Dungeon Defenders, however, loses sight of this theme in the midst of an RPG-style leveling and equipment system that is very reminiscent of games like Torchlight. It too uses a cartoony graphics style but there is little beyond that that follows up on any kind of overarching goal, and the themes of the game during gameplay don't extend much beyond "medieval style".

Now, there are a lot of Orcs Must Die! vs. Dungeon Defenders discussions on the internet, and they show that while these themes are important, people often buy games on criteria other than how fun the game was. On commenter said, "I'm waving on the side of Dungeon Defenders even tho I enjoyed the OMD demo a lot more," referring to the higher expected replayability offered by Dungeon Defenders by its RPG elements and multiplayer support. Themes and atmosphere are clearly not the only elements that make a successful game, but they factor in significantly.