How to "force" the user to pick things up

[Bob]

This is the problem with rooms that will only be visited once: The user only has one chance to pick things up.

What are some creative ways to "force" the user to pick things up?

A very non-creative way is to hold some sort of variable in your game that does not let them proceed until they have picked up the item.

One creative method is to hide an item within another item that is required in order to proceed (such as the file hidden inside the carrot cake in Secret of Monkey Island).  A more ridiculous example of this would be the gorilla envelope from LeChuck's Revenge.

Another commonly used method is to automatically actually reward the user with an item when a mission is completed, usually through dialog: "Thanks for helping me.  Here, take this, since I don't need it anymore and I want to thank you."

Anyone have other creative methods of doing such?

[Eggie]

I went for the first method in my game by having a guy who wouldn't let you  outside a village unless you had a weapon to defend yourself with. A| little contrived, but that's what happens when you have minimal planning.

Now what I SHOULD have done is have devised some kind of puzzle that would require the player to use the item before they get to the point they need it at. I think re-using items for multiple puzzles is the best way of throwing the player off the scent that they're being manipulated; stops them from thinking they've only been handed an item because it's going to be important to the plot for them to have it later.

[GarageGothic]

You can also make the item indirectly necessary to leave the room - for instance, you need a keycard from inside a locker to open the door. You pick up a screwdriver to break the padlock open, get the keycard and leave, but the screwdriver remains in your inventory. A variant of this is to somehow alter the item in the process - the screwdriver breaks, leaving you with a bent piece of metal that you will find useful further down the line.

In cases where the player knows exactly what he's looking for, I don't see anything wrong in not letting the player proceed until it's found. It certainly wouldn't be out of character for Indiana Jones to say "I'm not leaving without Chachapoyan fertility idol" when you click on the exit. As long as you avoid vague statements like "I have a feeling that I'm not done here" just because the player failed to spot the 4 pixel lump of chewing gum under the desk.

Perhaps the most logical method would be to make the action of picking up that specific item the reason that you can't return to the location - for instance getting spotted stealing a museum piece or - to return to our Indiana Jones example - have the whole temple come crashing down around you when you pick up the idol.

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[Jakerpot]

sometimes i use "I didn't explored this room yet" or "I saw something that maybe is usefull" or even "I want to take a closer look on something before getting out of this room." And many others. They are logical, possible, not so creative, but works. also there gonna be many optional itens, that will or not change the future, and maybe, directing you to a diferent ending.

[Bob]

There's a blatant cognitive bias at work here, too, and that's this: The adventure gamer takes everything. The adventure gamer has learned, over the years, that inventory items are ALMOST ALWAYS either necessary or rewarding in some way. Therefore, he has adopted a behavioral policy of taking everything he can possibly acquire. A designer can pretty much assume that, just by leaving something on the floor or on a shelf, the player will take it.

There is a good example of isolating this behavior in The Vacuum. (Possible spoiler below):

Spoiler

The gun in The Vacuum is a great example of adding a bit of serious consequence to the question of "Take it? or Leave It?" - which is normally a no-brainer.

[close]

Of course, a system of inventory limitation would add more necessity for reasoning. Otherwise, I think it's safe to assume that the player will always choose to take something, whether the item's necessity is obvious already or not.

Showing us the "key" before the "locked door" is usually the less effective means of puzzlery, isn't it?

Good point, and Sierra does a great job with this implementation.  However, one of the things which I loved the most about Monkey Island was that it was not necessary to ever fall back on a previously saved game, and yet the puzzles were still just as difficult.  One way they work around the problem of the answer being right in front of you is that they throw in a much larger collection of items from the start, some which may never prove useful, and another is that the correct object to use is often either not yet acquired when requested or else an entirely unexpected substitution, such as the application below from Secret of Monkey Island:

Spoiler

...using the grog to open a lock...]

[close]

[magintz]

There's a blatant cognitive bias at work here, too, and that's this: The adventure gamer takes everything. The adventure gamer has learned, over the years, that inventory items are ALMOST ALWAYS either necessary or rewarding in some way. Therefore, he has adopted a behavioural policy of taking everything he can possibly acquire. A designer can pretty much assume that, just by leaving something on the floor or on a shelf, the player will take it.

As an adventure gamer I'd normally agree with this and from most standpoints I don't think otherwise about it; I've been brain-washed through many years of adventure gaming that if it isn't nailed down it will fit in my inventory and be invaluable for rescuing a maiden from a zombie/demon/ghost pirate or similar.  I've spoken with Dave Gilbert many times about adventure games, especially working for a casual gaming market and one of the things he's iterated many times to me is that a casual adventure gamer might not be an adventure gamer. They don't see a beer mat as a possible solve to an unknown puzzle ten rooms away they see it as a beer mat that the character would have no use in picking up, ever.  I have to say that I personally would avoid any assumption that the gamer will pick anything up and definitely avoid any "I have a feeling I'm not done yet" scenarios unless of course it's a Star Wars game when a disturbance in the force could block your escape.

Good ways around this situation have already been mentioned. Make the player get the item unintentionally through an intentional puzzle. Recently I had this same issue where a player needed a leaflet with an address on it. This address and leaflet were pointless at the stage in the game where it was available and logical to be so I needed the player to get it there and then. Luckily it was at the beginning of the game and so I incorporated a map into the back of the leaflet, without it the player had no clue where they were going around the town until they picked up the item.

The best ways I can think of to solve this problem:
- Re purpose an item. Have the item valuable at the time of leaving the room and re purpose it later on when it is needed.
- Give the item as a reward. Before you leave the room an NPC will thank you for your questing services and hand you something that could be of use later.
- Package deal. You get one you get the other. If you pick up a key you might also get a keyring e.g. Sam and Max - You get the toilet key from the petrol station and it has a nail file on the end.
- Have an NPC friend not done with the room. Either they will be looking at something and haven't finished doing whatever they're doing until coincidentally you've finished.
- Make it indisputable that the item is imperative to the player vacating the room. "I can't leave the room until I've gathered enough evidence for  my case" or "I still haven't found what I'm looking for". In most cases this won't work but it could.
- Make it a challenge to get the item. There's a pair of glasses that's rigged to a trap that if I take the glasses it will explode and take my face off. A challenge like this feeds the adventure gamers mind, they have no need for the item but there's a puzzle to get the item so it must be of noteworthy importance. This is a bit of a bait and tackle measure and can again lead to it being ignored.

If you really have no other use for any of the above you could also try making the item glimmer or attract the user in some way. When the user walks by perhaps they say "I wonder what that is". Forcing the player to inspect it and hopefully claim it as their own.

[Radiant]

I prefer to let all rooms be visited multiple times, which bypasses the problem.

However, a neat way of solving it is by moving the item to another room. It might fall off a ledge, or float down a river, or whatever, and end up some place else once the player can no longer enter the room.

[GarageGothic]

Or simply cheat and spawn the same item - or an item of a similar function (e.g. knife becoms scissors or glass shard) - in a later location if the character hasn'¨t found the original item. Alternately, provide a different way of solving the puzzle that would have required the item in question - this is actually my favorite way of solving the problem. I also liked how A Second Face would spawn random junk that you could sell if you ran out of money.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

They don't see a beer mat as a possible solve to an unknown puzzle ten rooms away they see it as a beer mat that the character would have no use in picking up, ever.  I have to say that I personally would avoid any assumption that the gamer will pick anything up and definitely avoid any "I have a feeling I'm not done yet" scenarios unless of course it's a Star Wars game when a disturbance in the force could block your escape.

This is a good point, magintz, but I don't really think it applies to the adventure gaming community we know.  Died-in-the-wool adventure gamers know the score and know how adventure games work, but casual gamers are typically moms and such who are used to hidden object games and solitaire and know very little of standard adventure game mechanics, and the growing pains ECC had through beta testing is all the proof anyone needs of the casual gamer response to conventional adventure game designs.  For the members of this forum and 99% of the other adventure sites, though, I think new and old alike are primed for the idea that any object in an adventure game can be a potential puzzle solution, especially for a whimsical game where logic does not apply.  For example, I was recently playing Ceville (which isn't a bad game, by the way) and while many of the puzzles were logical there were a few that involved items I took just because they were there with no obvious purpose at the time, and this seems a cornerstone of most adventure game designs:  scattering items around in a scavenger hunt fashion that have no immediate use but are vital later on.  I'm not saying that I approve entirely of this approach, and I tend to limit it in my own games, but it's certainly a staple of the genre.