Another 'monthly' game discussion anyone?

[Kickaha]

Now that NigeC and Ad7venture have finished their Lovecraftian game is there a critical mass to discuss another game?

Perhaps Squinky's most recent one? 

[ad7venture]

I'm game. 

[Squinky]

When We Were Kids? Or TGTTPOACS?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts either way.

[Kickaha]

Shall we do "When We Were Kids"?  That's short so less excuse not to play through, and it could provoke good discussions on multiple endings. 

Shall we say start a discussion at the start of July?

[NigeC]

i maybe offline for a while, so i cant promise anything.. but if i'm still here.. i'm in

[ad7venture]

"When We Were Kids" is pretty short for a discussion.  Critical mass seems very low according to responses.

[Kickaha]

Perhaps getting this discussion going is as likely as fusion in a test tube.

I needed something like these possible discussions to make me play other games instead of working on my own efforts.  And there was the hope it would create more activity on the forum.

[ad7venture]

Perhaps getting this discussion going is as likely as fusion in a test tube.

Ha ha, well, there's still a debate about that.

I think one problem is that there are a lot of Mac users on this site and most of the engines are Windows only.  I ended up switching back to Windows from Linux because of that.  I dual boot, but most of the time I'm in Windows anymore because almost all the open source programs have Windows software but obviously not the other way around.  Microsoft may be evil, but they do give away some pretty nice freebies, also.   

I'm willing to do a two person discussion, but Squinky's latest game is basically one puzzle.  Either way, I plan to at least try some free games around because I think it's healthy.

[Squinky]

I'll participate in the discussion as well. I like hearing other developers' thoughts, and I always have plenty to criticize about my own games.

[ad7venture]

How about starting with a discussion on the merit of multiple solution puzzles?  My own thoughts are that if one solution is easier, it's going to happen most of the time and that design time gets extended too much.  I still, however, consider them more useful to an adventure than branching story lines which waste huge amounts of resources and usually weaken a story.  The puzzles may serve as a way to keep the player from getting completely stumped and quitting the game.  The branching story lines require a player to go back and replay parts of the game twice in order to see new material, something I never do.  I think any adventure needs out of order branching to keep it from feeling too linear, but having the branches seal me off into another direction just doesn't work for me.  I also feel like I'm not seeing the author's best work that way.  A really good story has an underlying premise.  A simple one is that good triumphs over evil.  Suppose an author lets the player decide on the ending, that changes the premise.  So we end up with art without a true message, which is more like a toy.  Since most games are already toys (simulation, strategy and role playing), I think it doesn't make sense to make adventure games into toys also.
Hmm, that turned out to be more my thoughts about branching story lines, didn't it?

[Squinky]

Well, it's a relevant thought, seeing as I've done some branching storyline work myself (TGTTPOACS). I'll post my opinions on the subject a little later; in the meantime, anyone's free to make comments on either subject.

[Kickaha]

Glad to see the activity!  I'd better play more of "When We Were Kids" - I only did one path through it.

I am one of those pesky Mac users but I plan to get an Intel Mac and dual boot it into Windows as well as OSX. 

Multiple solution puzzles I see as useful in hybrid games which could be played as Adventures or as action games.  So "Wild Wild West - The Steel Assassin" had puzzles which you could shoot your way through or puzzle your way through.  For Uru you might have puzzles which can be solved cooperatively or solo.

Why have multiple solution puzzles or branching storylines?  For reply value?  Or to give the player more of a non-linear feeling?  Or to accommodate different kinds of player?

[Squinky]

Oh man. I'd love to hear all your thoughts once my next Adventure Architect article gets run on AG, because I justify my rationale for including multiple puzzle solutions in Chivalry is Not Dead while (hopefully) addressing a lot of your objections.

In the meantime, a response to the common "extra time required to design things that the player won't even see" argument. I find this to be a fundamentally flawed one because it is based on the assumption that everyone who starts a game will finish the game. Since everyone with half a brain knows that this isn't necessarily true, you already have a case in which you, the game designer, have created a lot of content that a lot of players will never see. Does this mean you should leave most of your game on the cutting room floor?

And a response to the "stories with multiple outcomes are, by default, inferior to stories with only one outcome" argument. I believe that you can still tie multiple outcomes together with one unified theme, and that the ability to see different sides of the same story -- i.e. what would have happened if the protagonist acted in a different way -- actually strengthens it rather than weakens it. Plus, the old "triumph of good over evil" themes have become pretty much overused to the point of being trite, and that, to me, makes them lose much of their power. What I'd rather do, personally, is explore questions such as "what is good?" and "what is evil?" instead of making base assumptions. I believe that in our world today, tackling these more difficult questions rather than resorting to hackneyed archetypes has a lot more meaning.

[ad7venture]

In the meantime, a response to the common "extra time required to design things that the player won't even see" argument. I find this to be a fundamentally flawed one because it is based on the assumption that everyone who starts a game will finish the game. Since everyone with half a brain knows that this isn't necessarily true, you already have a case in which you, the game designer, have created a lot of content that a lot of players will never see. Does this mean you should leave most of your game on the cutting room floor?

I wonder though, how long you could keep up making multiple solution puzzles for an entire game.  I would get pretty bored doing that.

And a response to the "stories with multiple outcomes are, by default, inferior to stories with only one outcome" argument. I believe that you can still tie multiple outcomes together with one unified theme, and that the ability to see different sides of the same story -- i.e. what would have happened if the protagonist acted in a different way -- actually strengthens it rather than weakens it. Plus, the old "triumph of good over evil" themes have become pretty much overused to the point of being trite, and that, to me, makes them lose much of their power. What I'd rather do, personally, is explore questions such as "what is good?" and "what is evil?" instead of making base assumptions. I believe that in our world today, tackling these more difficult questions rather than resorting to hackneyed archetypes has a lot more meaning.

The good triumphs over evil was a simple premise, no doubt, and seldom used anymore except in fairy tales, but it doesn't change the arguments.  Things aren't really that much more complex than they were when Orson Welles wrote 1984.  He picked out certain characteristics about society and said something about them.  You really can't compare that to GTA.  That's really the high end of open games right now.  It can't really say much because it is open.  Granted, there are all kinds of in-betweens, but I still see it as a watering down.  I haven't found any real message in these games because it becomes harder and harder to get any message across when you're trying to make the player make decisions on the plot.  That becomes the overall theme, and you end up with a winding story and no real message at all.  You can't really argue multiple endings against a finished work like a novel or a movie.  You have to at least assume that people are going to reach the end or there isn't any point in doing it at all.  I guess you could say, could anyone write a "choose your own adventure" masterpiece?  I don't think so.  It might be fun to do, but I don't think you can ever convey enough of a message to ever call it art.  They belong pretty much where they end up, with the comic books.  I don't have any thing against it per se, there's nothing wrong with comic books either.  It's just, all the other games already do that.  I play adventure games because they have more of a story.

[Squinky]

I wonder though, how long you could keep up making multiple solution puzzles for an entire game.  I would get pretty bored doing that.

I guess we're different, then. I love dreaming up different ways that a person can conceivably solve a problem.

The good triumphs over evil was a simple premise, no doubt, and seldom used anymore except in fairy tales, but it doesn't change the arguments.  Things aren't really that much more complex than they were when Orson Welles wrote 1984.  He picked out certain characteristics about society and said something about them.  You really can't compare that to GTA.  That's really the high end of open games right now.  It can't really say much because it is open.  Granted, there are all kinds of in-betweens, but I still see it as a watering down.  I haven't found any real message in these games because it becomes harder and harder to get any message across when you're trying to make the player make decisions on the plot.  That becomes the overall theme, and you end up with a winding story and no real message at all.  You can't really argue multiple endings against a finished work like a novel or a movie.  I guess you could say, could anyone write a "choose your own adventure" masterpiece?  I don't think so.  It might be fun to do, but I don't think you can ever convey enough of a message to ever call it art.  They belong pretty much where they end up, with the comic books.  I don't have any thing against it per se, there's nothing wrong with comic books either.  It's just, all the other games already do that.

1. Actually, George Orwell wrote 1984. Good book, but writing something like it now rather than in 1948 would also likely turn out trite, given all the stories about totalitarian governments that have appeared throughout the remainder of the twentieth century. Plus, we may be at war once more, but the landscape of today's current "War on Terror" is quite different from that at the end of WWII. *shrugs*

2. I'd be very interested in what you'd think about Chivalry is Not Dead, once it's done; I plan for it to have some strong (but not preachy) messages even (and especially) with its multiple outcomes. I'd also be interested in what you think of existing games that are less open-ended than "sandbox" games but don't have completely linear storylines. Which ones have you played?

3. I personally suspect that the reason there haven't been many great interactive stories is because of the relative newness of the medium; people are still trying to figure out how to properly use it, myself included. Still, I'd rather criticize the stories themselves rather than make prejudiced generalizations about the forms they take, and this applies to comic books as well. Which brings me to my next point...

4. What comic books are you talking about, anyway? Certainly not Maus or Sandman or Persepolis, it seems. *sigh*

5. Don't worry. I'm sure there will be plenty of adventure games with linear plots still being made to satisfy people such as yourself. My goal, after all, is not for all stories to become non-linear; rather, it is to create diversity.