Story Layout
Jan 12, 2015
Thanks for all the feedback in the last post about replayability. Bucking the trend of Internet comments, it was all very interesting and insightful.
A couple of people mentioned the dead-ends in Maniac Mansion, and I want to reiterate what Gary and I said in several interviews: There will be no dead-ends. The design of Thimbleweed Park will follow my rules of adventure game design, formulated after Maniac Mansion and before Monkey Island. Dead-ends in adventure games are the product of bad game design, nothing more. IMHO.
So, our goal is to have different endings, but not require players to replay the game (or play meta-games with save games) to see them. I agree with some of the commenters that people don't have the time or patience these days to replay a game to get different endings. The Stanley Parable took a very novel approach to this, but that whole game was very meta, so it worked in a way that won't for Thimbleweed Park.
One difference between Thimbleweed Park and Maniac Mansion (and The Cave), was that in Maniac Mansion (or The Cave), you picked the characters you wanted to play with before the game started. In Thimbleweed Park, you are always playing with 5 characters. You don't get to choose to be Ransome the Clown. You do get to choose how much you play with him and how much of his story you explore, but he and the other characters are not optional.
Please keep in mind that this is just what we're currently exploring. It might change as we flesh things out over the next few months.
When the game starts, you will be able to switch between the two detectives, but you won't know about Ransome, Delores or Franklin yet. There will be a small 3 or 4 room intro that sets up the story and allows players to get used to and explore the interface (there will be no tutorial, but more on that in another post, so hold your rage/support).
On to the good bits...
Once you get into the town and start investigating the dead body, you will meet characters who will tell you about Ransome, Delores and Franklin, and when they do, you will play a short flashback that sets up their stories. When each flashback is complete, you can switch to them at will.
The main story is broken up into 3 acts, with the final act triggering the ending of the main story. Putting it in globally understood Star Wars terms: blowing up the Death Star was act 3, the medal ceremony was the ending.
Each of the 5 characters have their own sub-stories consisting of 3 acts. Character first acts are told through the flashback, the character's second act is required as the puzzles are intertwined with the main story's second act, but the character's 3rd act is optional. You can choose to play them or not.
Also, the acts are not linear, you will have to switch to other characters to complete puzzles, so it's not like players will be able to play all of Delores, then switch to Franklin and play all of his story. Like any good adventure game or story, it's all intertwined, related and connected.
When the main story ends, there will be a satisfying ending, discovery of the killer, justice, closure and all that, but you can keep playing. If you haven't completed all the character stories, you can go back and do those. Once they are all done, you will move into a small playable epilogue that ties everything together.
I know it seem complex, but once you're in and playing, it should feel fairly natural.
Please keep in mind that we're still brainstorming and exploring ideas. This is part of the messy screwed up process that is game design and making stuff. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't and you change them and pretend like it never happened.
- Ron
I played the The Cave again this weekend, and I must say, there is an incredible amount of attention to detail in that game. One really shouldn't rush it. It doesn't feel like an adventure game but it is fun to play.
It is cool to see how even the Greatest Game Designer Ever (not my words!) begins with a bare-bones process: some boxes, some arrows, some lofty promises. Very cool. This Diary is shaping up to be an interesting peek into the Machine, altogether different than what we got with the Double Fine production videos for Broken Age, but equally (if not moreso) fascinating. (Although who here doesn't love videos of Ron Gilbert closing the office door on people?)
Keep the little white boxes coming Master Gilbert!
But anyhow, this diary is great. I like how it opens up the design process in greater detail.
(havent heard of the game before, just read it here)
http://www.gog.com/game/resonance
Another adventure game that does a good job of having the player control multiple characters is Goodbye Deponia.
Resonance is on my TOPLAY game list, now that those god-send fan translators from Guías Pat & asperet finished their localization into Spanish. I heard it's a hard game though.
Other games with multiple players from Wadjet are Gemini Rue (two character/story branch without interactions), and the Blackwell series (coop gameplay from the 2 characters). I liked Gemini Rue a lot, impresive one-man work, smart use of limited assets and things like that. Played those on the iPad... quite convenient for adventure playing ^.^
I recomend Primordia too for your everyday scifi fix.
Gemini Rue did better IMHO. Primordia, for me, was somewhere between those two. The Deponia games were good fun, the second one being the strongest entry in the trilogy. Currently, I'm really looking forward to playing The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, even though it's no classic point&click-adventure.
And: thumbs up for "no tutorial". Come on, it's verbs and a scene with clickable objects. Nobody wants to waste his time with a needless tutorial.
For instance, in Maniac Mansion you know you have to enter the Mansion. You can talk to the kids in the gravel pit, play with the mailbox, examine the bush, and that's about it. That left the rug/doormat to experiment with. In Day of the Tentacle, most of the doors are locked and you really have to just explore the foyer/main room area.
Monkey Island 3 trapped you in the cannonball room, and then once again in the bottom of the capsized ship. You have to get out, so you set about figuring a way to do it. The first two Monkey Island games were much more open-ended. I probably spent 20+ hours exploring before I solved even a single puzzle.
Anyways, I really like these kinds of areas in the game. Once the game opens up, it can be pretty overwhelming if there aren't clear objectives. Zak McKracken was the worst about this.
The very often mentioned Deponia also did this. You weren't able to leave the first location until solving a handful of puzzles. I like that
A different reading would suggest one "story ending" and mutliple "character endings". Either way, I'm cool with it. I was just wondering...
BUT:
Then I realized that I am not a game designer, but you are. I can play a game and point out reasons why it is or isn't fun or suggest improvements to a game. However, I don't think I'm all that qualified to say something won't be fun without having tried it first, especially not as qualified as you are. So I trust you; you have designed games for a long time and so far, I've enjoyed your games immensely. I guess I might have not liked the idea of an easy mode before I played Monkey Island 2 and now I think it was an awesome idea. So I will try not to criticize your idea here before I know exactly what it feels like in a game.
By the way... I have to ask, Delores... is that a name? Is it used in the US?
I know the name "Dolores" (Spanish) and some variants from it like Lola (but this is just a shortcut of Dolores).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_(given_name)
Looking forward to see how the dialogues are changing depending on who is the main character I believe it could help building the mood of the Thimbleweed society somehow.
This post makes me even more excited to play the game1
Just in case you intended to use the female Spanish name allow me to correct you: it's spelled "Dolores".
I do know that some Spanish names have been modified and adopted by the Englsih language so maybe one of the two versions you used is a valid English name I dont know about.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105417/?ref_=nv_sr_2
Switching between characters reminds me a lot of DOTT.
Here some examples from Twin Peaks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PcoMrwEa5o
It doesnt have to be coffee though. Gummi Bears, Mustard, The Bold And The Beautiful, ....
I only have a few doubts left. Lets say I'd like to finish and explore all of the stories to the bottom end BEFORE seeing the epilogue. When I finish the first story will the epilogue be triggered automatically (spoiling it for good) or will I be given the option to switch to the other characters and complete their stories too before seeing the epilogue/ending?
Just one consideration: it seems to me that this approach is not a solution to the replayability issue but it is like replacing it with longevity.
Looking at the chart it is not clear to me if you can end Act3 with every character or not.
If yes, will this mean that the ending is not related to who solves the case? (So replaying the game will not change the main storyline and its ending)
Otherwise it seems that the story is about the two detective solving the case and the other characters are just "sub-games" or "side-quests". In this case I wonder why having multiple characters is still a good idea.
One way to support replayability could be to make each character gameplay a different view/perspective of the same story (i.e. at same point you have to do something related to a car. One char will get into the car, another will play the scene from the outside and so on).
I assume the discovery of the killer is a big part of the whole thing and knowing that it might change when you play the game with a different character, would be definitely a plus.
http://www.bild.de/spiele/spiele-news/retro-games/grim-legend-divinity-original-sin-age-of-empires-39315828.bild.html
It's going to be a difficult task to make the epilogue not feel out of place or fractured from the rest of the story (at least how pacing is concerned).
Again, this is just want's in our heads right now. We're sharing our design thoughts. None of this may work or we'll think of something better...
Will have to disconnect from the internet to not getting dissolved by a "solution"
So, will it be possible that a player has completed the final acts of all the characters prior to the main ending? And, if so, I assume the game rolls straight into the epilogue?
And, how do you plan on making the player aware that they can continue playing to get to the epilogue? Just some dialogue or narration? What mechanism (if any) will be in place to allow a player to simply end the game after the main ending? I think it would be weird if someone just turned off the game without trying to get to the epilogue.
i think the idea of playing with everyone is good, and also the thing about playing after the mistery has been solved so we can finish every characters story.
nice
Sounds promising the idea of reaching act 3 of the game, see the end and then have the ability to continue playing with the other characters in order to see the multiple endings. And top of that, you'll get an epilogue.
I think I’ve never seen this before in an adventure.
Good idea!
Although there are the dead end jokes there is one part in Monkey Island 1 where you can get stuck. On board of the Seamonkey while trying to find Monkey Island (TM) the game allows burning the cereal in the fire. You then have some ashes in your inventory but can't finish the recipe because Guybrush won't pick another box up.
Is there a way out of this i didn't find or is it a solid dead end?