Dynamically selecting plot elements
David Fisher
to see") ...
The quoted portion is "JohnnyMrNinja" <Johnny...@gmail.com>, and the
reply is from me (David Fisher):
> I would like to see more non-linear games, with independant
> story elements, that could change in small ways depending on
> what you've done so far. Endings depending on what you've done,
> decisions you've made, and in what order. Instead of killing
> all the vampires and saving the town, you could join them, or
> maybe go see a movie.
>
> Or games with variable plot elements. This would be most obvious
> with detective type games (but would be really cool in a normal
> game). Sometimes the butler did it, sometimes he didn't,
> sometimes there is no butler.
I can imagine the look on a player's face when they play through the game
the second time ... "Hey ! *That* didn't happen last time !"
Walkthroughs could be a problem ... maybe you could start the game by
entering a "codeword" that is munged into a random number seed, so you could
replay the same game again if you wanted to.
Just thinking about it - really subtle changes might be even more
interesting than obvious ones ... it would mean you really have to pay
attention to what has changed, and figure out why the changes are
significant ...
> The biggest reason I see to not use variable elements is that
> you lose the Director seat. Now the player (or CPU) is deciding
> where things are headed, and that can make things suck. But
> that's why I still play cRiMe fairly often, which is barely
> even IF. The random factor means I don't know which bank is
> staked out, or if I can find the box before I find the warehouse.
> Things like this would be harder to do well with more complex
> games, but that much cooler.
A long-term researchy idea thing of mine is to figure out how to dynamically
create an interesting plotline and allow for changes along the way ...
I love Star Wars, so I rewatched the first (last ?) three episodes (III-VI)
and wrote down all of the distinct plot elements I could work out - for
example, Luke's parents dying => "old ties being severed"; receiving his
father's light sabre from Obi Wan Kenobi => "receiving a powerful
inheritance" + "revelation about a mysterious ancestor".
You can kind of order these so that you know element X must come before
element Y, and possibly results in element Z. Then you can randomly pick a
starting element (ie. one which doesn't require another element to come
before it), a few "soon to be revealed" elements to start the story off, and
away you go ... and if the player does something that makes one of the "to
be revealed" elements impossible, replace it with some other one.
You need a huge number of plot elements to get this to work properly, I
think - but the result could be an "epic" feeling story which really seems
to have a plot and a reason for everything happening, along with freedom to
deviate from the obvious path, to interesting looking branches ...
See http://www.channelzilch.com/doug/battle.htm (which contains a
description of a game called "King of Chicago" - search for "I had a mental
image") for a slightly related idea - matching the current situation to a
set of parameters like "gang morale" and "boss reputation" to generate the
next sequence in the game.
David Fisher
PTN
> I can imagine the look on a player's face when they play through the game
> the second time ... "Hey ! *That* didn't happen last time !"
You definitely wouldn't see that reaction from me, because the chance that I
would play any game twice, even one I really enjoyed, is pretty much next to
zero. There are just too many competitors for our attention these days.
Honestly, I'm generally irritated by this type of game and avoid it if
possible. I want to be able to play a game once, explore it very thoroughly
to see all the good bits, and wrap it up. Afterwards, I might check out some
"fun things to do," but that's about my limit.
I also dislike feeling like I'm trapped on rails in a linear direction, too.
I guess to my mind the proper balance is to have a linear plot, so that you
can write engaging characters that have story arcs and reach a satisfying
conclusion, but to have non-linear gameplay, so that at any given time in
the game there are many possible actions you could be doing, the cumulative
effect of which brings the story forward to its conclusion. So the player is
not restricted, AND doesn't feel like they've just wasted hours of their
lives playing the "non-optimum" ending to the game. For open-ended
narratives, it seems MMORPGs are really getting in to that in a big way.
I've not played any, though, possibly because of my biases mentioned above.
The last game I played twice was the original and highly addicting DIABLO.
Never played the sequel, strange to say.
That's not to say I wouldn't play a game like you describe. But what it does
mean is that the interest in the game needs to derive from what happens in
the game itself, not what the differences are between times that you play,
because I, and I would imagine many of your players, will never find out
about those differences.
-- Peter
http://www.illuminatedlantern.com/1893
JohnnyMrNinja
David Fisher wrote:
> See http://www.channelzilch.com/doug/battle.htm (which contains a
> description of a game called "King of Chicago" - search for "I had a mental
> image") for a slightly related idea - matching the current situation to a
> set of parameters like "gang morale" and "boss reputation" to generate the
> next sequence in the game.
>
> David Fisher
OT, but King of Chicago is available for free dl, for IIgs Amiga and PC
http://cinemaware.com/clsgame_king.asp
To explain a little further, there are two games that have posted
themselves as VPs of my mental comparison division, Fallout (1 & 2) and
Blade Runner. I'm not saying that they are archetypes for these ideas,
they just are in my head.
Fallout allows you to develop the PC in any way you want, not as a
"Neutral/Good Theif", but with a large list of potential skills
developed to various degrees, and with your actions and descisions
effecting your "karma" variable. In many cases towns serve as
"episodes": kill the bad guy, kill the good guy, kill everyone, or just
buy some ammo and head on. People react based on your karma, what
you've done so far, who you're with (NPCs), or how sassy you are (no
matter what the situation, there's usually some equivalent to "Up
yours!" in dialog options). Dialog options could be based on your
intelligence, charisma, luck or strength ("Do this or I hit you"), or
on buildable skills like speech or barter.
To do this in IF would probably be a nightmare, as most IF is a
one-person job. Also the scope of most games isn't broad enough for
variables like Karma to do much. But the question was what I'd "love to
see".
As far as variable plot elements, I think of Blade Runner. It wasn't
hugely interactive (you could do whatever you wanted but only specific
things got you anywhere) but some of the biggest elements, like who was
a replicant, were randomly decided.
Again, a coding nightmare. Perhaps an IF "Clue" would be the best
starting-point?
Destriarch
ass because of all the little effects that one change can have, You end
up having to write ten times as much code for the game. However,
randomising puzzles are good. Imagine a standard puzzle type where for
instance (cliched I know but) you have to answer some basic
mathematical questions to get past a guardian or something equally
silly... but all the questions are selected by inserting numbers into
the appropriate attributes on the object in question when the game
initialises.
Ash