Dynamic Reaction System

[Fuhjem]

Okay, I want to make games for a living. I also like to share my ideas. Here's one idea I've just sorta cooked up in the last hour.

And before you post a reply with a smug look on your face, yes I have read the article on the escapist telling people how no one cares about anyone else's ideas. It's called Your Game Idea Sucks and I've read it. Please no links to it.

I want a game where dialogue and player choices are not done in the same archaic way of those pointless conversation trees and button presses, or counterproductive cutscenes. I hate having to stop because the game forces me to wait for some prick to finish yelling at me.

How about this:

I'm walking down a hallway at work. A door opens up ahead and out pops my boss. You see, I'm a very disgruntled employee and I'm on the verge of quitting mainly because my boss is a dick.

As I approach, he looks at me and says, "Frank! I need to talk to you for just a moment." And then I just keep on walking. On my way past him I might say, "Shut up, prickface, I quit.", then walk away with my middle-finger held up in the air in his direction. And that whole conversation ends. He started to talk, I blew him off and kept walking.

Now what would have happened if I stopped to talk to him?

As I approach, he looks at me and says, "Frank! I need to talk to you for just a moment." I stop and look at him.
"What do you need, boss?"
"Well, it seems that your TPS rep..."

Whatever, it doesn't matter what he says. The point is is that if that was a game, I should have never pressed a single button in either of those situations. If I didn't want to talk, all I would have to do is walk away. If I wanted to talk, then the conversation would begin when I stood there in front of him. No button presses, just your decision to keep walking or stand still. There isn't a dialog tree because the character would talk on his own. He has his own personality and doesn't need your help to say what he would say.

Here's another situation:

I'm walking down the streets of a large metropolitan area. The people are fairly sparse at this time of day. As I'm strolling along, a man confronts me and pulls a gun out, asking for my wallet.
In real life, we have about three choices here:
-Give him my money
-Run away
-Fight him

With a dynamic reaction system, doing any three of these would require no on screen button prompts or any immersion-breakers.

If I want to give him my wallet, the safest option, then I just stand still. My arms begin to rise to show that I mean no harm, and he steps over to me, grabs my wallet out of my pocket, and runs away.

If I wanted to fight him, the most dangerous option, as soon as he pulls out that gun I whip out my own (using the button that is commonly used to draw/fire a gun [those should be the same button]) and shoot him dead. Or he kills me. Whichever. It's choice, baby.

Then, if I wanted to just simply run, I would just, you know, run. It's that easy.

It doesn't just stop there. I could have always just acted like I was gonna give him my wallet, and as soon as he got close enough, I'd hit the melee button and knee him in the groin. Or maybe I could wait until he turned to run with my money to shoot him. Hell, I could have just shot my gun at him wildly to scare him off.

There are lots of possibilities with dynamic reactions. Any situation will become a sandbox for you to experiment with outcomes that you would have never known about before.

Okay, I love opinions and critique. Let me hear them, people!

 

[theComposer]

I like the sounds of this. It would work best in a game like Heavy Rain or Indigo Prophecy, but any story/dialogue-heavy game could benefit from this.

 

[WanderingFool]

Sounds pretty sweet, I would like to see a game with that.

 

[blue spartan 11]

GTA4 as a small exemple of such a system:

A cop yells at you "You're under arrest!"

You have three choices
- Don't move and surrender
- Shoot him and run
- Simply run

It's also present in Red Dead Redemption

People might yell at you for help.

You then have two options:
- Help the stranger
- Continue on your way.

I would love to see something like your system in a game, but the point is: Some are already doing something similar. Did this system really stand out as a choice system? Or were they giving you choices on things that are too trivial, not important enough to really matter on the game story?

 

[Fuhjem]

I just want every situation to be handled with as much flow as possible. Button prompts, even recurring ones like 'Press A to open door' which become second nature, can break flow.

 

[greenyboy27]

That sounds pretty damn badass dude, this is a very good idea. i think if you ever managed to make any you know... Gameplay of this kind of thing. You could do a beta test of your system to see what people really think.

10/10 Dude (Y)

 

[Fuhjem]

But, seriously. Has anyone found anything wrong with this? I would love the criticism.

 

[Macflash]

Sounds better than the quicktime-esque system they put into Heavy rain. My friend liked it, but it always felt terrible to me. This sounds like a much better option, and way less immersion breaking. Of course, not every situation can be broken down into simple controls like that, but it'd be interesting to see all the options that could.

How would this system work during a conversation, or even for something as simple as accepting a mission. How would you differentiate the two options? Having 2 doors to walk out of, an item to pick up, etc?

 

[Jumplion]

Kudos to you for actually posting your ideas on the internet, I'm way to paranoid to do any of that.

I'll just let you see for yourself...

[sup]RECOGNIZE MY GENIUS! RECOGNIZE IT DAMNIT![/sup]

While it's an interesting idea, many games are already doing a similar way, and to be perfectly honest many other people, including myself, have thought of it. But if I may I would like to poke holes in your idea.

You see, as unlimiting your idea may seem, it actually is a bit limited. This all boils down to "virtual reality" and just doing what you want. With your "disgruntled employee" scenario, what if I don't want to go "Fuck you" and give him the bird? What if I just want to say "I quit"? And maybe the boss would try to stop you, maybe you've been a damn good employee to him and he'll try to sway you back. Maybe, after saying "fuck you", a whole new conversation starts up where he starts arguing with you.

There's a lot of possibilities, and it's impossible to put them all. BUT, I think the most important thing that people seem to forget is this;
[sup]and I'm going to put it in big letters, 'cause it's that important[/sup]

[HEADING=2]How would you translate these actions to a controller?[/HEADING]

See, when people think of these complex ideas, they always imagine it as one coherent and fluid motion, almost like you're in a virtual reality suit or something which, to be frank, is likely the best place for this idea. Grab a controller, or keyboard, or something to map out the actions for this system. Would these dynamic responses be in an action game? Horror game? Puzzle game? What game could fully utilize this mechanic without having to heavily sacrifice something else (I.E., combat controls in an action game)?

It's a grand idea, one that many people have thought of, and maybe you'll be the one to successfully implement it, or at least the first one to initiate the system. Just think about how it will transfer over to your brain to the controller, that is the essential part.

 

[Fuhjem]

[HEADING=2]How would you translate these actions to a controller?[/HEADING]

When you want to walk away, you just use the joystick to move your character. I thought it was kinda implied. When you walk away from someone who wants to talk to you, it's a rude act and your words would be rude and other people would react to it. Stopping to talk would be polite, so it would be a polite conversation.

It'll take a lot of testing to translate a simple player action into a wide range of emotions, but in theory it should work.

Thanks for the critique, I appreciate it.

 

[Jumplion]

[HEADING=2]How would you translate these actions to a controller?[/HEADING]

When you want to walk away, you just use the joystick to move your character. I thought it was kinda implied. When you walk away from someone who wants to talk to you, it's a rude act and your words would be rude and other people would react to it. Stopping to talk would be polite, so it would be a polite conversation.

It'll take a lot of testing to translate a simple player action into a wide range of emotions, but in theory it should work.

Thanks for the critique, I appreciate it.

Yeah, I got the walking part, but another thing to note is how would the player know their options? A lot of times the player will want to to one thing, but they will instead do something completely different, or they won't even know that they're able to do it. Like, for example, when I was playing GTA4 it took me over half the game to realize that I could choose to keep someone alive after a chase in various missions. Also, a common occurrence in games, I walk over to a door and want to open it, but instead I open the drawer next to it.

It's the minor things that can keep this system from shining. Again, while it is a neat idea, and it's a good thing that you're thinking of way to implement it, you're going to have to take it a step further than just posting it on a forum.

Though I may be expecting a tad too much out of you, even I have a similar idea yet you don't see me play-testing it over again. Question: Is this just a random idea that came to your head or have you been extensively thinking about it for a while?

 

[Fuhjem]

Yeah, I got the walking part, but another thing to note is how would the player know their options?

Experimentation. It's what keeps you coming back time and time again to a game. See what you can do.

 

[Jumplion]

Yeah, I got the walking part, but another thing to note is how would the player know their options?

Experimentation. It's what keeps you coming back time and time again to a game. See what you can do.

Hmm, it seems that you and I are thinking in two different ways here. You're thinking this in more of a "tech-demo" sort of way, just to first see how it could be done. More of a "proof of concept" than a fully fleshed out mechanic, good for a really short tech-demo/game.

I'm thinking ahead about how and where this idea could be implemented in a full, AAA game. While this system could work for some games, it wouldn't work well in others, and you have to consider how it would be implemented in different types of games and what you need to work around in those games.

I think there should be a distinction, however, between "experimentation" and just "not knowing". The player should know the basic choices they have, much like in real life, but when observing them further they can realize the other options available.

Again, I like you're idea, I'm just challenging it to see how fully fleshed out it is. And don't be afraid to write a lil' longer response, I don't mind the read

 

[Korten12]

you basicaly describe what they are doing in Guild Wars 2, they can that in game you can kind of go barbaric and just end conversations by punching them any time you want (obvious only in conversation, you cant punch them out of convo). XP

 

[Fuhjem]

I see where you are going with this, Jumplion. In a AAA game, the 'Not Knowing' aspect could probably be fixed with subtly teaching the player what they can and can't do.

Think back to Portal. In that game, they used very subtle visual cues to let people know what they needed to do. Is there a puzzle that requires you to use the momentum from falling to shoot you across the room? If you look around, you notice checkerboard tiles on the ground. When they first introduced the mechanic, those checkerboard tiles were all over the ground. After that, they were only found when you needed to do that type of puzzle.

It'll have to take a different approach of subconsciously teaching the player to do these things, but I think this can be done in a AAA game.