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[Ashton]

I apologize if this is a convoluted question, while I've toyed with game design in the past (mainly web-based PHP/MySQL or Interactive Fiction) This is the first time I'm really digging in and trying to learn an engine and bring a game to market (so to speak) I'm still learning the WME so I may ask some "obvious" questions here or make "n00b mistakes" if so I'm sorry.

I want to tell a story that has the three "classic" archetypes in it - Thief, Fighter, Mage. Keep in mind this is still a puzzle game. "Fighter" in this case just means "stronger than the mage/thief so he can physically *force* his way through some puzzles or interact with objects too heavy for the mage/thief and is slightly less intelegent/eloquent". There is no "true" combat here - it will simply be a matter of using the right item on an enemy to proceed. Also the three characters will have very different actors/animations/interfaces (Mage will have a "spellbook" and learn spells along the way, Thief will have a "thieves toolkit" and learn new less-than-acceptable skills, and fighter will have some extra action commands like "Smash" "intimidate" "Crush" etc. All these will affect the world, characters, and inventory)

I'm wondering what the best way to do this using WME... my thoughts (from simplest to most complex):

1. write three different games and re-use/rewrite scripting/inventory/etc as needed (which kinda defeats the purpose and a lot of people see it as a "Game" and "non-canon what-if Game sequels" often with "designed purely to milk a cash cow" tacked on if they're not free)

2. have the story be about 3 characters, in the first stage you play as the mage (with the thief and fighter "going on ahead"), then you get to the stage end, you meet up with the thief, who says "I'll take it from here, rest then go on ahead" and the interface changes to the thief's abilities, then finally when you get to the end of stage two, you meet the fighter and he sends the thief on ahead and you take on the fighter's interface. (this makes the plot simple and requires no re-writing of dialog or scenes, but defeats the purpose of "alternate solutions" to puzzles or potential easter eggs --- also I dont know how easily it can be coded to change the whole interface at each "checkpoint", and if anyone's wondering, yes, I considered making this an episodic game focusing on each character separately and I'd rather not unless there is no reasonable way to achieve this in 1 game)

3. Have all three characters available at once, either by having them all on-screen and switching which one is active (all three enter the room and the two "inactive" characters just wander around or go stand in predetermined places, then the active character talks to an inactive and says "you try" and then the character and interface switches and the formerly active char becomes inactive --- i.e. all three walk in, the (active) mage walks over to the (inactive) thief and switches so the thief is now active and the mage is inactive) or by having an icon to swap out the character in the scene and change the dialog branches. This has the benefit of a single story-line and lets all three characters have their jokes/eastereggs and alternate puzzle solutions, but decreases replay value since there's nothing new to see/hear unless you played through with just the minimum of switching (i.e. used the mage all the time unless you were required to use the thief/fighter) but I dont know how well the interface supports dynamically changing the characters and the interface, not to mention some item descriptions (i.e. mage looks at a spellbook and say "a fire spell!" and takes it, while thief says "what would I need with that? it'll just weigh me down" (and cant take it) and the fighter says "I cant read this book" (and cant take it) and dialogue trees (i.e. "I'm not talking to you, I dont trust a thief" / "you mages are all upperclass twits, dont talk to me" / "oh hello, fighter, what can I do for you?" and invole a large dialogue tree --- or even better/worse, having whole massive trees for each character that tell different information)

4. At the start of the game you choose your character, and based on that choice, the story branches and has 3 different "detours" to the main quest in strategic points to progress (example: in one room there is a locked door only the thief can open, which takes you to a series of rooms/puzzles for the thief, one door that has a spell on it only the mage can open that leads to magic puzzles, and one door that is jammed and only the fighter is strong enough to bash open) This would require a lot of scripting, obviously, and a lot of rooms that may never get used depending on the player, and most importantly I don't know if I can easily set separate area/item/NPC responses based on the character (i.e. a broken bridge where the fighter, clicking on the far side, says "I cant jump that far" but the thief pulling out a grappling hook and deftly crossing and the mage having to use a "blink" (short-range teleport) to get across --- or having the bridge too noise so the mage says "I cant concentrate to cast the spell" or the bridge being windy and the thief saying "I cant throw my grappling hook in this wind" --- to force only 1 or 2 classes to take the path and the others to take a different rout) I could see this having a lot of replay value but requiring the highest level of coding of all the options due to "1 class only routs" and *requiring* at least 3 solutions (one per class) to each "main quest" puzzle...

On all four I've thinking of making each character's inventory separate and only allowing characters to transfer a couple items (and if they transfer the wrong ones, it means a lot of back-tracking --- though I think this would be more frustrating than enticing and would result in a lot of players dropping the game out of frustration so they might just auto-transfer the important ones)

Over all, I'd like the best of the 4 options with the least amount of possibilities for me to accidentally add bugs... or if these are even supported by WME...

OR...

If anyone has a 5th idea, I'm more than willing to hear it, this game is still very much in the development phase right now. (and if you think this is all too "over thought" and I should just make 1 game about 1 character and simply cram in as much content as I can for that 1 character - that the players wont care about the "class choices", then by all means, say so)

[Jose]

I think all of your ideas can be implement with WME. Personally I like your 4th idea because it seems the most "replayable" for me. Currently I'm working in a game with three different ways to play it: smart cursor, some kind of coin-cursor and text parser with slightly differences in the objects that you can look at and interact between the graphic and the text modes. Although I think it's great to give the player the option of playing the same game with different options, I can tell you that it's a HUGE amount of work.

[2.0]

Yes, way 4. seems more interesting and replayble. But if you check some RPG games, you can see that characters walks through the same content almost in all cases but uses the different ways, and replayability of such games is very high nevertheless. So much replayability in this case depends on quality of content.
As for you game I think that the way to reduce efforts in way 4. - using high amount of key checkpoints with low amount of really different ways leading to them. I.e. some (and most) of puzzles can be passed by any character by using their skills (thief unlocks the door, fighter breaks it, mage teleports to other side), but some (and least) - only by specific ones.

[Ashton]

Thank you both for your responses. If anyone else has any thoughts, please do share them!

I realize it's going to be a huge amount of work, but I once tackled writing my own engine for a game using Notepad (PHP/MySQL) so I have a few ideas how to save a little effort using some well-placed variables (Specifically a $class variable) I'm also reconsidering whether to make this episodic just to get the first part of the game out there and see if there's any interest and/or get feedback...

Right now I'm planning out the world and looking through the mechanics of the engine, trying to find ways to implement various actions (such as I'm considering the first "level" will have the player swapping between the characters to accomplish a very linear goal, just to give them a good taste of play style with each class). I found a section of the manual specifically dealing with multiple actors in the same scene, so that's a good start, though I'm looking to see if I can trigger a switch using dialogue (Mage clicks on thief and it spawns a dialogue and one option is "you try it" and actor switches, then thief clicks on mage and a dialogue option is to say "back to you" and it switches back) and if I can create separate movement areas for different characters (such as the mage has to stay on the ground, but the nimble thief can climb a nearby tree --- and in doing so his animation changes to "climb" instead of "walk")

[anarchist]

Your idea reminds me of Trine http://trine-thegame.com/site/ http://trine2.com/site/.

It is a physics puzzle game in which you can control 3 characters, one at any moment; Fighter, Mage and Thief. You can switch to a character at any time and there are puzzles where you can use any one character to solve, but there are also puzzles that require a combination of characters to pass.

I liked how they implemented this and I suggest that you take a look or even play the game. Of course, your game is as I understand a point n click adventure, but I believe you can take some ideas from them (there is no shame in using a good idea  ).

Having said that, I would discard ideas (1) and (2). I can't choose between (3) and (4) as both have a replay value and can make interesting puzzles. For (3) I would go with Trine's way, meaning only one character is visible on the screen at any moment and you can switch at any time.

I agree with 2.0. If you try to go with a big amount of different solutions you will be overwhelmed. And not from the programming part of it (since you say you some good experience) but from the design part of your project. Implementing ideas to code is not hard when you have made good documentation and have some experience in keeping your code tidy. The hard part is actually making the documentation.

We are good people, we don't make fun of "n00b mistakes"