Quote:
Originally Posted by Squinky
Thing about this is that it's generally bad design if you structure the puzzle so that the player cannot know how to solve it unless they have already died at least once.
|
I completely agree with you here. I wasn't being precise enough. I would want to see a system put in place where the answers would make themselves apparent to the player as they come into proximity with them, but if the player fails to choose a solution before the death sequence occurs, a last glimpse, so to speak, would be offered, giving th player a stronger hint of what they could have done to avoid this eventuality
And yeah, in truth, most of the close calls I've ever had in my life were a little too mundane for an adventure story. Nearly being run over or drown are common enough occurrences, but don't always recommend themselves too well to an adventure plot, and certainly not in a way that makes for fulfilling replay (Look both ways next time. Wear the life jacket. Simple enough, and totally valid, but not very dramatic solutions).
Ultimately, I'm just doomed to be a hack pulp writer, because I don't really get enough fulfillment out of trying to devise stories out of my daily life. I usually just blog and forget. Terminal Monday was a sort of strange experiment, but it wasn't intended to be so biographical. And I haven't had the nerve to go back and finish it yet. I might do so yet, but I certainly wouldn't want to make a living writing such things.
I can't imagine getting enough creative juice out of anything more than borrowing lightly but liberally from past experiences for a dash of verisimilitude. Devising a whole game around a past experience just sounds like more work than I would want to devote to something that happened to me. My self-analytical jones seems to be satisfied with blogging for now.
And besides, I had a whole phase in my late teens and early twenties where most of my work was self-referential. These days, I'm kinda trying to avoid the pitfalls of having everything I write be about me. In the end, everything you write sort of is about you, but you can't make a living out of referencing yourself constantly. There already is one Woody Allen, and he's still working.
