There's this game:
I want it to be flowing. I don't want the character to die. I want his actions to be held responsible for the death of others. I want save points to be useless. Each path is unto its own. This does make the character quinessetially immortal, but I believe that it does not free him of the emotinal burdeon. In this game, there are consequences for action that reach much further beyond death, beyond loading the last save and trying again. You destroy a part of the game. Or you create it. The player must want to reach the end of the game, of course, but they must want to do it not in the quickest way possible, but in the most heroic way possible. There is no heroism is running blindly into enemy territory at the cost of your commrades. You must make rash descision logically and be held to the consequences of those actions. Without it, the players are gods in some world where life means nothing and every event can be undone. I am excited just thinking about it. I want the player to be a character in the world, not a god. I want them to go away feeling they did something wrong. That they screwed up at one point.. if only they had stayed back instead of running blindly ahead, or had not left the door open, or had taken a few extra moments talking to their loved one before leaving.. With this, though, comes difficultly. The programmer must anticipate every action taken by the player. Any unaccounted action removes the sense of involvement in the game world. If a player cannot jump off of a roof because the game does not let him on the ledge, it distracts the player from being immersed in the game. Let the character get on the ledge. Let him think about jumping, but let him know that his jumping will bring consequences.. although death may not be one.. a broken leg might. There are situations, though.. where the player must not be allowed to make their own decision. A jump from an 80 story building will never yield a broken leg. But maybe something stops him from jumping.. maybe a woman from the office saw him go up to the roof and decided to check on him. Maybe he sees something on the roof that is more intersting.. that could open up more plot lines. (I'd like to point out that in a successfully immersive game, the player would have no motivation to jump because they are too busy progressing the plot. With games like GTA, there's the feeling that you just want to see what will happen because there's nothing else to do. As a human, the player should know what results from jumping off a tall building and come to that conclusion even before they reach the stairwell.)
There needs to be real interaction. A player has several ways he can affect the world around him. His most useful being hands. A character should be able to manipulate all things with his hands, as long as they are manipulatable. A trashcan lid should be lifted off a trash can. I stapler should be lifted off a desk. All of these can be used for different things. Weapons, tools, destruction.
Character development.. we need it. It must exist. We instantly associate ourselves with the main character. After all, we see through his eyes. But, we do not get the same benefit of other characters. It is up to the designer to bring life to these characters. We could take a little advice from authors.. it's the little things that bring a character to life. The way they read the newspaper, how they drink their coffee, the way they talk and act around you. Write entire backgrounds for characters, even if you never plan on using the information. It will affect how they act in ways you won't know. Also, by giving all characters background (no matter how little) it gives you the ability to intertwine. Say the player gets into a fight with a local thug and lets him go after beating his head in. The player may encounter this character by chance later on in the game. The character may pull a gun and try to shoot the player, but shoots the player's friend instead. Only the backstory would give reason to why the character would be at that location at that time.
It's almost like in programming. There's a character class.. and inside the class are a bunch of attributes for the remainder of the game. Where he'll be at Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. Their hair color, disposition. What happens at certain times. Personal items. For a game like GTA, it may be difficult to document every person in an entire city, but once you make more and more games, the identities will increase and soon you will have enough to fill a city.
All for now.
I want it to be flowing. I don't want the character to die. I want his actions to be held responsible for the death of others. I want save points to be useless. Each path is unto its own. This does make the character quinessetially immortal, but I believe that it does not free him of the emotinal burdeon. In this game, there are consequences for action that reach much further beyond death, beyond loading the last save and trying again. You destroy a part of the game. Or you create it. The player must want to reach the end of the game, of course, but they must want to do it not in the quickest way possible, but in the most heroic way possible. There is no heroism is running blindly into enemy territory at the cost of your commrades. You must make rash descision logically and be held to the consequences of those actions. Without it, the players are gods in some world where life means nothing and every event can be undone. I am excited just thinking about it. I want the player to be a character in the world, not a god. I want them to go away feeling they did something wrong. That they screwed up at one point.. if only they had stayed back instead of running blindly ahead, or had not left the door open, or had taken a few extra moments talking to their loved one before leaving.. With this, though, comes difficultly. The programmer must anticipate every action taken by the player. Any unaccounted action removes the sense of involvement in the game world. If a player cannot jump off of a roof because the game does not let him on the ledge, it distracts the player from being immersed in the game. Let the character get on the ledge. Let him think about jumping, but let him know that his jumping will bring consequences.. although death may not be one.. a broken leg might. There are situations, though.. where the player must not be allowed to make their own decision. A jump from an 80 story building will never yield a broken leg. But maybe something stops him from jumping.. maybe a woman from the office saw him go up to the roof and decided to check on him. Maybe he sees something on the roof that is more intersting.. that could open up more plot lines. (I'd like to point out that in a successfully immersive game, the player would have no motivation to jump because they are too busy progressing the plot. With games like GTA, there's the feeling that you just want to see what will happen because there's nothing else to do. As a human, the player should know what results from jumping off a tall building and come to that conclusion even before they reach the stairwell.)
There needs to be real interaction. A player has several ways he can affect the world around him. His most useful being hands. A character should be able to manipulate all things with his hands, as long as they are manipulatable. A trashcan lid should be lifted off a trash can. I stapler should be lifted off a desk. All of these can be used for different things. Weapons, tools, destruction.
Character development.. we need it. It must exist. We instantly associate ourselves with the main character. After all, we see through his eyes. But, we do not get the same benefit of other characters. It is up to the designer to bring life to these characters. We could take a little advice from authors.. it's the little things that bring a character to life. The way they read the newspaper, how they drink their coffee, the way they talk and act around you. Write entire backgrounds for characters, even if you never plan on using the information. It will affect how they act in ways you won't know. Also, by giving all characters background (no matter how little) it gives you the ability to intertwine. Say the player gets into a fight with a local thug and lets him go after beating his head in. The player may encounter this character by chance later on in the game. The character may pull a gun and try to shoot the player, but shoots the player's friend instead. Only the backstory would give reason to why the character would be at that location at that time.
It's almost like in programming. There's a character class.. and inside the class are a bunch of attributes for the remainder of the game. Where he'll be at Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. Their hair color, disposition. What happens at certain times. Personal items. For a game like GTA, it may be difficult to document every person in an entire city, but once you make more and more games, the identities will increase and soon you will have enough to fill a city.
All for now.
posted by Cam at 1:09 AM
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