Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Akusa]

Hi there. I was thinking about how to advance some typical gameplay elements of the adventure genre.
The first thing i was thinking "today adventures need comfort". So i did some research and found some typical gameplay elements i want to see in every new click&point game and should be some kind of standart gameplay element.

1) fast travel - double clicking on a room exit and get instantly teleported.
2) hint system - shows all interactive objects in the room that will be important, like exits or items etc.
3) action menu/action coin - already standart in wintermute. But still very interesting, i think this gameplay element was invented by LucasArts in CMI and is the final result of reducing its verbal system to its basis. Sierra and other companies already where using a similar system but it was a very annoying "click right for the next verb", where you had to scroll through all minus one button if you are unlucky. LucasArts fixed this issue with its action coin and im a little bit disappointed that this feature is still missing in most commercial games.

Then i was thinking about gameplay elements that are still a typical problem with adventure games. One thing is the annoying standart sentence "i cant do this!"
Games like A Vampyre Story try to solve this with funny dialogs. So instead of getting "i cant do this!" or "that does not make sense!" you get the sentence "Oh hello little door. How are you doing?".
That is ok for a game that uses humor but it has some disadvantages:
1) it requires much work to write for every object a funny phrase
2) while maybe funny it does not resolve the problem that it is still a "you cant do this"-answer
3) funny dialog does not work in serious games like horror or mystery adventures.

So i was looking for a way to reduce this. While i dont know how you could solve this problem for items, at least i came up with an idea to prevent the player from stupid interactions:
simply deactivate the button in the action coin.

It should be obvious that the player cant talk to his desk or chair. So why should the player get the option to talk with it? By deactivating unused interactions you not only reduce frustration for the gamer itself, you also dont have to think about an unique answer why you cant talk to a ventilation system or use a street sign.

So i wanted to ask if someone had a similar or maybe completely other ideas how to advance the point&click adventure gameplay interaction?

[Jyujinkai]

1) fast travel - double clicking on a room exit and get instantly teleported.

Personally I do not like this at all. I do like "auto move" so that you can click on a object and the toon moves to it rather than you having to move near it before you can click on it. Still I know what people mean when they want this teleport thing. I personally feel that the inclusion of the teleport is basically the developer just giving up on his gameplay and saying "I can not design a game that is fun to play as i know that the player will be spending hours walking back and forth across the same scene"

Personally, the way to go is to use game design to stop this. Teleporting across every scene (say double click) removes any control the developer has on mood and tone. For example you can not make a scary ghost story with out time to walk around the spooky house and listen to the spooky music.

2) hint system - shows all interactive objects in the room that will be important, like exits or items etc.

Again, i think hint systems are lame. If you include one people will use it as soon as they hit a hump. Adventure games should be, imo, just long brain teasers, putting in hint systems just gives them an out and people are lazy and they will take it at the smallest bump in the road. FAQ systems on line are all over the place, just a simple google will find the most obscure adventure walkthough. I say if they want to cheat let them use those.

Also, again, Game design is what i am talking about there. I mean, if you have the guy needing to click on a 3 pixel large ciggy butt under a chair, well you might need a hint system then.. but then again you would just suck as a game designer.

3) action menu/action coin - already standart in wintermute. But still very interesting, i think this gameplay element was invented by LucasArts in CMI and is the final result of reducing its verbal system to its basis. Sierra and other companies already where using a similar system but it was a very annoying "click right for the next verb", where you had to scroll through all minus one button if you are unlucky. LucasArts fixed this issue with its action coin and im a little bit disappointed that this feature is still missing in most commercial games.

I a not sure iunderstand what you are talking about here.

Then i was thinking about gameplay elements that are still a typical problem with adventure games. One thing is the annoying standart sentence "i cant do this!"
Games like A Vampyre Story try to solve this with funny dialogs. So instead of getting "i cant do this!" or "that does not make sense!" you get the sentence "Oh hello little door. How are you doing?".

Yea this is a problem. You are right funny games are easier to get away with it as you can build a database of funny replies. These can be generic with the occasional one tailored to the user bumble. The thing is that the very nature of adventure games is a kind of trail and error based on the user so there is no way that you will able to stop players trying to do stupid stuff.

If you do not like the sound of a random "i can not do it" sample.. how about using sounds. For example... Any time you do anything right have a "good boy" chime... and everytime you do something wrong have a "your a fucking idiot chime" Maybe flash the coursour with a red X on it or a green tick. This will remove the need for voice results but still give feed back to the player that they have in fact tried something and the game is working.

[HelLRaiseR]

1) fast travel - double clicking on a room exit and get instantly teleported.

I don't like the teleportation, I prefer to have a "run" animation and execute actor.run(x,y); whe the player makes a double click

2) hint system - shows all interactive objects in the room that will be important, like exits or items etc.

Only for newbies, If you has two game modes (normal or newbie), is good, if not, no.

3) action menu/action coin - already standart in wintermute. But still very interesting, i think this gameplay element was invented by LucasArts in CMI and is the final result of reducing its verbal system to its basis. Sierra and other companies already where using a similar system but it was a very annoying "click right for the next verb", where you had to scroll through all minus one button if you are unlucky. LucasArts fixed this issue with its action coin and im a little bit disappointed that this feature is still missing in most commercial games.

The Lucas system is very simple and fast, the "hand icon" is valid for get, use, and makes special actions, in some cases the "talk icon" can be used to talk and eat. With the two systems is possible to do the same actions, but the Lucas system requires more imagination for the player. The sierra system required more work for the programmer. I prefer the Lucas system, I don't work much more with the menu system and requires more inteligence / imagination for the player.

Then i was thinking about gameplay elements that are still a typical problem with adventure games. One thing is the annoying standart sentence "i cant do this!"
Games like A Vampyre Story try to solve this with funny dialogs. So instead of getting "i cant do this!" or "that does not make sense!" you get the sentence "Oh hello little door. How are you doing?".
That is ok for a game that uses humor but it has some disadvantages:

Yes, the "I can`t do this" is horrible, I prefer the second option. Obiously, this option result in more job for the programmer. I've in disapoinment with you idea, I think that this system can be used in any kind of game, humoristic or serious, if the game is serious you can design every object for provides help to the player and you can limit the actions (not is locig that the player talk with a door, then you don't must permit that the player talk with the door). Of course, this is more work for the programmer and the designer.

[Akusa]

@Jyujinkai:

I personally feel that the inclusion of the teleport is basically the developer just giving up on his gameplay and saying "I can not design a game that is fun to play as i know that the player will be spending hours walking back and forth across the same scene"

I dont think so because maybe you have a game with many rooms and you will have some back-travelling. For example games like Legend of Kyrandia with no overview map have the problem that you get on some point back travelling. The only other possible solution i see is you let the player encounter all rooms in a linear fashion or you give the player an option to fast travel these rooms.
Also dont forget, just because its in there, you dont have to use it, i see it more as an service you offer as the designer.

If you include one people will use it as soon as they hit a hump. Adventure games should be, IMO, just long brain teasers, putting in hint systems just gives them an out and people are lazy and they will take it at the smallest bump in the road. FAQ systems on line are all over the place, just a simple google will find the most obscure adventure walkthough.

Well the hint system i thought about was not some "im stuck, tell me the answer", it was just highlighting all interactive zones, instantly killing all pixel hunting. I think games like The Secret Files: Tunguska implemented it so well that it really should become an adventure standart.
On the other way, wintermutes accessibility has some kind of implementation already with its zone cycling feature.

I a not sure iunderstand what you are talking about here.

just a comment about the evolution of the adventure interaction systems



@Hellraiser:

Only for newbies, If you has two game modes (normal or newbie), is good, if not, no.

ok and why do you think its not good?

[...]if the game is serious you can design every object for provides help to the player and you can limit the actions (not is locig that the player talk with a door, then you don't must permit that the player talk with the door). Of course, this is more work for the programmer and the designer.

im not sure if i got that but you say even if its not logical to talk with a door, it should be possible to talk with the door or did you say that you should prevent the player from talking with a door?
Because i would say it should not be possible to talk with the door. For me its like "you did something the designer wanted you not to do"

[Jyujinkai]

@Jyujinkai:

I personally feel that the inclusion of the teleport is basically the developer just giving up on his gameplay and saying "I can not design a game that is fun to play as i know that the player will be spending hours walking back and forth across the same scene"

I don't think so because maybe you have a game with many rooms and you will have some back-travelling. For example games like Legend of Kyrandia with no overview map have the problem that you get on some point back travelling.

That is exactly my point.. this is bad game design if you are forcing the player to do this... "teleports" is a lazy "out" to get around this. You should NOT have to move though a scene many times.

If you include one people will use it as soon as they hit a hump. Adventure games should be, IMO, just long brain teasers, putting in hint systems just gives them an out and people are lazy and they will take it at the smallest bump in the road. FAQ systems on line are all over the place, just a simple google will find the most obscure adventure walkthough.

Well the hint system i thought about was not some "im stuck, tell me the answer", it was just highlighting all interactive zones, instantly killing all pixel hunting.

Again, this was my point.. and remember these are just my own opinions. But this is a game design issue. If you present a room where the player can not instantly see what he is meant to do.. 99.9% of the players will instantly hit the "show me the hot spots" button. This is retarded, and for me defeats the point of a puzzle game. When designing the game it is up to the developer to make the scene "readable" so he knows to click on the ash tray.. by it eather being the answer to a clue already given or obvious to click on.

Like the teleport I feel that both the "hint" systems and the "teleport" are just symptoms of bad game design and even worse, lazy developers not caring about the bad game design and just adding a bandaid patch (sorry just watched house MD. think i can cram some more medial metaphors in here?)

[Spellbreaker]

I like all of three. Because it should be the Players choice how he wants to play the game, not the developers. So for the teleportation, it's okay, since it really can be annoying to walk around searching for hints.

For the Hint-System? Great, why not. If a player is stuck, he can use it. But should really be a hint system, not a walkthrough.

For Interface I personally simply use left-click for walk to / look at, and right click for interaction, which can be take, talk, open, etc pp. I think the CMI Interface for this things is really useless. I'd use that only for special things like Spells or something, or special abilitys like in Ghost in the Sheet, where I would have preferred the abilitys in a right-click menu rather than the upper-left corner of the Game.

But I think it's a matter of taste, and in the end you have to do what you like most

[Jyujinkai]

I like all of three. Because it should be the Players choice how he wants to play the game, not the developers. So for the teleportation, it's okay, since it really can be annoying to walk around searching for hints.

For the Hint-System? Great, why not.

Yea, fair enough.... I still think it is lame though. I understand where you guys are coming from but... well ... I still believe that the majority of players will use it and then the game itself will lose all "power". You do not love the puzzles witch you remember for years because you got hints and stuff.. you work it out. Hint systems just mean your game will be played though faster and forgotten quicker.

[Akusa]

Again, this was my point.. and remember these are just my own opinions.

Im very happy we have this discussion, because i love to discuss gameplay elements so i know how other people thinking about gameplay elements and my design choices. around 30-40% of good gameplay ideas i had in the past came from discussions.

But this is a game design issue. If you present a room where the player can not instantly see what he is meant to do.. 99.9% of the players will instantly hit the "show me the hot spots" button. This is retarded, and for me defeats the point of a puzzle game. When designing the game it is up to the developer to make the scene "readable" so he knows to click on the ash tray.. by it eather being the answer to a clue already given or obvious to click on.

If your game has the "4 pixel" item you could never find without the hint system, it is instantly bad design, i totally agree with you but you have also to think about the fact that an adventure is not a pen&paper role playing game.
So, as a designer, you have to choose all possible solutions and interactions.
The hint system is not for the designer so he can create unreadable scenes, i absolutely agree there, but it reduces the instant "pixel hunting" aspect of the game for people who dont want to do this.
The first thing you do in a adventure if you visit a new scene is: you move the cursor through the room if there is anything interactive there. So if the designer shows all interactive objects in the room, he will give you more time to solve the real puzzle there.
I dont know if you ever played text adventures, but the first thing you do in a new room is very similar: you type "look" and the game tells you all interactions there or it already tells you this automatically at entering the room.
"you are standing in a wide floor. To your left is a desk with paper on it. In the middle of the room is a nice green carpet on the floor. To the north you see a cracked window. The exits are south and west."
So all you get is the option to get a room interaction description.
If the game "puzzles" are based on finding all room interactions i would say the game designer already did a bad design choice, because it completely destroys the flow of the game.

The instant teleportation also is not an excuse for implementing back travelling. It is there to enhance the flow of the game. Its most likely that if you have a problem with a puzzle, you will revisit all old scenes if you find some item you missed, at least that is what I, my friends and my parents do (ok, at least not my mother, she already prints the walkthrough before she starts the game, so she has by default no puzzle problems).
If you dont use some "hub system" like a city map in your game and most scene is 2 or 3 rooms deep like in Gabriel Knight or Broken Sword, you will get instantly heavy back travelling.

[Catacomber]

Just to add my 2 dollars:  we have a sprite in the scene now that identifies anything that can be interacted with by something else.  You don't have to hunt for those hotspots. 

[mylesblasonato]

So i was looking for a way to reduce this. While i dont know how you could solve this problem for items, at least i came up with an idea to prevent the player from stupid interactions:
simply deactivate the button in the action coin.

Dude, if this where to happen then you might as well stick to the same method nearly all modern adventures use and that's the one click method instead of using a coin/dial. Let's take Runaway: The Road Adventure as an example. In this game when you hover over a person the cursor changes to a mouth cursor, showing that you can only talk to the person. If you hover over an item you can pick up then the cursor will change to a hand. The user has less control over the action they choose with this system which takes away the guess work for figuring out the right action for a specific item/object. You are essentially doing the same thing with your idea of deactivating the button in the coin/dial. If your gonna do that you might as well stick to the one click method that I explained above with the Runaway example.

Also my view on everything else that is mentioned is "Players Choice".
Have an options menu and within the menu have options to enable and disable the following:
1) Fast Travel
2) Display Hotspots
3) Any other thing you want to put in here.

Anyway just my couple cents worth.
Cheers
Myles Blasonato.

[Akusa]

That's very true with the one click system, the next step could simply be reducing the interactive system to a one click system but then i would lose the ability to look at things in my opinion and also my team members. That was something we talked about but most members said for some reason, they always get the feeling that you lose the interactive part of the game if you reduce it to a simple one click system. Of course adventures are not the most interactive genre out there and was gameplay wise surpassed by RPGs many many moons ago because adventures are running in cycles but i think the illusion of choice is good enough in this moment. Also you wont lose the ability to look at things. I would be happy if i could come up with some sort of new interaction gameplay system but at the moment i have no idea how i could increase this system even more.
So i would say that indeed the next step at this moment is the one click system but because the coin system feels natural enough for our team we decided that this is good enough (we also talked about the sierra-like cursor switching, with and without symbols at the top for quick navigation but was dismissed because of flow and navigation issues).

To the menu options:
I don't know if this is really needed. If you don't want to use fast travel, simply don't double click on the exit or don't press the hot key button.
Its the gameplay that lets you decide what you want.


As a side note, i discovered recently some neat design choice:
Maybe you are all familiar with Persona 4 for the PS2. They introduced a fast travel system in the realworld part that allowed you to instantly jump into every building and floor of your actual location from a dialog that comes up if you press the square-button. Its most likely because they wanted to counter this way the long loading times of the PS2 (2-5 seconds per room) but it also reduced the amount of time you needed for repetitive travelling (the game is 70+ hours long with 5 locations outside of the dungeons and you will spend at least 50% of this time outside of dungeons). While Persona 3 didn't had this feature and i were not missing it, it really helped the flow of the game and they could also create bigger scenes that way with the increasing of immersion.

[Spellbreaker]

It's also quite common to bind such functions like "show hotspots" to a key, like F11 or whatever. This is a good solution in my opinion. Or a looking-glass symbol onscreen was also used somewhere.

[mylesblasonato]

That's very true with the one click system, the next step could simply be reducing the interactive system to a one click system but then i would lose the ability to look at things in my opinion and also my team members. That was something we talked about but most members said for some reason, they always get the feeling that you lose the interactive part of the game if you reduce it to a simple one click system. Of course adventures are not the most interactive genre out there and was gameplay wise surpassed by RPGs many many moons ago because adventures are running in cycles but i think the illusion of choice is good enough in this moment. Also you wont lose the ability to look at things. I would be happy if i could come up with some sort of new interaction gameplay system but at the moment i have no idea how i could increase this system even more.
So i would say that indeed the next step at this moment is the one click system but because the coin system feels natural enough for our team we decided that this is good enough (we also talked about the sierra-like cursor switching, with and without symbols at the top for quick navigation but was dismissed because of flow and navigation issues).

To the menu options:
I don't know if this is really needed. If you don't want to use fast travel, simply don't double click on the exit or don't press the hot key button.
Its the gameplay that lets you decide what you want.

Ok both of these are true but in the example I gave which is Runaway you don't lose the look interaction because it's mapped to right click. This means that you can look at anything using right click but can only talk and take what the game will allow using left click.

About the options stuff. If it's in game it's tempting to do, even if the player doesn't want to use it. If it's in options the player won't be bothered going in and changing it unless it's really causing problems which in design terms is what you want. You want them to finish the game.

Of course with the one click you miss out on talking and taking everything even people which is always humours which is why I like the dial system over the one click anyday but then again Runaway is an awsome game which uses the one click system.

Cheers
Myles Blasonato.

[Akusa]

If it's in options the player won't be bothered going in and changing it unless it's really causing problems which in design terms is what you want. You want them to finish the game.

Well i see your point there but in the end you could end with something like Neverwinter Nights 2, akward controls but highly tweakable controls. That is why im somehow against a sepperate "fast travel"-game mode option. Personally i think its enough to give the player the possibility to use it. Its like in the old verbal-Scumm System. You can quick-select the verbs on your keyboard but you can also use the mouse.
About Runaway... well i didn't played the game much, but it was not the Gameplay, it simply did not hit my spot but i played it long enough to know about its design.


By the way, what are you guys thinking about multi-clicking on the same object before it activates? For example you have to look at the table three times befor you discover some paper on it. Funny enough, the gameplay of old japanese games where full of it like Hideo Kojimas famous Snatcher. For me personally its a "No go!" because of its frustration or you have to do it most objects in the game because the player cant know if it will behave differently if he clicks it a second or third time but like i sayed, most old japanese adventure games had it with a great extend and you knew you had to repeat the same options till the interaction repeated.

[Catacomber]

I've used it for surprise and it's made things a little more interesting.  But it doesn't have to be just multiclicking.  It can be first you have to do one thing with one or more objects and then a second thing with another or more objects---that's more interesting imho.  :  )  You can control everything with globals/variables. I was just working out something like this today.  :  )