Rashomon Game Mechanic

[Anian]

I tried to play this Bureau 13, I think I bought it from a discount pile, back when I was tyke and all I knew was games from the local store (which were really expensive, I only had about a few, I think I still have the cd somewhere)
...anyway, I remeber it being a hard game, very timed and thus I never made it far, but the cool feature was, you get to take 2 agents which work with each other in an investigation - the catch/hook - some of them have paranormal powers (vampire that can turn into myst and ie go under doors, hacker, priest that can do an exorcism, a witch etc.) Games play differently each time, the concept is great for a trashy b-movie game.

I don't know if the game is abandonware yet. That's kind of a middle solution between Maniac Mansion and Rashomon mechanic. Wasn't there a game where you play twins in AGS, similar mehanics of cooperation (sorry, not played it myslef, don't get offended author that might be reading    )

[akumi]

Honestly, I don't really like the idea of making it so blatant by having scenes witnessed multiple times just to show the player inconsistancies. In Rashomon this was only really done for a single pivotal scene which was pretty short, a swordfight. I like the idea of having that pivotal scene where all the major characters are involved, but also letting non-intersecting stories be told and largely leaving it up to the player to decide what is true and what isn't. This works well for both comedy and drama, I think.

[Charity]

I don't know if the game is abandonware yet. That's kind of a middle solution between Maniac Mansion and Rashomon mechanic. Wasn't there a game where you play twins in AGS, similar mehanics of cooperation (sorry, not played it myslef, don't get offended author that might be reading    )

Two of a Kind.  I think it was a team project between...

BerserkerTails    character/character animation/music
Dart    Background art/character art
DaveGilbert    design/dialog/coding
Scotch    Background art
Yoke    coding/character art/character animation

There are some other games like that as well, floating around.  The POV switching mechanic is fairly common in games, to varying degrees.  I first saw it really explored in The Lost Vikings (platformer).  A lot of games will have segments that involve swapping characters for some sort of even, and it's fairly common in JRPG's to switch your main character at different points in the story, anywhere from having parallel plot-lines (all I can think right now is Treasure of the Redra's, which is kind of obscure) for the whole game, to putting in someone else while your main character is out of commission (Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 7 and a few others from that series, +90% of the rest of the genre).  Final Fantasy 6 had enough POV characters, that it was hard to identify the "true" protagonist.  

In adventure games, King's Quest 7 had two characters that you played in alternating chapters, and Dreamfall also split the story between three characters, based on where you were in the plot.  There was a game called Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit that involved multiple POVs, I believe, but I didn't actually play it, so I could be off the mark, and I don't know how they implemented it.

The vast majority of the time, this is used either as a pure gameplay mechanic for solving physical puzzles, or as a plot device to showcase events that the main character is not present for, or occasionally different sides of a conflict, etc.

It's rarely handled in a very nuanced way to show characters with vastly different perceptions, unless you count games where you get to play two sides of a war or something, and then at least you get to change who you think the "good guys" and "bad guys" are.  Even when it does take full advantage of character outlook/bias, I have never seen it used with distinctly unreliable narrators, though.  I mean, it probably has been, somewhere, but.  

[GarageGothic]

Akumi, I think you're right that repeating an entire story from different points of view is redundant (provided that the characters are mainly in the same place at the same time) and unless perfectly executed very likely to come off as just a gimmick. I would love to see more ensemble-games where you play multiple characters all taking part in the same story, though. Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy did a damn pretty good job at that until the plot went apeshit in the second half.

The recent thread on And Then There Were None where somebody mentioned how the game added a detective character to the story that wasn't in the novel, made me think about how a whodunit style game could still work without traditional investigative gameplay. Imagine it divided into a number of time blocks (per tradition), in each of which you took on the role of one of the suspects. You wouldn't have any knowledge of the character and their true role in the story beyond a number of tasks they needed to perform in that specific time block.
For instance, starting off the act with a bloodstained knife in their inventory and making it clear to the player, that they need to hide it. We won't know where the knife comes from, why it is bloody, or the character's motivation for hiding it (to protect someone else perhaps?). There's no way to tell if your character will end up dead mid-act, if they're actually the killer and just carrying out some more important mission this very moment, possibly preparing for a later murder or planting false evidence.
I didn't give that much consideration to how the resolution would play out, but it depends on the style of story, really - perhaps you finally get to play the detective pointing his finger at the culprit, or the killer performing his last murder, covering up his tracks and getting away scot-free, or add a twist and combine the two, even if it's been done before.

One of the main reasons I avoid commercial adventure games these days (apart from poor writing, slow pace and uninspired puzzles) is that a lot of them literally depress me. Not because they're bad, I take that more-or-less for granted, but because quite a few of them actually have interesting core ideas - usually story or gameplay features that are hyped in interviews and on the back of the box - but either botch them up horribly or seem to forget all about that premise after the first half hour of gameplay in favor of more conventional adventure tropes.
But some of them do get it *almost* right though, or at least close enough that you bear over with the tedium just to see it through to its resolution. One of those games, for me, was Overclocked: A History of Violence. It's about a psychiatrist who has to unlock the memories of a bunch of teenagers who witnessed the same, to him unknown, events that left them mentally scarred. As you trigger latent memories of the amnesic teens, you get to play through their experiences, gradually piecing together the puzzle of what actually happened.

It's a great idea and, at least in terms of games, pretty original (I recall that Dimitris Manos, editor of the e-zine The Inventory, was pitching a similar game concept where the central event was a high school shooting, but unfortunately that never saw production, ). The gameplay itself was totally standard though, and the writing not unforgettable, but still it kept me hooked until the (underwhelming) end. Another one for the "this could have been so much better" pile of games that I regularly draw inspiration from (the latest of the bunch being Alan Wake, the wasted opportunities of which - or rather my ruminations on them - clicked perfectly with another game idea I've had for a several years but didn't know exactly what to do with, turning it into something completely different but far cooler).

[Anian]

The recent thread on And Then There Were None where somebody mentioned how the game added a detective character to the story that wasn't in the novel, made me think about how a whodunit style game could still work without traditional investigative gameplay. Imagine it divided into a number of time blocks (per tradition), in each of which you took on the role of one of the suspects. You wouldn't have any knowledge of the character and their true role in the story beyond a number of tasks they needed to perform in that specific time block.
For instance, starting off the act with a bloodstained knife in their inventory and making it clear to the player, that they need to hide it. We won't know where the knife comes from, why it is bloody, or the character's motivation for hiding it (to protect someone else perhaps?). There's no way to tell if your character will end up dead mid-act, if they're actually the killer and just carrying out some more important mission this very moment, possibly preparing for a later murder or planting false evidence.
I didn't give that much consideration to how the resolution would play out, but it depends on the style of story, really - perhaps you finally get to play the detective pointing his finger at the culprit, or the killer performing his last murder, covering up his tracks and getting away scot-free, or add a twist and combine the two, even if it's been done before.

Well isn't that kind of similar to Heavy rain, except an addition of "what you do will determine who the culprit in the end is" would be nice.
Personally, I don't like the amnesiac PC-s, always seem silly to some extent and kind of seems like lack of imagination (I know that isn't the case many times, but still).

Two of a Kind.  I think it was a team project between...

BerserkerTails    character/character animation/music
Dart    Background art/character art
DaveGilbert    design/dialog/coding
Scotch    Background art
Yoke    coding/character art/character animation

Uuuu, damn, better go and hide, lots people there who can kick my arse.
*sneaks of into the darkness*

[Andorxor]

The book of Unwritten tales has a cast of four protagonist with different abilities and different outlook on the world and it even has a scene that it visited twice from different perspectives with the same character.

[GarageGothic]

Well isn't that kind of similar to Heavy rain, except an addition of "what you do will determine who the culprit in the end is" would be nice.
Personally, I don't like the amnesiac PC-s, always seem silly to some extent and kind of seems like lack of imagination (I know that isn't the case many times, but still).

Haven't played Heavy Rain, so I couldn't say (and please don't spoil it for me ).

I think changing the culprit's identity through player actions would have to be handled very delicately to work well. Blade Runner did this reversal of cause and effect quite brilliantly, at least in terms of the triggers being transparent enough for the mechanics not to reveal themselves for several playthroughs. But I think crime stories are a different matter, either you need to write dozens of carefully crafted variations on the motives and logistics of the murder - and every one of them must be satisfying as a standalone story, otherwise you might as well be playing Cluedo. I must admit I'm having a hard time considering the concept of a random or semi-random killer without being reminded of Ripper, which shone a bright spotlight on just how much time is wasted on red herrings in mystery plots just to keep as many balls as possible in the air until the very end.

As for amnesia - it's an overused plot device for sure, and I think most gamers see it as a bit of a joke by now. But there's a difference between amnesiac characters and characters who simply withhold information from the player. It's a disconnect between the player and his character for sure, but nothing that gamers can learn to deal with much in the same way that we've accepted unreliable narrators in films.

[akumi]

Also, I agree with your points about the Shivah, but I still found the game fun, and I think there is lots of potential with this basic idea of giving the player symbolic representations of abstract things. I guess the main thing that I liked about it, though, was the total absence of artificial item-based puzzles. It seems like "adventure game" is a bi-word for "item-based puzzles" these days... but isn't the point to let the player experience an adventure? I'd like to see more games which have a very limited or non-existent inventory.

Another game I really liked was Trilby's Notes, but the puzzles in that game were not challenging or fun. The fun part was exploring the environment and experiencing the story. The puzzles, for the most part, seemed sort of like pushing a button to advance the story.

[Dualnames]

If done in a way like that movie with Audrey Tutu not the tom hanks one, or the Amelie, instead the one with the doctor, it'll be perfect.

[GarageGothic]

Inventories themselves are not bad, but I agree, relying too heavily on inventory puzzles is a big no-no to me too - that way lies cat hair mustaches

Also, I agree with your points about the Shivah, but I still found the game fun, and I think there is lots of potential with this basic idea of giving the player symbolic representations of abstract things.

I wasn't actually criticizing The Shivah at all, I loved that game, but rather commenting on the notepad interface concept in general. In the hands of someone like Dave it isn't a problem, just slightly unintuitive at times, but I could easily see it turning into a replacement for the current inventory-combo-insanity if appropriated by less talented designers. I remember the notebook puzzles being the ones that got me stuck most often in Discworld Noir.

Dual: Whoa, you had my head spinning there for a while (Amelie, Tom Hanks, doctor, WHAT?), then I realized what you were talking about, and yes, I totally agree (if anyone else gets confused - this, I believe was what Dual meant)

[Dualnames]

Yes, that's the one GG.
I hate game with large inventories. (looks at HHGTG). I do.(looks at HHGTG). Anyhow, it depends on the game. I never played Dungeon Siege 2 just to get extra loots. That's bloody boring.

[akumi]

I think I should clarify that I don't have anything against games which have lots of item-based puzzles and huge inventories; I just think they are way too pervasive.

[Anian]

I think I should clarify that I don't have anything against games which have lots of item-based puzzles and huge inventories; I just think they are way too pervasive.

I'm pretty sure Dual said he was drunk and it was past 2am when he posted, so you shouldn't worry about making him angry.  

In any case, akumi, the various POV-world-changing-narrator-lying-mechanic-idea you suggested at the beginning seems to be unversally considered as a good idea, thus on behalf of the AGS community, you're allowed to continue with game development.