Comments for The Path ------ development blog

Comment on Advice to self: stay away from the internets! by Wendy Hawksley

Wendy Hawksley — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:50:13 +0000

I am looking forward to this game immensely. So, yeah, stay away from the net and work! lol

No, no. Everybody deserves a break or a distraction.

Comment on Advice to self: stay away from the internets! by Emriss

Emriss — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:59:42 +0000

Like I’ve been saying to my friends for years now: just wait until the human race developes telepathy. Not the pry-into-the-mind type, but the project-certain-thoughts-and-feelings type.

Words are so cumbersome. If you say, “I’m happy”, those words will make you think of what you feel when you’re happy. But someone else who hears those words might use the same word for a different, though perhaps similar, emotion. And it’s little things like that, stacking up as a convorsation goes on, that makes words so frustrating sometimes.

Once we have telepathy, we can just project our ideas and sensations into the minds of others, and it’ll be much clearer :D.

Comment on Advice to self: stay away from the internets! by Auriea

Auriea — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:25:55 +0000

mmmmmmmmm delicious cake. i’ve got it and i’m eating it too!

Comment on I’m not a game designer by James Rossi

James Rossi — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:03:58 +0000

This is something I’m sure causes LOTS of problems in many games in their dev phase. You can take your game in 2 basic directions the “extended tutorial” route or the “sink and eventually swim” approach. The problem with “extended tutorial” is that you find at times very basic functionality being withheld for long (sometimes inappropriately long) periods of time. While I enjoy them, Half-Life 2 and it’s episodes can be rather guilty of this. At times it feels like the whole game is just one long tutorial. The payoff in HL2 was the citadel when you became a physics god and tore the place up. The other issue with extended tutorial is that it makes the player feel dumb if they have a high skill level. “Just give me the tools and let me do this already.”

If you just give a player all of their complicated abilities from the get go (one of my favorite games, System Shock 2, goes this route). This would be like playing Metroid with all your upgrades to start with. The difficulty curve is no longer gathering your tools, but learning to use them effectively while being bombarded with possible actions. With this method subsequent playthroughs can go really fast. A person can beat SS2 in maybe 3 hours max once they know how the game works (which becomes a bit of a challenge in itself too).

As you mentioned using the story to help explain and accommodate just be careful not to sacrifice too much. Stories can be like a sculpture, they are very pretty and can be immensely detailed, but imagine David where instead of a lifelike arm you see forced chisel dents. No longer is it a full embodiment of an idea, it’s just a collection of chips and cuts. Extreme example I suppose. And worse of all I don’t really give any answers to anything. Regardless best of luck in your decision =]

Comment on tester #5 by Ferruccio

Ferruccio — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:37:59 +0000

gods, must’ve been hilarious

Comment on tester #5 by Michael

Michael — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:35:41 +0000

Time flying by was extra amusing because she had warned us that she couldn’t sit still for extended periods of time.

Comment on tester #4 by Auriea

Auriea — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:12:59 +0000

well, we take his impatience seriously… i mean there are things we can do to “help” this type of player. it is always a negotiation when designing the game. you cannot please everybody but you have to decide is it a flaw or a feature when someone gets impatient. can we use that impatience to make the game more fun for them
hard to explain but this is how we think about it.

Comment on tester #4 by Emriss

Emriss — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:46:54 +0000

I hope most of your fans will enjoy the game while moving through it slowly. Like in The Kiss, where you were forced to move at a sluggish pace…it gave you more time to sit back and admire the land/soundscape. Maybe I’ll download that again just before playing The Path, so I don’t feel compelled to rush through things.

And for those who haven’t played The Kiss, do so! Just a fun little peice of explorable art.

Comment on tester #4 by Auriea

Auriea — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:03:35 +0000

nope. no magic elves better get to work!

Comment on The Path —— Status Report November 2008 by PBB

PBB — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:55:04 +0000

Dae, I was going to paraphrase your sayings when i finished the article, without reading the comments. So I guess I’ll say “Like she says”. I’m happy to see that the Path has the same impact on someone else, than me. The living of the futur experience of the Path will be wonderfull, and I’m almost sure that I could answer Chris[the Artfull Gamer author]’s question “What game changed your life or your way of seing it” by “the Path”.

Great great job to all of you.