Episode summary - a new way of loading?

[YOke]

This is not really the place for it, but I thought it was such a good idea that I had to write it down. If one were to take this idea one step further one could make a "Last episode"-styled resumé when you load the game. Giving the player a quick reminder of important plot points, what they have achieved, and what is left to achieve.

Example:
Let's say we put this system on Indy: FoA, and you open a savegame from when you are outside the theatre in New York it would go something like this:

LAST EPISODE
(screenshot from the basement of barnett college) Indy came across a strange artifact in Barnett College's basement.
(cut to Kerner pointing a gun at Indy) His employer turned out to be a nazi by the name Klaus Kerner, who escapes with the artifact after claiming it is Atlantean.
This sends Indy out on a quest...etc

You propably see where I'm going with this?
I think it would just be a question of setting some global variables and making a large cutscene, summing up the entire game, with a litte "if" condition on showing each screen? Make the running of this cutscene a function and run it after each load? Do any more experienced programmers see any probplem with this?

Do I make any sense?

[Ishmael]

Sounds like a good idea to me, but I'm not sure if it's neccesary... ofcource, if you haven't played the game in a long time, then it would be...

[YOke]

I thought it could be a nice way of bringing the player back into the game and setting the mood. It's a cutscene after all. Shouldn't be much work to do, and easy to skip... I will do some experiments... 

[Lazy Z]

I really like this idea! It'd work better in really long games, or maybe in the ones that rely heavily on their storylines, but it's a good idea nonetheless.

They've kinda done that already in Metal Gear Solid by the way, every time you loaded a game you'd get a text-only plot synopsis up to that point. But who needs originality anyway , by all means do try it!

[Hollister Man]

The other thing that is often a problem is transferring your inventory items from one "episode" to another.  I have often wondered if we could use AGS's built in file format to do this...

[Scummbuddy]

I don't think you read it right, there man. This is about loading a saved game with a recap.

[Hollister Man]

Okay, sorry about that.  I think loading a saved game and having to put up with the cutscene would suck, even if it was skippable.  Now, if the game was cut into "episodes" then it might be more fun.

[MrColossal]

if you have a little option to tick before loading like "Remind me what's going on again, please." then it shows the little cutscene i'd be happier with it.

[YOke]

MrC: hehe... i was just talking concept here, but yeah. some sort of checkbox or button would be good. ultimately it depends on how it fits with the style of the game. it sort of like The Force; used well it could help the player get into the atmosphere of the game, used wrong it will bring nothing but death and destruction. 

[Ginny]

Personally, I would really enjoy such a thing, especcially if the updtaing was interesting. I don't think it would be too difficult to make, either. For example, we would just use one global int, and each time an important event occurs, we add 1 to this int. Then in the function for this cutscene, it would check if the int was more than 0 for the first event, more than 1 for the second, etc..

Now, this is perfectly good for linear games, but when there is some non-linearlity, and not just in puzzles, it gets complicated. Choices would have to be taken care of with lots of varaibles (in this case it's best not to waste global ints but use int declarations and exports-imports), or some clever use of one global int, and if actions can actually be subtly changed, or can happen in a different order, well, it takes some thought. Nevertheless, I love this idea! I will definetly incorporate it into my future plot-oriented games. Btw, on the topic, do you think such a thing would be neccessary/helpful/nice/not pointless in a game that's pretty long, but puzzle oriented mostly (not entirely)?

P.s. Oh yeah and definetly a checkbox of some sort.

[YOke]

I have thought a bit about that. I was thinking about a few solutions:

1 - Binary. Assign the value 1 to first goal, 2 to the second goal, 4 to the third goal, 8 to the fourth goal...etc. Simple deductive programming to find out what scenes are enabled. Some will propably be co-dependent and will act as one. (if you have done one thing, you have to have done other things)

2 - A string value of 0101010001110101011 and so on.

3 - Bite the dust and make a boolean array

4 - I guess you could also do a "scan" of the rooms when you load the game and fetch local variables, but that will create speed issues i would imagine.

Haven't done much scripting in AGS yet (i've programmed quite a bit before, so it should not be a problem) so my big concern is if i script the LOAD-button thusly:

{
RestoreGameSlot(x,x);
if checkthisifyouwantasummary == true
RunSummary;
}

(sorry if the syntax is wrong. i'm fully able to RTFM )

...will the script continue to run after i have loaded the game, or will it simply cut it off and fade in at the saved location? It will be possible to program around this, but i'd rather not...

[m0ds]

Sounds like an interesting idea. It doesn't necessarily have to say, "LAST TIME!" etc or anything, it could just be used as a transition for loading. Just to bring you back to where you left off last time. I'd like to see a test and see it's potential!

[YOke]

I will conduct some tests during the weekend to see how it works. I'll post the results here. If somebody else plays around with the idea please post your results here as well. I'm off for bowling and beer.

[jannar85]

A Sherlock Holmes game had the same thing. It would be pretty cool to add this to our games, for those who want it..

[DanClarke]

i like the idea, but i don't think i'll impliment it into my game, i'd prefer people to have played my previous game first  8)