The 'Missing Item' Syndrome in old-school Adventure Games

[TerranRich]

...but not every key unlocks every lock

Skeleton keys do. I think this was more of a cultural-based puzzle, where the term "skeleton key" was used in a humorous way with an actual skeleton. Plus, it's an outdated term. I only remember hearing "skeleton key" from cartoons that were made decades ago. Bad puzzle.

[Babar]

I don't think it is exactly a culture-based puzzle. Skeleton keys are reasonably well known to anyone you ask. I've encountered the term with locksmiths, as well as books, movies, and even games.

But yeah...despite how great a game I consider KQ6, it did have a number of walking dead situations. At least in that situation you knew what you were in for.

[Trent R]

And since adventures don't have much replay value in contrast to, say, RPGs, it's just wasted time.

I think most would disagree with this statement. I personally replay my favorite RPGs all the time (FF6, FF9, any Suikoden, Skies of Arcadia, etc) but many adventure games are geared towards re-playability. (LB, any QFG, KQ6, MM, Art of Theft, ATOTK, etc)


~Trent

[Edit]: Offtopic, which is why I'm editing a previous post. Personally, I can't stand FF7 or 8, cause of the super-sci-fi genre, whereas I prefer the fantasy of the originals, mixed with the excellent characterizations of the later ones (6+) making FF9 my favorite, followed by 6.

And I know I've beaten FF6, but I can't remember the end. FF9-can't remember past the escaping from Terra. Skies-can't remember from the final dungeon.
Despite, I still love them (and sometimes the beginnings are the funnest, just cause you're the underdog!)

[Stupot]

Aye, I've replayed FF7 loads of times... (never actually completed it though, but shhhh, that's between you and me).

[Ozzie]

Well, I kinda guessed this reasoning behind the skeleton key, but I had no idea of its cultural meaning. It's kinda like monkey wrench in Monkey Island 2 then.

I personally replay my favorite RPGs all the time (FF6, FF9, any Suikoden, Skies of Arcadia, etc) but many adventure games are geared towards re-playability. (LB, any QFG, KQ6, MM, Art of Theft, ATOTK, etc)

I'm not sure if you misunderstood me there or not. I said indirectly that RPGs have replay value, so...

But I think only a minority of adventures have replay value. KQ6 had some because of the two paths. QfG is half an RPG, so it's no wonder where it comes from.
Blade Runner and Indiana Jones 4 were very replayable and like you said Maniac Mansion, but these are already all I can remember.
It's no wonder, most adventure follow just one story path from which you can't deviate.

But my point was, dead ends just make you replay parts again that you already experienced and at most times in exactly the same way. It feels like wasted time then.
Sure, it's fun to replay a game after some time, but not so to replay it in parts before you have even finished it.

[robvalue]

I think that situations where you cannot make progress anymore should generally not be in these kind of adventure games. They will cause frustration in most players, especially if you don't know that you have entered such a situation, and leads to either giving the game up or resorting to a walkthrough which are the two things you really want to avoid when designing or playing a game.

I think the only way they are acceptable is if it is made clear to the player that they are entering such a situation when they do a particular action, and ask them do they really want to do this as space-time will be anomolied or something, like in oblivion when you kill an important NPC. You can carry on for the fun of it but you know you cannot progress as normal. So a warning window comes up, and it says if you do this then you are screwed... are you sure you want to? If you click yes it should autosave anyway incase you change your mind.

But I would say that unless you put a lot of effort into the above 'losing' scenarios, they aren't gonna be much fun anyway and it will be wasted effort that could be used to make the game better in general so I'd say just avoid these situations altogether.

I also totally agree that you should aim for a game experience where you only save and load when you are starting or quitting a game session, you shouldn't have to keep doing it manually for fear of losing or missing things, this detracts from the gaming experience.

[Trent R]

robvalue, you mean Morrowind, not Oblivion. Morrowind popped up a window and treated you as intelligent, Oblivion treated you like a baby and wouldn't let anyone important die (which I guess is okay when it comes to AI acting random, but that's what the cheating debug console was for)

But rob reminded me of another topic/idea:
Suppose that an AGS had walking deads in it. Suppose it was an excellent game even though it had walking deads. Suppose it had a frequent autosave. Suppose it popped up a warning saying (you have passed a point of no-return and have missed an important item).

In this hypothetical game, would you support a feature that turned off all saving features once you entered walking-dead mode?


~Trent
PS-That game truly is hypothetical, I would never implement such a thing.
PSS-I only cheat in TES after I beat the main quests and main guilds on subsequent playthroughs. And even then, it's usually just teleporting

[mkennedy]

In this hypothetical game, would you support a feature that turned off all saving features once you entered walking-dead mode?

That would be acceptable in my opinion if there was an autosave made of the game before doing anything unwinnable.
It would also be  acceptable  to have the savegame flagged as unwinnable so you can't save it over a savegame that is winnable but still allow saving. (Give them some message, "the following savegame is unwinnable, but we'll let you continue to explore anyway.)

[Trent R]

I think it could be pushed even further, causing for extra dialogue and scenes---insisting that the player mess up and explore around!

"Hey, there's that bastard that killed the sheriff!! Run him out of town!"


~Trent