18,700
edits
Oni2:Slaves of War/Design: Difference between revisions
two more pages; two to go
(two more pages; four to go) |
(two more pages; two to go) |
||
| Line 94: | Line 94: | ||
<br /> | <br /> | ||
The '''use of color''' should express emotions or some kind of ascending ranks. We should look to [[wp:Traditional_colors_of_Japan|Japan]] for our color sense.<br /> | The '''use of color''' should express emotions or some kind of ascending ranks. We should look to [[wp:Traditional_colors_of_Japan|Japan]] for our color sense.<br /> | ||
<br /> | |||
If we think of '''people as animals''', how do we direct the players and manipulate them with our environments? Cf. fear of the dark, etc.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
What makes for a '''catchy idea'''? What made Portal players rave about the Companion Cube, the cake that was a lie, and “Still Alive”? I would argue that all of those were so memorable because of their whimsicality, their care-free incongruity.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
Some music is much more powerful when listened to in the right season/weather, so perhaps the same is true for visuals. Can environments and weather in-game be '''designed for the season''' in which that level is supposed to be? If we are implementing the feature where levels change by time of day, we can take advantage of this too with track variants (different instruments, tempo, etc.).<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
Game designers should ask themselves, What is my game teaching people? All games teach rules to people and therefore have implicit messages, a "'''meaning of life'''" if you will. This is not necessarily connected to the actual story, and may arise from the mechanics instead. See [http://www.whatgamesare.com/2012/05/games-and-meaning.html this article] for details.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
Perhaps consider focusing on free agency of the player by allowing her to '''interact with the world in her own style'''; this is done well in missions in Deus Ex, but then its cutscenes force the player-character to behave a certain way (though some cutscenes have dialogue trees). Taking this concept further would entail never taking away control from the player, but allowing her to alter the way a conversation plays out with her actions, not just by selecting pre-made sentences from a list. For instance, attacking someone mid-sentence will lead to a fight or change the discussion.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
The player might have two buttons for conversations — not “yes/no” or “good/evil”, but “'''push/pull'''”. These buttons will encourage the player to think about the effect her response will have on their relationship with each character, and also to consider how real-life conversations work the same way; we often respond to someone the way that we do out of a desire to push them away or pull them closer.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
If we are going to use a lot of AI allies, then we also need '''team command '''controls. These will be just as important for the free agency concept as for basic tactical purposes. For instance, one of the biggest uses of the free-agency concept would be deciding not to attack an enemy. If we therefore allow this as a possibility in some battles, that means sparing the enemy is not always a game-breaking or “game over” scenario. However, if an enemy is trying to escape the battlefield and you want to let them go, but your team is still attacking them, it spoils your choice. So you need a button to tell them to stop attacking a target (though if they don’t like you, they may not listen — but that depends on the relationship you've built with that character, and who you chose to bring along on that mission).<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
It should be possible for the player to '''grow closer to each ally''' (member of your AI team). If there is a betrayal later, it won’t be the one you are closest to, because they’ll be too fond/respectful/admiring of Konoko to betray her. Each member would have their own reason to support the group and a potential reason to betray the group. Each has specific traits that can benefit the group more if you bond with them. One might be timid, but with a sharp sense of humor; he might be cowardly in battle but a good hacker. Another might be hard to like, but a strong ally in battle. Given enough variety in the team, different kinds of players will each find someone to relate to on a personal level or admire. Look to Persona 3 or later for an example of a deep relationship system, and look to [http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2016/03/how-xcom-2-made-me-care-about-the-little-guy/ XCOM 2] for an example of getting players to invest in the soldiers she commands.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
Allowing more '''player freedom leads to greater replay value''', even more so when it’s not a simple matter of playing as “good” or “evil”, because it will encourage the curious player to try different things without feeling like she knows what the results will be. Even if free agency requires creating extra assets for alternative scenarios, which will reduce the length of the game assuming the same budget, there will be great potential for surprising the player, which will cause a lot of discussion and YouTube videos about the interesting experiences people are finding (like my discovery after years of playing Oni that you can interrupt an NPC while they're talking to you, but this surprise times twenty). At that point, overall game length decreases in importance, and could even be an asset if it makes people more inclined to do additional playthroughs.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
If we have the resources to spare, it would be fun to add something really exciting to a level but direct little attention to it, and wait for players to find it. Say they exit a base, and notice a stadium nearby with sounds of distant cheering, and upon entering it they find out they can participate in a fighting tournament. (Imagine that music like “Yo Pumpkin Head” from Cowboy Bebop is playing, to set the tone.) This kind of surprise will create a '''joy of discovery''' and lead to the sharing of these discoveries with the community.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
Should we use a standard '''respawn mechanism''' where the player starts again from the last savepoint after dying, or something more interesting? Examples of games with alternate respawn systems include: | |||
*The spirit-walking mechanic used in Prey and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. | |||
*Perma-death as seen in Escape Velocity or certain RPGs. | |||
*Respawning with continuity as in roguelikes, Planescape: Torment, and Shadow of Mordor, where your character is already dead from the beginning, and “dying” simply costs him three days before he rises again, during which time the enemies regroup and adapt. | |||
*Rewinding, as in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. | |||
*The buddy assist in Far Cry 2, which saves you after your first death but causes your buddy to enter the firefight, which means he can be perma-killed from that point on.<br /> | |||
One of the problems I have with traditional save-anywhere PC games is that they take the player out of the moment and reduce the penalty for dying in proportion to how frequently one saves, leading to some players (like me) spamming the quick-save button. It would be interesting if dying meant waking up from a bad dream on the morning of the mission. This would promote immersion but be controversial among gamers used to saving anywhere, as it means even eliminating the fixed savepoints of Oni. It would probably be a good idea to limit this feature to the Hard difficulty setting.<br /> | |||
<br /> | |||
Should '''cutscenes''' be 2D animation? This will avoid boring the player and allow for more artistic expression while also alleviating technical issues with in-game cinematics. Additional info and memories that the player may be interested in (in-game flashback cutscenes) can be found under Diary. The main argument against this feature is cost, as good hand-drawn animation is expensive.<br /> | |||
[[Category:Oni 2]] | [[Category:Oni 2]] | ||