Saturation

"Holy crap, not another stupid magical sword!"

This is the sort of reaction I have when playing games like Sacred and Dungeon Siege.

I remember as a high school kid playing Baldur's Gate instead of doing homework, where a magical sword was something rare and special. Heck, upgrading from a simple short sword to a long sword, and then to a bastard sword was a fairly big achievement back then! Even though I haven't played Baldur's Gate for ages, I can tell you that I finished the game wielding the two handed sword 'Spider's Bane' wearing Ankheg Plate Mail and Boots of the Cheetah.

That makes me seem like a real nerd, right? But hey, everyone knows that King Arthur's sword is called Excalibur. Imagine if everyone in those old stories had a special sword with a name. You'd never be able to remember what any of them were called because there'd be way too many strange names to remember. Excalibur would become just another boring magical sword.

This is how I feel about modern RPGs. Developers are so desperate to cram as many 'cool' items into their games that none of them feel memorable anymore. I can remember my weapons in Baldur's Gate, which is fairly old, whereas I wouldn't have a clue what my weapons were in Sacred or Dungeon Siege (which are much more recent) because they changed every 15 minutes. I don't even know what all these numbers and stats on the sword's description mean - when I want to know which is the best, I go to the shop in the game and see which one will give me the most gold if I sell it. Then I use that one!

The same goes for spells, skill and feats. I have more fun in the much more limited scope of the older games, where a basic heal spell added as a special ability really makes your character stand out. And sometimes there were items or abilities that only one single character in the game can use, so you either keep that person with you or miss out!

When playing the original Baldur's Gate, I remember getting to level 3 being a real achievement. By the time I was halfway through the last game in the series, leveling up seemed quite dull, because I had done it too many times.

I wish for the days when levelling up was a special experience that only happend 6-7 times by the end of the game. I want a game where magical items are found so seldom that they are memorable, as opposed to tripping over 8 magical axes every time I kill a low level bandit. I want going into a rage to be a special ability of a single character. I know this probably won't ever be the case again, but a man can dream.

Oh, and recently I was playing Neverwinter Nights 2, and found an Elven Court Bow (One of the most special and memorable items from BG2 for me) for sale in a shop where it was described as a commonplace item. Thanks, NWN2, for ruining my perception of one facet of one of my favourite games forever :).

Man, I'm a freakin geek!

Rewards

Wow, it's been ages since I touched this blog. We're past the busy work part of the season, so hopefully I can pick up the pace of blogging again :). Let's do this...

For every room created in a piece of graphical interactive fiction, there's a bunch of items that have no real use except to build atmosphere. The player does not have to interact with these, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be given the option to. Just because it is not essential to finishing the game does not mean that an extra interaction can't be rewarding for the player.

Many RPGs have a bunch of little side quests spread out for those who like to delve deeper into the game's environment to enjoy. Hidden notes, characters in secluded spots, dialog options revealing hidden clues. I can think of a couple of games with these sort of things, and it always really excites me when I am getting my character to walk out in the middle of nowhere and I stumble across something of this kind.

With sidequests of this nature, the motivation to complete them can often be considered as a tangible reward for the player character - experience points, gold, weapons, items and things of this nature. But I find that the motivation to complete the quest can also be an emotional reward directly affecting the player. Sometimes I want to do a sidequest because the characters and outcome interests me, and the reward of a well constructed, funny or surprising end to these quests often sticks with me longer and is more valuable to me as a player than some new sword or magic wand. Similarly, in graphical interactive fiction sometimes a humorous remark or funny animation when I interact with something can be much more rewarding to me as a player than the aquisition of another inventory item, or entrance to another area.

I like to try and think of ways I can reward the player for exploring my game other than just letting them advance further in the game, as I am sure many others do as well. Rewards need not always be measurable when constructing a game - sometimes just bringing a smile to someone's face is much more valuable. Games should not only stimulate our mind with puzzles and challenges, but also our hearts with enjoyable stories and memories that we can enjoy in the future.

Innovation or Gimmick?

When thinking about making a game, I often like to see if something can be done slightly outside the square. One thing that comes to mind when I do this is the difference between 'innovation' and 'gimmick'.

Let's start with an example.

When Paul and I were planning Trance-Pacific, we quickly decided that in order to fit in with the innovation theme, we should put in an interesting way of doing puzzles. We settled on the hypno-action provided by the Memo. I really liked the idea of the memo; being able to remove a memory from one character's brain and transplanting it in another character's brain made sense to me. If a person with more knowledge of an area or who recognised a character in the memory, the memory would become a vital clue rather than a passing comment. Overall, I think we used this to a fairly good extent, but there are places it could have been done better. In the end, using the Memo became more a game of guess and check, or keep clicking until you run out of options. Some people suggested putting in a game over sequence for wrong actions would have improved the game - I personally believe that making the clues slightly more obvious would have made the need to guess vanish, but perhaps this would have made the game too easy.

Was this gameplay device an innovation or a gimmick? I certainly feel like it was quite unique, and that the concept was good. I think it could have been implemented better, but am not disappointed with how it fits into the game. Whether it is a gimmick or not is certainly not for me to say - but I certainly feel that the notion worked as a gameplay technique.

Another example is the clock in Man Boy vs Doctor Sock. Initially, I wanted to have puzzles that required the player to think "Oh, hang on, I need to make it day again" or "I need to go back to night" when they read certain clues, making the clock the major focus of the game. Two problems arose very quickly with this idea. The first was that, due to the method I used to do the day to night transition, the clock had to remain stationary, and this would make the game quickly turn into a boring run everywhere quest. The second was that I had one week to create the entire game, and I quickly realised that I didn't have the skill to do all this in the limited time frame, so I went with the version you play today.

These are not unfixable problems. The method for the day/night transition was quite basic, reflecting my beginner's skill at scripting, and I've already looked at more effective ways to do this sort of thing in the future, should the need arise. The lack of time is something that can easily be remedied by not participating in a time limited event.

I don't plan to go back and do another version with the planned day/night mechanic focus, as I feel I've covered this ground to the extent that I now wish to move on. Sadly, this means that the transition is little more than a gimmick. I am pleased that I managed to create the effect I planned, but disappointed that I couldn't utilise it to the full extent I had originally envisioned. Nevertheless, I had fun putting it in Man Boy vs Doctor Sock, and I feel that it worked well.

It seems that at times what seems like a really good idea in my mind is not quite so simple to achieve once I'm within the planning *how* to do it and where it should be used once I've done it. Nevertheless, I plan to continue trying new things in games, if only for the purpose of keeping things interesting. I don't expect them to all succeed, but I do plan to use them as a learning experience to have some fun with.