I like the idea of a countdown-to-your-death puzzle but not for ALL deaths. I really feel that the one-off deaths for carelessness are important as well.
I agree. And the sierra definition isn't always that doing anything should get you killed, in most instances your common sense can save you.
Right from the get-go in KQ5, there's not too many ways you can die. But for the few that there are, it's fairly obvious that you shouldn't do them. For example, running into the rattlesnake or the bear, going into the dark forest when Cedric warns Graham about it (and there's a huge sign in front of it as well), and jumping into water. Others are not so obvious, of course, such as going into the bar or wandering around in the desert for too long, and I suppose that it can be argued that those shouldn't be kept around.
I really do think, however, that deaths that can reasonably fall on your blame should be left in.
Others are not so obvious, of course, such as going into the bar or wandering around in the desert for too long, and I suppose that it can be argued that those shouldn't be kept around.
My argument to keep these deaths in the game is that although you die, you gain an insight into a situation. You learn that you might need something else to prevent death later. Imagine you get tied up and die, later you see the cat chasing the mouse. Anyone who has heard the fable of mouse and the lion might recognize the importance of helping the mouse. Many complain about this dead end, but the point of the sierra style was to make you, the gamer, figure out and make these connections. The deaths provide hints into other things you might need to do.
Many complain about this dead end, but the point of the sierra style was to make you, the gamer, figure out and make these connections. The deaths provide hints into other things you might need to do.
From what I've seen, the point of the Sierra style was to have puzzles so obtuse that you would almost never be able to solve the game barring extreme amounts of trial and error or luck.
"AH! It's a yeti! If only I had a pie!"
"Hey, I bet this bridle will turn this snake into a magical flying horse!"
etc etc
From what you've seen? You really need to experience them to form a proper opinion. Don't ride with the masses.
Having a single "use pie with yeti" puzzle is enough to determine they had awful game designers, or that their entire intent wasn't to make good puzzles, but to make impossible to figure out puzzles.
Yet, you instantly cast the same blame on all the puzzles in every Sierra game for being just as inane even though you've never played them. You're exaggerating the bad to epic proportions and completely leaving out the good. That is not a balanced opinion.
And it wasn't peanut butter it was honey, and it wasn't a fairy it was an elf. :rolleyes: That review instantly proves the guy has no idea what he's talking about. He couldn't have if he actually though it was peanut butter because the puzzle to acquire the "peanut butter" directly involved rescuing a swarm of bees who repay you by giving you some of their honey. They even state so. The guy has no idea what he's talking about. Much like you. And anybody who chooses to believe everybody else and not play the game for themselves.
"At one point you have to venture into a spooky forest and vanquish an evil witch. When you try to depart the forest however, you find that you’re trapped in a magical sort of time-space loop, treading the same paths over and over. Take a minute to imagine how you might escape from this predicament. Got any ideas?
If so, I’m 100% sure one of them was not, “Pour some peanut butter on the ground, and then drop jewels in the peanut butter, so that a greedy fairy who you’ve never heard of before will rush out of the bushes and get himself stuck in the peanut butter. If you free him, he’ll help you out.”"
It was honey, not peanut butter; an elf, not a fairy; and a forest, not a time-space loop. Moreover, the elf didn't appear out of nowhere -- you could see his eyes shining back in the trees, and you could click the emeralds on either the eyes or the ground to tempt him out, and you could see the affect of doing so with one or two emeralds before you needed to think about putting the honey on the ground. I think it's a perfectly reasonable puzzle -- I mean you're supposed to be an adventurer, you're trapped, it's logical to try to interact with any and all other characters to see how they might help you out. (That's actually one of my favorite puzzles from KQV).
I'm not going to defend everything Sierra did, and I'm sympathetic with those who think that dead-end/walking-dead situations should be relegated to the past along with floppy disks. But this is just what I meant when I said above that accusations against Sierra are way overblown. Lucasarts games, Zork games, and many adventures of that era were just as "guilty" of "impossible" or "unfair" puzzles.
What a terrible example. The forest elf puzzle is very reasonable when seen in context. In fact, King's Quest V consists almost entirely of puzzles requiring only common sense (with a small number of notable examples, such as having to enter a situation which usually ends with death with little indication that the result may be different this time). If it weren't for dead ends, it would be one of the easiest adventure games I ever played. For the record, I first played KQV last month and no, I didn't use a walkthrough. I'm also a Lucasarts fanboy.
Sorry but I didn't have a chance to read any of your responses, I was too busy using masking tape to make a cat fur mustache to disguise myself as someone who has no mustache.
Do you have all the rare really bad Sierra puzzles locked away in a chest somewhere that you whip out when people approach you for never playing a Sierra game? You're over-exaggerating it. Those bad puzzles were few and far between. KQ5 and GK3 are probably the greatest concentration of them. What about the Eco Quests? Conquests of Camelot? Longbow? The first Gabriel Knight? Space Quest 5? Laura Bow? Police Quest 2? Police Quest 1? King's Quest IV? Space Quest 3? Space Quest 2? The Manhunters? The Quest for Glory's? Torin's Passage? Or the many many other Sierra adventures? You have any articles about bad puzzles for those? Maybe you should try them and form an actual opinion.
puzzle though... which is pretty hard for people not living in the US... or can it be found in-game somehow and I've just kept missing it?
But I wholeheartedly agree with your point though - people tend to exaggerate these things very much... if one didn't have experience with Sierra games, one could be left with the impression that their games are nothing but absurd puzzles and unfair deaths.
Thanks for that Paw link btw, I didn't know about that series of videos he's been doing... watched all of them earlier today, love that kind of stuff.
I believe all of that information was in the game manual, which was a type of police manual. It had radio codes, police procedures, etc. I'm sure the 411 number thing was found there as well. I could be wrong, however.
I can't remember having seen that, I will look through my manual here very thoroughly to check and let you know.
From my memory of reading the manual, I think it was only filled with police related codes and information... a number like that seems like quite an odd thing to include in an instructional manual aimed at police officers (which the manual mimics).
How did you solve this puzzle originally? Can you remember still, I assume it's a very long time ago... did you just happen to know the number? I see you live in Canada, I have no idea if you use the same number there?
Shall we make a list of all the ridiculous design decisions and puzzles in Lucasarts games, too?
How about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade's Brunewald Castle sequence, where you have to either trial and error your way through dialog conversations and be a VERY lucky fighter, or just magically KNOW the correct dialog options?
Or how about in The Dig, where in order to activate the light bridges you had to just KNOW that you were supposed to click and HOLD down the mouse button, despite no other sequence in any other Lucasarts game having that type of control?
Let's see, what other random obscurities can we dredge up and use as blanket examples in our strawman anti-Lucasart's argument? Anyone?
How about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade's Brunewald Castle sequence, where you have to either trial and error your way through dialog conversations and be a VERY lucky fighter, or just magically KNOW the correct dialog options?
You couldn't have picked a better example, I've rarely been more frustrated with an adventure game than I was when doing this for the first time (on subsequent playthroughs I've resorted to walkthroughs for this part... having already done it the 'honest' way without using any hints, I don't feel bad about doing that... it's the only way I can be bothered to replay the game at all).
EDIT - I had another thought regarding the possibility of dying in adventure games, another reason why I'm in favor of having this in there (not in ALL adventure games, it depends on what you're going for when making it, obviously).
Anyway, it occured to me that it's not just the possibility for me, as the player, to fail and having to replay a little portion of the game that makes the possibility of dying something that adds to the atmosphere of a game - there's another important aspect of the possibility to die that also changes the mood of games having this.
Which is that a world where your character can end up dying in several different (and sometimes rather gruesome) ways ends up feeling very differently from a world where your character is always safe.
The difference is that here, I'm only talking about the different atmosphere created by having you see the character you control actually die, which obviously colors the world in quite a different way.
It adds a feeling of 'harshness' and danger to the world... not the 'danger' of facing the inconvenience of having to replay parts of games, but the danger simply created by knowing your character can die.
For people that actually manage to really get immersed in games, and to some degree identify with the character one controls... it seems obvious this helps create a certain kind of atmosphere.
Let's see, what other random obscurities can we dredge up and use as blanket examples in our strawman anti-Lucasart's argument? Anyone?
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders had those annoying mazes that were just trial-and-error. Plus, you could run out of money, causing a dead end, and could only get more by getting the winning Lotto numbers from Elvis' spaceship. :eek:
The monkey puzzle in Monkey Island 2 would be pretty impossible to figure out for non-Americans who have never heard the term "monkey wrench".
Sam & Max Hit the Road had the puzzle where you had to wet Max's head and put it in an electrical socket.
The signpost puzzle and Glottis barf puzzle in Grim Fandango used logic that was really odd too.
One design aspect in Sierra games I can fully understand people greatly disliking, when compared to most Lucasarts games and other games where this is not to be found, is how so many of them have dead ends.
This never bothered me, and it somewhat gives the impression the designers were more free to design the games however they wanted, without having to create them in a way (which could easily end up seeming a bit artificial in some cases) to prevent players from encountering any kinds of dead ends.
But that said, this is one issue I feel comes down to preference alone, I have no problem seeing how people often despise dead ends... I certainly don't think that not taking issue with dead ends or even finding them to add to games in many cases is in any way a more 'logical' view, just because it's the one I happen to hold myself.
One design aspect in Sierra games I can fully understand people greatly disliking, when compared to most Lucasarts games and other games where this is not to be found, is how so many of them have dead ends.
I don't mind dead ends, I just hate that you can save after you reach a dead end. It would be great if you'd get a death screen saying "You missed something, now you're stuck" rather than allowing you to save your unwinnable game over your potentially winnable save game.
Yes, that can definitely be very annoying... the best idea is just to create a lot of saves and never overwrite.
However, seeing as that issue is easily solved by simply creating a lot of saves, it's not what I find the most difficult about not having an indication that you've reached a dead end - the one thing that sometimes really bugs me is when I reach a point where I feel unsure of whether I'm just stuck and need to keep trying, or whether I've actually encountered a dead end.
It can be annoying when you're not sure which is the case.
On the other hand, I think it's a great feeling whenever I successfully solve a puzzle I realize could easily have turned into a dead end.
I also find it kind of annoying (though a very minor annoyance) there isn't room for more saves in each folder... especially in these games where I always end up with a lot of saves.
Not a big effort to create more folders, but still one of the things I've always found a bit annoying.
Anyway, maybe it's better to get back to talking about dying, it's much too easy to wander off topic when talking about something I'm (maybe even a bit excessively) interested in
I'm slowly realising this is exactly the same debate as when the parser was replaced with P&C. Or when 160x200 was replaced by 320x200. Or EGA replaced by VGA. or Super VGA. Or 3D (as is evident in another thread). And now retry deaths. This is a huge preference thing. Granted, some things really detract from the gaming experience (P&C and non-retry deaths), but that doesn't change what's going to happen whether we like it or not, unfortunately. Telltale are going to put in retry deaths I guarantee you. And there's nothing we can do about it.
I agree with you MI, TellTale will do it their way, and I imagine deaths will be included but it will most likely just have the KQ7 retry as the means to handle them. I would love to be able to disable that feature (which would not be too hard to do) but I doubt it will happen.
Yes--please Telltale, give us the option to customize the play experience slightly. The option to disable automatic retries should be quick and easy to implement, and would please both sides of the debate.
Yes--please Telltale, give us the option to customize the play experience slightly. The option to disable automatic retries should be quick and easy to implement, and would please both sides of the debate.
So, is the only difference, in your opinion, of automatic retries, and a save game manually made right before a perilous part of the game just that the player had to make the decision to save?
Or is there something deeper?
Our engine has autosaving and manual save. What if autosave just kicked in after solving a puzzle rather than before (as would make sense to me at least?)
I think we have the ability to disable autosaves by simply not calling them as well, but I think some skus require an autosave feature. I could be wrong, though.
So, is the only difference, in your opinion, of automatic retries, and a save game manually made right before a perilous part of the game just that the player had to make the decision to save?
Or is there something deeper?
Our engine has autosaving and manual save. What if autosave just kicked in after solving a puzzle rather than before (as would make sense to me at least?)
I think we have the ability to disable autosaves by simply not calling them as well, but I think some skus require an autosave feature. I could be wrong, though.
The difference is that having an autosave happening automatically before any perilous situation takes the pressure off me trying to plan ahead for those types of situations. If I know a game is protecting me from any peril then there's no effort needed on my part to stay safe or pay attention until after I get killed and choose the Retry option.
On the other hand, if I'm expected to manage my own saves then I'm going to be a lot more careful and observant of my surroundings and so forth. For example, in Tomb Raider Underworld I never felt any desire to deliberately save the game or be careful at all as the game was constantly autosaving and a death only cost me maybe a minute or two tops. In Thief Deadly Shadows I am manually creating new saved games every five minutes or so just in case I manage to get myself killed or stuck someplace I didn't expect. Thief is the far better game in my opinion.
So, is the only difference, in your opinion, of automatic retries, and a save game manually made right before a perilous part of the game just that the player had to make the decision to save?
Or is there something deeper?
The point is making the player feel the NEED to save at all.
A sense of unexpected peril around any corner was a staple of the KQ series, and a big part of what made those games feel like such memorable adventures. Automatic retries remove that sense of peril and ultimately make the game a more shallow and bland experience as a result. In order for something to really feel dangerous, there needs to be a sense that missteps in those dangerous situations will have actual tangible consequences.
So, is the only difference, in your opinion, of automatic retries, and a save game manually made right before a perilous part of the game just that the player had to make the decision to save?
Or is there something deeper?
Our engine has autosaving and manual save. What if autosave just kicked in after solving a puzzle rather than before (as would make sense to me at least?)
I think we have the ability to disable autosaves by simply not calling them as well, but I think some skus require an autosave feature. I could be wrong, though.
Autosaving after solving a puzzle sounds like a good idea to me. It's still up to the player to determine whether something might be perilous and whether they think they should save beforehand, but if they do mess up and don't save, they'll lose some progress but will only have to go back to the last logical checkpoint.
I believe I suggested earlier the idea of saving after solving a puzzle or receiving a point. As long as that point isn't before a major perilous event. I don't mind losing some progress as opposed to all of it, though that would be the better choice I think personally. But autosaving after a puzzle is solved (which I would do anyway) or when you reach a new area or something (as long as it's not a dangerous area) seems an ok compromise.
Basically, I just want deaths to mean something. Don't put them in if it's just going to be a retry. There's no point. KQ deaths were not for the lulz, that was Space Quest's shtick. KQ's deaths were meant to hinder your progress and punish you for making wrong decisions.
Interesting that you Sierra fans talk about the necessity to punish the player. I think that's a major point where the Sierra and LucasArts design philosophies differed, with LucasArts (almost) always trying to avoid penalizing the player for screwing up.
Personally, I would like a "retry" feature, although I wouldn't complain if there isn't one. However, I must admit I grew up as a LucasArts fan first and foremost, so I think punishing the player is something that generally should be minimized.
The design philosophies are certainly very different. Sierra and LucasArts split the adventure community into two groups; those who wanted to explore, discover, and solve puzzles without the possibility of failure, and those who enjoyed the challenge of overcoming deadly puzzles and obstacles. Not that there's anything wrong with either, but they are two very real and very equally-sized groups. That's why Sierra did so well alongside LucasArts. LucasArts didn't steal any fanbase from Sierra, they merely provided an alternative.
The downside is the "do no evil" side (LucasArts) of the fanbase criticizes deaths and player punishments as design flaws and considers most Sierra fans to be gluttons for punishment. This is not the case. There is simply a greater feeling of satisfaction for solving and beating a dangerous adventure game, in my opinion, by overcoming all those obstacles and perilous areas. Sierra made adventure games alive with danger. Despite the fact that it was just a game where you walk around and click on things, their games felt very dangerous and so felt very alive, while LucasArts games lacked that in a way (games like Myst and most Adventure Company games completely lacked this in every way, which is why most people consider adventure games today to be boring; no challenge, no live atmosphere). To make up for it almost ALL of LucasArts' games had great humour and dialogue, but if you removed those things their games wouldn't nearly be as fun at all gameplay-wise. Even the Indiana Jones games had a bit of humour and where it lacked in humour it added actual deaths and consequences. Even LucasArts seemed to realize that you can't have a serious adventure game without peril. I believe there's actually a quote somewhere where they said adventure games needed to be funny to be entertaining. And you can't have peril without deaths and consequences. And those consequences mean absolutely squat if you can just retry to avoid it.
...you can't have peril without deaths and consequences. And those consequences mean absolutely squat if you can just retry to avoid it.
Exactly. Retries are not a compromise; they completely negate the consequences of dying in the game. You either have deaths, or you have retries. Deaths with retries are not deaths.
The bottom line is you simply can't make a good KQ game adhering to a strictly Lucasarts design philosophy. Heck, it wouldn't even be a KQ game, period.
Yes the philosophies are different, but there is the simple fix of allowing the user to DISABLE auto save and retries. If this were done (a simple fix from the design and programming perspectives), then everyone would be happy. The revised death poll so far shows 100% of the people that have responded say that they would be satisfied with this solution. It doesn't get much better than 100%.
I believe I suggested earlier the idea of saving after solving a puzzle or receiving a point. As long as that point isn't before a major perilous event. I don't mind losing some progress as opposed to all of it, though that would be the better choice I think personally. But autosaving after a puzzle is solved (which I would do anyway) or when you reach a new area or something (as long as it's not a dangerous area) seems an ok compromise.
Basically, I just want deaths to mean something. Don't put them in if it's just going to be a retry. There's no point. KQ deaths were not for the lulz, that was Space Quest's shtick. KQ's deaths were meant to hinder your progress and punish you for making wrong decisions.
I agree. I would prefer it didn't autosave after every puzzle.
In KQ6 on the Isle of the Beast, if there were such a post-puzzle autosave, I would prefer it didn't happen after disabling each trap, but instead after disabling every trap and dispelling the curse on Beast (which you must solve after completing the last trap lest you die.)
In KQ2, I would be perfectly okay if it only autosaved after unlocking each door while expecting that if I wanted more frequent save points then I must do it myself.
TTG's King's Quest doesn't need unfair deaths, but I would also qualify unfair and unexpected as different ideas. There ought to be a way to keep exploring fun such that you're not penalized for poking around a lot, while still having places where something can startlingly pop out and kill you in a way that adds to the tension without detracting from the fun.
The only people that KQ deaths ever punished were people that didn't mash their save button every time they ever accomplished anything (read: no one).
How many times did you lose any significant progress (as in, something more than having walked into a new area) to a death? My guess is either zero, or one time, because after one death of that sort, you started saving so often that it never mattered.
If adding some kind of auto-save to a game makes you unable to enjoy the game because you force yourself to play like a complete fool, perhaps you should try playing things as they're intended rather than exploiting them on purpose and blaming the game for your own stupidity? Basically, you're just saying that you want to be forced to manually save so that if you somehow happen to forget (you won't) and die, you can curse yourself out for being a total moron. It's an annoyance, not a feature, and nothing anyone can ever say will convince me otherwise.
(PS: I am still in favor of an option allowing auto-save to be turned off, though I completely don't see the point in doing so.)
Just having to save the game a lot is a constant reminder of how you could die at any moment, which is lost when you don't have to worry about this at all.
Another thing you'll lose if saving is automatically done for you is the feeling of being really glad you just saved the game.
Not everyone saves the game all the time, many people mostly only save when they suspect something dangerous is about to happen... and it's kind of a nice feeling when you have that suspicion, save the game and then end up dying soon after.
Instead of having the game doing that for you, it becomes your own decision and your own responsibility.
The only people that KQ deaths ever punished were people that didn't mash their save button every time they ever accomplished anything (read: no one).
How many times did you lose any significant progress (as in, something more than having walked into a new area) to a death? My guess is either zero, or one time, because after one death of that sort, you started saving so often that it never mattered.
If adding some kind of auto-save to a game makes you unable to enjoy the game because you force yourself to play like a complete fool, perhaps you should try playing things as they're intended rather than exploiting them on purpose and blaming the game for your own stupidity? Basically, you're just saying that you want to be forced to manually save so that if you somehow happen to forget (you won't) and die, you can curse yourself out for being a total moron. It's an annoyance, not a feature, and nothing anyone can ever say will convince me otherwise.
(PS: I am still in favor of an option allowing auto-save to be turned off, though I completely don't see the point in doing so.)
As usual, the degree to which you miss the point is staggering.
If this discussion bothers you so much, maybe you should just opt out. Or perhaps your insult-laden posts are just trolling for your own entertainment?
Comments
I agree. And the sierra definition isn't always that doing anything should get you killed, in most instances your common sense can save you.
Right from the get-go in KQ5, there's not too many ways you can die. But for the few that there are, it's fairly obvious that you shouldn't do them. For example, running into the rattlesnake or the bear, going into the dark forest when Cedric warns Graham about it (and there's a huge sign in front of it as well), and jumping into water. Others are not so obvious, of course, such as going into the bar or wandering around in the desert for too long, and I suppose that it can be argued that those shouldn't be kept around.
I really do think, however, that deaths that can reasonably fall on your blame should be left in.
My argument to keep these deaths in the game is that although you die, you gain an insight into a situation. You learn that you might need something else to prevent death later. Imagine you get tied up and die, later you see the cat chasing the mouse. Anyone who has heard the fable of mouse and the lion might recognize the importance of helping the mouse. Many complain about this dead end, but the point of the sierra style was to make you, the gamer, figure out and make these connections. The deaths provide hints into other things you might need to do.
Hahaha...That review was great. KQ7 is terrible.
From what I've seen, the point of the Sierra style was to have puzzles so obtuse that you would almost never be able to solve the game barring extreme amounts of trial and error or luck.
"AH! It's a yeti! If only I had a pie!"
"Hey, I bet this bridle will turn this snake into a magical flying horse!"
etc etc
Having a single "use pie with yeti" puzzle is enough to determine they had awful game designers, or that their entire intent wasn't to make good puzzles, but to make impossible to figure out puzzles.
Also:
"At one point you have to venture into a spooky forest and vanquish an evil witch. When you try to depart the forest however, you find that you’re trapped in a magical sort of time-space loop, treading the same paths over and over. Take a minute to imagine how you might escape from this predicament. Got any ideas?
If so, I’m 100% sure one of them was not, “Pour some peanut butter on the ground, and then drop jewels in the peanut butter, so that a greedy fairy who you’ve never heard of before will rush out of the bushes and get himself stuck in the peanut butter. If you free him, he’ll help you out.”"
And it wasn't peanut butter it was honey, and it wasn't a fairy it was an elf. :rolleyes: That review instantly proves the guy has no idea what he's talking about. He couldn't have if he actually though it was peanut butter because the puzzle to acquire the "peanut butter" directly involved rescuing a swarm of bees who repay you by giving you some of their honey. They even state so. The guy has no idea what he's talking about. Much like you. And anybody who chooses to believe everybody else and not play the game for themselves.
It was honey, not peanut butter; an elf, not a fairy; and a forest, not a time-space loop. Moreover, the elf didn't appear out of nowhere -- you could see his eyes shining back in the trees, and you could click the emeralds on either the eyes or the ground to tempt him out, and you could see the affect of doing so with one or two emeralds before you needed to think about putting the honey on the ground. I think it's a perfectly reasonable puzzle -- I mean you're supposed to be an adventurer, you're trapped, it's logical to try to interact with any and all other characters to see how they might help you out. (That's actually one of my favorite puzzles from KQV).
I'm not going to defend everything Sierra did, and I'm sympathetic with those who think that dead-end/walking-dead situations should be relegated to the past along with floppy disks. But this is just what I meant when I said above that accusations against Sierra are way overblown. Lucasarts games, Zork games, and many adventures of that era were just as "guilty" of "impossible" or "unfair" puzzles.
But I wholeheartedly agree with your point though - people tend to exaggerate these things very much... if one didn't have experience with Sierra games, one could be left with the impression that their games are nothing but absurd puzzles and unfair deaths.
Thanks for that Paw link btw, I didn't know about that series of videos he's been doing... watched all of them earlier today, love that kind of stuff.
From my memory of reading the manual, I think it was only filled with police related codes and information... a number like that seems like quite an odd thing to include in an instructional manual aimed at police officers (which the manual mimics).
How did you solve this puzzle originally? Can you remember still, I assume it's a very long time ago... did you just happen to know the number? I see you live in Canada, I have no idea if you use the same number there?
But I'll have a look and post what I find.
How about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade's Brunewald Castle sequence, where you have to either trial and error your way through dialog conversations and be a VERY lucky fighter, or just magically KNOW the correct dialog options?
Or how about in The Dig, where in order to activate the light bridges you had to just KNOW that you were supposed to click and HOLD down the mouse button, despite no other sequence in any other Lucasarts game having that type of control?
Let's see, what other random obscurities can we dredge up and use as blanket examples in our strawman anti-Lucasart's argument? Anyone?
EDIT - I had another thought regarding the possibility of dying in adventure games, another reason why I'm in favor of having this in there (not in ALL adventure games, it depends on what you're going for when making it, obviously).
Anyway, it occured to me that it's not just the possibility for me, as the player, to fail and having to replay a little portion of the game that makes the possibility of dying something that adds to the atmosphere of a game - there's another important aspect of the possibility to die that also changes the mood of games having this.
Which is that a world where your character can end up dying in several different (and sometimes rather gruesome) ways ends up feeling very differently from a world where your character is always safe.
The difference is that here, I'm only talking about the different atmosphere created by having you see the character you control actually die, which obviously colors the world in quite a different way.
It adds a feeling of 'harshness' and danger to the world... not the 'danger' of facing the inconvenience of having to replay parts of games, but the danger simply created by knowing your character can die.
For people that actually manage to really get immersed in games, and to some degree identify with the character one controls... it seems obvious this helps create a certain kind of atmosphere.
The monkey puzzle in Monkey Island 2 would be pretty impossible to figure out for non-Americans who have never heard the term "monkey wrench".
Sam & Max Hit the Road had the puzzle where you had to wet Max's head and put it in an electrical socket.
The signpost puzzle and Glottis barf puzzle in Grim Fandango used logic that was really odd too.
This never bothered me, and it somewhat gives the impression the designers were more free to design the games however they wanted, without having to create them in a way (which could easily end up seeming a bit artificial in some cases) to prevent players from encountering any kinds of dead ends.
But that said, this is one issue I feel comes down to preference alone, I have no problem seeing how people often despise dead ends... I certainly don't think that not taking issue with dead ends or even finding them to add to games in many cases is in any way a more 'logical' view, just because it's the one I happen to hold myself.
However, seeing as that issue is easily solved by simply creating a lot of saves, it's not what I find the most difficult about not having an indication that you've reached a dead end - the one thing that sometimes really bugs me is when I reach a point where I feel unsure of whether I'm just stuck and need to keep trying, or whether I've actually encountered a dead end.
It can be annoying when you're not sure which is the case.
On the other hand, I think it's a great feeling whenever I successfully solve a puzzle I realize could easily have turned into a dead end.
I also find it kind of annoying (though a very minor annoyance) there isn't room for more saves in each folder... especially in these games where I always end up with a lot of saves.
Not a big effort to create more folders, but still one of the things I've always found a bit annoying.
Anyway, maybe it's better to get back to talking about dying, it's much too easy to wander off topic when talking about something I'm (maybe even a bit excessively) interested in
So, is the only difference, in your opinion, of automatic retries, and a save game manually made right before a perilous part of the game just that the player had to make the decision to save?
Or is there something deeper?
Our engine has autosaving and manual save. What if autosave just kicked in after solving a puzzle rather than before (as would make sense to me at least?)
I think we have the ability to disable autosaves by simply not calling them as well, but I think some skus require an autosave feature. I could be wrong, though.
The difference is that having an autosave happening automatically before any perilous situation takes the pressure off me trying to plan ahead for those types of situations. If I know a game is protecting me from any peril then there's no effort needed on my part to stay safe or pay attention until after I get killed and choose the Retry option.
On the other hand, if I'm expected to manage my own saves then I'm going to be a lot more careful and observant of my surroundings and so forth. For example, in Tomb Raider Underworld I never felt any desire to deliberately save the game or be careful at all as the game was constantly autosaving and a death only cost me maybe a minute or two tops. In Thief Deadly Shadows I am manually creating new saved games every five minutes or so just in case I manage to get myself killed or stuck someplace I didn't expect. Thief is the far better game in my opinion.
The point is making the player feel the NEED to save at all.
A sense of unexpected peril around any corner was a staple of the KQ series, and a big part of what made those games feel like such memorable adventures. Automatic retries remove that sense of peril and ultimately make the game a more shallow and bland experience as a result. In order for something to really feel dangerous, there needs to be a sense that missteps in those dangerous situations will have actual tangible consequences.
Autosaving after solving a puzzle sounds like a good idea to me. It's still up to the player to determine whether something might be perilous and whether they think they should save beforehand, but if they do mess up and don't save, they'll lose some progress but will only have to go back to the last logical checkpoint.
Basically, I just want deaths to mean something. Don't put them in if it's just going to be a retry. There's no point. KQ deaths were not for the lulz, that was Space Quest's shtick. KQ's deaths were meant to hinder your progress and punish you for making wrong decisions.
Good times, man.
Personally, I would like a "retry" feature, although I wouldn't complain if there isn't one. However, I must admit I grew up as a LucasArts fan first and foremost, so I think punishing the player is something that generally should be minimized.
The downside is the "do no evil" side (LucasArts) of the fanbase criticizes deaths and player punishments as design flaws and considers most Sierra fans to be gluttons for punishment. This is not the case. There is simply a greater feeling of satisfaction for solving and beating a dangerous adventure game, in my opinion, by overcoming all those obstacles and perilous areas. Sierra made adventure games alive with danger. Despite the fact that it was just a game where you walk around and click on things, their games felt very dangerous and so felt very alive, while LucasArts games lacked that in a way (games like Myst and most Adventure Company games completely lacked this in every way, which is why most people consider adventure games today to be boring; no challenge, no live atmosphere). To make up for it almost ALL of LucasArts' games had great humour and dialogue, but if you removed those things their games wouldn't nearly be as fun at all gameplay-wise. Even the Indiana Jones games had a bit of humour and where it lacked in humour it added actual deaths and consequences. Even LucasArts seemed to realize that you can't have a serious adventure game without peril. I believe there's actually a quote somewhere where they said adventure games needed to be funny to be entertaining. And you can't have peril without deaths and consequences. And those consequences mean absolutely squat if you can just retry to avoid it.
Exactly. Retries are not a compromise; they completely negate the consequences of dying in the game. You either have deaths, or you have retries. Deaths with retries are not deaths.
The bottom line is you simply can't make a good KQ game adhering to a strictly Lucasarts design philosophy. Heck, it wouldn't even be a KQ game, period.
I agree. I would prefer it didn't autosave after every puzzle.
In KQ6 on the Isle of the Beast, if there were such a post-puzzle autosave, I would prefer it didn't happen after disabling each trap, but instead after disabling every trap and dispelling the curse on Beast (which you must solve after completing the last trap lest you die.)
In KQ2, I would be perfectly okay if it only autosaved after unlocking each door while expecting that if I wanted more frequent save points then I must do it myself.
TTG's King's Quest doesn't need unfair deaths, but I would also qualify unfair and unexpected as different ideas. There ought to be a way to keep exploring fun such that you're not penalized for poking around a lot, while still having places where something can startlingly pop out and kill you in a way that adds to the tension without detracting from the fun.
How many times did you lose any significant progress (as in, something more than having walked into a new area) to a death? My guess is either zero, or one time, because after one death of that sort, you started saving so often that it never mattered.
If adding some kind of auto-save to a game makes you unable to enjoy the game because you force yourself to play like a complete fool, perhaps you should try playing things as they're intended rather than exploiting them on purpose and blaming the game for your own stupidity? Basically, you're just saying that you want to be forced to manually save so that if you somehow happen to forget (you won't) and die, you can curse yourself out for being a total moron. It's an annoyance, not a feature, and nothing anyone can ever say will convince me otherwise.
(PS: I am still in favor of an option allowing auto-save to be turned off, though I completely don't see the point in doing so.)
Another thing you'll lose if saving is automatically done for you is the feeling of being really glad you just saved the game.
Not everyone saves the game all the time, many people mostly only save when they suspect something dangerous is about to happen... and it's kind of a nice feeling when you have that suspicion, save the game and then end up dying soon after.
Instead of having the game doing that for you, it becomes your own decision and your own responsibility.
As usual, the degree to which you miss the point is staggering.
If this discussion bothers you so much, maybe you should just opt out. Or perhaps your insult-laden posts are just trolling for your own entertainment?