The "Stupidity" Mechanic...

[Ashton]

I'm working on developing a game and I'd like some feedback on where actual gamers stand on what I call the "stupidity" mechanic. Or "how should a really stupid action be rewarded"

1. DEATH! You must load a save or restart if you forgot to save!

2. Not allowed.

3. Requires a hard-to-find trigger and grants an Easter Egg!


Example:
You have a source of flames in a very flammable building (fire-mage in a library, zombie Apocalypse survivor armed with a flame thrower inside an abandoned refinery, whatever tickles your fancy) and you decide to try and burn the place down, just because your one of those players.

Should the game...

A. play a cutscene of the place catching fire, then collapsing atop you, killing you (forcing you to load/restart)

B. Either ignore the attempt or have your character comment on how stupid it is

C. Require you to find a very specific "trigger" and play a cutscene of the place burning to the ground while you stand among the ashes laughing, then dramatically zoom out through your character's eye to reveal him or her staring at the "trigger" and just imagining the scene, then go "nah" and gameplay resume.


I suspect I know the answer, but I've been proven wrong many times... so...

Thoughts?

 

[DeathPrincess]

Allow you to burn the building down, but that means you lose whatevers in the building (obviously) and possibly effect the story.

Like in Fallout you can go to town and murder everyone, but it can mean you miss quests and can't buy stuff from the store, or have the house etc. Which is probably a silly thing to do, is rather fun.

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Given these choices, I'm thinking you're leaning toward C. It allows the player to, uh, "indulge" while maintaining linear gameplay.

 

[Ashton]

Like in Fallout you can go to town and murder everyone, but it can mean you miss quests and can't buy stuff from the store, or have the house etc. Which is probably a silly thing to do, is rather fun.

I never got very far in Fallout, I spent way too much time exploring and getting GAME OVER from the time limit, but it sounds like the same mechanic that's in Skyrim which I am much more familiar with... and yes is a great stress reliever when things are going especially bad in-game (or out of game!)

 

[SeymourGore]

I dunno, I'd say include all of the options.

Attempt #1: Character comments, "No, that'd be a really bad idea."
Attempt #2: Character comments, "Seriously, really bad idea."
Attempt #3: Character comments, "Listen, Voice in my Head, No! Stop it!"
Attempt #4: Activates fire based magic, causing a devastating fire destroying the entire level. Specific 'trigger areas' would cause different cinematics to play out.

 

[spine]

If this were a game being made by paid developers, where time and money are not infinite, then the answer is simple; don't allow it.

Then you can spend more time on designing/creating/animating content that you actually WANT the player to see, rather than wasting development time on stuff you explicitly don't want them to see/do if they're playing the game as intended.

You didn't say what your overall game design is, and what it's aims are. If it's open world exploration, then yeah, allow the player to explore. But if it's a story driven linear experience, then as I said, don't waste time on stuff you don't want players to do.

 

[Kryptorchid]

If this were a game being made by paid developers, where time and money are not infinite, then the answer is simple; don't allow it.

Then you can spend more time on designing/creating/animating content that you actually WANT the player to see, rather than wasting development time on stuff you explicitly don't want them to see/do if they're playing the game as intended.

You didn't say what your overall game design is, and what it's aims are. If it's open world exploration, then yeah, allow the player to explore. But if it's a story driven linear experience, then as I said, don't waste time on stuff you don't want players to do.

I don't care if this is a corridor shooter or an open-world RPG -- having fire burn "things" makes the game more immersive and should be implemented, regardless.

 

[Kryptorchid]

Can't edit - but I just wanted to point out that Spine is spot-on when it comes to publisher-paid developers.

 

[Ashton]

I don't care if this is a corridor shooter or an open-world RPG -- having fire burn "things" makes the game more immersive and should be implemented, regardless.

If this were a game being made by paid developers, where time and money are not infinite, then the answer is simple; don't allow it.

Then you can spend more time on designing/creating/animating content that you actually WANT the player to see, rather than wasting development time on stuff you explicitly don't want them to see/do if they're playing the game as intended.

You didn't say what your overall game design is, and what it's aims are. If it's open world exploration, then yeah, allow the player to explore. But if it's a story driven linear experience, then as I said, don't waste time on stuff you don't want players to do.

This perfectly demonstrates the duality I'm facing. I want the game immersive and I want there to be replay value obviously, but I'd rather spend my time coding and animating the actual plot.

The game itself is a point-and-click adventure game, inspired by the Resurrection of such games by studios like TellTale Games, and the avalibility of so many good engines at low cost today (In my case I'm using the WME, which is free even for commercial games).

I was actually inspired by the new "Sam and Max" games, and I'm considering taking the same rout they did --- you were allowed to *try* to do stupid things (i.e. pull out your gun and click the crosshairs on an NPC) but it always just triggered some witty banter by the main caracter/s (minus I think 3 times in 16 games when it was an important story point, and even then one of those times only triggered dialog and no animation)

The first scenario is actually a scene from my game, the player's a mage who has a fire spell intended to be used to light candles, torches, campfires, etc, but we all know there will be gamers who try to use the spell to set every clickable item and piece of scenery on fire... I'd like to include an easter egg for these players (how many of us *havnt* gotten frustrated and tried to use every single spell/item on everything present when we cant figure out the puzzle?) but the sheer time required is making me lean towards "witty comment" and just one or two actual animations that are particularly hard to find.

 

[spugnor]

but the sheer time required is making me lean towards "witty comment" and just one or two actual animations that are particularly hard to find.

Can't go wrong with the "monkey island" route. The game generally stopped you from making game breaking mistakes, but did so in a humorous fashion that actually made trying up the obviously stupid ideas fun, and actually extended game play.

That is if you can consistently come up with witty banter, or funny animations.

 

[KingSmoth]

I enjoyed being able to kill myself in various stupid ways in Space Quest, including just walking off of cliffs (how often is that allowed anymore?). However, I can understand your dilemma and I think the easter egg idea is a great compromise to save on development time.

 

[Quicksilver_]

Rather than forbidding the action, just make the likelihood of survival less likely and mock the player if they die doing something that stupid. So, in your example, determine where the player is on the map and block the doorway of the room they're in with falling debris. When they die, offer a tip about not playing with matches or something.

 

[Zinn]

mock the player if they die doing something that stupid.

I like how UT2004 would show "[Player] jumped on his own rocket" in the chat log when you killed yourself with a rocket. Not that I ever did that.

 

[Ashton]

I enjoyed being able to kill myself in various stupid ways in Space Quest, including just walking off of cliffs (how often is that allowed anymore?). However, I can understand your dilemma and I think the easter egg idea is a great compromise to save on development time.

All the old Sierra games allowed things like that, and I KNEW there would be some people who enjoyed it. (though to be fair the "walking off cliffs" was *really* annoying in some games, I want to say Kings Quest 2 or 3 where there was a narrow path over two cliffs and path-finding was so bad it was an ordeal just to cross...) I also seem to remember a SQ one where you could "lick" a high-voltage battery/transformer/something and electrocute yourself... that one I think I saved first and proceeded to restore and repeat like 10 times

EDIT:

I like how UT2004 would show "[Player] jumped on his own rocket" in the chat log when you killed yourself with a rocket. Not that I ever did that.

There's an add-on for minecraft that gives witty death "explanations" like that too, it's hilarious

 

[Quicksilver_]

All the old Sierra games allowed things like that, and I KNEW there would be some people who enjoyed it. (though to be fair the "walking off cliffs" was *really* annoying in some games, I want to say Kings Quest 2 or 3 where there was a narrow path over two cliffs and path-finding was so bad it was an ordeal just to cross...) I also seem to remember a SQ one where you could "lick" a high-voltage battery/transformer/something and electrocute yourself... that one I think I saved first and proceeded to restore and repeat like 10 times

EDIT:


There's an add-on for minecraft that gives witty death "explanations" like that too, it's hilarious

Guilt mods should be a standard.

 

[ServerKing]

This is also reminding me of Duke Nukem forever, witty comments, funny enviromental stuff to play with wanting you to mess with everything you can just to see what Duke says....or games like Lucas Arts Point in Click Full Throttle is coming to mind....

P.S. I want to play your game

 

[Koolthulu]

Thoughts?

Never try to stop a player from being "stupid" (harsh word since a lot of the fun I have in games is trying to do crazy unintended stuff and seeing what happens). Let the player do what he wants and suffer the consequences if it is something bad. After all, that's what saves are for.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

I like Arcanum.

 

[KazeoHin]

I have a demonstration PC at my shop running Sleeping Dogs to show off a powerful PC at full HD. What 99.9999% of my customers do when they hop in front of Sleeping Dogs first-thing is find an old lady and flying-back-kick her in the face. Why? Because the game gives you the ability to perform a flying-back-kick, and the game also gives you an old lady walking around on the street. It's funny when you think about how games are designed around the violence: on the mouse you have two massive buttons: these buttons should handle the primary interaction for the player. The primary interaction is going to be first thing the player learns about this game because the obvious buttons to press are the mouse buttons: just like the Windows OS: the left mouse button is the primary interactor. The primary interactor is goig to be the single most used function in the game, and for most novice or new players, it will be the ONLY thing they do in the game. In shooting games, the primary interactor is firing a gun. In medieval quest games, the primary interactor is swinging your sword. This action is going to be the instinctive interaction the player will have for EVERYTHING in the game. So if you want to play with the ragdoll physics of a object on the ground, the player isn't going to drop his/her weapon and push the object around, they are going to do what anyone does to interact with something: click on it. You have to be ready to take responsibility for what 'clicking' does. You can't expect players not to 'click' on interesting stuff to see what happens, because that is how we have lived our life for the past 30 years with GUI and mouse enabled devices. Consoles are a bit different, insofar that the novice player is most likely to go for the face buttons before they try out the triggers, but nonetheless, once they find the 'do something cool' button, they will mash that button on everything they find: and you have to be ready for that. So if a player wants to interact with a bunch of explosive barrels next to a hospital support structure, they aren't being stupid, they're being curious. Their curiosity leads them to interact with the world you present to them with the tools you give them. nothing stupid about that.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

I.. well... wh... the hell... hmm. Wow.

 

[TwistedAegis]

The first scenario is actually a scene from my game, the player's a mage who has a fire spell intended to be used to light candles, torches, campfires, etc, but we all know there will be gamers who try to use the spell to set every clickable item and piece of scenery on fire... I'd like to include an easter egg for these players (how many of us *havnt* gotten frustrated and tried to use every single spell/item on everything present when we cant figure out the puzzle?) but the sheer time required is making me lean towards "witty comment" and just one or two actual animations that are particularly hard to find.

I'm assuming whoever owns the building/library would be pissed, and if they own a spell library, they probably know a few and would cast several painful ones on you; being new, you probably die. Having extremely flammable books actually catch on fire does add immersion (Dragon Age: Origins in the library, anyone?)

That being said, don't make it TOO easy or realistic. If the player is trying to light a candle on a table, you don't want the table to catch on fire every time and have the place burn down just by trying to play through the game. Although it would be pretty funny.

 

[spine]

This perfectly demonstrates the duality I'm facing. I want the game immersive and I want there to be replay value obviously, but I'd rather spend my time coding and animating the actual plot.

The game itself is a point-and-click adventure game, inspired by the Resurrection of such games by studios like TellTale Games, and the avalibility of so many good engines at low cost today (In my case I'm using the WME, which is free even for commercial games).

I was actually inspired by the new "Sam and Max" games, and I'm considering taking the same rout they did --- you were allowed to *try* to do stupid things (i.e. pull out your gun and click the crosshairs on an NPC) but it always just triggered some witty banter by the main caracter/s (minus I think 3 times in 16 games when it was an important story point, and even then one of those times only triggered dialog and no animation)

The first scenario is actually a scene from my game, the player's a mage who has a fire spell intended to be used to light candles, torches, campfires, etc, but we all know there will be gamers who try to use the spell to set every clickable item and piece of scenery on fire... I'd like to include an easter egg for these players (how many of us *havnt* gotten frustrated and tried to use every single spell/item on everything present when we cant figure out the puzzle?) but the sheer time required is making me lean towards "witty comment" and just one or two actual animations that are particularly hard to find.

Ahhh, now I see where you're coming from.

Ok, well I think the Sam & Max games handled this well as you pointed out. Still involved lines being written and voice acted, but in a good point and click adventure game you absolutely have to acknowledge every user mouse click. It's matter of good HCI design and affordance. Locus of control essentially. Lack of leads to a fustrating experience as others have noted.

A good compromise might be to have one or two generic cut scenes for various actions. So like; you click to burn a building or whatever, and then have a character say, "Are you sure you wanna do this?". You click again, "Are you absolutely certain!?" and then on the 3rd click we goto one of a couple of 'burning the entire city down' cutscenes with our protagonist walking toward camera cackling to themselves. And then maybe we fade out as you suggested to show it was just the character idly day dreaming it.

How's that? You mention Sam & Max so I'm getting the feeling you're going for humour here...

 

[GushpinBob]

Go ahead and allow it. Hell, do what Portal 2 did and give the player an achievement for some stupid decisions.

 

[Ashton]

Never try to stop a player from being "stupid" (harsh word since a lot of the fun I have in games is trying to do crazy unintended stuff and seeing what happens). Let the player do what he wants and suffer the consequences if it is something bad. After all, that's what saves are for.

If this were an issue on just ticking a box, I would, but a lot of it has to be coded in, so, as stated by others, the more "unimportant" stuff I add, the longer it will take me to finish the plot-relevant parts. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to make everything wood/paper/platic/etc flamable

I have a demonstration PC at my shop running Sleeping Dogs to show off a powerful PC at full HD. What 99.9999% of my customers do when they hop in front of Sleeping Dogs first-thing is find an old lady and flying-back-kick her in the face. Why? Because the game gives you the ability to perform a flying-back-kick, and the game also gives you an old lady walking around on the street. It's funny when you think about how games are designed around the violence: on the mouse you have two massive buttons: these buttons should handle the primary interaction for the player. The primary interaction is going to be first thing the player learns about this game because the obvious buttons to press are the mouse buttons: just like the Windows OS: the left mouse button is the primary interactor. The primary interactor is goig to be the single most used function in the game, and for most novice or new players, it will be the ONLY thing they do in the game. In shooting games, the primary interactor is firing a gun. In medieval quest games, the primary interactor is swinging your sword. This action is going to be the instinctive interaction the player will have for EVERYTHING in the game. So if you want to play with the ragdoll physics of a object on the ground, the player isn't going to drop his/her weapon and push the object around, they are going to do what anyone does to interact with something: click on it. You have to be ready to take responsibility for what 'clicking' does. You can't expect players not to 'click' on interesting stuff to see what happens, because that is how we have lived our life for the past 30 years with GUI and mouse enabled devices. Consoles are a bit different, insofar that the novice player is most likely to go for the face buttons before they try out the triggers, but nonetheless, once they find the 'do something cool' button, they will mash that button on everything they find: and you have to be ready for that. So if a player wants to interact with a bunch of explosive barrels next to a hospital support structure, they aren't being stupid, they're being curious. Their curiosity leads them to interact with the world you present to them with the tools you give them. nothing stupid about that.

That is very interesting and suprisingly profound, thank you for sharing that, KazeoHin.

In my specific case, it's closer to using a console game, because the primary trigger on the mouse (left button) triggers a "look at" function, and the secondary trigger (right button) is the cancel function. You have to literally go up to "spells" and choose "ignite" and then flick the crosshairs on your target to try and set it on fire.

I'm assuming whoever owns the building/library would be pissed, and if they own a spell library, they probably know a few and would cast several painful ones on you; being new, you probably die. Having extremely flammable books actually catch on fire does add immersion (Dragon Age: Origins in the library, anyone?)

That being said, don't make it TOO easy or realistic. If the player is trying to light a candle on a table, you don't want the table to catch on fire every time and have the place burn down just by trying to play through the game. Although it would be pretty funny.

Actually it your own library inside your own home... and the whole place is made of wood...

I wouldn't let the table be clickable in that case and I'd use a large area, i.e. the whole "square" of the candlestick would be the target instead of forcing the player to play "pixel hunt" to find the wick... though I might do something optional like that just for laughs

Ahhh, now I see where you're coming from.

Ok, well I think the Sam & Max games handled this well as you pointed out. Still involved lines being written and voice acted, but in a good point and click adventure game you absolutely have to acknowledge every user mouse click. It's matter of good HCI design and affordance. Locus of control essentially. Lack of leads to a fustrating experience as others have noted.

A good compromise might be to have one or two generic cut scenes for various actions. So like; you click to burn a building or whatever, and then have a character say, "Are you sure you wanna do this?". You click again, "Are you absolutely certain!?" and then on the 3rd click we goto one of a couple of 'burning the entire city down' cutscenes with our protagonist walking toward camera cackling to themselves. And then maybe we fade out as you suggested to show it was just the character idly day dreaming it.

How's that? You mention Sam & Max so I'm getting the feeling you're going for humour here...

I hadn't thought of making a single cutscene of the whole city burning and using it several places, thanks! I think I may go with that.

The new Sam and Max is the *perfect* comparison. it has a relatively serious plot but nobody from the designers down to the main characters is taking it too seriously. That's the direction I'm going with the game

Go ahead and allow it. Hell, do what Portal 2 did and give the player an achievement for some stupid decisions.

I think I might just see if I can include achievements now *evil grin*

This is also reminding me of Duke Nukem forever, witty comments, funny enviromental stuff to play with wanting you to mess with everything you can just to see what Duke says....or games like Lucas Arts Point in Click Full Throttle is coming to mind....

P.S. I want to play your game

Yep, that's basically what I'm going to do

lol, when I tell you the 'setting' of the game you will either never want to play it, or want to get it even more... It's a "short" fan-game based off MLP:FiM... and I promise at LEAST one way in every scene to kill yourself or others...as well as a barely-PG-13 rating on the humor. (Yes, this is clearly NOT aimed at the kiddy demographic) This is basically a "learn to fully design games and learn the engine, using something I have TONS of resources for before I set out on my own original game" project.

 

[Quicksilver_]

Interactive Cupcakes?

 

[Ashton]

Interactive Cupcakes?

Not quite... though mainly because the characters stay more-or-less true to their canon personalities... but in the library are book forms of both "Cupcakes" and "Rainbow Factory" and you can give them to Pinkie and Dash (and possibly Scootaloo int he latter case) respectively for very... interesting... reactions! *evil grin*