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General Discussion / Neonivek and Friend's Musings (Bad Ideas Ahoy!)
« on: July 19, 2016, 02:13:49 am »
Hello everyone since I was told that I should actually create a topic for all my musings and comments instead of putting it in the WTF topic all the time (and was told people wouldn't just ignore it) I decided to give it a chance.
Feel free to comment or give your own musings here! Just give people respect and this thread should be fine.
But I guess I should start
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Ok for the most part I don't like the point system in old point and click adventure games often making you do actions and seek things out that have nothing to do with the task on hand.
For example Eco Quest 1 made you pick up all the garbage under the sea and while Eco Quest also made you do this (at one part creating a whole scene of you doing nothing but cleaning up garbage) but also made you scan every single piece of wildlife in the game (which I did anyway... just because ... I actually like that mechanic).
But I didn't bring this up to complain about it but rather to list the exception! The point and click adventure game where I loved the point system!
Star Trek!
In that game generally speaking if it is a good idea, it gets you a point. Did you have Spock Scan the alien? Did you have McCoy check on the body to see if they were alive? The game rewards your cleverness with points rather then your exhaustive inquisitiveness. A big example is at one point of the game you end up taking an enemy ship with them onboard... You can go back to your ship at anytime and really things will go on their hand... But you can also lock their controls out or just up and shoot them.
They creators of this game actually went really in depth and instead of making the points, pointless (and they still KIND of are). Instead you can think of them as indication of how good you are doing on the mission. A perfect score basically amounts to a perfect run.
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There is one other game that does similarly: Laura Bow and the Colonel's Bequest
One of the most genius games ever created and it is a DOS era game. The fact that it has never been copied or even had a true sequel (it has sequels but none that are the same style) just confounds me. You play as Laura who can best be considered a sort of Junior Detective (she later would become a reporter) whose best friend is having a relative read his will with his entire family... But all isn't as it seems.
Basically the entire game is on a sort of timer with events happening at certain times. Yet what it kind of interesting is that you can sneak in on conversations and decide how much information you let others know themselves. You can make use of secret passageways that are actually pretty intuitive but it also creates a tension as you never know who is listening or who could also be in there with you.
But winning the game is relatively easy. Yet at the end of it, it will give you a score basically about how much you actually solved. Winning with a score of 0 is essentially "you didn't die" and the villain basically gets away.
Feel free to comment or give your own musings here! Just give people respect and this thread should be fine.
But I guess I should start
---
Ok for the most part I don't like the point system in old point and click adventure games often making you do actions and seek things out that have nothing to do with the task on hand.
For example Eco Quest 1 made you pick up all the garbage under the sea and while Eco Quest also made you do this (at one part creating a whole scene of you doing nothing but cleaning up garbage) but also made you scan every single piece of wildlife in the game (which I did anyway... just because ... I actually like that mechanic).
But I didn't bring this up to complain about it but rather to list the exception! The point and click adventure game where I loved the point system!
Star Trek!
In that game generally speaking if it is a good idea, it gets you a point. Did you have Spock Scan the alien? Did you have McCoy check on the body to see if they were alive? The game rewards your cleverness with points rather then your exhaustive inquisitiveness. A big example is at one point of the game you end up taking an enemy ship with them onboard... You can go back to your ship at anytime and really things will go on their hand... But you can also lock their controls out or just up and shoot them.
They creators of this game actually went really in depth and instead of making the points, pointless (and they still KIND of are). Instead you can think of them as indication of how good you are doing on the mission. A perfect score basically amounts to a perfect run.
---
There is one other game that does similarly: Laura Bow and the Colonel's Bequest
One of the most genius games ever created and it is a DOS era game. The fact that it has never been copied or even had a true sequel (it has sequels but none that are the same style) just confounds me. You play as Laura who can best be considered a sort of Junior Detective (she later would become a reporter) whose best friend is having a relative read his will with his entire family... But all isn't as it seems.
Basically the entire game is on a sort of timer with events happening at certain times. Yet what it kind of interesting is that you can sneak in on conversations and decide how much information you let others know themselves. You can make use of secret passageways that are actually pretty intuitive but it also creates a tension as you never know who is listening or who could also be in there with you.
But winning the game is relatively easy. Yet at the end of it, it will give you a score basically about how much you actually solved. Winning with a score of 0 is essentially "you didn't die" and the villain basically gets away.
