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Game design / Re: Displaying tasks/quests on beginning a new game
« on: December 15, 2008, 06:02:26 PM »
Good point.
As I said: It totally depends on whom you design your game for. For example, I tried playing some games on the train, too. While for games like Quake, Call Of Duty and most Adventures, this works well, S.T.A.K.E.R. and Unreal for example are to complex to play in a train, as they require a much higher immersion.
On the adventure side of life, ok, you CAN play on a train, and adventures like f.e. Monkey Island or So Blonde won't suffer from that. But if you try to play The Moment Of Silence or Grim Fanfango on a train, you will notice the immense loss of athmosphere.
So if you are going to make a game to be played on a train, design it in "non exclusive mode" and avoid every avoidable workload for the player. If you want to make the adventure more immersive and athmospheric, on the other hand, leave the thinking and noticing things to the player.
About noticing: Snoop Keys are great for new players and as a hint for "drive by playing", for example, but if your story depends on noticing strange things, snoop keys can ruin a lot of puzzles in your game. This is true for every "hint facility" in your game, and a dialog log or mission reminder are "hint facilities", making you clearly see what to do next instead of you having to figure it out.
Remember the famous "hand-number-code-puzzle" from fat island in monkey island. You try to figure out the code, looking at what you've learned so far. If your hint book sais "find out code", that would be ok, BUT even this few words contain a hint that you have to "find out", rather than "look for" the code.
As I said: It totally depends on whom you design your game for. For example, I tried playing some games on the train, too. While for games like Quake, Call Of Duty and most Adventures, this works well, S.T.A.K.E.R. and Unreal for example are to complex to play in a train, as they require a much higher immersion.
On the adventure side of life, ok, you CAN play on a train, and adventures like f.e. Monkey Island or So Blonde won't suffer from that. But if you try to play The Moment Of Silence or Grim Fanfango on a train, you will notice the immense loss of athmosphere.
So if you are going to make a game to be played on a train, design it in "non exclusive mode" and avoid every avoidable workload for the player. If you want to make the adventure more immersive and athmospheric, on the other hand, leave the thinking and noticing things to the player.
About noticing: Snoop Keys are great for new players and as a hint for "drive by playing", for example, but if your story depends on noticing strange things, snoop keys can ruin a lot of puzzles in your game. This is true for every "hint facility" in your game, and a dialog log or mission reminder are "hint facilities", making you clearly see what to do next instead of you having to figure it out.
Remember the famous "hand-number-code-puzzle" from fat island in monkey island. You try to figure out the code, looking at what you've learned so far. If your hint book sais "find out code", that would be ok, BUT even this few words contain a hint that you have to "find out", rather than "look for" the code.