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Thaumaturge
05-06-2008, 03:56 AM
Warning: Very long post. ^^;;;;

At the moment I don't have a game idea. However, I do have thoughts, and, especially if I get feedback on these thoughts (which I would appreciate, I believe ^_^) and carry them further, they may direct me towards a game.

I had originally planned to put the following into the Competition 19 thread, but the post was starting to look long, and would be coming directly after another long post, so I thought that it might be better to start a new thread for my thoughts, rather than further clogging that thread, and perhaps allowing people not interested in reading this rather long post to pass over it more easily.

So, onto my thoughts. For the sake of (some vague semblance of) brevity, I'll not recap the last that I had in the Competition 19 thread.

Death has a further function that has occurred to me: it increases or introduces tension. This is, I think, done through two methods, both, essentially, based on fear.

The first is the simple fear of death - if the game succeeds in getting the player to care about or connect with the character, they may come to fear the death of the character.

The second, and perhaps more salient fear, is fear of loss, specifically of something gained. The simplest element that might be list is perhaps progress: by sending the player back to a save point, saved game or the start of a sequence, their progress through the sequence has been lost, and they face repeating it. Much abused in save-point systems, I feel. Other than that, there is loss of gained advantages and bonuses, such as weapons or powers gained, or perhaps bonuses (for example, an RPG might include an XP modifier that increases until you die, upon which it resets).

The trick, then, to eliminating death in a game, is to find replacement fears, or replacement implementations of the above fears.

Perhaps most simply, one might find other ways to send the player back - temporal distortion, portals, vacuum tubes, giant winged horrors from the nether worlds, etc. Similarly, one might find other ways to remove bonuses and equipment (energy fields, mind wipes, giant flying horrors from the nether worlds, etc...).

Including other fears is perhaps more interesting... The question then becomes: what else do human beings commonly fear? There's fear of harm, especially of certain parts of the body (eye damage is quite disturbing, I believe), fear of loss of control, fear of loss of individuality, fear of lack of recognition, and of oblivion. There are also common phobias, such as heights and spiders.

I imagine that the trick would be to not necessarily have these appear, but to threaten the player with them, perhaps only showing them in place of actual death.

Having taken a look at the Wikipedia entry on psychological horror (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_horror), it seems to me that what I'm thinking of is to normal death-inclusive games as a psychological horror movie is to a gore-based movie. I wonder, then, how one might go about building up tension and fear of fearful things just beyond the player's view in a setting in which the player has at least some degree of control...

Of course, psychological horror games exist. Am I just arriving at them then, instead of something new? :/

Perhaps the metaphor of movies will help. Instead of an action movie, in which the hero is worried about being shot, or a psychological horror movie in which the protagonist is afraid of dark and terrible things, I want a movie in which the protagonist is afraid of... what? Loss of something? Love? Partnership? Sanity? Wealth? Autonomy?

Perhaps a game in which it is the player's goal is to avoid some force or being taking control of the player's avatar, perhaps made a little more interesting if combined with the potential loss of sanity on the part of the avatar? (Okay, I like horror. :P)

Perhaps I should think more on movie (or book, for that matter) types, and uses of the sorts of loss (and, perhaps, others) that I mentioned above...

On another track, a perhaps interesting thought is that the idea of death as a bar to progress brought me back to my idea of sending the player through a sequence of worlds, passing through on death, with early death leading to worse results. Of course, this is perhaps less a challenge to the use of death in games than a slightly different expression of it, in which each play-through may be a complete play-through, even if the player dies quickly. An end can always be reached. (In this way it strikes me as being similar to an adventure game with multiple endings, and no death screens. In the place of an adventure game's completion of side-quests or alternate solutions, this game would have the degree of completion of the levels.)

Note that the causes of death needn't be combat, as such, although it amounts to much the same thing, it seems to me.

That's as far as I've gotten thus far, I believe.

DukeOFprunes
05-06-2008, 09:13 AM
I'm not picking at you, it just seems that you're getting caught up in the details. Simplify.
You have tons of good ideas, so try and pick the one or the few you think you'd be able to scrunch into something fun.

dislekcia
05-06-2008, 11:50 AM
"A designer knows that a design is complete not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away" - Anton de st Exupery

-D

Henjin
05-06-2008, 03:15 PM
I have a problem with your "replace death with something" theory: if you replace it with something that has the same (or parts of the) effects as death then you haven't actually removed death, simply changed its name.

Methinks this competition is more about doing interesting things with death, rather than removing or substituting it. So do unconventional things, like rewarding a player if their death was cool or make death a powerful weapon to use against your opponents, just make it fun and challenging.

Anyway, this is just my view on the comp, use it, don't use it.

Thaumaturge
05-06-2008, 08:41 PM
Thank you all for your thoughts. ^_^

I do agree that designs should probably not be overcomplicated... but first one should settle on a concept, something on which to base the game, surely? That is where I'm feeling stuck, you see. I'm not content with the designs that I have thus far, at least as entries for this competition.

I'm currently approaching the competition from the perspective of challenging the use of death in games.

My thoughts above came about to a large degree, I think, in attempting to answer the questions that Dislekcia posed in the competition thread:


Thaumaturge: Try deconstructing what player death achieves in games at the moment. What does it usually mean? Would it be possible to build a game where the player never dies? Would something like that still be fun? Would it be terrible? What could you do to re-introduce the mechanical aspects of death without using the "cop-out" of player death?

You seem very focused on the combat-elements of player and non-player death. Try thinking of different scenarios.

A number of the thoughts that I presented above came from my thoughts on what player death achieves in games at the moment, as well, I think, as non-combat death scenarios. (I have a list in that thread of other purposes that death can serve.)


I have a problem with your "replace death with something" theory: if you replace it with something that has the same (or parts of the) effects as death then you haven't actually removed death, simply changed its name.

True, although one might find a different effect if we were to replace part of the purpose of death, and remove the remainder. For example, if we remove the effect of sending the player back to an earlier point, but keep the tension produced, then might we not reduce the frustration involved in the death, while keeping at least some of the fear and motivation that it can provide?

But again, you are perhaps right - that is one of the problems that I'm encountering, I think, that most of my ideas are effectively death as currently handled, but presented differently. Perhaps one of the closest ideas that I've had thus far was that of a game in which combat is never fatal (although performance might at least affect points gained, or some such). Game-overs would only occur as a result of failing quests in some way.


You have tons of good ideas, so try and pick the one or the few you think you'd be able to scrunch into something fun.

Thank you. ^_^

I think that I tend to have one (or both) of two problems with my current ideas: They don't challenge the use of death, or really alter its use, simply doing something a little different or they're too big to implement in the time remaining.

If I come to give up on finding something along these lines that I'm happy with, I may settle for one of my other ideas; probably one of:
"Death takes you to another world; score or ending is based on progress through levels before death" or "An action (probably RP-) game in which the player always wins combats, although performance may vary".

I really like the idea of an RPG in which, on death, the player plays against Death in a minigame. Failure is a loss-condition, success rewards the player with a character level and return to the game (this is the only way to level). The minigame increases in difficulty with each death, meaning that the more often the character dies, the riskier dying becomes.

Come to think of it, the game in which combats are always won might be the most lengthy of those to develop, since a good implementation would probably call for a halfway complex combat system so that the combat remains halfway interesting...

However, I suspect that it would take a little longer than a month to create.

dislekcia
06-06-2008, 12:32 AM
I have a problem with your "replace death with something" theory: if you replace it with something that has the same (or parts of the) effects as death then you haven't actually removed death, simply changed its name.

Methinks this competition is more about doing interesting things with death, rather than removing or substituting it. So do unconventional things, like rewarding a player if their death was cool or make death a powerful weapon to use against your opponents, just make it fun and challenging.

Anyway, this is just my view on the comp, use it, don't use it.

+rep, just so the rest of you know ;)

-D

Thaumaturge
06-06-2008, 06:59 PM
All right, for now, at least, as much as I dislike the thought, I'm giving up on my goal of finding some way to really challenge the use of death in games.

On the plus side, I now have two ideas that I think might at least be interesting:
1) One of the above ideas; an RPG-like game in which, on dying, one plays against Death for a return to the world of the living. If one succeeds, one also levels up. This could be kept fairly simple - a handful of enemies, a boss or so, and only ranged, and perhaps area-of-effect, attacks.

Okay, as has been pointed out, Prey apparently did something like this. However, this differs from that in that failure is a loss-condition, the minigame increases in difficulty with successive "visits", and that success is the only way to increase in power. This means that a player can very well just go out and get killed a few times in order to level up... but that doing so makes it riskier to die in combat. The fewer times that the player levels up, the more times they're likely to survive combat death.

2) Something that occurred to me last night. The game would, as with one of my earlier ideas, place the player as the Great Ancient Evil. In this case, the player would start off "dead" - or at least, as "dead" as this being gets, which is to say, very much weakened and dispersed. In this state, the player has little real power, only the ability to influence other beings, with the degree and perhaps clarity most probably being dependant on the target's alignment and perhaps attitude towards the player. The goal would be to bring together a certain number of creatures (or more, I suppose) to perform a ritual, allowing the player to re-manifest in the living world.

This could, I think, be interesting as part of a larger project, specifically an "evil overlord" game. The main game would be played while manifested; the player would have greater power, and be in a position to expand an empire, the goal being world domination. I even have a few gameplay ideas. When defeated, however, instead of death, the player goes into this "half-death" state, attempting to secure return to the world while the world moves on, slowly (and preferably visibly) "healing" the damage done by the player.

As a competition entry, I would most probably only create the game as described in the first paragraph above; essentially a prototype for the greater game described thereafter.

Thoughts, suggestions? [edit] On the game ideas, that is.

Henjin
07-06-2008, 12:22 AM
+rep, just so the rest of you know ;)

Sweet, thanks man

Thaumaturge
08-06-2008, 07:28 PM
All right, I've noticed problems with both of the ideas that I presented above.

In the first, since dying becomes increasingly dangerous, I now imagine that players could easily become inclined to simply return to the standard save-and-reload gameplay, treating death as an undesirable outcome, once the first few "levelling" deaths, and perhaps a handful after those, have occurred.

In the second, the "recovery" phase is a potentially slow process, and differs from the primary gameplay of the expanded game idea. Given this, I think that, as a part of a greater game, at least, the recovery gameplay could become tedious and undesirable, leading again to save-and-reload gameplay.

However, I believe that I have an idea that might well make for a good entry:

The player would take the part of a revenant, physically returned from the dead to investigate his or her death. This investigation would take the form of a simple RPG-like game: collect inventory items, perhaps talk to a few people, use inventory items in the world or with characters, etc, as well as combatting foes.

The trick, however, is this: as an undead creature, the player is not damaged by foes' attacks. More dangerous is the coming sunrise - if the player is not back in his tomb by sunrise, the player dies. Combat then incurs the danger of delay, implemented by hit causing the player's movement to pause briefly. Taking too long to deal with a foe could rob the player of precious seconds.

Indeed, I may in fact include later foes that specifically attempt to grapple and hold the player until sunrise.

In combat, the player has access to two powers: a damaging bolt of energy, and a telekinetic burst that pushes enemies away. I may well include foes who are unaffected by one or the other power.

However, combat can also provide benefits. True to the RPG-ish nature of the game, combat earns the player experience, which can be use to improve one of three skills: speed, the primary power, and the secondary power. Thus, becoming involved in combat allows the player to better deal with later foes.

The overall look and feel is currently intended to be dark and gothic, and the gameplay kept simple.

dislekcia
08-06-2008, 08:49 PM
The Revenant idea sounds like it could be played in a grid-type puzzle game. Interesting.

-D

Thaumaturge
09-06-2008, 12:55 AM
I had been thinking of real-time action (probably using a third-person camera and WASD-and-mouse controls), but placing it in a grid-based puzzle setting is an interesting idea...

In that case, I would imagine that two options present themselves for the representation of time until dawn: the real-time method, in which time continues to pass while one thinks about one's turn, or the "action point" method, in which moving, fighting, speaking, etc. all take up (perhaps varying numbers of) action points, with there being a certain number of action points in a night. Either way, it seems to me that enemies would probably then become more serious obstacles, as there would be likely to be fewer ways around them, and going around an enemy would probably cost more "time" than might be the case in a real-time version of the game.

Hmm... I'll think on that. Thank you for the idea, Dislekcia. ^_^

Thaumaturge
19-06-2008, 03:08 AM
An update:

I no longer expect to have this done in time for the competition deadline. However, I do still like the idea, and am currently working on it while and as part of learning the use of Panda, and do hold out a little hope that it might be done by the deadline.