Ideas of gameplay sequence in a game without battle

[Udlice]

I'm currently making a game without any battle sytem and trying to find ideas of possibles gamplay sequence to put into this game to not bore the player, bassicaly because no one likes a boring game. Though, if I put to much gameplay sequences in my game, then it is more like a party game and the player quicly forget the story. I think the bests mini-games or gamepays sequences are the ones related to the story of the game because what the player is doing have a meaning (For example : Running away from bad guys) and at the same time he have fun.

While thinking about this, I tried to find ideas of good gameplay sequence to put into my game and how to make them :

- QTE are a good way to put some gameplay into the story (cutscenes) but it is quite long to make differents results in game depending on how the player react. (There are scriptsto make QTE, I think.)

- An escaping sequence, with a countdown like in ff7 or running away from enemies. This type of sequence is interesting because, while for almost every puzzle you find in games, the player is making the actions by himself, with this type type of sequence, you force him to do something to avoid the game over. Since he do something to "survive", he have the illusion of having a choice. ( And it's easy to make with events and timers.)

-Mini-games can be goods too but they must be realated to the story and not just pop out of nowhere, and that's the difficult point. (There are scripts for that too, I think)

-Maze or dungeons are OK but you must fill them with puzzles to make them intrestings and quite often, they can't be really related to the story so usually the player would like to skip straight to the end because he thinks it's boring. (It's easy to do the maps but usually harder to make of events for the puzzles.)

-...

And I can't find any more ideas. If you have another idea or you disagree with me, please post something about it, I'd be happy to know about it.

 

[Warpmind]

How about some puzzles with multiple solutions - such as where you have to get past a guard, and can try sneaking through a window, shooting the guard, or arranging a distraction elsewhere?

 

[Iavra]

I'm actually working on a similar game (though i will probably never finish it). I started working on the mechanics before thinking up a fitting game to fit it in.

My main concept would be height, mainly tracking the current height of the player and other movable events via region_ids, jumping over gaps, dynamic height overrides via pushable/pullable crates or pillars, that the player can jump/walk on, if he happens to be on the right height. As an additional add-on, i though of a small companion (and ape or similar), who is able to stand/walk on surfaces to small for the player. It would be possible to switch control between both chars. The ape would be too weak to push pillars on his own but lightweight enough, so it would be possible for the player to move pillars with the ape on top of them.

I ultimately put that idea on hold (not exactly discarded, but near enough), since i had to override nearly every default method the maker uses to determine passability, collision checking and z-index for rendering.

Apart from the general jump, pulling and pushing, i would pair that with a more-or-less simple adventure model of collecting and combining items to advance further. A few action sequences consisting of running against the time while taking advantage of the jumping system to add variety on top and i was basically set.

But, again, the overall system was very complicated.

 

[Prizmik]

You are really on point when you say: "whatever gameplay there is in a game, should never be at odds with the story". I would like to suggest, that this statement has further implications. It would always be best for us to not look at our gameplay as a thing that we have to "shove" into our story, so that the player doesn't get bored of the story or not think it is a game, but rather, if the game is story heavy,- we must aim to play at the advantages of our medium and make the story be fully integrated with the suitable gameplay, whatever it might be, and not segmented.

If a game's story is about spying, let the story be told through a gameplay that involves spying.
If a game is about relationships, have the story unfold through suitable mechanics and gameplay.

There are many ways of doing these things even in rpg maker with no combat at all. Even dialogue can be seen in terms of gameplay, if the game has nothing else going for it.

If such a task seems too difficult or bothersome, we must consider, that maybe a given story is better to be told in film, or book, etc.

 

[Udlice]

Warpmind: Good idea, I didn't thought about that.

Iavra: Very interresting concept. Too bad you will probably never finish it. I'm very curious about that.

Prizmik:

You are really on point when you say: "whatever gameplay there is in a game, should never be at odds with the story". I would like to suggest, that this statement has further implications. It would always be best for us to not look at our gameplay as a thing that we have to "shove" into our story, so that the player doesn't get bored of the story or not think it is a game, but rather, if the game is story heavy,- we must aim to play at the advantages of our medium and make the story be fully integrated with the suitable gameplay, whatever it might be, and not segmented.

If a game's story is about spying, let the story be told through a gameplay that involves spying.
If a game is about relationships, have the story unfold through suitable mechanics and gameplay.

You're right.

But sometimes, story are not just about spying or relationships, sometimes they talk about way more complicated things, for example, philosophy. I you think about philosophy first and then think about a gameplay that would naturally correspond to that idea, I think it's gonna be hard. Though, I you try to think first about a gameplay and then obout how it can make the player think about philosophy, I think It's gonna be much easier. Anyway, what I mean here is that it is sometimes easier to think about the gameplay first and then about how it can help the story, and not the opposite. And that's what I did in my first post, since my story talks about things more complicated than "spying".

Anyway, thanks all for your posts, that was very interesting.

 

[Prizmik]

@Udlice
 

But sometimes, story are not just about spying or relationships, sometimes they talk about way more complicated things, for example, philosophy. I you think about philosophy first and then think about a gameplay that would naturally correspond to that idea, I think it's gonna be hard. Though, I you try to think first about a gameplay and then obout how it can make the player think about philosophy, I think It's gonna be much easier. Anyway, what I mean here is that it is sometimes easier to think about the gameplay first and then about how it can help the story, and not the opposite. And that's what I did in my first post, since my story talks about things more complicated than "spying".

Interesting that you brought philosophy up. Here it is important to make a distinction, between games that mention philosophy (example: characters talk about a philosophical concept) and between games that are about philosophy (example: a game that communicates a philosophical concept),

In the first option, where you have people just mention something, it can just stay like that, it is there to serve some other purpose, and not all games explicitly mention philosophy. Here it gets crazy though, yes you are right to say that philosophy is more complicated than spying, however, philosophy is such a discipline, that by being about the first principles of being, it makes every game, and any piece of art inescapably trapped in its discourse.

All games communicate a philosophical conception of reality, because they are real games that present things in them, that behave and are interacted with according to certain simulated first principles. So a game that is about spying, with a spying mechanic can communicate vastly different philosophical concepts depending on the formal structure of the mechanics.

What do I mean by that, if your game is exploring the ideas of skepticism, make the gameplay mechanics of spying such, have all the clues and evidence the player spies, be unreliable, build the unreliableness into the systems, make it guesswork, bring in some chance elements into the system, so even a water-tight idea of the information, could be dead wrong, "just because".   Here we can see how a simple spying mechanic can (and must) very easily communicate complicated philosophical concepts.

I could use spying mechanics to communicate almost any concept. Like you could make it so, that when spying you could deliberately omit certain information from your superiors, if this was rewarded, because it is for the greater good, then you are communicating "utilitarianism".

Like I said, all games are about philosophy, but not all games are very conscious of this fact, but the games that are and integrate their story and mechanics together based on that understanding are the best kinds of games.

 

[Udlice]

@Prizmik

That's totaly right. Sadly, I don't know a lot of games that are talking consciously about philosophy. Do you know some ?

Anyway, thank you very much for qualifying my point of view. It's really very interresting to talk with you.

 

[Prizmik]

@Prizmik


That's totaly right. Sadly, I don't know a lot of games that are talking consciously about philosophy. Do you know some ?


Anyway, thank you very much for qualifying my point of view. It's really very interresting to talk with you.

Thank you Udlice, it is lovely to talk to you too . Yes I do know some games that do this very well, what philosophical ideas are you most interested in? Maybe I know something.


Anyway here is a few examples rpg maker games that do this stuff really well:


Lisa the painful rpg: great coherence with story, theme and gameplay, it explores the ideas of "philosophical pessimism" and Hobbesian politics (which go hand in hand usually).


Space funeral: brilliant game on Platonism. While gameplay seems standard, it is made sense spectacularly by the end of the game.

 

[Udlice]

You're welcome Prizmik.

To answer your qusetion, I'm most interrested in philosophical ideas about systems and societies, and more preciesly about how peoples can forget to have any judjment on the world around them because a system tell them to never think by themselves and just follow it. Fahrenheit 451 and Animal's farm are two books that talk about this idea while in the same time talking about dictatorships.

And you, what philosophical ideas are you most interested in ?

Anyway, I will try thoses games you are talking about, it looks interesting.

 

[hian]

I would suggest not shoe-horning game-play into a vision that wasn't built on game-play to begin with -


and I'd also suggest not shoe-horning a story into the games medium, if you don't have a game-concept to go


along with it to begin with.


Maybe it would be just fine as a Japanese-style graphic/visual novel instead, or an adventure game?


A game doesn't have to be "gamey", and a story doesn't have to told as a game. You think about what you want to make


and prioritize that, and then people will either like it or they won't. Compromise your vision for wider appeal,


and you're no longer really making what you envisioned to begin with - and when that happens, what's the point?

 

[Prizmik]

You're welcome Prizmik.


To answer your qusetion, I'm most interrested in philosophical ideas about systems and societies, and more preciesly about how peoples can forget to have any judjment on the world around them because a system tell them to never think by themselves and just follow it. Fahrenheit 451 and Animal's farm are two books that talk about this idea while in the same time talking about dictatorships.


And you, what philosophical ideas are you most interested in ?


Anyway, I will try thoses games you are talking about, it looks interesting.

For an interesting example of what you are talking about, I suggest maybe trying "Deus Ex" (the first game), it integrates story and gameplay pretty well. I will avoid derailing the topic any further by talking about myself.

 

[Udlice]

@hian

I'd also suggest not shoe-horning a story into the games medium, if you don't have a game-concept to go

along with it to begin with.

I think that a good game is a mix between gameplay and story. Entertaining the player is important but making him think is neccessary too, if you want to make a complex game. There are good games that are just outlets but that's not the type of game I want to make. That's why I tried in my first post to find ideas of gameplay that can suit to make the player think while it's entertaining him.

If you ask the player to play Tetris for no reasons before he can enter a dungeon, he will probably complain because it is useless for the story.

But if in the dungeon, you make one of the hero's party menber fall in trap and ask the player if he wants to leave him here or to pay a hudge amount of gold to rescue him, then, first, you entertain him and you make the game a bit more difficult, but you also make him think about the value of his friend(s) : Is his money more important than him (or them) ? Then you can make two differents endings for your story if the player leaved or not his friend.

That's what I meant when I said was that "the bests gamepays sequences are the ones related to the story".

This is not shoe-horning a story into the games medium.

Maybe it would be just fine as a Japanese-style graphic/visual novel instead, or an adventure game?

A game doesn't have to be "gamey", and a story doesn't have to told as a game.

I already know what type of game I'm gonna make.

I think making the player "play" your story is a good way to make him think about it. Games do that quite well.

You think about what you want to make

and prioritize that, and then people will either like it or they won't. Compromise your vision for wider appeal,

and you're no longer really making what you envisioned to begin with - and when that happens, what's the point?

When you do the game only for yourself, yes that's true it doesen't matter if people will like it or not because nobody will ever see it.

But when you want other people to play your game, it is natural to think about how they will react when they will play with it, because you want them to like it, and so to that compromise your vision. You're too idealistic.

But thanks for your post.

@Prizmik

Ok, I will check Deus Ex.

I you want to talk about that more whitout derailing the topic, just PM me.