4 ms·
Well, some of that free range kind of feeling can be achieved by introducing local non-linearity into the game, i.e. make certains parts of the game independent
by vkazanov 3y ago
Well, some of that free range kind of feeling can be achieved by introducing local non-linearity into the game, i.e. make certains parts of the game independent of each other.
Then, as the player progresses to the next episode the non-linearity would become a single step to the next episode, without any cross-episode interdependencies. Most well-designed adventure games have this branch-narrow-branch-narrow structure, where bottlenecks make sure the player is ready to proceed to the next level.
What was no very good about Sierra-style design is that they did introduce this non-linearity but there were often inter-episode links introduced. (e.g. "had to pick up this item a couple of episodes back it's late now"). So resorting to walkthroughs was the only way to avoid this kind of meaningless backtracking. It a very shady way to lengthen gameplay time!
- twoodfin 3y agoI agree, though in the better games (most of them, I would say) this kind of thing was a) hard to get yourself stuck in if you were making a careful play-through and/or b) not fatal, only costing you the "best" ending or some final score points. The best games (again, I'd cite The Colonel's Bequest) had numerous game-stage dependent side-quests and optional puzzles or secrets that made for rich replay value. Overall, I wouldn't undersell the value of the possibility of failure & the frisson it provides over a carefully guard-railed world. There's certainly an aggressively evil way to structure games like this. The first that comes to mind is Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but it's hard to escape the impression that the sadism towards the player was meant to be part of its charm.