quote: Original post by m_wherrett
At the end of the day, adding a random element would concern me due to the, obviously, unpredictable nature.

I honestly do not understand why you feel that way. The whole idea of randomisation is making things unpredictable. Unpredictable != illogical, or not necessarily anyway, though there is some risk there.

Of course, if you are against randomisation completely, that''s fine. I can sort of understand how a designer would like full control over all of the decisions in the game, to make sure it all fits together like a puzzle, and becomes one big piece of grand art. Heavily randomising while trying to keep a central story, experience and theme is difficult, if not impossible.

But my personal idea is that a game is for the player, not the designer, and randomisation makes things replayable, unexpected, and could lead to some nice bits of emergent behaviour and game play.

quote: Original post by m_wherrett
I would steer clear of randomisation in any game that requires some form of puzzle solving. The two are counter productive and un-intuitive. Random layouts do work better where success is more a matter of trial and error.

You will be working with tight design rules to achieve the desired playability, yet the random element will be constantly taking control away from you as a designer.

This randomisation is based around the idea of having obstacles rather than puzzles. That is, the game provides the player with a challenging situation, and leaves it up to the player to work out a strategy given the situation, and the way that the "gameworld" works: ie. if guards use sound to locate the player, then he may want to quietly lockpick the door.. but then again he may just tranquilise the guard and noisily bash down the door.

This approach gets away from the idea of puzzles.. ie. where the situation has only one valid solution.

quote:
Original post by MadKeithV
So sure, initially players will be locked into their typical RPG mode of expecting the solution to be obvious, but after a while, they''ll get the hang of it.

Yes this is the kind of effect that I am envisaging.

Edit:
Damnit, you replied while I was typing mine. Now I look like a dumbass who doesn't read the previous posts.


I think there are certain areas where randomisation applies quite nicely, and unpredictable does not necessarily have to mean illogical.

However, looking back at the original post, we are concerning ourselves with games such as Thief or Deus Ex. Levels within these games succeeded, from a design perspective, by offering clarity and diversity in equal measures. The player relished the challenge of mastering the puzzles and enjoyed the ability to achieve some tasks in more than one way. These puzzles were challenging because of a large amount of work on the designers behalf. We've seen all plenty of thoughtless puzzles become repetitive and tiresome in sub-par games. Adding a random element begins to take away the use of that a critical mind (the developer) and sets about placing gameplay in the lap of lady luck and perhaps heading in the direction of those sub-par, ill-concieved games.

Puzzles are carefully thought out implementations of content, context and environment. The more you leave as unpredictable, the less you have to work with. Solving a puzzle is about understanding or comprehending the links between items, events or actions. The weaker these links are, the less effective the puzzle is.

quote:
Original post by MadKeithV
... and randomisation makes things replayable, unexpected, and could lead to some nice bits of emergent behaviour and game play.

Replayable. Fine, I'm all for that.

Unexpected. Is that something you want when trying to piece together parts of a puzzle?

[edited by - m_wherrett on June 17, 2003 7:28:09 AM]

[edited by - m_wherrett on June 17, 2003 7:31:36 AM]

Ok, you''re kind of changing the proposal here. In the original post you proposed the example of a key that may be in different locations, or not there at all (a randomised puzzle). Whereas now, you''re proposing something closer to a free-form layout of the level.

Well, the idea is that you make the player discard all assumptions he may have had.

If there''s a locked door, and there MAY be a keycard, or not, then the level doesn''t become a mindless "find the red keycard" romp, but the player will have to think about how to get past the door in various ways. If the designer is lazy, this would suck. But you can leave clues, even in randomised levels. Perhaps a door with a subtle red border ("AHA! A red door, this might need a red keycard"), a doormat, a flowerpot, a door that looks old and worn, an NPC on this side of the door that has talked about stuff on the other side, etc.

These are obstacles rather than puzzles. A "puzzle" the way you use the word has a predefined solution. In randomisation, it need not.

The player won''t know for sure that every locked door needs a keycard. Some of them might need button pushing, some of them can be bashed, some of them need lockpicking or getting the key off of someone. There won''t be an elaborate system of obfuscated clues that end up pointing in the direction of "you need to put on the black sunglasses standing 3 paces from the door for it to open", but rather clues that point to logical ways of trying to get past the damn thing.

quote: Original post by m_wherrett
Unexpected. Is that something you want when trying to piece together parts of a puzzle?

It only matters if you know what the picture is going to be at the end of doing the jigsaw. If you do not reveal the picture to the player beforehand, then ANY outcome that looks plausible enough will be a satisfying solution.

The trick is making the outcome plausible, but unless you go really deep into cryptic puzzling, that''s not an impossible feat.

Ok, so what we''re talking about here is randomisation applied to free-form level design. And in that case I have less of a problem with it. In designing a multi-pathed level you will produce many possible routes, and maybe even a few you hadn''t considered. I see no problem with adding a random element to which of these routes you make available.

It''s just that I personally would feel providing those routes, and the many emergent paths, is replayability nough without throwing randomisation into the mix.

I''m not saying it''s wrong, I''d just rather keep it in my control.