Adventure Gamers - Forums

Simon_ASA - 27 June 2017 08:50 AM

Thanks for your comments!

It is not very difficult to create a “walking room” like this with my current skills, I have been using 3dsmax for years now. It is mainly a matter of optimizing the 3d models well, and texturing more properly. I think I can do that. The main difficulty is to script the actions in the game. I can make hotspots with success (as you can see in the demo, the objects can be hilighted) but nothing happens when you click on them. That’s where the serious things begin in the game engine I’ll keep learning.

My main questionning would be more to know if I should continue with prerendered scenes like before (there are many people who like the old-school point and click gameplay - even if it can be improved in my games), or if I should go once and for all to full 3d (and maybe disapoint the people who liked ASA in 2d?). I am not seeking for fame and money (the minimum, just what I need to live from), and I don’t really want to move to a full 3d engine just because everyone else is doing so. I personally prefer prerendered games, I have always liked these games a lot, but I understand that it can be frustrating nowadays to navigate from frame to frame in 1st person view, particularly when there is the possibility to do the same visuals in 3d.

I’d like to insist on the fact that I am not remaking ASA (nor Catyph) in full3d. It is not the purpose of learning Unity (even if it could eventually happen in the future depending on the circumstances, I don’t close the door). I started to learn Unity for the fun and on purpose for Remake Jam.
For the moment I much prefer to focus on making new games, and using full 3d could be a new approach for me. I’m just trying new things to stay up to date with the current standards of the game industry (indie market of course).

My vote is for full 3d. It is not that I dislike prerendered graphics - I enjoy both 3D and node-based movement. But I feel that nodes work best in confined and regular spaces, with straight lines and corridors. Your games have complex environments, and you like to have weird architecture and geometries, which makes it difficult to navigate without getting confused. I really think full 3D would allow you to unleash your imagination without having to hold back because people are getting lost and/or confused.

I actually agree with BitingWit too… One of the strengths of your games is the weird architecture and environments which look great and are a lot of fun to explore but is sometimes confusing in a 2d prerendered game. I know I’ve gotten lost and confused a few times.

Simon_ASA - 27 June 2017 10:03 AM

Ah, 2 different opinions. And I agree with both, which makes it so hard for me to decide
I think that what was said by BitingWit is the right thing to do, because it is true that the navigation in my games is easily getting confused. I will meditate on this, and of course that would be great to read more comments! Thanks everyone.

I can’t play first person 3D games due to motion sickness (actually simulation sickness, which is worse).

crabapple - 27 June 2017 07:19 PM

Simon_ASA - 27 June 2017 10:03 AM

Ah, 2 different opinions. And I agree with both, which makes it so hard for me to decide
I think that what was said by BitingWit is the right thing to do, because it is true that the navigation in my games is easily getting confused. I will meditate on this, and of course that would be great to read more comments! Thanks everyone.

I can’t play first person 3D games due to motion sickness (actually simulation sickness, which is worse).

I wonder if Simon could make it like Obduction, which had the option to play in either node mode (like Catyph and ASA) or realtime 3D?

Simon_ASA - 28 June 2017 04:44 AM

Is there this mode only in Obduction so far? What about Quern? I still couldn’t afford to purchase it…

No, Quern doesn’t have it. Although the developer says they have plans to implement “mouse only mode”, whatever that means…

Me? I wouldn’t use it. I tried point and click mode in Obduction and found it too slow and awkward to move about. For people with motion sickness it might be useful.

Simon_ASA - 28 June 2017 04:44 AM

I don’t know if the node mode can always avoid motion sickness? (what is the difference of simulation sickness?)

Motion sickness is caused by actual movement. I rarely get motion sickness anymore, though I had a terrible time with it as a kid. But now I have to already be sick from something else, and movement of the car makes it worse.

With simulation sickness there is no actual movement—you’re sitting still in your chair, and there is only the simulated movement on the monitor. Simulation sickness is worse (in my case) because I’ve never had motion sickness last more than 30 minutes after leaving the car, while simulation sickness can leave me sick in bed for the rest of the day after leaving the computer.

Node-based movement doesn’t help if there is 3D movement between nodes, and can even make things worse if the speed of movement is less controllable. Mouse-only makes no difference at all to me. I don’t mind using keyboard for movement. “Mouse-only” is more for people who want simple controls that are all in one place. Otherwise it’s close your eyes, click, wait, open your eyes, decide where to click next, close your eyes, etc. Not the best way to play a game.

I think simulation sickness is triggered by imperfect recreation of how it looks to move through an environment—- how objects move in relation to one another. Part of it may be because of field of view settings set either too high or too low, but there’s more to it than that.

Obduction had some ability to adjust field-of view, but it didn’t help—I could give things a sort of “fish-eye lens” look, but it didn’t reduce simulation sickness at all and only made things look weird. 

But I had very little trouble with the “3rd person” Uru, where the camera is pulled back and fairly far from the ground most of the time. However, I couldn’t use the 1st person view to move around in Uru at all, and only used it for lining up jumps. If you switch between 1st and 3rd person in Uru, you can see how much closer to the ground the 1st person view is.

The games that bother me the most are those where it appears you’re only about a foot off the ground, as in certain trailers for Xing where you seem to be at grass level.

So why is that? Is it because my stomach expects to be moving when the view is close to the ground but not when it’s high up? Or is it more that objects in 3D games move in a more realistic way with respect to each other when the viewpoint is from higher up?

I would love not to have this problem, but it’s dogged me almost since I started playing games. At first it wasn’t so much a problem with adventure games because they were mostly 2D or 2.5D. But now that so many are moving to 3D, it limits what I can play.

Could the same effect be achieved with something subtle in the bottom centre of the screen?  Like a discrete black triangle at the edge of the screen.

Should be easy to test (hell, you could even do a hardware hack and literally paste it to your monitor )

Would it then be possible to release something simple as freeware to help the likes of yourself and crab?

Both I and my brother have had this on rare occasions where the size of the screen relative to our proximity to it was overwhelming.  Not sure if that helps narrow down the cause.