BLAM hurk! reload.... why do all protatonists have this superpower?
- Thread starter A Curious Fellow
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It's like re-reading a chapter in a book and expecting yourself not to spoil the ending.
Or re-watching Star Wars and expecting Luke to not blow up the Death Star.
Or eating marmite and expect it to suddenly taste good.
The thing that is special for games it that it is possible to not be able to proceed. With a book you can always skip the hard words or ignore a paragraph you didn't understand and come back to it later, but in a game you can't skip a tough section or solve the puzzle later. People tend to criticise games where you can't die (or there is no punishment of some sort for failure), so the "superhero sense into the future" is a necessary (minor) flaw.
Or re-watching Star Wars and expecting Luke to not blow up the Death Star.
Or eating marmite and expect it to suddenly taste good.
The thing that is special for games it that it is possible to not be able to proceed. With a book you can always skip the hard words or ignore a paragraph you didn't understand and come back to it later, but in a game you can't skip a tough section or solve the puzzle later. People tend to criticise games where you can't die (or there is no punishment of some sort for failure), so the "superhero sense into the future" is a necessary (minor) flaw.
It's not so much a super power it's more like the game saying 'The story doesn't go like that, have another go!'. Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed does this very well; as in it's either not real or you can try and rectify it without the jarring rip to the title sequence.
It's unavoidable.
EDIT: Just thinking Borderlands and Bioshock also did this rather well and in very similar ways!
It's unavoidable.
EDIT: Just thinking Borderlands and Bioshock also did this rather well and in very similar ways!
This.Gxas said:
I also think it really depends on what kind of game it is. Traditionally, games that are primarily platformers have been "Lives" based games, where you get a certain amount of lives. Thinking back to the days of Mario, Sonic, Crash Bandicoot even as recent as LittleBigPlanet. I think this is just the case based on the AI and environment graphics of the game/just how you tackle it. In most "lives" based games, the gameplay is simpler and normally the graphics are distinct, theres only one or two ways to go about it, jump here, jump there, hop on this baddies head and run through this tunnel, and theres normally no way to confuse a "climbable ledge" from a "climbable ledge-effect wallpaper" in Yahtzee's words, with simpler graphics and distinct enemies and foreground vs background. So the only thing separating you from success or failure is usually just skill. These days, more complex AI create exponentially more variables, and usually no attempt is just like the last.
Play Dwarf Fortress!
You will enjoy it. At least, if you don't, you won't stick around your fortress long enough to see them all die painful and horrific deaths.
[sub]My last fortress ended when a beastie came from underground which ejected a gas that both burnt and paralysed any part of any creature it touched. All the while there was a siege outside which my archers were having strange troubles shooting at. In the end I just opened the gates and watched...[/sub]
You will enjoy it. At least, if you don't, you won't stick around your fortress long enough to see them all die painful and horrific deaths.
[sub]My last fortress ended when a beastie came from underground which ejected a gas that both burnt and paralysed any part of any creature it touched. All the while there was a siege outside which my archers were having strange troubles shooting at. In the end I just opened the gates and watched...[/sub]
Ah Dwarf Fortress...Tharwen said:
Losing is fun! My recent one ended when the dwarves flooded my fortress with lava. Which wouldn't have happened if they had an ounce of competence. But a Dwarf acting competent is about as likely as... well I don't have a metaphor for it, but its highly unlikely.
I'm trying to determine if you came up with this idea on your own or read this week's Extra Punctuation...
I get that respawning and inability to fail/die break immersion. But without some sort of midpoint/save system, the epic, challenging, story-driven games that we all know and love would be completely unplayable. Would you really want to go back to the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 4 or World of Warcraft (heck, even Call of Duty and Halo are vulnerable to this) every time you died? Why would you even bother continuing the game after that, if you had to play through another 5, 10, 30, 100 hours just to get back to where you were? Most people wouldn't.
That said, some games could implement a "Doctor Who"-like reincarnation/respawn system. If you died, that character/persona stayed dead and you come back as someone else, with all the levels, skills, gear, and whatever else the last person had acquired (or not depending on the balance of the game). It wouldn't have to be anything more complex than a simple cosmetic change every time you respawned. This would be difficult to work into the narrative, but not impossible. Players could have the option of giving a brief explanation "It's me, I died and now I look like this", or simply moving on and having NPC's make comments like "Who is this guy?", "Who cares? he's on our side!", etc.. Naturally it could be fleshed out further (Final Fantasy V), but for the sake of writing quality it's probably better to keep it simple.
Other possible solutions are to show the horrible consequences of never being able to die (Bioshock), or awful side-effects of "respawning" technology (Stargate).
I get that respawning and inability to fail/die break immersion. But without some sort of midpoint/save system, the epic, challenging, story-driven games that we all know and love would be completely unplayable. Would you really want to go back to the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 4 or World of Warcraft (heck, even Call of Duty and Halo are vulnerable to this) every time you died? Why would you even bother continuing the game after that, if you had to play through another 5, 10, 30, 100 hours just to get back to where you were? Most people wouldn't.
That said, some games could implement a "Doctor Who"-like reincarnation/respawn system. If you died, that character/persona stayed dead and you come back as someone else, with all the levels, skills, gear, and whatever else the last person had acquired (or not depending on the balance of the game). It wouldn't have to be anything more complex than a simple cosmetic change every time you respawned. This would be difficult to work into the narrative, but not impossible. Players could have the option of giving a brief explanation "It's me, I died and now I look like this", or simply moving on and having NPC's make comments like "Who is this guy?", "Who cares? he's on our side!", etc.. Naturally it could be fleshed out further (Final Fantasy V), but for the sake of writing quality it's probably better to keep it simple.
Other possible solutions are to show the horrible consequences of never being able to die (Bioshock), or awful side-effects of "respawning" technology (Stargate).
Oh, Reginald, I disagree. This isn't a story element, it's what allows you to keep playing AFTER YOU DIE. If you can't die in a game where you're constantly under a hail of bullets or men/monsters with swords are trying to chop you up, then perhaps you should stick to Mario Galaxies.A Curious Fellow said:
Death: "Too Bad!"
Loss of last life: "Maybe you should rest awhile."
You're actually a interdimensional astral projection with the ability to possess people, traveling from one host to it's other-dimension's parallel whenever you fail, abandoning the failed dimension to certain doom since they can't be saved without the hero. You're actually quite a selfish being, because you're abandoning thousands upon thousands to their deaths as you try and fight and win the war so you can live out the rest of your days as a hero on whatever dimension you save.
So, you're a selfish dick. Does that make it better? Or can we go with the basic "shit, I fucked up, lets try that again" idea that's come with video games for so long. Just like every other media there's a large amount of suspension of disbelief involved in gaming, otherwise we'd have to marvel at the guy from Die Hard's amazing ability to be impervious to flying taxi shrapnel.
So, you're a selfish dick. Does that make it better? Or can we go with the basic "shit, I fucked up, lets try that again" idea that's come with video games for so long. Just like every other media there's a large amount of suspension of disbelief involved in gaming, otherwise we'd have to marvel at the guy from Die Hard's amazing ability to be impervious to flying taxi shrapnel.
Good Christ THANK you. I was wondering how many people it would take before someone finally understood what I was saying.TornadoFive said:
Maybe, but look at what happened to everyone else from Rapture after years and decades of exposure. Most were either batshit insane or mutated freaks. I'd call those pretty negative consequences. (and it leads into the second example.)viking97 said:
I'm sure there are other games that show the hell immortality can bring (intentionally. Too Human and a few others did it by accident by punishing the player with interminable death/rebirth sequences). Infinite Undiscovery comes to mind, but that wasn't as good a game as Bioshock.
Hmm, what about a ronin samurai (redundant?) who is possessed by a spirit locked within a powerful sword? When the player dies, show a short montage of the sword being picked up, dropped off back at his village (or the nearest) and eventually presented to a promising young student. The student is then possessed by the sword-spirit, and sets out once again, under the control of the player/sword. Just an idea, doesn't mix well with any games I'm working on right now, but the concept is sound.