In adventure games, there will always be people who are having a second playthrough of a game, or are making use of a walkthrough. Sometimes, they may find themselves, because of their own knowledge, getting a character to do something that the character themself, at this stage, has no good reason to know about needing to do.
For example, Billy needs to cut a piece of rope, but to do that, he needs to have taken the teeth out of a lion in a different room.
Should Billy therefore be allowed at any stage to de-dentify that lion, just for the hell of it, only to then find what he's acquired is useful? Or do you prefer it when the character objects to that kind of thing (e.g. "What the hell would I need the lion's teeth for?!") before later finding out the reason.
Granted, silly example, but hopefully from it people can see where I'm coming from in terms of characters saying no to actions that they themselves would not yet find logical and reasonable.
I hate it when this "I need a good reason" appears. If it can be picked up, it should always be possible.
With the kind of puzzles in the example, it doesn't make much of a difference because a game in that style usually allows you to carry around all kind of stuff that you have no purpose for collect. I'm not a fan of these games myself, but it's a subgenre that some enjoy.
I do think most puzzles can be structured to avoid it though - for instance getting the teeth could require a tool that you won't get until after encountering the rope. The Runaway approach of not activating hotspots or indicating that they're not useful until you have a reason to interact with them is simply bad design, because players expect consistent results and can't be expected to click on everything again once they've encountered a new puzzle.
Edit: I just thought of a recent example I came across in the first episode of The Silver Lining. You're on a beach, and the only thing that stands out is a peculiar flower - obviously a potion ingredient. If you try to pick it up, the narrator will tell you "there's no time for that, you have to rescue your children" or something to that effect - yet when you look at the flower, the camera zooms in, and the narrator goes on at great length about Graham pondering the flower's species. Tried to pick it up again - "no time" - then I stood passively on the beach, wasting several precious minutes just to spite the narrator.
I like it when they object, but still do it.
"I don't see how this'll help, but what the heck."
They point out the absurdity, but it doesn't take away from the player's interactions. I also implement this when people give quest items to NPCs before the NPC has told them what they want. The acceptance dialog is slightly different.
Or if the character outright refuses, let him explain why (and the reason had better be good), and indicate that he could return later if he finds a need for it. For instance, in the flower example, since the developers apparently don't want you to pick it up before the second episode, Graham could say "I have no use for it right now, and I don't want it to wilt in my bag" or similar.
It's annoying.
A standard gameplay feature in adventure games is to pick up everything just in case you'll need it later, and you need a very good excuse for not doing this. Arbitrarily disallowing the character from picking up obvious items will likely bother many players on their first playthrough.
It's something that is really hard doing right; you need to take this into account when designing puzzles or else you will end up with hacks that will most likely frustrate players. You can make a player pickup everything that he need in the future, but then he will carry A LOT and need to check all of the inventory items if he's stuck (ok, brute forcing should also be prevented but that's a different discussion I guess). If you prevent a player from picking up he might assume he doesn't need it at all, or he needs to do a lot of back tracking. Both of these situations are annoying as hell. :D
There are two approaches to deal with it:
- Design the puzzles to be located at only one or two screens, or limit the amount of inventory puzzles at a certain stage of the game. When a puzzle is solved remove the items from the inventory and allow the player to move to another location, or do this as a result of the story (cut scene, whatever).
- Divide the game into phases, and disallow interaction with certain item when the game is not yet in the right phase. You could tell the player that he has no time for it, or something that makes it very clear he needs to do something first.
Obvious the first approach is way more elegant, but it is also harder to do. Not only the design but the second approach enables you to reuse backgrounds, which saves time really.
Quote from: Wyz on Fri 08/10/2010 16:13:14You could tell the player that he has no time for it
Quote from: GarageGothic on Fri 08/10/2010 15:12:45If you try to pick it up, the narrator will tell you "there's no time for that, you have to rescue your children" or something to that effect - yet when you look at the flower, the camera zooms in, and the narrator goes on at great length about Graham pondering the flower's species. Tried to pick it up again - "no time" - then I stood passively on the beach, wasting several precious minutes just to spite the narrator.
If you choose that explanation, you'd better back it up (an axe murderer chasing the character or whatnot) - with the amount of time you waste looking for hotspots in any adventure game, the simple act of picking something up is is a drop in the ocean, not to mention the time you spend backtracking to get it later :). And no, I really don't expect to find Prince Alexander and Princess Rosella dead at the end of KQIX just because of the time wasted on that beach.
Quote from: cat on Fri 08/10/2010 15:04:05
I hate it when this "I need a good reason" appears. If it can be picked up, it should always be possible.
I HATE THIS.
Really. Runaway was so annoying because of that. Even with the figuring-out of the puzzle its still stupid and annoying.
This is a bit of a touchy subject I believe.
It all depends on the game with me.
Logically, unless conceived/described or narrated correctly, I don't like having the protagonist be able to pick up items that he/she has no idea what they will use them for, only because the PLAYER knows. Just a simple click with the interaction cursor and "You pick up the half eaten apple out of the trash...", doesn't cut it for me. I think the character should know why they are picking something up or fiddling with something. There needs to be a reason. But on the other hand, if it's a comical game or just plain light-hearted, it's never bothered me.
There is also the "It's an adventure game, that's what you're supposed to do. You fill your inventory with everything you come across, because if you can pick it up, most likely you will need it later."
Whilst I agree with this for the most part, does it really need to be a staple for adventure games? I believe adventure games are, and always have been, story oriented. Being able to pick everything up off the floor sometimes ruins it for me, not completely - more temporary really.
Or maybe I just play them different. I hate seeing something and immediately interacting with it. The #1 rule when I play is to examine it first and decide if I need it after words - which can obviously get me into trouble with some games (like if I've got to travel long distances to retrieve that item, remembering where I saw it or if I've gotten myself into a dead end), but it makes me feel more immersed I guess, giving me an option of whether or not I want to pick it up or not.
And of course restricting the player completely and making them have to do something else or look at the item before hand can frustrate the player. I learned that lesson with my Matt to the Future game demo I released last Christmas. One player knew he needed a specific item, but he couldn't pick it up until he did something else.
It all boils down to the type of game and personal taste, I suppose. You can design the game however you want, but some players may not agree with your logic of puzzle design and the way they are able to interact with the game world, no matter what you do anyway.
We talked about this earlier this year if I recall correctly... Whoa, time sure fly! It wasn't earlier this year, it was last year: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=36991.0
My opinion on the subject hasn't changed since then. I don't like it, I don't mind if it happens once, if there's a good reason to it and if the protagonist's reaction make it very clear that I can't pick it now but I'll be able to pick it later, but doing it for many or every objects in a game can have disastrous consequence, like Speculum Mortis.
Didn't someone suggest picking the idea of objects rather than objects themselves? For example, the ladder is to big to carry around but your character will keep the ladder in mind if the need for a ladder ever arise and the ladder (or the idea of it) is added to your inventory.
In my opinion, what this comes down to is that we need to rethink what a puzzle is and why it's there in the first place. We've come to expect most puzzles to be inventory related, often related to using an item in a surprising fashion or combining two seemingly unrelated items. Neither of these are in themselves very interesting acts (click-click-and-click) and anything that's possibly fun or challenging about it happens in the players head rather than on-screen.
One of the reasons I often dislike comedy games is that they ask me to find a single outrageous solution to reach a goal that I could get to by several other, much more logical means if only the game didn't limit my options - yes, apparently there's only place in all of America that Sam & Max could possibly find a piece of string! A comedy puzzle presents itself like the set-up for a joke, and you solving it provides the punchline, but is any joke really good enough to warrant a half hour or longer buildup*? In realistic/serious adventures logic flaws are harder to overlook and the bad ones may ruin immersion entirely, but that doesn't hinder 99% of them from being set in some parallel universe that uses barter economy and doesn't have a single hardware store.
How about, instead of discussing issues like hiding broken game mechanics and flawed logic behind clever player character quips, we started coming up with puzzles that not only make sense in terms of achieving the characters immediate goals and in and by themselves are interesting and fun activities that reflect the unique theme of the game?
I recommend anybody working in the comedy adventure genre to play the third season of Telltale's Sam & Max series - half of the game mechanics sound insane on paper, like they would never work and are the diametrical opposite of what puzzles "are supposed to be". Yet in practice they're not just perfectly logical (within the game's universe), but they're a hell of fun to play around with even when you're not actively trying to solve a puzzle, and they're so topsy-turvy innovative that even someone like me who's been a dedicated adventure gamer since the days of Sierra and LucasArts really has to scratch his head and restructure his framework of causal and chronological thinking.
* Any that doesn't end in the teller exclaiming: "The Aristocrats!", that is ;)
Hmm, well might be 4 soultions that already exist, in addition to Wyz suggestions:
- limit inventory, that way player thinks before takes and automatically has a "stop" sign - well my character can't possibly carry that around
- along those lines, an item which you can carry only for while before it has to be put down (like a ladder) so you basically add realism as well
- go around it by blocking stuff so they can't be picked up before they're supposed to - you see teeth of a lion, but can't take it before you get the pliers (which you get when you get the rope...or something)
- limit player actions per item, something that's sort of in BS1 - you can examine an item (like lion tooth) but only after you need it (like you see the rope in the next screen) then you can examine the tooth but can also pick it up (mouse icon changes or similar)
Quote from: anian on Fri 08/10/2010 18:55:57- limit inventory, that way player thinks before takes and automatically has a "stop" sign - well my character can't possibly carry that around
- along those lines, an item which you can carry only for while before it has to be put down (like a ladder) so you basically add realism as well
Actually I quite like the limited inventory approach in Dreamweb where pretty much anything can be picked up: Guitar plectrum at your buddy's place? Yoink! Yesterday's microwave dinner? A single green pea? It's all yours, if you want, but you'll never find a need for them. A gun, a credit card and a screwdriver, however, turn out to be quite useful - exactly like you would expect in the real world.
In Still Life 2 on the other hand - absolutely terrible. Picking up any large object like a mattress or a ladder (you know, stuff you would expect the character to hold in their currently visibly empty hands) means you'll have to track down a special storage container, empty your pockets in there to make room for the oversized item, pick it up, carry it to another location, use it, then return to the cupboard and retrieve your stuff. Realistic? Barely, since the character is apparently carrying a ladder in their pockets. Practical? Um, no. Annoying? Fuck yeah!
So, limited inventory... depends on the game, and whether there's enough inventory items carried at a time for it to be relevant (in which case maybe you should consider if that's too many). Oversized items? Always separate from the main inventory, if it's assumed that a character realistically must carry it in their hands it makes no sense to clear up space in the inventory. One solution is the Vampyre Story approach where the character "remembers" the item into his inventory, and once you use the item, the character goes off-screen to fetch it himself before using it.
Quote- limit player actions per item, something that's sort of in BS1 - you can examine an item (like lion tooth) but only after you need it (like you see the rope in the next screen) then you can examine the tooth but can also pick it up (mouse icon changes or similar)
I think this is fair enough, if the initial response hints well enough that you may need it later. But personally my experience with these kind of puzzles have always been to find something, realize that it not being interesting "right now" means I'm gonna use it for a puzzle later. Then once I get to that puzzle, more often than not I straight away think: "Ok, so NOW I can go back and get that item the game wouldn't let me pick up before". Makes me feel even more psychic than if I had picked the damned thing up in the first place.
Depends on the puzzle and the type of interaction really. Sometimes you don't really have much choice.
In Snakes of Avalon, at the beginning of the game, Jack refuses to sit down before he gets a proper drink at the bar. Only one player complained to me about this being unreasonable. While I admit it's not the "virtual reality" kind of freedom, I'm convinced the reasoning of the character is believable enough. Also, there wasn't any better way of doing it.
Quote from: anian on Fri 08/10/2010 18:55:57
- limit inventory, that way player thinks before takes and automatically has a "stop" sign - well my character can't possibly carry that around
I'm tempted to use a weight system for restriction, actually. I've sometimes found it odd when characters use a grid-based or limited number-based inventory, since apparently four bags of crisps take the same amount of effort for JC Denton to carry as one rocket launcher.