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Originally Posted by Jeysie
These are some of the questions I can come with for even just this small first part of the game:
Why were you on that helicopter? Where was it going? Why was only your mother with you (what about your father)? Why did the helicopter crash?
Why did Reich kidnap you? Who is this Overmann person he thinks you are?
Why did Reich's helicopter crash? What messed with/jammed the guidance system?
What city are you now in? Is it the same city you originally came from? How does the city differ from the Gap?
Why did LINC save your life? Does it consider you important for some reason?
Reich obviously wasn't the "head honcho", so who was he working for? Who wanted you kidnapped?
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Interesting questions. Not one of these occurred to me, because I was still stuck on the more important unanswered question: "Why should I care?".
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I mean, I'm not entirely sure what else you'd want said about Foster this early on, without burdening the player with lots more exposition and ruining some of the surprise and story exploration. I mean, how many full-length stories do you know of that tell the audience everything that's going on in the first 10 pages? 
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Oh, you misunderstand me. I'm saying there should have been
less exposition and more characterization. Clues for a plot twist later on are only effective if the player is willing to think about them. But why would anyone (other than the most hardcore detail-obsessed adventure fans
) want to worry about a character who they have no connection to? The writer should first make him a likeable character, or show what his earlier life was like, or
something, before he can demand of the player to wonder about him.
At this point, we know nothing about Foster's personality, nothing about his feelings for his current predicament, nothing at all. So far all we know about him are little clues- forgotten past, unknown importance, prophecies, blah blah blah. He's not a character- he's a plot device!
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Well... they *are* typical adventure game puzzles. I think I remember this game's puzzles being mostly logical, though, in the sense that you generally have a reason for doing them and the solutions generally involve logical uses of items.
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That's it? So far, we've:
- Escaped from a guard
- Broke open and unlocked doors
- Repaired two robots
- Interrogated an innocent man for commonly known information
- Stole his lunch
In all this, was there nothing noteworthy? If not, then what is it doing here? Is there nothing here which is more than cookie-cutter design? Is there nothing here which is creative or unique, or worthy of our time? Is the play experience no more satisfying then it would have been had these puzzles been cut out? Or can we read deeper into these puzzles, and learn something about the characters, or the story, or the developer's artistic intentions, from the design of the puzzles?
