[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Melanie68

Or, find someone to play the game with and let them play the parts that frustrate you.

Well, that's essentially what I proposed. Just without the physical person, who would be very hard to find and force to play those parts for me. Perhaps I could use slave labor?

Anyway, I don't see how inventory puzzles are the only type of interactivity, so it wouldn't really be a film. There's still all the talking, looking, non-inventory-based puzzles, etc.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I still demand that some developers ACTUALLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS THE NUCLEUS OF THE GAMEPLAY. No stupidly contrived puzzles, no dumb single pixel hotspots to find. Just simply complex, nuanced A.I. Think of it as a kind of psychological, social, and 'humanistic' game of chess between you and the NPCs. You win a round, you get more story and gameworld.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

*edit*

Heh, looks like YOU edited your post out while I replied to it, Melanie.

[Squinky]

What's your definition of AI, Trep? I'm asking because both in games and in computer science in general, it's a very broad topic creating a lot of arguments that no one can really agree upon.

For instance, is it enough for an AI agent to act like a human (or at least a rational creature), or must it actually think like one as well? Does it need to pass the Turing Test to be successful? Should it be a complete, realistic simulation of a human being, or can there be a level of abstraction involved? Does its behaviour need to be procedurally-generated, and to what extent? Furthermore, to what extent can its behaviour be scripted by an author? Can there be more than one way to "win" against the agent, so to speak, and should it really be about "winning" in the first place?

Just some things to ponder. Owing to my background in computer science and interest in interactive narrative, I'd really appreciate hearing some thoughts on the matter.

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

Anyway, I don't see how inventory puzzles are the only type of interactivity, so it wouldn't really be a film. There's still all the talking, looking, non-inventory-based puzzles, etc.

Looking back at this post and others from over a year ago, I'm amazed that my game designs have actually gone in this direction, particularly since back then, I had nothing against inventory puzzles. (Still don't, for that matter; it's just that I no longer have a huge interest in designing them. Also, I have plenty against bad inventory puzzles.)

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Squinky

What's your definition of AI, Trep? I'm asking because both in games and in computer science in general, it's a very broad topic creating a lot of arguments that no one can really agree upon.

For instance, is it enough for an AI agent to act like a human (or at least a rational creature), or must it actually think like one as well? Does it need to pass the Turing Test to be successful? Should it be a complete, realistic simulation of a human being, or can there be a level of abstraction involved? Does its behaviour need to be procedurally-generated, and to what extent? Furthermore, to what extent can its behaviour be scripted by an author? Can there be more than one way to "win" against the agent, so to speak, and should it really be about "winning" in the first place?

Just some things to ponder. Owing to my background in computer science and interest in interactive narrative, I'd really appreciate hearing some thoughts on the matter.

Well, I guess my....well, I'll call it 'sounding board' for now, is something like a couple of notches or so below that project called Facade. Essentially the kind of 'smart' NPC that gauges you (that is, your character in the game and story) according to your behaviour in real time.

As for Turing, no, absolutely not, realistically speaking. At least, not in the most commercially viable way, though some time in the future I expect we'll be able to enjoy commercial games with that level of intelligence (wow, that would be startlingly awesome).


Fable 2: real time responsive A.I. in your dog.

Fable 2 A.I. demo: the dog
Black & White 2 creatures clip
Black & White 2: the cow

Have you played Peter Molyneux's Black & White? That's the kind of the standard I mean. For today and as it progresses in the next few years, that is. I'm thinking about that kind of A.I. in characters within a given story that have their own agenda, their own selfish interests, and their behaviour fluctuates based on how you deal with them. So imagine this in, say, an Agatha Christie type murder mystery, where you try to unravel the story but the suspects constantly keep you guessing. They watch you, they watch what you 'say', they observe you looking at certain objects that may or may not incriminate them, and they adjust accordingly, and you, as the detective, must adjust accordingly to them.

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

So here's an idea I'm going to be working on again in the near future, but have shelved for now:

What if you had one job while you were awake, and another while you slept, one where you built or sold or shipped things, and the other where you planned or designed or tested the concepts for those things? However, you do this never knowing how they're related, because you're only half able to remember your dream job while awake, and never your day job while you sleep. Then one day, you find something that you realize you dreamed of, but to your horror, you find out what it's really being built for.

Psst! Lee and I are actually working on this game right now!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Psst! Shut up, Squinky! Moriarty's hoping he's the only one who thought up this brilliant idea!

[Thesaya]

Wow, i just so fell in love with the bookbased game in the beginning of the thread... I want someone to make that game so i can play it!

[Davies]

Stonekeep is one of these "book-based games", although it's as much RPG as adventure, so I'll probably get shouted at by somebody for mentioning it here.

The game comes with a hardback fantasy novel (which is surprisingly well written), set in a time when the evil sun god has imprisoned all the planetary gods. The story involves a quest to rebuild the earth-goddess' temple in an attempt to set her free. By reading the novel, you learn a lot about the world, how magic works, some of the major non-human species, etc.

The game itself takes place several generations after the events of the novel. You play a descendant of the book's hero, questing through the ruins of a sunken fortress in an attempt to finally free the goddess, and possibly the other gods as well.

It is perfectly possible just to stick the disk in and play the game without reading the book, but you'll miss a lot of meaningful background if you do.

Come to think of it, a lot of the older adventures (and RPGs) had their storylines and backgrounds explained in the manual, simply because there wasn't the programming room available to include it in the game. And several referred you back to the manual to read descriptive paragraphs at various points in the game. This was partly a type of copy protection and partly a way to get around programming limitations.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Squinky

Psst! Lee and I are actually working on this game right now!

Wow. I look forward to playing it someday.

Originally Posted by Davies

Stonekeep is one of these "book-based games", although it's as much RPG as adventure, so I'll probably get shouted at by somebody for mentioning it here.

Who, me? [innocent eyes]

[MoriartyL]

What if there were an adventure game story that the player character was recounting after the fact? I'm talking about a framing device with the PC as an old man, telling his life story. What the setting for that conversation is depends on the story, of course: It could be a common chat, it could be an interview, or it could be an interrogation.

The player plays the role of the storyteller. The gameplay here is all interactive dialogue, but with storytelling buttons: a button for teasing things that happen later ("At that time, I had no idea I'd end up..."), building up to things ("Now, you have to understand that in those days..."), skipping parts that aren't particularly interesting, and jumping around in the chronology to various anecdotal asides. So while the player doesn't know the story, he controls how it's told. There's a tiny bit of strategy to all this, and you're "scored" by looking at the audience's face and seeing how interested he/she/they look. If you're doing a good job, they'll be on the edge of their seats and asking questions. If you're not, they'll be fidgeting and yawning.

Whenever the character starts describing a major part of the story, the game switches to a flashback where the player plays him as a younger man. That's where most of the meat of the game is. Even when you're in one of these sections, you still have the storytelling controls. That way, if a section isn't very eventful you can decide you're spending too much time on it and move on. The narration continues over the gameplay, and if it's an interesting part the audience will keep asking questions for you to answer even as you play your way through.

[Squinky]

I've thought about flashback games before, and what I envision is something like the pensieve in the Harry Potter books, where the present version of your character freely wanders around a real-time 3D world witnessing events that happened in the past. Of course, I'm not sure whether this would actually work in an adventure game proper.

[fajerkaos]

I'm thinking of a game, not completely unlike Zelda: Majoras Mask. Where every character has their own story to tell, and there own routines.
Then, for some reason, you can suddenly go back in time. And every kind of interaction you make with the characters in the past, in some way infect their life in the present.

Maybe if you just stop and talk a bit with some random guy, he'll maybe be late for work, he will get fired, and so he will start drinking.
Meeting him later in the presence you will find him lying in the gutter.
...or maybe it will not infect the presence at all. everything depends on which character you interact with, how you interact with him and when. Timing is everything.

As you shift through presence and the past you can study the people, learn why they became the ones they became, and you can use this knowledge back in time to change those persons. Then if you want, you can study this new kind of person they have become and shape and use them for whatever purpose you might have.

The goal can be different for every person playing, you can help people to become who they want, you can just roam free and trying random stuff and see how/what and why stuff changes, you can study every little detail about everything, and try to cause a mayor chain of reactions that will effect every NPCs future by doing something as simple as maybe just picking a flower. You could decide on a specific goal and try the hardest to make it happen, perhaps you want for some random reason to make a child choose to be a clown when he grow up, then you'll have to make do something clever that will make him consider it, not shooting his father dressed as a clown perhaps, but that would be a easy way to make the kid hate clowns, with maybe that could be used for something bigger in some mayor chain of events.

And you could aways undo stuffs if you want to try something else instead, or if you regret some action, this could make it easier to experiment.


Not very original perhaps, but I haven't seen anybody trying anything like this yet, at least not with some form of nonlinearity to it. I think it would be interesting, even though I suspect that you'll have to spend several lifetimes of programing to even getting close to what I want.

[MoriartyL]

True, but it never hurts to dream.

[Squinky]

The popularity of the Phoenix Wright games leads me to believe that a game where you play a member of the jury would be an intriguing concept. I picture such a game being completely conversation-based, and creating drama along the lines of 12 Angry Men. There would be multiple outcomes, of course; you can persuade everyone to rule the defendant innocent, or guilty, or just try to mess with their heads and annoy them.

I wonder if such a game already exists.

[Crapstorm]

I'm not sure if this is a legend or a true story. I heard that during WWII, British Intelligence recruited clever people from the general public by publishing a particularly challenging crossword puzzle in the newspaper. The solution contained cryptic instructions on how to contact Intelligence agents, who would then meet, screen and recruit people to become codebreakers.

I've always thought this would be a great premise for an adventure game, because the story itself centers on puzzles and cryptograms. It starts with an innocent train ride through the country, and soon enough, you're in a hut in Bletchley Park hunting down U-boats. Alan Turing and Ian Fleming could serve as colorful supporting characters. But really, the game would need some brilliant puzzles. If you're going to run with this idea, hire a professional puzzle crafter. (They do exist!)

[Squinky]

Ooh, a true Mensa game! I'd so play it (but probably wouldn't design one).