A Memory Interface

[joelphilippage]

I'm making a game based on a book were the player at certain parts of the game, will invoke a memory to find the courage or the wisdom to get out of situation. Also later in the game, the player can transform the main character into someone else you remember using a magical artifact and another tool that points the direction to a place you remember. For instance, the player needs to get through a cave but it's very dark. The character can imagine herself as the statue of liberty and have a torch to light the way. If you get lost, you can use your magic compass to point the way. I hope I'm making sense but the main problem I'm having is how to express memories in an interface.

[Ghost]

If the memory is of something that the player experienced, I would go for a memorable (hehe) "inventory item" that is clearly connected to the memory, but also signals its purpose. To take your example of the statue of liberty- if its only function is to give the player a torch, make that torch the image. If, of course, there is more to that transformation shape (size, being made of metal, totally hating pigeons or whatever), a small image of the SOL itself is better. Feelings could actually be emoticons, and so on.

Sound to me like a slightly unusual way to get inventory- I have toyed with the a similar idea in a small game where a ghost would gain inventory by recognising things that were important to him in life. Inventory is good for such a concept, because it allows you to add a lot of "memories". It's hard to sort the items by theme though.

If you have a reasonable amount of memories, a single GUI with a few buttons could be the better idea; allows you to group memories (feeling, things, sitations) and gives you more control about how you sort it.

[Galen]

A seperate experiences/memories inventory would work quite nicely I think.
(On the technical side it could be achieved by using the inventory of a blank unused character)

[Abisso]

I strongly recommend the use of a GUI with buttons. You know, you can also change the image of the button (so that you can leave it blank until the memory has been gained and then change it, or, using variables, you can make more complicate things). I like the idea of knowing how much memories can be gained in total, and for this purpose, having them appear on a squared GUI seems nice and fit. Obviously the easiest solution is the inventory, a little more difficult if you use another character's one, but it's not clean, if you know what I mean.
An inventory is for items, everything else (spells, powers, memories, feelings) should be elsewhere.

[Snarky]

Rather than telling you what you should do, I'll try to give you some ideas of possible ways to use memories in gameplay:

Implicit: Use of memories is embodied in the logic of the game, the player doesn't have to deal with it. For example, if the character has experienced or learned something useful earlier on, dialog options will be presented that draw on that information. (cf. Gabriel Knight, Reactor 09.)

Mementos: Each usable memory is represented by an actual physical inventory item (which could also have practical uses) that would get the character to think about that specific thing. Care must be taken to ensure that the link between the item and the memory is clear. (Also Gabriel Knight, IIRC. Riddle of Master Lu had fun with collecting mementos, though I don't think you ever needed to use them in this way.)

Photos: Give the character a camera, and use the photos as inventory items to represent the memories. (Taking the right photos could be a gameplay element, or they can be taken automatically.) (cf. Beyond Good & Evil for the photo-shooting.)

Notebook: Similar to photos, a notebook is a kind of special inventory where you gather, analyze and combine information. More useful for clues and specific info that you need to process than for personal memories. (cf. Discworld Noir, The Blackwell Legacy, The Dagger of Amon Ra.)

Memory GUI: You provide a special inventory to explicitly represent memories (and potentially thoughts and ideas, too). Individual memories could be represented symbolically, like the mementos. (cf. Diamonds in the Rough, Resonance)

Painting: All the memories fit together into one big picture, which you fill in bit by bit. (Probably most useful to represent amnesia or repressed memories.) (cf. Braid, Sketchy Memories.)

Cut-scenes: When you trigger a memory, you get to re-experience it as a slide-show, video, etc. (cf. Psychonauts.)

Playable flashbacks: You actually have to play through the memories as special scenes in the game. (cf. Overclocked: A History of Violence, Trilby's Notes.)

Skills: You have RPG-like stats that show your proficiency in particular areas of knowledge or remembrance. You raise your stats by triggering reminders, and can only do certain things if you remember them well enough. (cf. Mata Hari?, Reactor 09, kind of.)

Mindspace: You have to go inside your own mind, represented as a physical space, and look for the memories you need. (cf. Psychonauts.)

Obviously you can combine two or more of these.

[Mr Flibble]

Going to argue against the use of physical objects since it leads to the player potentially seeing the Statue of Liberty in the distance and thinking "Why can't I remember this in that dark cave? Oh... I need to go get a miscellaneous and arbitrary item first."

I say notebook or photos, either recording automatically (with an alert to the player when this happens of course) or via the player's interaction to note the thing they're dealing with.

(The puzzle design for this would have to be very good to avoid arbitrary gating, for instance if the Statue memory was only used to provide light, the memory of a lightbulb or even daylight would also potentially be sufficient.)

[joelphilippage]

Thanks for all the ideas guys. I'll try to find one that suits my game best. I think I like the mind space Idea. Photo's would work well but this is more of a traveling game. Once you've been to a place, you rarely go back so Ideas would have to be recorded automatically. The Idea of playable memories might work well too. I could have the character go into the memory of her on a plane to New York, then you could somehow pull the memory of the statue of liberty out of that memory. I'll keep thinking about it.

[Vince Twelve]

Painting: All the memories fit together into one big picture, which you fill in bit by bit. (Probably most useful to represent amnesia or repressed memories.) (cf. Braid, Sketchy Memories.)

Great list Snarky!  Full of fun ideas!

[Da_Duke2000]

Hey Joel, long time no talky. Anyways. You could always do a blatant rip of such GUI, like the alethiometer from the Golden Compass. Icons around the edges, and certain combination yield different meanings.

Torch + Copper + Human effigy =  Statue of Liberty (To light your way)
the Ocean + Bird + Scales = gives the player the ability to swim.

Other more original ideas exist I'm sure though.

[Snarky]

You should have a look at Rosemary, a Wintermute game from out of MIT that also uses a memory-based game mechanic.