Hidden Items

[KeroTani]

Like most games I want to put hidden items here or there. I was thinking that most games that do so shoehorn in a way to tell the player they are in the game. Should I leave it too the player or tell the paper in a non condescending way?

 

[Wavelength]

They're hidden items!!  You can do whatever you want.  If you want to make sure players get to see all this content you created, make them more obvious.  If you want to make sure players feel really good when they do find something, hide them well and make them less obvious, without hints.

Also, ironically, this is really more of a Game Mechanics Design question than an MV Support question.  (Usually, people make the opposite mistake!)

 

[Shaz]

Yep, I agree.  Moving to Game Mechanics Discussion.

What do you mean by shoehorn and telling them in a non condescending way?

Interested to see where this topic goes.

 

[Tsukihime]

Depends on what your purpose is in having these secrets, but it should at least be something they can possibly discover on their own without literally clicking on every pixel on the screen.


Though I'd have to see what you mean by "non-condescending" way.

 

[Milennin]

I love hidden items, but there needs to be a way to be able to guess where they might be. Such as only using a few objects that ever contain hidden items instead of being possible to find items on random invisible tiles.

 

[ArcaneEli]

there needs to be a way of telling players to search here.

just like in the tutorial of a town have them search a barrel, that should tell the player that barrels MIGHT have something in them so they should

check.

because having completly invisible items is stupid. how would anyone ever know to search randomly right there?

Also having grass slightly darker in an area is also a bad sign. Having a dark shadow in the grass is better, having a little sparkle is good.

 

[KeroTani]

Well the first area in my game is a mountain pass and I put cracks in the walls. I was thinking I could have the more experienced experienced adventurer say " sometimes there are items in places like this" but in a way I felt that was belittling the player as most games tend to have these things. But then again if someone new to RPGs plays my game I want the to at least try to look .

 

[hiromu656]

There's always indirect ways of teaching your player about secrets or giving tips. An ideal "tutorial" to me would be one that doesn't pull you out of the game's world too much. How about somewhere early in the game you see a thief or whatever standing near a crack in the wall mumbling about treasure, then a guard pulls him aside. You never break the game's immersion and you put a little hint into your player's head that maybe cracks in the wall can hold treasure. This probably isn't the best example, but something along those lines would allow you to keep things a secret, yet also give the player a fair chance at discovering it. 

The topic reminded me of a video I saw a while back about how Half Life 2 taught its players indirectly. Maybe you'd like to check it out:

 

[KeroTani]

It's funny how me and my friends have playing RPGs since the 90s and talk about them all the time but this is the first time I really thought about these little aspects of gameplay. Maybe I should start a worst RPG and why thread to help people avoid rpg mistakes.

 

[DoctorMolotov]

Well the first area in my game is a mountain pass and I put cracks in the walls. I was thinking I could have the more experienced experienced adventurer say " sometimes there are items in places like this" but in a way I felt that was belittling the player as most games tend to have these things. But then again if someone new to RPGs plays my game I want the to at least try to look .

I gotta agree with this point. I have played many games enough to notice when something is out of place or looks... y'know, like something might be there. So yeah people who haven't got an eye for it might never find it but you know while you're making it that someone might stumble across whatever it is that you have hidden, and yeah they might tell people, but the reason you do it is for someone to find it, and you know making it that someone will. At least that is how I approach it.

 

[KeroTani]

There is a forest where I have trees on both sides. About halfway up the line 1 rows of trees are passable and there is a chest. If I say change the color of a tree it jumps out "hey over here". I hate to say this but I have the mind set most things like that I have planed most likely would be found. With any luck people will like my game and I plan to work on it for the better part of next year. Right now I'm making maps for the first half of the game. And as I suck at it this could take some time. I'll be hating life when I start combat math and stat growth work.

 

[Wavelength]

It's funny how me and my friends have playing RPGs since the 90s and talk about them all the time but this is the first time I really thought about these little aspects of gameplay. Maybe I should start a worst RPG and why thread to help people avoid rpg mistakes.

I feel like great game design is easier to learn than something like, say, great cinematography, because when you are playing a game you can get a very vivid sense of "This is amazing!" or "I feel very frustrated right now." and you can usually take as much time as you need to ask yourself why you're feeling that way.  If you've got a good mind for analysis, this is an extremely good place to start when trying to figure out what elements you want to include in your game and (just as importantly) what you want to leave out.

Learning from experienced game designers is always a great thing, too!  This Game Mechanics Design board (as well as the General Game Development board) attracts a lot of people who have made good or successful games already, though it's obviously skewed toward RPG Maker.  A very popular video series to check out to learn about game design is Extra Credits.  I think they have some very good info to share, and in particular I recommend checking out their (unfortunately very short) "Design Club" series which goes into extreme depth about great game design decisions that are so subtle most people won't ever notice them.

 

[stupid enough to like FF13]

Well the first area in my game is a mountain pass and I put cracks in the walls. I was thinking I could have the more experienced experienced adventurer say " sometimes there are items in places like this" but in a way I felt that was belittling the player as most games tend to have these things. But then again if someone new to RPGs plays my game I want the to at least try to look .

Not all games do, which is why it's good for a game to give you some indication that there are hidden items and how to find them. For example, the first and third Lufia games have hidden items in towns—and the second game doesn't. Final Fantasy III for the DS lets you see sparkles where items are hidden if you zoom in.

Myself, I use regions around hidden items, then have a parallel process event occasionally display a sparkling graphic where the hidden item is if you're inside the region near the item. You don't have to press the button on everything in the environment, but hidden items aren't plainly obvious from a distance.