How to make an adventure game *really good*

Started by Gurok, Fri 08/07/2016 08:18:48

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Gurok

I'd like to see if we can compile some rules for *really good* adventure game design. i.e. What not to do. Reply with rules of your own.
Thread title inspired by the fantastic YouTube series "How to draw really good" by Oliver, Age 24.

I'll start.

(Before you read further, these aren't directed at anyone in particular. I think we've all considered or perhaps done these at some point. I'm just trying to shine a different light on them and perhaps bring a little levity. You are also free to take one of these and argue the opposite. I don't mind.)

Good games come in parts. Better games come in more parts.
You've got a great story idea, but you're petrified of writing an ending. What do you do? Release the introduction you spent a very long time on and call it the first part of a series. No, your vision is grander than that. The *prologue* of the first part of the first *act* of a series. There, that's better. And until you've written it, the ending will remain perfect, as envisioned, in your imagination. Remember, they're not plot holes if you never resolve the plot! Motivation's also running low and this release should help stoke the embers. That's how it works, right? People will be queueing for miles to get their hands on the next part and if they don't, it's because they don't understand your art. Nobody liked Robert Jordan's first book, but he kept at it. Persistence.

Who am I? Not the Jackie Chan film.
You don't have a story, but you have some cool environments and a few puzzles. Can you still make a good game out of that? Damn right you can. Okay, who is the main character? What's your identity? Let's see... uh... what about... you don't remember? You don't remember who you are. And how did you get there? You don't remember that either. Finally, what's the character's supposed to be doing? Let's just say the character doesn't remember that either. Whew. That's the bulk of the writing out of the way then. You're all set to tell that story about being alone on an abandoned spaceship with only a jumble of VHS-quality surveillance recordings too short to provide any substantial plot. No? Okay, a mysterious island with almost no human inhabitants that serves a paper-thin facade for some surprisingly setting-neutral puzzles. Bonus points if you make it first-person pre-rendered 3D.

When it comes to pixels, think big (and small).
We all know how great 320x200 games are. Part of what makes them so good, it could be argued, is their limited resolution. It serves to reason then that *more* limitations should result in a better game. 160x200 games were pretty much twice as good as the 320x200 ones. It gets even better when you halve the resolution again or invent your own resolutions that have no historical significance. Naturally, this improvement in quality reaches a peak at the point of singularity. All games are best played on a single pixel, flashing to inform you of what's happening. Low resolutions also make a REALLY good cover for your limited art skills. I mean, nobody can judge your art that harshly when you tell them that the resolution dictates a cat should be about the same shape as a kettle. To take the pressure off, consider a variable scale for your art. If you can't draw a cat, that means the cat should be drawn with larger pixels. Simple things like furniture and boxes should be drawn with smaller pixels. This is still "retro". Nobody cares about that authenticity thing anyway.
[img]http://7d4iqnx.gif;rWRLUuw.gi

Stupot

#1
I can't handle unhandled events anymore.

When it comes to unhandled interactions, games seem to fall into one of three extremes a) hardly any responses to perfectly good interactions, b) a stock of one or two random responses ('no you idiot, that won't work') or c) absolutely "hilarious" unique responses to absolutely every possible interaction.

a) is forgivable. Sometimes we just don't need a response to everything we click on and that's okay.
b) pisses me off. Don't tell me "that's a stupid idea" for daring to pick up a fire extinguisher despite the fact that there's a fire in the next room (that was an made up example for exaggeration, but it's not far off). In fact don't say tell the player he or she is stupid ever, for trying something unless it really is stupid.
c) is commendable, but actually gets quite boring to read and usually ends up with a load of terrible jokes that just fall flat. Not every interaction needs to be comic gold.

To avoid c) you need to make some stock responses. But it's lazy to just assign every unhandled event one if the stock responses without thinking about it first. Every possible interaction should be considered. There should be different subsets of stock responses for different types of items. Containers, doors, keys, big things, things which are too high, things which are impossible to do, things which might be possible but can't be done at this time, things which are inaccessible for whatever reason. Write four or five stock random responses for EACH of those categories. And consider every possible action to judge what TYPE of response it might trigger. And if none of them work, write a unique one.

[Edit] just realised this was in the rumpus room and I might have taken this post a bit too seriously, but I've been wanting to get that off my chest for a while, so sod it :P

Haggis

Wow, it's like you pulled them directly from my brain!

CaptainD

* Have a long, unskippable animated sequence every time something that regularly needs to be done in the game is done.

* Make moving from one location to another such a slow and tedious affair that you start to grow grey hairs between locations.

* Make long, unskippable dialogue sequences that you have to play the whole way through every time even though it accomplishes nothing useful and says nothing new.

* Ensure that the only way to complete a puzzle in room 10 is to have found an item which is a pixel hunt and for which no clues are given anywhere back in Room 1. 

* Make tricky puzzles for which the only clue is a passing reference much earlier in the game (in a dialogue that cannot be repeated).
 

Danvzare

Quote from: Stupot+ on Fri 08/07/2016 09:20:22
In fact don't say tell the player he or she is stupid ever, for trying something unless it really is stupid.
I can't agree with that enough. That is the exact reason why I still haven't completed Randal's Monday. He calls you stupid every time you do something wrong, even if it makes sense to do that! >:(
It's really off-putting.

Now for my additions.

A good story never ends, just keep it going forever and ever and ever. No one cares about endings or closure, just keep slapping higher numbers at the end.

Don't give hints, you should never mention what an item could be used for, or what it should be used for. As a matter of fact, you should only mention potential uses for an item that aren't in the game, to help serve as red herrings.

On the topic of red herrings, you should have loads of useless inventory items. It doesn't matter what these items are, even if they should be incredibly useful and should help complete the puzzles. Just give a default response of "I can't do that" whenever the player tries to use any of these red herrings. Putting an axe in your game which you can never use, is always a great idea.

And the best advice of them all. Randomly kill the player every chance you get. As a matter of fact, you should frequently put the player in a position where they are presented with two or more choices, and where only one choice won't kill them. So they have to use trial and error and the save load system to progress further.

Slasher

Hi Guys,

sometimes you can't be right for being wrong but i want to add my two pence worth.

Regarding interactions:
if there are repeats (objects/hotspots) then you should use stock phrases as Stupot pointed out so you don't keep repeating the same old same old, just make the text different, even if meaning the same thing. I agree that one standard phrase is bad practice.

Example stock if repeats else where:

'This place is dirty.'
'About time they cleaned up around here.'
'It's so messy in here.'

Also you don't need interactions for everything, only keep descriptions on what you can interact with.

Cutscenes:

Having to sit through 10 minutes of un-skippable dialog or sequences is a belly up for me especially when replaying. Having the player press Esc is the best way to end any cutscene.. They must have wanted to because they pressed Esc.
If the cutscene is vital and lasts less then say 10 seconds then that would be ok.

Needed object(s) for puzzles should not be more than 3 rooms back.

Having to click everytime to skip text is a no no for me and drives me nuts... just have it stay on the screen a bit longer.

Making references later on to previously mentioned .. this would be ok if the player had actually bothered to read the dialogs and the reference is later repeated so as to go into your memory

You get into a situation of doing nothing with no signs as to what to do...

Good idea
'I need light in here.' response.. hence the need to light the torch.

Trying to find  1 X 1 Pixel.. Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh

Ridiculous puzzles: keep them clear and solvable...even if you need to think about it more...

Don't try to be pretentious or smart.

etc etc












Blondbraid

Hello!
I agree with just about everything here so far and I'll give this a try:

Remember the classic 2D adventure games with beautiful graphics that still holds up really well today?
No, cheap 3D models that looks like creepy plastic puppets are far superior! They were cutting edge technology in the 1990:s! And don't bother with using custom models for important characters, standard assets will be just fine. And textures? Plain colors will do fine, preferably dull and grayish pastels.

In-game menus should be as busy and crowded as humanly possible, the more animations and different sound effects, the better!

Make all items you only use once in a puzzle stay in the inventory afterwards. Sure, the item will never be used again and it makes no sense for the player to keep it, but its a great red herring in future puzzles!

Speaking of puzzles, they don't actually need to be part of the game world in any way that makes sense. Players looking for an intriguing murder-mystery or epic fantasy adventure will love to randomly stop and do puzzles lifted from a children's activity-book! And let's not forget that puzzle where you have one 1-liter bucket, one 5-liter bucket and one 3-liter bucket and have to fill a bucket with 4-liters of liquid, I bet nobody has don exactly that puzzle in a video-game before!

Comedy relief is a must, context, story and basic common sense be damned! And the very best way to do comedy is to have a funny sidekick whit no personality whatsoever apart from being funny. And the best way to make them funny is to have them break everything all the time, and being a liability in general. And if you really, really want to make them stand out and be memorable, have them speak in a very squeaky voice and repeat themselves a lot. Or make them fat.


Snarky

#7
The default AGS font is perfect in every way and for every purpose, and should under no circumstances be replaced.

Adventure games are all about leisurely, deliberate game play, and the best way to achieve this is to make sure that the character walks reeeaaalllyyy slooooowlyyy.

Even if a game has voice acting, no one cares about what the characters are saying, so make sure the sound mix is set so that the music drowns it out.

If you've written one dialog tree for a character, that's enough. Writing more dialog to update it in response to events in the game is a waste of time. So if there's a neighbor who starts out the game looking for a lost cat, it makes perfect sense to still have all the conversation options about that missing cat (and nothing else) even after you've found it, returned it, and discovered that the world is about to end.

After having spent months or even years toiling away at your game, why would you want to wait a few days just to beta test it, proofread the text, polish the UI, or anything like that? It's not like those are really easy improvements that can make a big difference to how your game is perceived.

[/sarcasm]
Quote from: Stupot+ on Fri 08/07/2016 09:20:22
When it comes to unhandled interactions, games seem to fall into one of three extremes a) hardly any responses to perfectly good interactions ...

a) is forgivable. Sometimes we just don't need a response to everything we click on and that's okay.

I disagree with this. To click on something and have absolutely nothing happen is IMO the sign of a broken game. There should always be some default response, if only to provide feedback to the player that the click was detected. No need to make it too flip and clever; something simple like "Better not" "That won't work" or "I think there's a better solution" is fine. It's better not to vary it, because it makes it simpler for players to just click past it, except perhaps for actions that are so reasonable that a special excuse is needed for why it's not supported.

Adeel

How to make an adventure game really good?

- It's simple. Don't make one.

Stupot

#9
For maximum indie Twitter cred, your next game MUST feature a strong, independent female protagonist. Anything else is terrorism.

@Snarky - I think I basically agree with most of what you say actually. I think by 'forgivable' I just meant 'slightly more forgivable than b) and c) but still rubbish' :-D

CaesarCub


It's always a good idea to put an unskippable mini game that demands reflexes and quick thinking. Not only should it be difficult, but if possible, tie the game to the processor speed directly, so the difficulty increments hand in hand with technology.

Mandle

Quote from: CaesarCub on Fri 08/07/2016 16:58:03

It's always a good idea to put an unskippable mini game that demands reflexes and quick thinking. Not only should it be difficult, but if possible, tie the game to the processor speed directly, so the difficulty increments hand in hand with technology.

Hahahahaha!!! That's my fave so far!!!

It's not a minigame, but there is a moment in one of the King's Quest games where you have to get rid of a time bomb before it explodes. You're supposed to have like 30 seconds or so. But the bomb timer runs off the processor speed, so on modern computers it just explodes as soon as you pick it up and you die. Classic!

Creamy

#12
1) People love to click. A lot. Let them do things step by step to make sure they get their fix.
Spoiler
The light went out. You need to replace the bulb. Forget about using a new bulb just yet. You must remove the old one first. Not with your bare hands, it's still hot. Use rag with old bulb instead.
[close]

2) If you game takes place in the modern era, let the player hack anything - from cellphones to doors. Your game will gain in credibility.
Spoiler
More specifically, anything can be hacked with a technological gadget owned by the local nerd. You just have to convince him to lend it to you.
Don't worry, it doesn't involve anything too technical â€" it's a child's play to use.
[close]

3) Never joke with social conventions. Even in a life and death situation, no hero shall ever run, force a door, break a window or tear a crucial evidence from a little girl's hands
Spoiler
Let's trade it instead.
[close]

4) Common objects should come in one hidden copy only.
 

Mouth for war

#13
"don't call the player stupid" haha oh Jimmy the troublemaker how you always did that. I actually had him giving an even harder boot to sensitive players in the sequel about that whole issue :-D...which i've restarted 3 times and probably won't ever happen...  I did put in options though for the player to choose from "Real Jimmy(I want it all)" or "Nice Jimmy (I stopped breastfeeding when i was 15)" :-D
mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer

Cmdr

Quote from: Creamy on Sat 09/07/2016 00:36:15
People love to click. A lot. Let them do things step by step to make sure they get their fix.

This reminds me of a great design choice I just saw in a fanadventure:

If you have a can (or bottle) with a liquid inside you need, make sure the player has to OPEN it first before he can use it.
If the player otherwise tries to just use the CLOSED can on the target object better give no response to the action to punish the player for his stupidness to forget to open it first.

AnasAbdin

I respect and appreciate all the comments and opinions here. But I always say it's the little differences between us (people) that make life an awesome experience. If you don't have a specific demography you are aiming the game for, then follow your heart, be different, be yourself.

Warning: Spoilers
For example, Stair Quest
Spoiler

Despite being a short game, Stair Quest uses one of the most frustrating puzzle techniques used in an AGI adventure game as the whole game's idea, and then the game forces you to go backwards to the beginning. Yet, many people including myself enjoyed the game and played it regardless how many times we died.
[close]

I do follow a lot of the suggested points mentioned in your previous comments because I do have preferences in adventure games like most of you do. And I'd hate to put something in a game I'm working on that I don't like in other games.

These are some of the things I learned to avoid in my style of adventure games:

  • Long dialogs (skippable/unskippable)
  • Blocking events that take too long (with or without good animations) -Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper: Pushing the big rock scene is 30 unskippable seconds (wrong)
  • Pixel hunting -Dexter Morning Routine: Killing the fly in the beginning of the game *
  • Large inventory items that have to show in the character's sprite -Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper: I had to draw the walk cycles with the character carrying a paint bucket (nod)
  • Impossible puzzles

Things I love in adventure games:

  • Captivating intro scenes
  • Combining/taking apart inventory items
  • Mini games
  • Subsystems: Computer interface, mobile device...etc
  • Rewards for complicated puzzles -The old Sierra points sound!
  • Comedy

* In my defense, Dexter was not meant to be a playable adventure game, it was made to be a video parody :P

Mandle

It's always fun to hide a vital clue (such as a safe combination) in a cutscene that takes place without the player-character even present, and then have the player need to use that clue later on to continue progress...

tzachs

My game features all of the above (plus more exciting stuff, like long repeatable mazes!) which pretty much makes my game the best and most epic game ever created!

Quote
160x200 games were pretty much twice as good as 320x200
That's true, but you inspired me to take it one step further: my next game will be in a 1x1 resolution. It will feature 200 different rooms, each with stunning hand drawn graphics and challenging puzzles (and no pixel hunts if you use a x16 scaling filter!).

Jack

Family games are too hardcore. Let's take it one step further and make a game for adults who want to be children:

- Solve every problem by providing in-depth catharsis, counselling and closure to all the world's inhabitants
- Achieve a 100% rating on your politically correct meter and unlock the special ending where your meagre flesh provides nourishment for starving polar bears
- Forget gameplay, you will be rated solely on how effectively you advanced the mainstream political agenda

CaptainD

I would like to add this fun-filled concept - A complicated copy-protection system that is actually more of a challenge to solve than any of the puzzles in the game itself.
 

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