One of my ideas for a game brings up an interesting question (at least to me) between the old way of things and the present and forseable future way. Basically, in old games (mostly platform) there were no save points (or a limited number) whereas today save points tend to be almost too frequent and in some cases (with PC games) whenever you choose. Was the old way better or was it just more condusive to the type of game at the time? I find that nowadays the huge amounts of frustration that lead to throwing the controller at the TV are gone and as such, so are the huge feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction upon completing a game. Replayablility of many adventure games today as such is zero. So the question is, if you made a game today that had dead end paths through the game that caused you to not just reload a past save but actually start from the beginning again to find the right path...would this be a good idea or a bad one? This premise is built on the idea that there would be save points throughout but anywhere along a save path you might already have lost and just don't know it yet and so going back several save games actually does you no good. Thoughts?

Quote:

Original post by TemporalFlux So the question is, if you made a game today that had dead end paths through the game that caused you to not just reload a past save but actually start from the beginning again to find the right path...would this be a good idea or a bad one?

Bad one. If the only way you can challenge your players is by intentionally misleading them, you suck at design.

Gamers have lives. Or, at least, they should. And you have to respect that, so forcing a gamer to either spend another thirty minutes finishing a level or discard two hours of progress because you view save points as "sissy" is incredibly offensive. If you're making games for yourself, then don't distribute them, jackass!

Of course, these are general observations - statistical averages. There are people out there who do want a masochistic experience, and you can try to cater to both by providing an "insane challenge" mode in your game which incorporates all the things you consider "fun," or you can elect to cater exclusively to that audience and ignore the pansies and their wimpy save points. [smile]

In any case, read: The Bill of Players' Rights and Gamers' Bill of Rights.

Quote:

Original post by TemporalFlux So the question is, if you made a game today that had dead end paths through the game that caused you to not just reload a past save but actually start from the beginning again to find the right path...would this be a good idea or a bad one?

Been done, didn't work - terrible idea. Many old games had dead ends but they weren't popular so designers stopped doing it.

If todays games aren't replayable it is due to the game not being interesting enough - you don't fix that by forcing someone to replay a game that they wouldn't want to replay normally. You fix it by making it more interesting. You put in alternative paths through the game and alternative content or build in some challenge that people will want to beat by replaying.

Old games most often gave immediate feedback of your failure (ie. you died) so if you want the oldschool feeling of challenge, loss and accomplishment, it's IMO better to just stick to usual limited lives or ironman/permadeath methods. Just be aware that you exclude a large portion of audience :)

If you could random-generate quality content, then you might have something. The point is that by failing you'd forever exclude yourself from that particular world/mission/cast of characters and there would not be a question of boring replay from the start.

But again, like Oluseyi stressed, not for everyone..

Quote:

Original post by Oluseyi Quote: Original post by TemporalFlux So the question is, if you made a game today that had dead end paths through the game that caused you to not just reload a past save but actually start from the beginning again to find the right path...would this be a good idea or a bad one? Bad one. If the only way you can challenge your players is by intentionally misleading them, you suck at design. Gamers have lives. Or, at least, they should. And you have to respect that, so forcing a gamer to either spend another thirty minutes finishing a level or discard two hours of progress because you view save points as "sissy" is incredibly offensive. If you're making games for yourself, then don't distribute them, jackass!

Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

Quote:

Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

hehe...I had the same thought. I'm guessing there was some mario brother trauma somewhere in that childhood...or maybe rayman :P

Quote:

If the only way you can challenge your players is by intentionally misleading them, you suck at design.

The idea is not to intentionally mislead players but to instead provide many many different outcomes based on actions taken which culminate in either a win or a loss where the win condition is far outweighed by the possibilities of a loss.

The save point issue is not an offensive sissy one but is more directed at the point that with as many saves as you want you are never committed to a path of action (though most games lead you down a singular path anyway) and perhaps what I should have stated is that I would rather see a game with one save game file over 50.

Thus, combine many paths through the game, most of which do not culminate in full victory (if you fail to do the right things) and one (or two) save game files and you now have an open game wherein you are committed to the choices you make and your successes and failures.

At the same time, I understand the other points agaisnt dead ends in games and this kind of thing. Just an concept idea I am working on :)

Dead ends really is a bad idea. Operation Flashpoint only had a couple of save games (basically 1 for each mission) and in huge missions it would autosave for you, once you completed (or shall I say survived) a small battle or something.
I liked that approach since you would be more cautious than just go into the battle, shoot, save, shoot, save, etc... (I've seen people do that!!)

But I guess it also depends on the type of game. If you want a game where people just run through and shoot at stuff for instance, they probably want to save at any time. If you have a more challenging game you could have save points. But use them wisely.

I wouldnt make it a dead end but more as mutliple endings maybe one ending happens after 20 mins and maybe one happens after 24 hours of game play... That might would but Dead end is dumb way to put it.

Btw. one thing came to mind, how extensively would you want to protect against the user making "manual" copies of saves to extend the amount of save slots?

Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) had one save slot only, possibly for the similar idea of commitment, but I at least liked to keep a ten or so copies of my profile.dat for experimenting with different choices without having to start over.

Quote:

Original post by TemporalFlux Quote: Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. hehe...I had the same thought. I'm guessing there was some mario brother trauma somewhere in that childhood...or maybe rayman :P

That was supposed to be the reaction of the hypothetical frustrated gamer. That was not an insult to the OP or a rant of any kind.

---

My ideal implementation of savegames goes like this: the player savegame is a branching, tree-like system that records all critical decision nodes as well as pertinent world variables, and then allows the player to walk the tree, select any arbitrary node and revisit it to make a different choice.

But that's just me.