I think that if it's not too intrusive, it can be done well. However, the early Sierra games did it horribly, which is why I've come to hate it. Not only can you easily die, but if you save after getting stuck, you have to redo the entire game. I was playing the original Police Quest the other day, and died when I got shot in the jail by the car theif. So I reloaded, tried to search him for weapons, and the game lovingly presented me with "You should have thought of that when you had him on his belly!" That's when I stopped playing the game, and I haven't gone back to it since. Some people can tell me "use multiple save slots!!!" I shouldn't be forced to do that in an adventure game. A well-designed adventure game should not allow me to get stuck and have to restart the game.
In certian places I think it adds some to the game (like the bit in PQ you described) but sometimes I think its stupid, walking deads are the worst
I enjoyed death in Sierra games, the thing to do it always have a save in the begining on eac"section" of those games. A death in a game of todays expected full length, they would be really annoying, but old sierra games, when you really look at them don't have that many puzzles comparatively. So in order to lenghten the game, the walking dead was invented.
-MillsJROSS
Ooh! Yet ANOTHER original are-deaths-good-or-bad argument! Yay...
Bad: Sierra walking deads and pointless deaths.
Better?: LEC style deathless games, where you can't die, no matter what you do
Problem: Hard to think of workarounds. If y ou get caught by guards, what would they do? Tickle you until you submitted and then let you go?
Solution: Have a replay/retry option upon dying, where you can turn back time and do it over again.
That's my opinion. You'll be hearing this the next time somebody asks for our opinions on whether deaths are good or bad in adventure games. :P
Oh, and Ytterbium, you naught chemical element you... having such a large and intrusive signature could be annoying to some. Try and tone it down a notch. ;)
I think death is important to adventure games. The death element and the fear of death adds to the adventurous thrill.
I like death in Sierra games. It amuses me. I'm used to saving - I'm mainly an action gamer.
Funny deaths are cool as long as there is a retry option and you don't depend on your saved games.
However the deaths in early Sierra games where you walked on a bridge and moved slightly ot the sides and fell and died are just annoying.
the death in MI was the best (ew, was it 1 or 3 :( cant remember :( )
But as terrain said, deaths are ok, aslong as they have a retry. Another thing I hate is that stupid things like the officer in goldrush :D which are funny the frist time, but after that it gets annoying, you end up turning the speed up cause it takes so long, then walk into a rivier
Avoid the death puzzles shouldn't exist. You know, the type where you've got to move the character along narrow ledges or through a pitch-black labyrinth. Other than that, I take what the author gives. My favorite adventure games have been LEC/LA but I've played most of the Sierra ones as well. Particularly in the SQ series, I got my money's worth in replay value as I attempted to find every grisley or unique death in the game.
Sudden decompression sucks! ... Ah, those were the days.
Death good, walking deads bad.
I think the knowledge you can die can really add somthing to the atmosphere, of course, if it's done badly it can take you RIGHT OUT.
I say, find a compromise or just leave it out.
And definately no walking deads! Call me small-minded but it honestly escapes me how anyone could be entertained by such a cheap, frustrating and overally horrible device.
Most of the early Sierra adventure games (like KQ1,2,3 etc) were not as complex as the later ones, so a random death made it more challanging. Or in some instances, frustrating.
The solution to the "what happens when a guard catch you" problem in Toonstruck was fun. You get thrown in jail, with new puzzles to solve in order to escape.
I hate death in adventure games.
Especially Grim Fandango.
Hee hee, lol DG. :D
Trumgottist: I agree (havnt played toonstrcuk though) that if a game is in a "lose the game" situation it should allow (to some extent) continuation. Of course this can be taken too far, for example if dying in a game brings you to heaven and you have to ressurect your body, now that's just taking too far :P.
I recently decided to use AGS and this community for testing out things, though, so making a very short but full of freedom game would make a nice experimnent :)
I have some more to say on this subject, but tommorow, good night my lab-rats ;)
It would be best if we'd be able to actually administer death directly to the players.
See their minds at work!
As for the jail solution: okay, so you escape the jail, and get caught again. What does the player do? Escapes the jail again, digs that tunnel and wanders through the air-ducts maze again?
Nope, he/she restores.
Much like when the character dies.
So, what's the difference?
I took great lengths in Fatman to have deaths. I love them. Space Quest deaths were a true inspiration. However, in all fairness there just must be a *retry* option ... unless you like getting flamed. :P
Quote from: Goldmund on Sun 01/02/2004 00:59:22As for the jail solution: okay, so you escape the jail, and get caught again. What does the player do? Escapes the jail again, digs that tunnel and wanders through the air-ducts maze again?
Nope, he/she restores.
Much like when the character dies.
So, what's the difference?
Not in Toonstruck, he doesn't. The thing is: this was fun, and the solution was different each time since the jail guard prevented you from escaping the same way again. I actually got caught on purpose a couple of times just to see all escapes. (In the end, the guard gave up, and left, leaving an open jail cell.)
The point I'm trying to make is that a death/undo sequence isn't the only way to handle potential dangers.
Yeah, a 'retry' is probably the easiest way to deal with it. Sometimes the scenes can be amusing (alla space quest) but often they're frustrating. Especially if you havent saved for a while and have to play loads again.
Personally, I try to avoid deaths or use them as little as possible. But thats just me.
I was really enjoying Pleurghburg right up until I was shot, even though I was a police officer carrying a gun of my own, which OF COURSE I went for.
My last save was about an hour previous. Grrrr!
I guess a retry would have been okay.
My opinion? Death to death in adventure games.
IMO as long as you know it is possible to die it's OK, cause then atleast you know to save regularly, remembering to do so becomes part of the game.
Walking deads are silly, especially when you don't know until right near the end that you needed to pick something up a few hours/days ago.
Death can be fun, but I also think that a retry option is the best workaround.
I think Pleurghburg is a good example how to use death in adventure games. The scenes in which you are in danger to die are made so that something tells that you have to save now...
QuoteI was really enjoying Pleurghburg right up until I was shot, even though I was a police officer carrying a gun of my own, which OF COURSE I went for.
My last save was about an hour previous. Grrrr!
Lol, same thing happened to me. Haven't played it since. I didn't know you could die so didn't bother to save that often.
For some reason I really hated the "Retry" method of solving Deaths. Like when you die, you are immeadiately taken to the point just before the cause of death. Like in KQ7. That just annoyed me. They even gave a little "hint" that usually solved the whole puzzle.
I don't like deaths in adventure games anyway, anyhow, anywhere. That's why I like Lucas Arts games because you can't die in those games (with a few exceptions like Maniac Mansion and Zak McKraken).
When I played the Adventures of Fatman demo and I pressed the self-destruct button in the Fatmobile because I thought it was somekind of joke but no! You just sat there while the FatCom (or what it's name was again) counted down and KABOOM!!! That's just plain stupid way to plant a death on.
Deaths in my games haven't been, is not nor will ever be a part of my games style. No way, no how! I just hate those death things. It's just a stupid excuse for annoy players. Thank goodness that death-scenes are only at certain places in Pleurghburg because otherwise it would be very annoying.
I agree that death can be really unfair when handled improperly, but a game in which I know I cannot fail doesn't produce enough tension to make me care whether I solve the puzzles or not.
This is especially important in survival, horror, detective, and other types of games where the main character is ostensibly putting his or her life on the line. If the player isn't afraid of being killed or trapped, the plot looses its teeth.
So, in my opinion, even if a game is crafted such that you cannot lose, that fact should generally not be made evident to the players; in fact, the players should be led to believe that death and failure *are* ever-present possibilities, so that they continue to care about the consequences of their actions.
QuoteIt's just a stupid excuse to annoy players.
It's an excuse for
some game writers, not the ultimate reason to slap it in there with every game that has it or is going to have it.
I think death, if it fits with the game itself, is perfectly fine. Like some said before, just as long as the player as some knowledge about it. With knowing, they can prepare for those situations. Pointless deaths are stupid and I've never been a big fan of the "Retry" option. I personally prefer the multiple save idea, although I make it a point not to rely on them too much.
And yes, walking deads can kiss
my ass too.
--Snake
I think the end of Full Throttle demonstrated the perfect way to handle death. You screw up, you die, Ben says "Damn, let's try that again" and they throw you straight back into it. No breaks with reloading games, death screens, etc, etc really helped keep the tension up too.
Okay. Hm.
This is a dodgy subject because I know a lot of people swear by Sierra and, let's face it; if you swear by Sierra, you swear by death in adventure games.
I guess the way I stand on the issue is this; I've never really thought of Adventure Games as a genre that handle death well. I don't mind dying in FPS's, or in Platformers, or RPGs. It adds to the gameplay, because essentially those games are about survival. Adventures never really struck me as a a genre that required you to survive to accomplish the goal of a level, because for a start, there just wasn't enough interactivity. Not the right sort of interactivity. I admired the way it was done in Full Throttle, but I didn't see that as death so much as I saw it as some kind of more interactive puzzle of some sort.
Sierra games, especially the early ones, if I recall correctly, were keyboard controlled. This gave a slightly different sort of interactivity to the mouse interface, which meant you could do things like run from enemies. However, you could also do a lot of stupid shit like pull rocks on top of yourself and walk off the edge of cliffs. I suppose this gave Sierra games a lot more of an interactive feel to their worlds because there was literally so much to wander around and get lost in, and so many ways to die.
Whereas with LucasArts games, it was more linear. Sure, you could solve the puzzles in any order you wanted for the most part, but the end result was always the same (With an exception of FOA).
I think FOA got the whole Death thing just fine. I didn't mind dying in FOA, because it was far and few between, and you knew when a potentially dangerous situation was coming so you could save.
But for the most part I think that there just isn't enough of the right sort of interactivity in adventure games to incorporate a lot of death. You have to ask yourself; what's the point in dying? In RPGs and FPSs, the dying element gets your blood pumping. You have to fight those bad guys, stay alive for as long as possible, etc. You're there, in the action.
But with Adventure Games the only real dying you can do is by clicking the wrong button, which doesn't really get your adrenaline running unless you're some kind of freak, and therefore serves no purpose but to piss off your player severely when he or she reads a sneering message asking when the last time they saved their game was.
Why didn't you package your games with a little machine that flips people off, eh, Roberta?
EDIT: Yes, linear was the wrong word.. I meant to go back and change it when I thought of the right one, but then I forgot, and then I couldn't think of the word at all.
Lucasarts games being more linear? How are they more linear than old Sierra games?
Maniac Mansion had many different endings before FOA and the end result wasn't always different. Sure the game ended but that's the same for FOA.
I think Sierra games handled death quite well in some respects. If you walked your character off the side of a cliff you will die. Granted the other deaths like "Woops surprise you're dead!" were annoying but as far as I can recall the majority of deaths were from obvious instances. If you delay too long in Space Quest defeating an enemy it will kill you. If you cast a spell wrong in King's Quest it will kill you.
There may not have been the write amount of interactivity in adventure games in the past but now it can be added. AGS is a powerful bitch and if you can do something new and fresh and clever with your deaths then go for it. Just let the player know please
I was planning in my game to give a dialog warning when a char enters a dangerous room like.
"Geez Tutch this sure looks dangerous. If I was playing a game right now I'd save"
well not exactly like that but you know so the player is warned.
I liked LucasArts game swhere you couldn't die. But if you want a game to be suspenseful like Pleurghburg then you have to have the chance to die. get it? I don't
I once saved my game on top of the cliff in Broken sword, just in tiny pawse in the action before some bald guy kills you. So narrow was this window of opertunity for me do do something that by saving I left myself no time to escape. Thus I fucked my saved game up completly, and had to start all over again, because there was no way I could get past it in the time I had left. I was quite cross, but I don't think it was unfair. I was just stupid.
I think I did the same for the end of Beneath a Steel Sky. In fairness, they could have disabled game saving for those parts.
Okay, so I get the feeling that death can add to a game's atmosphere. But I find going to the save menu annoying. I'll only include death in my games if there is a quicksave key with three alternating quicksave slots.
Oh, and pardon my stupidity, but what's FOA?
FOA - Indiana Jones and the Fate Of Atlantis, sometimes unofficially called Indy4
I'd have to say that my favourite games are easily long games where you can't screw things up or die, you just have to think, eg Lucasarts games. I don't really mind deaths in games at all (like sierra games) if, like has been said before, it's done well. One of the most frustrating games for deaths was Maniac Mansion - you could die just from ... pulling a vase or something. Very very frustrating, but it gave that game almost all of the great atmosphere I love it for. I was always on edge playing that game.
The worst thing about a game is when you can play for a significant amount of time after having screwed it up, not knowing that you've been on the wrong path for ages and there's nothing you can do. I prefer deaths to that, at least then you know straight away and you don't have to go back so far (as long as you HAVE been saving).
You couldn't die from pulling a vase in Maniac Mansion... I think the worst part about maniac mansion was not KNOWING when you'd screwed yourself. You could wander aimlessly for ages, without being able to progress meaningfully because you were stuck. At least, I think so. I got stuck so I never finished it. Or maybe I wasn't stuck. Hm?
Well, it was just an example of how silly some of the things that would blow the house up were. There was definitely something you could do to the vase on the piano that would blow the house up.