Healing potions are BAD!

[Bee-Ant]

Wait wait wait...you missunderstood gogo.
I've talked about Healing Potion in RPG,not that first person shooter. Other way to heal without using potion...

[Fuzzy]

Games today are all about the player being the most powerful. Players are missing out in an experience of being the underdog. Like Gogo said, its sometimes fun getting chased.

The early arcade games were famous for this. The player was represented by a character who was just an average person. A good example would be the first Mario games, pac man.

In the end, you will feel much more achievement for having overcome great trials. Games should get harder as you progress into the game, not easier like most RPGs.

If the player is pausing in achieving goals to kill a few hundred monsters so that s/he can buy lots of healing, then the coder has failed.

There is a term for this, and the term is flow. When the player breaks flow, or flow is broken for the player, you risk losing the player, or at least, you lessen their enjoyment. When DST and I talk, flow is often a point of conversation. We consider flow to be ultra important to a game.

Flow is very simple in concept, but can be very tricky to pull off. It means that the player is progressing at a pace that is both exciting and pleasing. It also means that the pace isnt too fast.. or too slow. Acceptable flow varies from player to player, and a good programmer makes it possible for the player to adjust game play to suit themselves.

You will find the best games always have something to do. If you have to spend hours collecting potions so that you can handle the next stages of the game, then the programmer has failed. If the player is not ready for the next stage, then you had better have some side quests ready or the player will lose their sense of pace.

Dont get me wrong. I like doing that sort of thing. When I play games I play certain parts over and over finding the optimal way of doing things. That is a game in itself, called emergent gaming.

But if you have to rescue the princess before the dragon eats her, but you spend 30 game hours collecting money for equipment, then something is wrong. For instance, when was the last time that a hero in a movie was injured and checked himself into a hospital for a few days instead of rescuing the world? If you are playing a game, and just about the fight the big bad boss, and you run all the way back to town... because you have to.. you have broken flow. And its the fault of the programmer.

Unfortunately, you see it all the time in games. So programmers have come up with the concept of teleport scrolls and portals. But like potions, it is a lousy solution to a problem.

I know that the GE forum is supposed to be encouraging, and this is "Game Development" but it is also "Programmer Development". Dont just do things because they are traditional, and dont just do things because its easy. Otherwise you will have a weapon vendor in the castle of the big boss.

Here are some games with excellent flow. Note the name of the first one!

http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/
http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/n.html
http://www.freetetris.org/

as well as DSTs Tower defense game!

One interesting thing to note is that controls are very simple, you learn as you go, and there is very little reading needed.

[DST]

Since i am a visual person, i tend to notice the visual aspects of games. One thing that really really helps out flow is good indicators of actions and good transitions.

Example:

I am scoring jewels, and i score a bonus. Instead of just having a bonus meter increase by one, it should have a sound effect, and some kind of animation, like the word 'bonus' gets bigger and flashes colors for a few seconds, then returns to normal. This is important because we want the bonus to be second nature to the player; he subconsciously knows when its going off and when to use it.

Otherwise, he has to read all the numbers to know what's going on, and player would rather look at colorful graphics instead.

transitions:

Make a splash actor. use this actor for the title screen and place all his frames in one animation, title screen, menu screen, game over screens, and fader(black or whatever).

Make a function to control the fade, such as void fade(int method, float rate, int animpos);

Now you can, with one simple line, trigger any kind of movements or fades with that actor; Now you will be able to tailor them to suit the action, instead of just 'doing the best you can with a bunch of if statements).

Graphic fades should match the action; if you get teleported to the next scene, it should be a quick, bright or white fade; if the hero is going to sleep after a romantic evening with the female lead, the fade should be very slow, and black.


Good flow means you have to care about the plot, and not just do what 'you think a game should have', but rather, 'what you WANT a game to have'.

There's no point in reinventing the wheel.

[Game A Gogo]

Wait wait wait...you missunderstood gogo.
I've talked about Healing Potion in RPG,not that first person shooter. Other way to heal without using potion...

I dunno if you noticed but I stated that Oni wasn't an RPG for that purpose

[Bee-Ant]

I've choosen a good way then...the main player in my RPG game specifically not powerfull.
His ability is in average. He is nothing compared to most of his enemies while on the same level, the only way to overpower his enemy is upgrading his level...

[Fuzzy]

I've choosen a good way then...the main player in my RPG game specifically not powerfull.
His ability is in average. He is nothing compared to most of his enemies while on the same level, the only way to overpower his enemy is upgrading his level...

Excellent!