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jackYou are in a maze of twisty user interface features, all subtly related
Several of you have heard me expounding about designing an adventure game. I was thinking about it last weekend, before it got overtaken with other things. I probably won't actually do all this at this time, but
I love Monkey Island games. In fact, "like Monkey Island" is actually more accurate than "point-and-click adventure game" because the genre we all like not only has that style of game and interface, but that style of humour too.
Sonic's commented several times (both, I think, in put-down and in seriousness) that I ought to write one. The idea appeals to me because I get to do: much programming, much design, much puzzling and some art which fits the ideal proportions.
The only flaw is I wanted to write something open ended, like an action or puzzle time filler, that isn't this. But it's fun.
The twist I like, the defining feature
I think this idea is cool, though I don't know if everyone agrees. One big question for this sort of puzzle game is "can you die"? In Sierra games, if you do something stupid, you die, and you have to reload a saved game.
In other games, it's possible to get stuck by not doing something necessary and not dying then, but getting stuck at the end of the game because you needed it.
In Lucas Arts games, you can always progress from where you are, which is a lovely feature, part of their ethos, avoids frustration, means everything you do is positive,
The only trouble is, it gives hints. You have to be forced to acquire any item you need later, and sometimes it serves as a hint. Often you put something down or switch a lever and there's no option to pick it up again or switch it back -- that means what you did is not only possible, but correct at this time.
OK, enough preamble, the actual twist I like, the defining feature
There should be a flexible undo tree. For instance, say you go on a long quest to find a dragon, solving many puzzles. And you get there and you die because you don't have a sword to kill it. (I have a lovely little flow chart with "tree (| with three ^)" "dragon" "sword (| with -)" "upsidedown dragon with x eyes")
Along the top of the screen is a film-strip showing you all the scenes you visited. You can click on the first one, and are then replaying that scene. If you go a different way, all the other scenes go black and white to indicate that you've done them, but they're not part of the current time-line.
When you've *got* the sword, and got back to the beginning, the other scenes become active again, most exactly the same, but some might play out differently because you have the sword. For instance, click to go to the last scene, and now instead of choosing to "die" you have the option to "kill the dragon and win the game."
This is partly a way to make the idea more user-friendly. But I think it could be more than that -- there's a lot of potential for individual puzzles where you have to do things in the right order that is untapped because in current interfaces it's incredibly frustrating to have to keep starting over, and if all puzzles have to be physically reversible, it's rather implausible.
The details are very tricky to work out, but something simple along these lines would be entirely possible and I think cool.
Other features
Because 3-d graphics can be so nice, the development path of adventure games fell by the way-side, so there's lots of things it'd be nice to see one day:
* A flexible verb-interface, with the flexibility of Monkey Island's half-a-dozen verbs, but with the ease of use of a modern "don't need to move the mouse to the status bar" interface.
* Help line saying "click on verb to act" or "you are looking for a dragon"
* A good open-source adventure game other people can build on. There's lots of nearly this, but none *done*
* Non-canonical verbs. Loom had this -- instead of verbs you had spells. So one of these was "open" but others were "cause fear", etc. This creates more space for puzzles because you have more options. (A similar effect can be created with many utility items in inventory.)
* Nicer user-interface, eg. click again to short-cut walk-to and skip straight there.
* Break-down of objects, ability to say "talk to bartender" but also to access parts (eg. pockets, hair, etc) if it's part of a puzzle. Also slightly context-sensitive verbs, eg. "turn/unturn" or "screw/unscrew" depending.
Several of you have heard me expounding about designing an adventure game. I was thinking about it last weekend, before it got overtaken with other things. I probably won't actually do all this at this time, but
I love Monkey Island games. In fact, "like Monkey Island" is actually more accurate than "point-and-click adventure game" because the genre we all like not only has that style of game and interface, but that style of humour too.
Sonic's commented several times (both, I think, in put-down and in seriousness) that I ought to write one. The idea appeals to me because I get to do: much programming, much design, much puzzling and some art which fits the ideal proportions.
The only flaw is I wanted to write something open ended, like an action or puzzle time filler, that isn't this. But it's fun.
The twist I like, the defining feature
I think this idea is cool, though I don't know if everyone agrees. One big question for this sort of puzzle game is "can you die"? In Sierra games, if you do something stupid, you die, and you have to reload a saved game.
In other games, it's possible to get stuck by not doing something necessary and not dying then, but getting stuck at the end of the game because you needed it.
In Lucas Arts games, you can always progress from where you are, which is a lovely feature, part of their ethos, avoids frustration, means everything you do is positive,
The only trouble is, it gives hints. You have to be forced to acquire any item you need later, and sometimes it serves as a hint. Often you put something down or switch a lever and there's no option to pick it up again or switch it back -- that means what you did is not only possible, but correct at this time.
OK, enough preamble, the actual twist I like, the defining feature
There should be a flexible undo tree. For instance, say you go on a long quest to find a dragon, solving many puzzles. And you get there and you die because you don't have a sword to kill it. (I have a lovely little flow chart with "tree (| with three ^)" "dragon" "sword (| with -)" "upsidedown dragon with x eyes")
Along the top of the screen is a film-strip showing you all the scenes you visited. You can click on the first one, and are then replaying that scene. If you go a different way, all the other scenes go black and white to indicate that you've done them, but they're not part of the current time-line.
When you've *got* the sword, and got back to the beginning, the other scenes become active again, most exactly the same, but some might play out differently because you have the sword. For instance, click to go to the last scene, and now instead of choosing to "die" you have the option to "kill the dragon and win the game."
This is partly a way to make the idea more user-friendly. But I think it could be more than that -- there's a lot of potential for individual puzzles where you have to do things in the right order that is untapped because in current interfaces it's incredibly frustrating to have to keep starting over, and if all puzzles have to be physically reversible, it's rather implausible.
The details are very tricky to work out, but something simple along these lines would be entirely possible and I think cool.
Other features
Because 3-d graphics can be so nice, the development path of adventure games fell by the way-side, so there's lots of things it'd be nice to see one day:
* A flexible verb-interface, with the flexibility of Monkey Island's half-a-dozen verbs, but with the ease of use of a modern "don't need to move the mouse to the status bar" interface.
* Help line saying "click on verb to act" or "you are looking for a dragon"
* A good open-source adventure game other people can build on. There's lots of nearly this, but none *done*
* Non-canonical verbs. Loom had this -- instead of verbs you had spells. So one of these was "open" but others were "cause fear", etc. This creates more space for puzzles because you have more options. (A similar effect can be created with many utility items in inventory.)
* Nicer user-interface, eg. click again to short-cut walk-to and skip straight there.
* Break-down of objects, ability to say "talk to bartender" but also to access parts (eg. pockets, hair, etc) if it's part of a puzzle. Also slightly context-sensitive verbs, eg. "turn/unturn" or "screw/unscrew" depending.
Have you played Chrono Trigger?
Date: 2007-09-14 01:34 pm (UTC)Re: Have you played Chrono Trigger?
Date: 2007-09-14 01:35 pm (UTC)It may give you some ideas.
Re: Have you played Chrono Trigger?
Date: 2007-09-14 01:41 pm (UTC)Non-linearity and time-travel aren't directly what I'm interested in, but are very related, so I want to see how it fits.
Re: Have you played Chrono Trigger?
Date: 2007-09-14 01:41 pm (UTC)