S.T.A.L.K.E.R., part three

As players travel round the game world, they're going to run into various anomalies. What role do these anomalies play, and what different types of anomaly are there?

Yavorsky: Anomalies are very representative of the Zone world and can be named [as] one of the core gameplay elements. Effectively, anomalies are spots of dangerous (and even deadly) weird energy plentiful in the Zone. Should you spot a bizarre air vibration, whirling dance of flying leaves, electric charges crackling in the clear air or any other strange air activity, be cautious.

Many of the anomalies are invisible and require special detection gear the player will use in the game. The cheapest anomaly detector you can get in the game is a metal bolt: throw it in front of you to see how the bolt lands - if the fall trajectory is normal, the area should be safe, otherwise beware.

Protection suits and certain artifacts applied may secure some protection against anomalies. However, for safety reasons, it is strongly recommended to avoid stepping into anomalies at any time. Importantly, it is anomalies that generate artifacts around them. So a good stalker should know all the anomalies by heart.

Here's a couple of anomalies examples from the game:"Vortex"is a gravitation-type anomaly that drags everything within the radius of 10-15 yards into its hub, raises its victim up in the air only to tear them apart with a mighty energy discharge seconds later. Vortex can generate three different artifacts:"Wrenched", "Gravi" and "Goldfish."

"Burner"is another type of anomaly, which in calm conditions lookslikea cloud of hot air. Once triggered by an object or creature, the anomaly heats up instantly to lethal temperatures of about 1500K. At nighttime "Burner" can be revealed with powerful detectors or by throwing metal objects into the trigger area. The typical Burner-generated artifacts are Droplets, Fireball and Crystal.

What happened with vehicles?

Yavorsky: We implemented a whole bunch of vehicles in the game, ranging from old Soviet small cars (Zaporozhets, Lada Niva etc) to trucks (Kamaz), APC and even a tractor. After a series of play-testing, however, we came to the conclusion that vehicles just don't fit, neither the gameplay we wanted to achieve, nor the concept of the Zone.

To explain in more detail, the game balance was constructed with cautious play-through and area exploration in mind. The player is meant to use detectors to check for anomalies and keep safe by meticulously avoiding them. The concept, however, doesn't work with vehicles. Indeed, there is not much fun driving50 m.p.h.in a Lada only to get constantly trapped and killed in anomalies. Vehicles have simply provenincompatible with the Zone.