Wintermute Engine Forum
Game development => Game design => Topic started by: Mnemonic on October 11, 2003, 01:02:17 PM
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Inspired by a poll on another server, I decided to post a similar question here. So what do you think?
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I choose the "Gabriel Knight" option like you. But I really think that it depends on the game. For example the "immortal character" works pretty well in games like Monkey Island, Day of the tentacle etc. On the other hand an immortal character in GK series would be very stupid.
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Yeah, sure. I just want to find out what's the overall preference.
JNSFBI: I hate you! ;D
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Yeah, sure. I just want to find out what's the overall preference.
JNSFBI: I hate you! ;D
Mnemonic: Thanks:) I love u too:))
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I voted never-dying. However I suppose in context of a particular story, as long as it's not all the time. Really it makes your game frustrating if you have to spend a whole bunch of time redoing a particular puzzle because you died. So I suppose you'd have to design as the tip of a branch in a sequence... that is the last thing you play in a particular line of story... Like a sort of dead-end only when they get to the point an succeed (don't die) they get to have an item that they need for the rest of the story but that doesn't actually branch out into a path all it's own.
just my 2c
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JNSFBI: I hate you! ;D
Mnemonic: Thanks:) I love u too:))
:o Mnemonic is very rarely at the irc channel currently, especially in the evenings... hmmm... as our Spanish friends would say: "okis!" ;D (In fact they would say other things, but I don't want to use them here. ;) !)
PS: I voted for the immortal option, since it worked great for most LucasArts games. But I guess that choice is in connection with my preferred story lines as already commented here.
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I selected the Gabriel Knight option. It should be something the player is aware of well before it becomes an issue, should be used extremely sparingly, and should only be used in the literary context of a very well developed story.
Consider that there are a handful of classic novels and a few great films in which the main character dies, but they are few and far between, and the story leads up to it very carefully and deliberately.
In fact, it should be so critical to the story that averting it simply should not be an option. One critical purpose of an adventure game should be to evoke a deep emotional connection to the main character; iIf death is part of the story, it should be to evoke an emotional response from the player, and should be followed through. If the character is to come back to life, this too should occur as part of the course of the story -- not by re-loading an from an automated quicksave slot.
All my personal opinions, of course. ;D
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I also selected the GK-option, although it always depends on the game. A cartoonish/fairytale kind of game should most of the time have "immortal" heroes. But a dark, sinsister game should be able to kill the hero - danger is part (and the fun) of the story. The "sudden death" method is the least favourable for me. Although it could still make sense, if you make a game like "Zork - Grand Inquisitor" where dying in hundreds of different ways is lots of fun. But in that case the player should be aware of the risk and be motivated to save game accordingly (if you don't favor autosave).
Still, in a serious game, where killing the hero is no funny element, the player shouldn't be frustrated by unforeseen death of his character. There should be a warning, something that tells the player: "It's getting dangerous, better save now.". Or: "You've been poisoned (autosave). You have three "actions" before you die".
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Even if I don't like dying in games, I definitely had to choose the first option. It was the best option available. >:D
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Actually the only thing that REALLY sucks about dying in a game is, how far do I have to go back to reach the same point that I just reached short before dying.
Meaning if you forgot to save for more than an hour of playing, it really sucks having to replay all of that.
So I would recommend to either have some automatic saving at the moment you make a wrong decision or the option when you die to jump back short before.
And also the only thing that annoys me when playing an adventure is when you make a wrong move and first after half a day of playing you find out that because of that you can't finish the game anymore ;-)
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In my opinion death of protagonist can be used in two ways in the story. In the first case, when he or she dies before the ending, it can serve as a plot twist - as other character can take his/hers place (via "Demon's Tomb"). In the second case the main character dies when the game ends - which doesn't necessarily mean the ending is tragic per se, for his death can serve some higher purpose.
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You can also use the main character as merely a vessel for telling a story. I'm trying to do that...
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I'm going to make it so at the end of the adventure the main person dies . heros don't always make it .. >:D
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I'm going to make it so at the end of the adventure the main person dies . heros don't always make it .. Evil
Just hope the information you have just given away in advance will not spoil the game.... :P
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Oh my didn't think about that . lol
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Depends on what kind of adventure you want to make.
Monkey Island, for example, was always a cartoonish adventure for me. It never gave the player the feeling that he is able to die.
If you have a more serious adventure with a good story it is a way for the player to be bound more emotionally with the character he is playing.
Playing adventures like MI you want to know what the main character does, how he reacts and so on.
Playing more serious adventures you get to know what you have to do, how to react and so on.
Hope somebody understand me ( bad english...? ) ^^
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i hope you people don't mind thread necromancy and detailed answers:
no matter what someone's reasons for writing a game may be, in the end "all" the game does is teaching the player.
most games consist of at least two layers: the gameplay and the setting.
the riddles in an adventure may teach us pattern recognition, logic, spatial awareness, reflexes, or other things depending on their implementation and design, just as much as playing an ego shooter constantly trains most of the above. deeper gameplay may train tactical/strategical abilities (for example commanding a squad in an fps, or units in strategy games) or other more complex patterns.
the story/setting layer generally teaches less mechanical traits, for example moral values, xenophobia, that violence is a good solution to problems (fps), that you shouldn't have unprotected sex (larry 1) or whatever else the designer put in or the player is able to deduct from the game, whether it be good, bad, useful or not.
now one of the things most games can (and in my oppinion should) teach as long as their settings are somewhat based on reality and not totally abstract (contrary to most puzzle games) is that your actions do have consequences, with death being one of the easier mechanisms to implement this in adventure games.
unless you want to explicitly teach that life is unpredictable, sucks, and cause the player much frustration (prolly making him stop playing the game as well), the deaths should only occur in context, i.e. only when it makes sense, and the sequence leading to the death should be repeatable.
many players tend to immerse themselves in the game and simply don't save for long periods of time. for those permanent deaths without the ability to repeat the sequence would just be an additional cause for frustration and another reason to give up (no one likes to have to replay 5 hours, especially not in a linear game).
warning the player is the same as the autosave, only with one additional not needed step required from the player, so you could say that autosaving is a more streamlined version of player warning.
as for autosaving, with the exception of sequences with multiple possible solutions and story/path branching, it is the same as being able to immediatly repeat the sequence, only with (once again) one additional step required from the player (loading).
so the most streamlined/fun implementation of context deaths would be an internal autosave (as in also being able to quit and resume via game menue) and immediate reload for linear sequences, and an autosave and possible immediate reload in case of a total failure branch for sequences with multiple different succes paths.
additionally, in case of action sequences (time limit, requiring reflexes, and so on) the difficulty should ideally scale down with reoccuring failures (more time to react, some hints, and so on), while offering some sort of reward that also scales down with the difficulty (so people have a reason to actually try to play through the sequences on anything but the easiest difficulty).
another reason to have deaths in adventure games is the fact that a game without a possibility to fail (for example the old point and click adventures with immortal heroes) becomes trivial. whether it be deaths or simply being unable to progress further unless you solve a certain riddle, there needs to be some kind of failure mechanism, because otherwise the only thing such a game teaches on the gameplay level would be pixelsearch and trying out every item combination on every highlighted object (just like said old pnc games). and that is a lessonw hich you can skip alltogether, basically reducing the game to a non-interactive slideshow.
(in case you skipped all the text above, i chose the "only sometimes, when it makes sense, and the player must be able to repeat the critical sequence" option.)