The Fickle Hands of Fate (MAGS Entry - May 2017)

Started by LostTrainDude, Fri 02/06/2017 13:37:22

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LostTrainDude

THE FICKLE HANDS OF FATE
A short single-click point and click adventure game



[imgzoom]http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/images/games/2159_1.png[/imgzoom][imgzoom]http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/images/games/2159_2.png[/imgzoom]

Download from the AGS Games Database

Fate is finalizing her last recording in the steeple of an abandoned church in a village she is about to leave. Then, off to another city and another recording: her search is not over yet.

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With this one I experimented a little by using a "single-click" gameplay.
So rather than having a standard BASS mechanic (Left Click to Interact, Right Click to Examine) I moved what would usually fall under the "Examine" verb right on screen.

If you hover on any hotspot or object a popup will appear displaying what the character thinks when looks at that specific hotspot or object.
It's some sort of visual stream of consciousness, if you will.

One thing I was not able to implement properly within the time limit was the "stream of consciousness" for the "use X with Y" interactions.
I tested it and it worked, but since the game changes some of the hotspots' descriptions at runtime, I was starting to get a little lost, therefore I preferred to keep it out for this release.

An example in a little spoiler ahead:
Spoiler
For instance, if you tried using the pillow on Sam, the popup would have displayed something like: "I would love to hit him with the pillow, but maybe it's better not to"
[close]
I'm open to feedback about such design and also, if any of you has suggestions, throw them at me :D
"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

Pilchard

Nice work! I didn't exit the game until the last of the slide guitar was over - nice playing throughout.

I quite like this hover-for-description interface. Whilst the BASS interface is an excellent choice and we're all used to it, I notice that quite often people (perhaps less seasoned adventure gamers) will only left-click, so all the lovely world-building information and witty jokes placed in those 'look at' interactions can be lost on them. For certain stories, this is a neat solution to that small problem, and it works well here.

I like how this game hints at a wider world, so hopefully you'll be able to build on this. I can imagine some fun puzzles involving the recording of different sounds and actually manipulating the multi-track interface...

LostTrainDude

Thanks Pilchard, also for listening the whole ending track :D

I first saw this kind of interface in STASIS, which I didn't play yet, but as far as I could tell from the few minutes of gameplay I saw, it was like that. IIRC it makes use of the "popups" only for those hotspots you can't interact with.
I kinda "bottlenecked" the whole action of the game, though, through many "switches" who would turn on and off the chance to interact with objects.

And as for the multi-track interface, yes, that was the original plan :D A super-prototypish audio tracker to make music with (laugh)
Of course it was probably the first thing I had to remove because of lack of knowledge and because of time constraints.

"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

Miguel R. Fervenza

I think that this kind of solution for the interface could be interesting for the flow of the game. But when you use different icons for "look" hotspots and for "pick" or "use" ones, most of players don't pay much attention to descriptions of things that they can't use or pick; they focus in the other hotspots. So, all that information that show "look" only hotspots (which are very important for transmitting the tone, the personality of the player character, the context...) is almost lost.

selmiak

Fate looks cool even though she has no face but it fits the overall appearance. Also the backdrops are great. But there is very little to do.

LostTrainDude

#5
Quote from: Miguel R. Fervenza on Fri 02/06/2017 23:17:28
So, all that information that show "look" only hotspots (which are very important for transmitting the tone, the personality of the player character, the context...) is almost lost.

Thanks for your feedback!
Yeah, I think you are right and I tried to "fix this" by including text for all hotspots regardless of their function. Not the best solution yet, probably, but still it was a way for me to deal with the problem in a different way than in STASIS.

Quote from: selmiak on Fri 02/06/2017 23:21:20
Fate looks cool even though she has no face but it fits the overall appearance. Also the backdrops are great. But there is very little to do.

Thanks selmiak :) I'm glad you liked her.
Unfortunately yes, it's a very short game. I started really early working on it, then got lost for quite some time, then got on the right track again changing lots of stuff.

For instance here are the two previous iterations of the apartment I went through before the final one:




Rocks would look so much more like beans in these two (laugh)
"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

Blondbraid

The hover-over descriptions was a novel touch, quite neat!


LostTrainDude

Thank you Blondbraid! :) Glad that it made sense (laugh)
"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

xBRANEx

I just played it as I also am looking into ways of removing the right click option completely and I absolutely loved it. The music and sound is amazing and the overall weirdness of the story and arbitrary things that happen, the questions that arise are all phenomenal. It is really a small game but it got me so interested, it's like a short poem that you read and you don't really know what it is about and you know when you read it few years later it will mean something different completely but you are sure that you like it and you are sure that it is art.

Get that walk cycle in line and add some animations and this game becomes a little gem. It's an inspiring game!


LostTrainDude

Thank you very much, xBRANEx!
I deeply appreciate your feedback and I'm glad it may have given you ideas for your future interfaces :)
Since the development was strange (never worked so much on graphics before, by myself) the outcome was somewhat hazy, which I was happy with!

The big plan is to expand it and make it a full-fledged game, but I'm still working on trying to figure out the whole picture myself :laughing:
"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

Hobo

It's great to hear that you're planning to continue with the game. This little teaser got me really interested in the world and the main character.
I usually enjoy examining and looking at things in adventure games and one-click interface can sometimes limit that fun of exploration, but the hover-over description seems like a good replacement. However, now the player doesn't have the choice to ignore the less important descriptions, lore snippets or flavor texts, it's always going to be shoved on the screen, even after you've already read through it.

LostTrainDude

Thanks Hobo! I'm glad you liked the game :)

I also see what you mean about the descriptions, I'm still puzzled about it too!
I received much positive feedback between here, itch.io and other people who I talked with, including a person with disability who found it to be a step towards better accessibility. That said, I'm with you in thinking that I may be forcing it on players. I could probably test whether some sort of "timer on hover" (if you hover on an hotspot for more than x seconds the description appears) but would I also lose that immediacy and general idea of the "stream of consciousness"? Hmmm...
"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

Mandle

Quote from: LostTrainDude on Thu 24/08/2017 15:28:02
I could probably test whether some sort of "timer on hover" (if you hover on an hotspot for more than x seconds the description appears) but would I also lose that immediacy and general idea of the "stream of consciousness"? Hmmm...

Maybe a mix of both?

The first time you mouseover on something you get the immediate caption, but then on subsequent mouseovers it takes a second or two?

LostTrainDude

I think I will try and see what feeling I get from it :)

Also, I just watched an Unavowed dev-stream for the first time and noticed that Dave Gilbert uses a similar approach, the differences being that there is no mouse-linked popup that names the hotspot and that the description is written using a third person point of view. It seems to be working fine, at least for me!
"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

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