Adventures in Adventure Game Design
So I've been working on the game I talked about in the last post, and adding in some new game elements and doing some testing. Part of the problem with self-testing is that (naturally) you know what to do to win the game, and it's sometimes hard to turn off the self-awareness and pretend you're someone that doesn't know it inside and out; and while it's useful in detecting bugs or other errors, it's not very effective in determining if your game is fair or enjoyable. However, almost 40 years of playing these games has given me some forms of dos and don'ts:
Mazes - 'you're in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike'. That phrase is almost as famous in adventure gaming as the opening of Zork; it appeared in the original adventure game, Colossal Cave, consisting of a series of identical rooms whose exits didn't match entrance directions. All early adventure games seemed to have at least one maze, and most everyone hated them. It's bad form to implement a maze in a game unless there's a very good reason to do so - therefore, I've avoided doing anything like that. There's a pseudo-maze in the woods (moreso to simulate being lost in the woods) and an underground 'maze' where the game tells you not to worry about it.
Constant Death - Always a problem in these games; many of the 'treasure hunt' ones would allow you to come back to life, but with a reduction in score. One of the nastiest and hardest games, Acheton, actually required you to die... and then decline being returned to life (as one of the treasures was located in Hades). But no one could compete with the graphic Sierra On-Line games, which would kill you at every turn. The rival LucasArts game took the opposite tack, where it became impossible to get killed. Nowadays, it's usually a moot point because there's a standard command called UNDO that allows you to go back one turn. I've taken a medium path for killing you off, since you can always come right back - but if you insist on getting killed, you'll get killed.
Illogical Puzzles - The original Colossal Cave had one nasty puzzle in trying to deal with a dragon. The dragon was apparently immune to most weapons and could easily kill you; you couldn't talk to it, bribe it, or trick it. No, the only way to get rid of it was to literally type "KILL DRAGON" without specifying 'with what'; the game would respond "What, with your bare hands?", upon which you would type "YES" and you would, in fact, kill the dragon with your bare hands.
It's a really unfair puzzle that gives no indication on how to solve it... mainly because it's a joke. The final puzzle (which I won't go into here) has a similar issue.
I've tried to leave clues on how to solve puzzles, especially getting the first treasure as I didn't feel that it was that obvious on how to get it; so, I added in rumors you could hear at the tavern or by talking to certain characters to point you in the right direction.
Shibboleths - While it sounds like an amorphous tentacled monstrosity from Lovecraft, it's a reference to making 'deep' inside jokes - jokes that only a few select individuals would get. That isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're putting it in the background or for an easter egg, but if it becomes a critical part of the game, it makes it rather not fun for anyone who isn't in your circle.
My original project using Inform was about 15 years ago, and was titled "Longwood Quest". While it was more of an attempt to make a game to learn the programming language, the game itself consisted almost solely of inside jokes with friends of mine. When I stood back and looked at it from an outsider's perspective, I realized that the gameplay appeared to be nonsensical and weird; and puzzles involving shibboleths invariably end up being the dreaded Illogical Puzzles. I scrapped that game, and started fresh to work on this project. While there are a number of shibboleths, they reside firmly in the background, or if involved in actual puzzles, can still be enjoyed and make sense even if you don't know the out-of-game context.
Mazes - 'you're in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike'. That phrase is almost as famous in adventure gaming as the opening of Zork; it appeared in the original adventure game, Colossal Cave, consisting of a series of identical rooms whose exits didn't match entrance directions. All early adventure games seemed to have at least one maze, and most everyone hated them. It's bad form to implement a maze in a game unless there's a very good reason to do so - therefore, I've avoided doing anything like that. There's a pseudo-maze in the woods (moreso to simulate being lost in the woods) and an underground 'maze' where the game tells you not to worry about it.
Constant Death - Always a problem in these games; many of the 'treasure hunt' ones would allow you to come back to life, but with a reduction in score. One of the nastiest and hardest games, Acheton, actually required you to die... and then decline being returned to life (as one of the treasures was located in Hades). But no one could compete with the graphic Sierra On-Line games, which would kill you at every turn. The rival LucasArts game took the opposite tack, where it became impossible to get killed. Nowadays, it's usually a moot point because there's a standard command called UNDO that allows you to go back one turn. I've taken a medium path for killing you off, since you can always come right back - but if you insist on getting killed, you'll get killed.
Illogical Puzzles - The original Colossal Cave had one nasty puzzle in trying to deal with a dragon. The dragon was apparently immune to most weapons and could easily kill you; you couldn't talk to it, bribe it, or trick it. No, the only way to get rid of it was to literally type "KILL DRAGON" without specifying 'with what'; the game would respond "What, with your bare hands?", upon which you would type "YES" and you would, in fact, kill the dragon with your bare hands.
It's a really unfair puzzle that gives no indication on how to solve it... mainly because it's a joke. The final puzzle (which I won't go into here) has a similar issue.
I've tried to leave clues on how to solve puzzles, especially getting the first treasure as I didn't feel that it was that obvious on how to get it; so, I added in rumors you could hear at the tavern or by talking to certain characters to point you in the right direction.
Shibboleths - While it sounds like an amorphous tentacled monstrosity from Lovecraft, it's a reference to making 'deep' inside jokes - jokes that only a few select individuals would get. That isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're putting it in the background or for an easter egg, but if it becomes a critical part of the game, it makes it rather not fun for anyone who isn't in your circle.
My original project using Inform was about 15 years ago, and was titled "Longwood Quest". While it was more of an attempt to make a game to learn the programming language, the game itself consisted almost solely of inside jokes with friends of mine. When I stood back and looked at it from an outsider's perspective, I realized that the gameplay appeared to be nonsensical and weird; and puzzles involving shibboleths invariably end up being the dreaded Illogical Puzzles. I scrapped that game, and started fresh to work on this project. While there are a number of shibboleths, they reside firmly in the background, or if involved in actual puzzles, can still be enjoyed and make sense even if you don't know the out-of-game context.
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