Useless Rooms

[Jeopardy]

I working on my first game, and I plan to have at least one room of every building in towns, how do you guy feel about a room in an adventure game, that not only do you not need to go to, but you there's inside that is of use to the quest, your feedback may be the difference between having a bunch of uceless rooms, or just clicking on the door and getting the message "They're closed, com back later." so what do you think, is it annoying, is it a cool idea?

I personally always loved exploring in adventure games, even if the room wasn't important I always wanted to go in.

[Babar]

I suggest a map. This way, if a person wishes to explore, they can explore, and once they discover an important room, it gets added to the map- where one click lets you get to all the important rooms.

[Radiant]

It depends. When done in moderation, especially as a passage between useful rooms, it adds a feeling of space to the game. For instance, compare King's Quest I (a game with plenty of empty rooms in between the interesting spots) to King's Quest VI (a game where every single room is crammed with half a dozen different objects and puzzles and characters). I'm not saying either is good or bad, it's just the atmosphere you want to set.

When used as dead ends, they quickly become boring, then possibly annoying. That is why, for instance, the castle in Indiana Jones Last Crusade, and the circles of atlantis in Fate of Atlantis, are implemented as a scrolling map, rather than a series of rooms.

[Jeopardy]

What I mean is, I've got a city street, there a five buildings on the block, and only three are necessary rooms in the game, There are an additional two store fronts, These stores have nothing to add to the game, no puzzle takes place inside, and no item is found that helps in any other puzzle, but I still want to be able to show what's in that store, would this be a cool idea, or would it be confusing.

Also, I already have a "map" actually a notepad screen with a list of locations on it.

[GarageGothic]

I would restructure the game a little, so perhaps one of the "useless" locations offers an alternate solution to a puzzle while the shopkeeper in the other can provide you with information about the town and perhaps give you some hints about the other characters. It's an hour or two's work for you, and the player won't keep on returning to seemingly less important locations to see if anything useful has appeared.
I don't necessarily think every location in a game should be used in gameplay, but I believe in an economy of resources. If a room neither provides gameplay, information or is used in a cutscene, there's little point in wasting time on the artwork. I understand what you're saying about making the game world fully explorable, and transitory locations do play a role in making a game world feel whole (the map view in Quest for Glory 3 just didn't give the same feeling of adventure as exploring every nook and cranny of the forests in QfG1 and 4). But why not include some kind of gameplay - not necessarily essentiual to completing the game - and offer the player the best of both worlds?

[Jeopardy]

Yeah, I think I know what you mean, like perhaps, the Shopkeeper can tell you where a certain building is you're looking for, actually one of the shopkeepers is the kind of character who could explain the legend that has inspired the main characters adventure, I had always intended for the Shopkeepers to be interactible, just not actually to serve a purpose.

[skuttleman]

Personally, I get annoyed when I have a huge world to explore that isn't related to the puzzles/story. Would you write a book and put chapters in there that didn't advance the plot? As much as I enjoyed Grim Fandango, I found Rubacava too large with too many useless areas for my taste. I would say use useless rooms sparingly.

[Layabout]

I go for the filmmaking point of view. If it doesn't drive the story forward, ditch it. Same with games. Sometimes it is useful to include a lobby, just so you are not jumping around too much, but i'd cut most unneccesary things.

[Darth Mandarb]

I'm with Lay on this one ...

I like useless rooms only as a "bridge" so to speak.  If you need to get from A to C you must go through B (even though there's nothing there you need).  That kind of "useless" room is okay ... but having room after room (like a shop on the street that you have no need to go into) is rather pointless.

While having a FULL world to explore is nice and very neat, if you can easily get lost in it you're likely to lose players.  Many times I've just walked away from a game if I'm stuck wandering about trying every door, every window, etc. with no clear idea where to progress.  I don't mean make it so simple a monkey could do it ... I just don't like when there is NOTHING to indicate what to do next.  That can happen if the explorable parts of the game are too vast.

[TwinMoon]

I'm a little two-minded about this. I like useless rooms, however as a (fledgling) gamemaker I tend to avoid them.
If the player has a clear view of what he's supposed to do, it could add to the experience. But I would suggest putting something in there.
Players expect something in a room, unless it's clearly only a room between rooms.

So, to conclude: I suggest making that room, if you have the time to do the artwork. But put either a puzzle, something funny or some character in there that provides background information about the gaming world.

[Alarconte]

Yes, Useless rooms can be interesting having some jokes (commentaries of the protagonist), or some superfluos conversation (a kind of informative dialog with a npc, Not necesary for the game but good to know better the game universe, or the ambient of the game, Like a old poor woman telling you how strong is the life in the street.

Other way is use the useless rooms in Intriguing/dangerous action. You need to find and kill the alien, with an eye in your pistol to shoot down fast the menace, but in a lot of rooms there's is nothing. This can be emoting or scary for the player.

[Stupot]

You say these rooms have nothing to add to the game... so why not add something to those rooms which does?
You could have a side-quest whereby you have to collect 10 or so items in order to earn a new item which will either give you some bonus or will actually be needed to progress in the game...  That way there is a reward for going into all of these rooms and everybody is happy.

[Alarconte]

You could have a side-quest whereby you have to collect 10 or so items in order to earn a new item which will either give you some bonus or will actually be needed to progress in the game...

But doing this breaks the rule of useless. The intention of the useless rooms is to make more realistic the game to the player, and to break the magical rule that this litlle rock found in the  strange and ilogical place, is useful to defeat the final boss.

[ThreeOhFour]

My first thought here is that you're being too ambitious.

I say go and draw all the plot central rooms first, leaving the useless rooms until later. If you honestly still feel like drawing all those additional backgrounds once you've got all the important ones done, I truly envy you.

However if you draw one street and 5 bgs for that one street and you realise you've just put in a damn lot of effort for not that much gameplay time, you're going to be less enthusiastic about the rest of the game, no?

Plus, I dislike useless rooms personally. They frustrate me. Ever find anyone who thought that the hallway in the Neverhood added anything to the game at all? A certain degree of linearity can improve the gameplay in that players are not always trying to guess where the hell they're supposed to go next. Having to guess where the hell you're supposed to go next frustrates me as well .

[Jeopardy]

Yeah, evry one makes good points, I think I am being too ambitious, I'll make the story-central rooms first, then I'll thik about adding extra stuff, I think I might add a couple with talking shop keepers giving you little insights into the story, but the depends on if I'm interested in that pain in the @$$ after I finish the main one.

[miguel]

Hi,
Why don't you use  those useless rooms as cutscenes? If you're going for the hard work of having different screens of the same location, build up on those and add some characters that are related to the plot.

[MoodyBlues]

On one hand, the player won't want to walk through screen after screen to get from one place to another if there's not much to do in those rooms.  On the other hand, you might want to avoid making the game seem too "neat," as if every single thing in the world relates directly to the main storyline.

Making every building in town a separate room is probably more work than it's worth, unless the town is very small.  However, some "useless" rooms could add to the game world.  Even if you don't solve any puzzles in those rooms, you could add lots of hotspots or sprinkle clues around to create atmosphere.  For instance, let's say your game is a murder mystery and you have a bar in your town.  The patrons might not say anything helpful, but they could give you an impression of how the murder affects the townspeople.

[radiowaves]

Heh. One could do a nice Urbex game, where you have to explore every possible room of an old building and solve the mystery by finding a secret tunnel

I love exploring, be it useless or not. I am curious type, and I am always wished that if something is interactable in real life, the game should allow me to interact with it also. I just start crippeling when some room is left unexplored.

[GarageGothic]

Heh. One could do a nice Urbex game, where you have to explore every possible room of an old building and solve the mystery by finding a secret tunnel
I love exploring, be it useless or not. I am curious type, and I am always wished that if something is interactable in real life, the game should allow me to interact with it also. I just start crippeling when some room is left unexplored.

Dammit, radiowaves. Urban explorers is actually the topic of a game I will do once Shadowplay is finished. I thought I was on to something quite original, and there you go ruining it  . Fortunately there's more to the game concept than that - but please, if anybody happens to be working on a game about a group of urban explorers in Venice with a mystery linked to architectural history, please let me know.
I've been researching the topic for some time now, but if you have a lot of experience in exploring off-limit areas, perhaps you could help me as an advisor on the game?

[radiowaves]

You do realize, that graphics has to be really good if you want the game to be fully enjoyable Since urbex is 60% gfx.