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adventure game’s design?

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i find people sometimes are mistaken that game design is about creating the artwork, backgrounds, and animation, well anyways, i always had a different meaning for it, and i know a lot too agree with it; the idea of it being the way of handling the game pace and applying its material from puzzles to story, and locations ...etc into it, all together.

like i early mentioned at the Sierra roulette thread about PQ3 pentagram puzzle (e.g), because the game had had troubles for setting the actual designer between Jane and Jim so the adventure design was lost in between…; you play a very easy adventure until day5 and suddenly a difficult puzzle hits were player least expect; so here the design have failed (imo) to set the game pace into a right direction where the player can manage his thoughts with some sort of gradual puzzle difficulty.

the player at an adventure game set a kinda awareness to game design style, maybe thru the first half an hour (or maybe less) and this awareness becomes the trigger for how she/he approaches the game, so if something disturbs this awareness the player could feel lost or mayhap being cheated.

thoughts added (or mine corrected)?

 

     
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That’s something that unfortunately I think is very common in adventure games, specially older, there isn’t any difficulty curve and puzzles don’t seem very well thought out.
The best examples of how to do it right are Portal and The Witness - they excel at this.

     
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wilco - 21 January 2017 06:26 AM

The best examples of how to do it right are Portal and The Witness - they excel at this.

Inside and last guardian
Gradual difficulty increase
Start with easy tutorials

But level designing is hardest thing right now, Re7,Tlg reminded me of that
But can be done with good planner
And design layout should come first and narrative later or both go hand in hand
That can help pacing a lot like in games i mentioned

     
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nomadsoul - 21 January 2017 11:02 AM
wilco - 21 January 2017 06:26 AM

The best examples of how to do it right are Portal and The Witness - they excel at this.

Inside and last guardian
Gradual difficulty increase
Start with easy tutorials

But level designing is hardest thing right now, Re7,Tlg reminded me of that
But can be done with good planner
And design layout should come first and narrative later or both go hand in hand
That can help pacing a lot like in games i mentioned

i never played any of the mentioned games, not even portal nor witness, but i know they are not old school nor traditional and has a kind of mechanism which may apply this gradual feeling you talked about, on the other hand i think i remember MI or Edna & Harvey (e.g) had dealt with this issue thru starting with linear gameplaying into a small number of locations, and then expand..

now i think many ags had used this style of gradual difficulty pace, (I remember also Cevile as i played lately) .. maybe it is a difficult concept for any designer to handle more than this mentioned style; of starting at a small area then expand?... i am not sure, whether how or why.

     

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For sure, game design is about the planning and methodology of the game. And to some extent this includes things like visuals, because there needs to be a plan that makes the visuals work with the rest of the game. If i plan the puzzle structure in terms of a first person 3d game, but its actually a text-based adventure, theres going to be a problem. It needs a different approach. And yes, i think its especially present in adventure games because the planning has a very direct influence over the quality of the experience. A final fantasy game could have a large portion of combat-filler that gets over looked, but an adventure game with poorly thought out puzzles is going to ruin it fast.

     
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zane - 21 January 2017 05:12 PM

A final fantasy game could have a large portion of combat-filler that gets over looked, but an adventure game with poorly thought out puzzles is going to ruin it fast.

Depends, GF to Moment of Silence, had terrible puzzles
But still i enjoyed everything else
Like FF filler stuff

 

     
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nomadsoul - 21 January 2017 08:23 PM

Depends, GF to Moment of Silence, had terrible puzzles
But still i enjoyed everything else
Like FF filler stuff

Isn’t that reasoning a bit off, though? You could also say that despite the terrible design you still enjoyed it. And that for you 10 others didn’t.

With good design (replacing the terrible puzzles with good ones), maybe more people would’ve enjoyed it or you would’ve enjoyed it even more

     
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Bitano - 22 January 2017 04:26 AM

Isn’t that reasoning a bit off, though?

Bitano, meet nomadsoul. Nomadsoul, Bitano.

Grin

     

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wilco - 21 January 2017 06:26 AM

That’s something that unfortunately I think is very common in adventure games, specially older, there isn’t any difficulty curve

The thing is, there’s no real point in trying to do a difficulty curve for a classic AG. The Witness and Portal introduce puzzle mechanics that are gradually taught. Classic AGs all use more or less the same mechanics (dialogue puzzles, inventory, slides etc) and the “curve” is the tutorial if they have it.
The only reason to have a difficulty curve in a classic AG is to make the story hook you before the frustration of difficult puzzles turns you off. But, you don’t need that for much more than the beginning. So, I don’t think this is a problem.

     
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Antrax - 22 January 2017 06:21 AM

The thing is, there’s no real point in trying to do a difficulty curve for a classic AG. The Witness and Portal introduce puzzle mechanics that are gradually taught. Classic AGs all use more or less the same mechanics (dialogue puzzles, inventory, slides etc) and the “curve” is the tutorial if they have it.
The only reason to have a difficulty curve in a classic AG is to make the story hook you before the frustration of difficult puzzles turns you off. But, you don’t need that for much more than the beginning. So, I don’t think this is a problem.

It’s not just to make the story hook you, but it’s also very useful for a gradual introduction to the game world, backstory, characters, etc. from a story perspective.

Whether there are puzzle or other game mechanisms that need to be taught or not, it’s still a good idea to start any game with a relatively small area at first and slowly expanding as the game progresses (like in the way Monkey Island 2 did with just one island, and then opening up to three islands).
It’s a sound storytelling technique and is imo also part of the design.

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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TimovieMan - 22 January 2017 07:09 AM

it’s still a good idea to start any game with a relatively small area at first and slowly expanding as the game progresses (like in the way Monkey Island 2 did with just one island, and then opening up to three islands).

This is actually what i consider as being the difficulty level of an AG. The more areas you can move back and forth to, the harder it becomes to determine what you need to use where.

     

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I agree that the fewer hotspots, the less options to consider. I also like the small area into large area, but I don’t think it’s mandatory for AGs.
In Simon the Sorcerer most of the game world is open from the get-go. In Secret of Monkey Island, you move from the large Melee Island to the tiny ship.

In fact, if you can progress in parallel, it might be better to have a larger area to avoid the player being stumped on something for too long without making any progress - provided it’s easy to tell which clues belong to which puzzle chain, otherwise we’re back to it making things harder.

     
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Advie - 21 January 2017 04:40 AM

the player at an adventure game set a kinda awareness to game design style, maybe thru the first half an hour (or maybe less) and this awareness becomes the trigger for how she/he approaches the game, so if something disturbs this awareness the player could feel lost or mayhap being cheated.

thoughts added (or mine corrected)?

 

Cheers Advie reading your comment made me start whistling this song:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy9SxU3sULw

     

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(That got longer than originally intended. Sorry… )

TL;DR: Adventure games require complex skills; those need to be taught to players; designers should think long and hard about their “lesson plan” and learning curve to do so.


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Antrax - 22 January 2017 06:21 AM

The thing is, there’s no real point in trying to do a difficulty curve for a classic AG. The Witness and Portal introduce puzzle mechanics that are gradually taught. Classic AGs all use more or less the same mechanics (dialogue puzzles, inventory, slides etc) and the “curve” is the tutorial if they have it.
The only reason to have a difficulty curve in a classic AG is to make the story hook you before the frustration of difficult puzzles turns you off. But, you don’t need that for much more than the beginning. So, I don’t think this is a problem.

I strongly disagree with this. “Traditional” adventure games involve numerous mechanics and require several skills. Unfortunately most designers don’t realize that those need to be taught. They seem to believe that once the players know how the interface works, the know everything they need. But that’s not true: players also need to be taught how they’re supposed to think in an adventure game.

(Dave Grossman wrote an interesting piece on that matter a few years ago.)

I’d like to focus on a simple example: the two skills that might be the most important when playing adventure games—and which are pretty much never taught to the player:

1) Recognizing puzzles. That’s a sixth sense for experienced players. You just know that that thing you’ve encountered is a puzzle. You may not know how you’ll solve it or even why you should solve it, but you know you’ll have to eventually. And so you make a mental note of it, and from then on it runs as a background task in your brain. Every time you find a new item, you quickly check mentally whether it might help with that puzzle; every time you encounter another puzzle, you try to see if the two can be chained.

2) Recognizing clues. Adventure games tend to bombard you with information. Much of it is just there for story, flavour, or humour. But in the middle of this barrage of information (seriously, I wish some AG designers would learn to shut up sometimes) are a few precious clues that are essential to solve the puzzles—and experienced adventure gamers recognize them instantly and make mental notes of them, sometimes even using them to solve a puzzle before even encountering it.

Those two skills are essential in adventure gaming. In fact, I’d contend that a lot of a traditional AG’s difficulty is about testing those two skills. And I realize now that it took me years to get mine to where they are now, and that no game really taught them to me through anything other than repeated failure.

Consider this scenario: You’re trying to get to the castle. On the way, you encounter a dog, a mouse that sneaks away when you get close to it, and a fallen tree. You also meet a merchant who talks (probably for far too long, because this is an adventure game) about the king, the queen, the princess, and tells a funny anecdote about the chief of the guards (let’s call him Hector) who’s a very tough guy but, it turns out, deathly afraid of mice. Later on, you reach the castle where (as you’ve probably already figured out) Hector refuses to let you in.

Now, consider the mental processes of different players at this point. Newer players are focussing on Hector, thinking that maybe they can bribe him, or sweet-talk him, or knock him out. Seasoned players, on the other hand, are trying to figure out where the cheese is. And that gap—that gigantic gap in thought processes between experienced and inexperienced players—is why most people just hate adventure games and wish they would die already. And that’s why those essential skills need to be taught. Unfortunately, most adventure games show no interest whatsoever in doing that.

And let’s be clear: teaching doesn’t have to be boring. It doesn’t have to involve some disembodied voice giving you a lecture about puzzles. Look at Portal 2: it teaches a lot of mechanics and skills, and does it very carefully (by repeating lessons while increasing difficulty, by teaching each skill in isolation before combining it with previously-acquired skills, etc.), while being a constant joy to play. (The Witness also does a pretty good job of teaching its skills, but is the most joyless thing I’ve suffered through since high school maths.)

So I believe that AG designers should identify the skills it takes to play their game (which go far beyond just learning what button to click to combine items), and spend a good portion of the game teaching them to the audience in a progressive and fun way. That would then allow them to shoot for far more ambitious puzzles late in the game, since by that point even less-experienced players would have acquired the skills they need.

(A pretty good example of this is probably Hadean Lands, though it might be a bit too hard for newcomers. But it does a good job of teaching its mechanics to players throughout the entire game, which allows it to conclude on one of the most satisfying puzzles ever designed.)

     
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TimovieMan - 22 January 2017 07:09 AM

Whether there are puzzle or other game mechanisms that need to be taught or not, it’s still a good idea to start any game with a relatively small area at first and slowly expanding as the game progresses (like in the way Monkey Island 2 did with just one island, and then opening up to three islands).

I’m not sure MI2 is a good example of a good difficulty curve. Its first act is just one puzzle (get rid of Largo), with several levels of intermediate puzzles. The start of the game bombards you with puzzles and clues that you have no idea what to do with, until you randomly wander into the swamp later on and learn about the voodoo doll. Not exactly the best way to teach you how to think about adventure games.

The beginning of Beneath a Steel Sky would be a much better example of a good initial difficulty curve that allows players to realize how they’re supposed to approach the puzzles. (I tend to think that BASS is one of the best designed AGs ever.)

     
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Kurufinwe - 22 January 2017 10:50 AM

Interesting wall-of-text

While I understand what you’re saying, it’s a daunting if not impossible task to accomplish this ideal learning curve in an adventure.

Not only is it a LOT of extra work / budget to implement all kinds of features to accommodate someone who barely has experience moving a mouse (if you want to take into account the most inexperienced type of player), but these features will also get in the way of the more experienced player who feels treated like a baby. It’s so much overhead and at what cost?
A minimal (and acceptable) attempt - i suppose - was done in MI2, where as a player you could choose between an easy and a hard mode. Minimal because Dave Grossman’s grandmother would still be utterly lost in expectations.

Kurufinwe - 22 January 2017 10:50 AM

The start of the game bombards you with puzzles and clues that you have no idea what to do with, until you randomly wander into the swamp later on and learn about the voodoo doll.

It’s true that MI2 expects the player to be independent and willing and able to explore. There were still relatively few areas in the first act to explore though. If the player was brave enough to go ahead and try out stuff (s)he’d soon have visited all the available areas and picked up all the stuff available.

For an inexperienced AG player this could come across as somewhat overwhelpming. I wonder though what LucasArts could’ve done to ease up the learning curve without dumbing the game down. Maybe they should’ve limited the area to a single screen provide some tasks forcing the player to find his/her inventory and use a couple of items. I don’t know.

     

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