Heavy Rain inspired gameplay

edited March 2011 in Jurassic Park
The Game Informer article said that the gameplay in Jurassic Park is going to be inspired by Heavy Rain.
Applying the Jurassic Park license to the storytelling systems Telltale has created in past games makes sense to a degree, but in our conversations with the team they kept coming back to Quantic Dreams’ Heavy Rain. “While our story is more linear than Heavy Rain, actions the player takes are reflected in the way the story is told,” Boyle says. “The choices the players make result in changes to the details of the story. Players will know we are paying attention to the decisions they make.”

Telltale is also heavily inspired by Heavy Rain’s gameplay mechanics. The team is still figuring out how actions are presented to the player, but Boyle says Telltale is approaching the task with “more focus on cinematic presentation of your interactions.” Expect plenty of investigating and looking around in the slower-paced gameplay sections, but when the tension escalates to life and death scrambling, the gameplay shifts from selecting destinations to immediate response.

(If you haven't read the article yet you can find it here.)

I don't own a ps3 so I've never played Heavy Rain but if they had released it on PC or 360 I'd would have picked it up in a heartbeat. (For the record I don't actually own a 360, my friend's brother works for Microsoft and they gave him one when he finished his internship and I just sort of inherited it because I have the nicest TV and game playing area of all my friends.) From what I've seen in the videos is that it looks heavy on the quick time events. Also, I hear that decisions in the game are final, like if a character dies, even a main character, they stay dead.

So what do people think of this change in direction from the more traditional adventure game formula Telltale usually employs? I for one like the idea, partly because I never got to play Heavy Rain and would like to get a taste of what the gameplay was like. I also think it would work better for a franchise like Jurassic Park were the element of danger can't be ignored.
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Comments

  • edited January 2011
    Telltale is also heavily inspired by Heavy Rain’s gameplay mechanics. The team is still figuring out how actions are presented to the player, but Boyle says Telltale is approaching the task with “more focus on cinematic presentation of your interactions.” Expect plenty of investigating and looking around in the slower-paced gameplay sections, but when the tension escalates to life and death scrambling, the gameplay shifts from selecting destinations to immediate response.

    I basically read this to mean that the action sequences will be Heavy Rain-esque QTE's. Not sure what if any other elements they may utilize.
  • edited January 2011
    Well they also say:
    “The choices the players make result in changes to the details of the story. Players will know we are paying attention to the decisions they make.”
    So even if they are minor there will at least be some changes in the game depending on the choices you make, hopefully. I'd be surprised if a chaise you made in an earlier episode affected things in a later episode though but maybe Telltale will surprise us :D
  • edited January 2011
    They have said it will follow Heavy Rain as an approach. Well i played the demo yesterday and i have to say a few things on this.

    1) Although pretty good, The system of doing your own actions seems a tad pointless when it has to happen anyway for the game/moment/story to carry on. However the time limited actions was fantastic as it had consequences for what you did.

    2) Please do not follow the same camera system and movement Heavy Rain uses, I found it to be very innoying not being able to face where you wished to look. (Also read that many others feel this way) The simple camera many games use(right and left stick movement) seem it would of been better.

    3) And back to the freeform thing, Heavy Rain was the perfect example for this thread.
    Example being that although it looked a big world it felt, and was very much on rails, although it was good, and following a story needs to be like that, Heavy Rain didn't really give us anything to do, Hard to explain but for example there is a road, looks like you would be able to walk it but no, you HAVE to turn left, walk about 10 steps, go down that ally, etc etc.

    Do you get what i mean? Like its very very much on rails.
    Many of you now will be thinking "Well der... thats what a Linear based game is" And yes i know this. BUT...

    Call of Duty(example) is a Linear based game and yet it still very much allows you to move way of track to get the best results like taking cover the long way round or something. Not sooo on rails as Heavy Rain.

    Wow long post, Basically what im saying is please don't follow Heavy Rain to much please. lol

    (copied from another thread)
  • edited January 2011
    eventually I will buy Heavy rain.... I have just played the demo... regular and PS3 MOVE version.

    The reason I am in no hurry is my hatred of QTE
  • edited January 2011
    I think Heavy Rain is amazing. Sure, the controls can be considered dated. We're talking a mix of Residents Evils camera with QTE added in. But the story is awesome and they way you can play the game more than once and get not just different endings but different scenarios leading up to the end is also awesome.
  • edited January 2011
    I also think they just mean QTEs like in Heavy Rain being used in the game. They said it wont be nearly as open ended and non linear like Heavy rain, just details of the story or environment would change

    I hopefully will be able to play Heavy Rain soon because I really want to check out this new way of gameplay used only for better storytelling in games. And because I also hate QTEs like hell, considered them always as cheap pseudo-gameplay. I wanna see if they really work when used more varied and often and if it really feels immersive and like playing the game.

    Concerning Jurassic park, I'm worried. I always wanted to hide from raptors and being chased from a T-Rex, I wanna do that in full control and not just watching it and pressing some buttons meanwhile. I really hope the action sequences wont consist ONLY in QTEs!
  • edited January 2011
    Does this mean we will see origami dinosaurs!!
  • edited January 2011
    Its a very good game. Wouldn't suit a JP world though to follow it to heavy.
  • edited January 2011
    I still don't get this at all are we talking about quicktime events here ?

    I mean press x rapidly to spray shaving cream all over the angry t-rex who's child you just kidnapped.
  • edited January 2011
    QTE are where you have to press the correct button at the right time to advance the action or story.

    For Heavy rain they had a QTE for everything even opening doors... but they seem a little more forgiving than lets say Shenmue or God of War.
  • edited January 2011
    I just hope that Telltale doesn't try to reuse those rotating dialogue-options from Heavy Rain.
    It looks so ridiculous.
  • edited January 2011
    Heavy Rain was one of the best games of 2010, and the fact that the idea behind it might be seen in other works (outside of Farenheit) is exciting.

    I don't think they mean that the entire game will be based on QTEs, or that there'll be a million branching story lines. I think it mostly means that there'll be multiple endings based off of what seem like small choices that quickly develop and snowball.

    I can't wait to see what they come up with.
  • edited January 2011
    I have heavy rain for the PS3 and played it out twice. I dont find it exciting at all. it's actually pretty boring. and due to you having to concentrate on the buttons shown on screen you have no time to enjoy the visual action descently.

    I enjoyed farenheit and heavyrain had a fun story. but gameplay wise I would have liked a different approach that made me feel more involved.
  • edited January 2011
    I always said that Heavy Rain had a adventure gaming genre heart/ core...
  • edited January 2011
    Heavy Rain takes too much bull for being a button smashing game...

    It's far more than people give it credit for. Yes it follows a story but it has multiple paths. There's room for human error, of course, so it's not perfect, it's still some what linear, but we do have limitations as humans and especially what we code.

    The story was fantastic, and the game has several endings, but not as many as the 20 or something endings my favorite classic adventure game Blade Runner has.

    I don't see the big deal with hitting defined buttons on a screen, you're contiously hitting defined buttons off screen on your controller to do whatever you're trying to do. Heavy Rain just has them on screen, it's still valid game play, it's just on screen so that they can try to make the game more functional, clear...

    They don't spend hours telling you how to use the joysticks to move around...

    The engine Heavy Rain uses could improve, hard to read dialogs and the inventory could be improved.

    But over all the game is well done and I think a deeply misunderstood method of game play that has a future and in time with some evolution will become one of the best ways to have a computer (Xbox computer, PC computer, etc etc) gaming experience.
  • edited January 2011
    I'm not sure how I feel about this. While I liked Heavy Rain the first time I played it. Trying to play it the second time it comes off as a boring mediocre title with a decent story and premise. The only thing that made the first experience enjoyable was the belief that what you did mattered to the story. Which it only did in really really minor ways.
    I’ve never been a big fan of QTE any way. I somehow end up feeling like those experimental monkeys sitting in a lab being taught to push colored buttons in sequences.

    What I want to see is true gameplay changes for your actions. Alternate solutions to puzzles and ramifications for mistakes. For instance the ability to play multiple characters who can die. In which case you have different paths through the game with the characters that remain alive.

    Also it would be neat if you can switch between the characters. Like in Day of the Tentacle. That way the different characters are needed to help each other. For instance one needs to get to a panel and turn off a electric fence for another character to advance or escape a Dinosaur.
  • edited January 2011
    doodo! wrote: »
    Heavy Rain takes too much bull for being a button smashing game...

    It's far more than people give it credit for. Yes it follows a story but it has multiple paths. There's room for human error, of course, so it's not perfect, it's still some what linear, but we do have limitations as humans and especially what we code.

    The story was fantastic, and the game has several endings, but not as many as the 20 or something endings my favorite classic adventure game Blade Runner has.

    I don't see the big deal with hitting defined buttons on a screen, you're contiously hitting defined buttons off screen on your controller to do whatever you're trying to do. Heavy Rain just has them on screen, it's still valid game play, it's just on screen so that they can try to make the game more functional, clear...

    They don't spend hours telling you how to use the joysticks to move around...

    The engine Heavy Rain uses could improve, hard to read dialogs and the inventory could be improved.

    But over all the game is well done and I think a deeply misunderstood method of game play that has a future and in time with some evolution will become one of the best ways to have a computer (Xbox computer, PC computer, etc etc) gaming experience.

    22 Different Endings > 20 Endings.

    Althought 95% of them are depressing as hell and result in the character dead or killing themselves.
  • edited January 2011
    What I want to see is true gameplay changes for your actions. Alternate solutions to puzzles and ramifications for mistakes. For instance the ability to play multiple characters who can die. In which case you have different paths through the game with the characters that remain alive. .

    Did you play Heavy Rain even? Characters can die. Maybe you should play on a hard skill level... And the endings do change, their aren't alternate solutions as far as I know but you can play the game over and over again trying to get different endings. Their are choices though, every trial you can make choices and you can make choices between characters and their relationships for multiple endings.

    Seriously what's so different about Heavy Rain and any other game? Any game you play is telling you to hit buttoms based on what is happening on screeen. Their both just as direct, Heavy Rain just needs to note it's buttons because they aren't conventional and they have to make it functional for a remote control...we aren't monkeys but we are related.
    Also it would be neat if you can switch between the characters. Like in Day of the Tentacle. That way the different characters are needed to help each other. For instance one needs to get to a panel and turn off a electric fence for another character to advance or escape a Dinosaur.

    There's always the human element in everything we do, we aren't computers. That would be extremely hard to program if not impossible. But hey, if they can pull it off then that's great. I personally like the real time feeling Heavy Rain has it makes it feel more realistic. But in a indirect and direct sense all the characters in Heavy Rain are connected to each other and yes in fact what you do with one of the characters can and will effect the other.
    Ribs wrote: »
    22 Different Endings > 20 Endings.

    Althought 95% of them are depressing as hell and result in the character dead or killing themselves.

    For Blade Runner, I take it. Yes, that game is so awesome! I've only played one ending.
  • edited January 2011
    doodo! wrote: »
    For Blade Runner, I take it. Yes, that game is so awesome! I've only played one ending.

    No, Heavy Rain has 22, but that's 4 of them per ending.

    The other thing is People can't die until 5/6 of the way through the game in Heavy Rain, the only one significant is Norman during the construction fight, as the rest are during the ending or the chapter before the ending.
  • edited January 2011
    Ribs wrote: »
    No, Heavy Rain has 22, but that's 4 of them per ending.

    The other thing is People can't die until 5/6 of the way through the game in Heavy Rain, the only one significant is Norman during the construction fight, as the rest are during the ending or the chapter before the ending.

    Come on they aren't jesus, 22 endings and people still complain? They did something right, they can't be miracle workers and give you a perfect game. There's human error, trial and error.

    There's so many possibilities, I forget the characters names but I know that the game has lots of replay value if you just sit down for a moment and think about all the mind boogling possibilities that they sat down and thought out and coded and animated and acted and wrote and directed, etc...

    Not to accuse you of being a cynic or anything but seriously, isn't it enough already, why set the bar, standards so high? No team is going to have a bar set that high, it's ridiculus. We have human limitations, no budget or human being could be spent well on such a project that expands almost inifinite possibilities.

    Just because it's obvious in nature that more could have been done, could be done that doesn't mean that what has been done already isn't great, isn't worth while and possibly in actuality all that can be done at this time...

    I think this sort of gameplay is the start of something great.
  • edited January 2011
    doodo! wrote: »
    Come on they aren't jesus, 22 endings and people still complain? They did something right, they can't be miracle workers and give you a perfect game. There's human error, trial and error.

    There's so many possibilities, I forget the characters names but I know that the game has lots of replay value if you just sit down for a moment and think about all the mind boogling possibilities that they sat down and thought out and coded and animated and acted and wrote and directed, etc...

    Not to accuse you of being a cynic or anything but seriously, isn't it enough already, why set the bar, standards so high? No team is going to have a bar set that high, it's ridiculus. We have human limitations, no budget or human being could be spent well on such a project that expands almost inifinite possibilities.

    Just because it's obvious in nature that more could have been done, could be done that doesn't mean that what has been done already isn't great, isn't worth while and possibly in actuality all that can be done at this time...

    I think this sort of gameplay is the start of something great.

    My problems with the game lie in the inability to change the killer. For example, in the first chapter, I didn't help Wife with Groceries. That should turn her into the killer, not have it always be person. I also wish they'd worked a better reveal in, as it worked very anticlimactically, and it'd be better with him strangling his mother but you think you're going to soften her pillow.

    I loved the game so much, but the endings do lack variety. If you kill them during the game, they have the same ending as if they died during the ending chapter.

    For the record, I got the saddest of the sad endings, with Ethan shooting Himself, Madison and Norman dead, and the killer getting off Scott free. (see what I did there?)
  • edited January 2011
    Spoilers my man, but I got to get that ending. Yes, I think I see what you did. LOL, you gave me all the names. haha.
  • edited January 2011
    I don't think having different Killers would have been a good idea.
  • edited January 2011
    I don't think having different Killers would have been a good idea.
    It would have if it had been executed well, but they decided to make the game lose most fun in replay value in favor of a better first-time around.
  • edited January 2011
    Ribs wrote: »
    It would have if it had been executed well, but they decided to make the game lose most fun in replay value in favor of a better first-time around.

    That is your opinion. I still have fun playing it.
  • edited January 2011
    doodo! wrote: »
    That is your opinion. I still have fun playing it.

    As do I, I just feel the game could have easily added the option of more killers, especially via DLC.

    I'm still a tad frustrated about the whole 'One DLC, Now Our Audience is Dead to us' vibe they are sending out. I personally would have loved to have DLC packs that acted in the main story, such as further character development, or a new take on who the killer was.

    The one thing the game did so well it surprised me was how each person had a different main character in their game. If you are Mr. Perfect, it ends up being Ethan. If you're okay, it ends up being Nahman. And if you're like me and fail at the game on purpose, then it ends up being Madison. I still think of her as the key player in the game, as Ethan failed all but one task on mine and Nahman died from
    ODing on ARI
    .

    Jurrassic Park though, will probably work with QTEs and less in the sense of key decisions. Telltale has been building up small self-contained decisions, like the ending of the Devil's Playhouse and the option to choose 70s Action Stars for your name in Back to the Future, but I think that's the farthest it'll go.
  • edited January 2011
    They can take inspiration by anything from Heavy Rain, but not the gameplay. Please. That kind of gameplay (QTE's for everything) doesn't work with JP.

    Let us control our character.
  • edited January 2011
    Telltale could also get some inspiration from Silent Hill Shattered Memories.

    Some things were done pretty realistic with how you handle everyday things in a game environment.

    And of course Shenmue is a great inspiration source too for "virtual reality"-like adventures.
  • edited January 2011
    They can use QTEs in certain key moments, but please let there be direct control avoid or escape sequences, can be doable in cleverly given camera angles
  • edited January 2011
    doodo! wrote: »
    Did you play Heavy Rain even? Characters can die. Maybe you should play on a hard skill level... And the endings do change, their aren't alternate solutions as far as I know but you can play the game over and over again trying to get different endings. There are choices though, every trial you can make choices and you can make choices between characters and their relationships for multiple endings.
    I was saying I want the ability to die in the upcoming Jurassic park game. I loved Heavy Rain as a game. I just got bored playing it over and over. For most of the game choosing different options has a very minor and superficial affect on the game. The only real difference are the endings and a few different cutscenes as a reward. I’m not trying to diss the game it is one of the best games to come out.
    doodo! wrote: »
    There's always the human element in everything we do, we aren't computers. That would be extremely hard to program if not impossible. But hey, if they can pull it off then that's great. I personally like the real time feeling Heavy Rain has it makes it feel more realistic. But in a indirect and direct sense all the characters in Heavy Rain are connected to each other and yes in fact what you do with one of the characters can and will affect the other.
    I don't understand. Your saying programming the ability to play multiple characters and be able to switch back and forth is impossible? That’s what you quoted. I think we are thinking of Jurassic park as being two different games. I don't see it being much different than their current adventure games with QTE's added. In which case switching characters to solve puzzles would be cool IMO. You might be thinking the game will be realtime and it very well may be. I may have missed that.

    As far as my dislike with QTE. Granted in all games you mash buttons , but usually you control your characters movement in real-time and those buttons correspond to actions making the timing more important as it is up to you to time them right. In a QTE game you are basically playing a game of Simon says and your timing has less to do with the dynamic action on the screen then to the tune and speed of the developer who wrote the QTE event. I don't completely hate QTE games. Its just another tool developers can use, but it makes me feel less in control of the character and pulls me out of the action.
  • edited February 2011
    My sister isn't a gamer and she loves heavy rain. I told her that Jurassic Park was going to be done in the spirit of Heavy Rain and she is excited for that.

    The whole family will play JP and they aren't all gamers. Not all the game play of Heavy Rain is the same it has 23 endings or so, no other game has that really...you can say it's battle screeens or whatever you want to call them are limited, poorly designed but this game is awesome, so will JP be if it can even live up to this game...

    Yes, 23 endings is a lot to program esp if you swtich back and forth in between of chracters. Have you ever programmed anything before? The idea is complete insanity, it's hard enough to soup 23 endings into a story with a few characters you don't switch around to BY CHOICE let alone soup together 150 different choices by switching back and forth characters and creating about 150,000 different endings/stories...
  • edited February 2011
    I'm not sure the problem is the 23 endings of Heavy Rain.

    They talked about gameplay, not amount of endings. And the Heavy Rain-based gameplay is what concerns me and many others.
  • edited February 2011
    Well, the question isnt if Heavy Rains QTE-based gameplay itself is good or bad, it surely works if the game only focuses on characters or story and the QTEs come varied enough and have a real impact on story and ending, I dont think the amount of endings and replay-value is any indicator of how good a game is. Heavy Rains gameplay is an interesting way for interactive storytelling.

    The question is if it works for Jurassic Park! If telltale would do any other license or something new with this kind of gamplay I would say "Hey cool, new design experiments, interesting!" BUT this will probably be the LAST official Jurassic Park game, and I want the best experience possible.

    Especially in license based games the main goal is to immerse the player in the universe, they wanna be IN the movie, thats why they playing the game! I just dont think QTEs can create this kind of immersion compared to direct control gameplay. They can be used for making something like being in the car while the T-Rex is wrecking it or for important scenes that cannot be really expressed in traditional gameplay, but I want to control the character when fleeing from the T-Rex or sneaking past raptors, I dont want to watch it and press some buttons, it just feels different!
  • edited February 2011
    LOL, I don't know why I dreamt up my right to have a subjective opinion of something that's not even playable yet, anyways. Using Heavy Rain as a comapirision is a socially functional thing to do here but there's really more opinions going around here than anything else. Which is fine, that's ok. It's that I am attracted towards a different approach.

    I agree to disagree, I think that's one of my favorite things ever invented. Truly, I love that.
  • edited February 2011
    I personally loved Heavy Rain for the amazing cinematic effect it offered! If TellTale decides to do this, they really need to stick to the story.
  • edited February 2011
    Stick to what story?
  • VainamoinenVainamoinen Moderator
    edited February 2011
    This new quote from Ron Gilbert at the Game Forum Conference in Germany actually reflects my feelings pretty much:
    I hated Heavy Rain. (...) I felt like I was watching a movie and then they were just telling me to pause and play and pause and play and pause and play... and I just... I didn't enjoy it. I can respect some of the technical things they did (...) I certainly hope that's not the future of adventure gaming.

    Link to interview (beware! hideous German accents!), 10:50
  • edited February 2011
    You can always borrow the framework from somewhere else and still make changes where they are needed or fix shortcomings.
  • edited February 2011
    This new quote from Ron Gilbert at the Game Forum Conference in Germany actually reflects my feelings pretty much:
    I hated Heavy Rain. (...) I felt like I was watching a movie and then they were just telling me to pause and play and pause and play and pause and play... and I just... I didn't enjoy it. I can respect some of the technical things they did (...) I certainly hope that's not the future of adventure gaming.

    Hooray for Ron Gilbert!

    I don't necessarily dislike QTE -- like any other gameplay element, I've seen them done well and I've seen them done poorly (though my experience with them is only in action-adventure games; I've never played an otherwise "pure" adventure that used QTE and I haven't played Heavy Rain). When done well and in moderation they can be kind of fun to watch, as your character does things it wouldn't otherwise be able to do under direct control. QTE are nice as an occasional enhancement, a kind of slightly-more-interactive substitute for cutscenes.

    But I can't imagine I would enjoy a game where QTE are used as the primary game mechanic, a substitute for direct-control and puzzle-solving mechanics. That would make the game nothing but cutscenes and slightly-more-interactive cutscenes. As a gamer, I would say that's not really a game at all.

    I really don't know what to expect from Telltale or what they're going to do with JP.
  • edited February 2011
    thom-22 wrote: »
    I don't necessarily dislike QTE -- like any other gameplay element, I've seen them done well and I've seen them done poorly (though my experience with them is only in action-adventure games; I've never played an otherwise "pure" adventure that used QTE and I haven't played Heavy Rain). When done well and in moderation they can be kind of fun to watch, as your character does things it wouldn't otherwise be able to do under direct control. QTE are nice as an occasional enhancement, a kind of slightly-more-interactive substitute for cutscenes.

    But I can't imagine I would enjoy a game where QTE are used as the primary game mechanic, a substitute for direct-control and puzzle-solving mechanics. That would make the game nothing but cutscenes and slightly-more-interactive cutscenes. As a gamer, I would say that's not really a game at all.

    I really don't know what to expect from Telltale or what they're going to do with JP.

    I believe the idea is it will be a standard adventure game but at scenes of danger and tension it will swap over QTE cinematic style cut-scene, though I could easily be mistaken.
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