Don't pick that up! - about the acquisition of inventory items

[twin-moon]

When I'm designing an adventure game I'd like to disallow players from picking up something they wouldn't normally pick up.

Example: I hide something in a trash can, and I want the player to say: "I'm not putting my hands in there!" until he learns from another character something useful is in there.
Example 2: Someone is sleeping and his wallet is sticking out. You could steal it, but not until you know he's a guard and you can use his keycard (or license or whatever) to gain entrance into a building.

This is something that I've never seen in adventure games before. One could consider this poor game design, since the designer is limiting the player.

What are your thoughts? Annoying or realistic?

[Babar]

There are a number of adventure games that do this (but none of them are coming to mind right now ). I usually just found it annoying, especially when I've done it before and found nothing, and without any proper indication, later on I am allowed to do it, and get something.

Ways to improve:
Some games have it said like "I'm not putting my hands in there without good reason!"

Another thing you can do to make it more interesting is have variables for 'immoral' or 'scrounger/beachcomer', and (along with using them with other things), if the player picks the pocket before finding out he needs it, he'd get his 'immoral' counter increased, and then at the end of the game you could have the stats.

Another thing you can do (which I've also seen in some games, but is probably the most complicated to design) is to not have the situation show up until the player realises that it might be needed. For example, when the guy tells you that you must gain entrance to the building, you also get a pair of quiet sneakers. You can then use these quiet sneakers to sneak up to the guard without waking him, and steal the card. If you tried it before, he'd wake up.

[SSH]

This is something that I've never seen in adventure games before.

You can't have played many games, then...

I'd find it annoying. If you're going to stop people doing stuff, you should have a better way to stop them, or enable them. For example, the person who tells you to look in the trash could give you a pair of rubber gloves. Or you could grab the guy's wallet, but only find a card marked with some strange symbol that you don't know what it is and you put the wallet back. Then later you find the same symbol on the access panel and realise what the card is for...

[space boy]

What SSH said. I haven't played that many adventure games and I've seen that too often. Annoying. Don't ever tell the player "You don't need that" or similar stuff. Let him pick up what he wants and figure out himself when, where and how to use it.

[Radiant]

This is hardly new; I know several adventure games that do it, generally as a way of artificially increasing play time.

And yes, it's annoying, as well as poor game design in that you're disallowing common actions for no good reason.

[Nikolas]

I also find it annoying.

What would be really a good game design would be to NOT give any idea to the player to search through the rubbish bin, until he knows something. That is make the puzzle somewhat obscure so that the player won't go looking by randomnly clicking around. The only way to solve the puzzle is that he's been told about it. If he happens to guess it before, the game shouldn't stop him "you can't do that, because you don't know it". But I fucking know it! The player knows it = the character should know it. etc...

Example 1: If the player does NOT know that he's looking for something hidden, chances are that he won't go looking in the trash. somebody tells him that something is hidden, then he goes searching. Finds nothing he learns that it is in the trash can, which is hidden in the closet, for example.

Example 2: Again, don't let the keycard stick out. When the player finds out that he needs to open the door, he should find a way, which would lead in the guard, etc...

[twin-moon]

I have played almost all LucasArts games and a lot  of Sierra's (and of course a lot of AGS) I can't think of one situation where a game says "You can't pick that up" and further on in the game I could.
Just for clearance: I don't mean a situation where it's a puzzle. I mean a situation where the story has progressed and you (or your character) realises he/she needs this particulary item.
But since you all think it's annoying, I'll make sure I have a good reason before I do this.

Another thing you can do to make it more interesting is have variables for 'immoral' or 'scrounger/beachcomer', and (along with using them with other things), if the player picks the pocket before finding out he needs it, he'd get his 'immoral' counter increased, and then at the end of the game you could have the stats.

That could be an interesting solution for my problem. I'll keep this in mind.
And with the trashcan you could range from 'hobo' until 'fear of stains' 

What would be really a good game design would be to NOT give any idea to the player to search through the rubbish bin, until he knows something.

Yes, but from experience I know that people click on everything once they enter a new room. If you put a trashcan somewhere people are bound to click on it.

[miguel]

You have lots of books on shelves, the plot doesn't drive you into a particular book but you still click the books and get some funny/not funny titles. The plot twists and you need that one book, so you go back and instead of getting a 'books' hotspot you'll get 'book' hotspot. You look for it and get what you want.
You all remember this puzzle, it's a classic, but it works. So, I guess it solves many situations.

[Radiant]

I have played almost all LucasArts games and a lot  of Sierra's (and of course a lot of AGS) I can't think of one situation where a game says "You can't pick that up" and further on in the game I could.

Because of the high gameplay value, it's sometimes easy to overlook that LucasArts' adventure games are extremely well designed. This is a good example of something so subtle it might not occur to people while playing those games, but yes, LucasArts games don't have such "items you can't pick up until later in the game" because it's annoying, and their design avoids needless annoyances.

Yes, but from experience I know that people click on everything once they enter a new room. If you put a trashcan somewhere people are bound to click on it.

Most players actually don't do that. Sure, some people are bound to find it this way, but far from all people.

[Lionmonkey]

Pleurghburg had a lot of "don't pick that up" puzzles and I found it really annoying. It doesn't mean that you can put none of them in the game, just don't make too many of these.

[Snarky]

One of the most well-known titles to use this kind of restriction is Runaway, and most people agree that the game is terrible (for this and other reasons). I wouldn't go so far as to say categorically that it should never be used, but I would keep it to one or two puzzles where the reasons why the character doesn't want to perform the necessary action are very compelling and very obvious. If you turn it into a general principle that the character needs to have a motive for everything he does (out of the ordinary), it is going to be very frustrating to players, because they'll almost always be one step ahead ("isn't it obvious that you should pick that thing up?!") or one step behind ("now what am I supposed to do?!").

It's another matter if you turn it into a core game mechanic. That's essentially what Grr! Bearly Sane did. There were a number of actions you couldn't perform until you were sufficiently angry. Also, if the main character has some really strong personally traits, it's OK to block players from acting out of character. For instance, if you're playing Robin Hood, maybe you wouldn't be allowed to steal from a "poor" peasant, but if you discover that he has lots of money hidden away, the action would become available.

You have lots of books on shelves, the plot doesn't drive you into a particular book but you still click the books and get some funny/not funny titles. The plot twists and you need that one book, so you go back and instead of getting a 'books' hotspot you'll get 'book' hotspot. You look for it and get what you want.
You all remember this puzzle, it's a classic, but it works. So, I guess it solves many situations.

I would be careful about hotspots spontaneously appearing on the screen without any notice to the player. Would the 'book' hotspot cover the entire bookshelf? (That would be a bit strange.) How about this: At first, when you click on 'books' you get a message saying "I don't know what I'm looking for" (you could still do the funny titles). Then when you need a particular book, when you click on 'books' the character picks the right one.

You can also make a puzzle out of it. If you are looking for, say, 'The Compendium on Occult Phenomena', when you go back to look for it the character maybe forgot the precise title, and you have a multiple-choice dialogue of which one to pick ("1. Encyclopedia of Supernatural Occurrences; 2. Tome of Mystical Incidents 3. Compendium on Occult Phenomena ; 4. Concordance of Paranormal Episodes"). Or maybe when you hear about the book you need, you get an index card, and you use the index card on the books to locate the one you're looking for. This would also work with the clues/memory inventory used in some games.

[TheJBurger]

What SSH said. I haven't played that many adventure games and I've seen that too often. Annoying. Don't ever tell the player "You don't need that" or similar stuff. Let him pick up what he wants and figure out himself when, where and how to use it.

I have a hypothetical situation:
Let's say the player is in a friend's apartment where there are multiple pick-up-able object such as pictures, dishes, books, cabinets, dvds, etc. Now the player doesn't have any need for any of these items and they are just background images. So what should you tell the player? "I'm not going to steal from my friend?" "I don't need this item?"

The same would apply for useless inventory items found all around. "I don't need this?" or, let the player pick them up and carry around useless trash?

[Nikolas]

If there is some kind of very reasonable limit to the inventory, then no the player won't lift everything.

About the friends house, he shouldn't be getting the message "no I won't steal from my friend", but a message "HEY!!!! WTF??? Are you doing?" Second time message he's out of the house and a new puzzles comes up to find a way back in in order to get help from his friend.

[miguel]

Hello Snarky, it's an honour,
I didn't explain myself very well, the book puzzle I mention was based on  Indiana Jones, remember the huge shelves? You would have diferent hotspots named 'books' with diferent coments when 'looked' at and possibly a 'I don't know what I'm looking for' when 'interacted'. Now the plot changes and this one book, maybe a diferent but subtle colour to it, is found, thus the hotspot becoming 'book' and not 'books'.
I remember passing the mouse over it very slowly, trying to find that book, and it felt nice!
Someone mentioned how Lucas Arts designed their games and it's absolutely true. If your placing the player in a situation that he could logically use a object to solve a puzzle and then you don't allow him to, it's going to become frustrating, so you'll need the 'not just now' or 'not yet' kind of phrases, just to reasure the player that is on the right track but he's missing something.

[space boy]

I have a hypothetical situation:
Let's say the player is in a friend's apartment where there are multiple pick-up-able object such as pictures, dishes, books, cabinets, dvds, etc. Now the player doesn't have any need for any of these items and they are just background images. So what should you tell the player? "I'm not going to steal from my friend?" "I don't need this item?"

The same would apply for useless inventory items found all around. "I don't need this?" or, let the player pick them up and carry around useless trash?

As some people already said, sometimes it's ok to make it impossible for the player to pick up certain things, if there is a good and rational reason. But honestly, I prefer to carry useless junk than have the player character play the game for me. "I don't need this"-type messages have been overused.

[radiowaves]

After reading this thread, I think I am going to make a game where everything or at least most of the stuff you can pick up, lead to something bad, like roof collapsing or something else that would end with death. Maybe that will teach a lesson to people who grab stuff that don't belong to them or have no direct connection with.

But to be on topic, one suggestion is that there are lots of useless junk laying around and you have very limited inventory.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I don't have a problem with disallowing out of the ordinary behavior unless there's some mitigating circumstance introduced in the game, and I'd hardly consider it poor design.  When you're playing the part of a character in a game (unless it explicitly reminds you that the character is NOT you, which some games do for amusement purposes), it's not unreasonable to assume that you would not go digging around in the trash in the hope that you'll find yet another inventory item -- that is, unless you KNOW or at least have been given some clue that one can be found there.  On the other hand, there are games that take this to an illogical extreme, where even simple actions are refused unless there's an explicit reason provided (things like turning on a light switch or examining a desk come to mind).

The best way to handle something like this, I believe, is to establish the character's behavior traits up front (danger-seeking, cowardly, phobic,etc) and adjust your restrictions based on the character's personality.  A phobic person probably wouldn't dig through trash without an extremely good reason (and protection), but a danger-seeking type might just need to know that something's in there worth the trouble.  Some games handle the whole 'you can't do this yet' issue in rather the wrong way by showing the PLAYER that something important is there while making the CHARACTER ignorant of it, and this often irritates.  If both character and player are kept in the dark about the value of something, however, I see no problem with making them learn more before delving into a heap of trash.

[lo_res_man]

Maybe the 'I can't do that yet' puzzles are a reaction to the ease of acquiring walkthroughs, trying to force the player to follow the story.  I think it can theoretically done right, but is certainly a challenge. I believe it is very much of the linear/nonlinear curve, trying to between  railroading the player, and simply leaving them floundering.
Of course, adventure game heroes are kleptomaniacs anyway.

[BOYD1981]

i really don't mind this kind of 'puzzle' and think it kind of makes sense to include it so that the player feels more like an adventurer doing things because they have to rather than a kleptomaniac just shoving everything they can into their pockets. but this is also why i like inventory limits, one thing that does kinda bug me slightly are the unrealistic carrying abilities of your average adventure game character because it is kinda silly being able to carry 20+ objects about your person with no visible way of storing all of them apparent to the player such as a big coat with lots of pockets or a duffle bag (this also bugs me in FPS games - i prefer a limited arsenal which you can actually see the character carrying on them). Ofcourse, Simon the Sorcerer gets around this problem by storing everything in a magic hat
so, i wouldn't really put it down to bad design in most cases but i do think it is true that some people just throw that type of thing in instead of coming up with proper puzzles (Super Jazz Man springs immediately to mind...) and it really can be annoying. There was also a situation like this in Dreamfall - i figured out what i had to do before the stupid girl i was playing as did - and it totally breaks character immersion. I went from caring about the character and her story to just shouting at her stupid unexpressive face.

[cat]

In an adventure game, when I enter a room with a lot of different stuff and a trash can, the first thing I would probably do is search the trash can, because there will be very likely something I need (or will need later).
Of course I would not do that in real life, but hey, in an adventure game I pick up everything I can.