I dont know whether I'm going to do this or not, and wanted to get some feedback.
In the game, characters can die. Characters will die.
No matter which character dies, the game would never display a "game over" screen. if everyone in the group dies, you'll be forced to either stare at corpses or re-load your progress. if at least one character is still alive, the game will continue. Why would I do this? To make people be careful about their choices in the game. there are pre-scripted deaths of some characters. unfortunately for the player, they will have no idea if a character died by my hand or theirs. they won't know if a death was supposed to happen. they'll have to continue and hope for the best, and have confidence in their decisions, or re-load and try to see if that death can be avoided.
This is also a way of keeping the player from COMPLETELY screwing themselves over. say they have Megan and Lucid for some reason roaming around fields at night where it's 40-50 degrees with high winds, and Megan is for some reason wearing a swimsuit and covered in wet towels (this is actually possible, it's something you can do to help her get by in high temperatures). hell, lets make it rain too. she is going to get sick because of that. she may get VERY sick because of that. the player may decide to keep going, counting on letting her rest up and get medicine for her when they get where they're going. and then they save. and then they end up waiting too long, or the medicine they were hoping to find cannot be found where they thought it could be. they saved, and now Megan is extremely sick with no hope of getting better. she is going to die. and the player is going to be screwed. rather than just show them "GAME OVER", I think it would be more interesting if they were able to keep going and see how the story continues based on their actions. unless Megan was scripted to die anyways, they arent going to experience the game the same way. but they won't be screwed and HAVE to start over. it'll also hopefully drive up the emotional impact of such bad decisions.
the downside of course, is the uncertainty the player would feel any time a character in the game died. and people may be turned away from playing it at all.
it would also add a few hundred hours to the development cycle.
if I did this, I would also add a "new game +" feature that would render any character that died accidentally in the previous play throughs invincible in the next play through, so the player would have a better chance at seeing the full story.
it's something radically different, that I don't think has ever been done before, so I'm very worried about this idea and what the response from players may be. also, the work load scares me.
thoughts?
In the game, characters can die. Characters will die.
No matter which character dies, the game would never display a "game over" screen. if everyone in the group dies, you'll be forced to either stare at corpses or re-load your progress. if at least one character is still alive, the game will continue. Why would I do this? To make people be careful about their choices in the game. there are pre-scripted deaths of some characters. unfortunately for the player, they will have no idea if a character died by my hand or theirs. they won't know if a death was supposed to happen. they'll have to continue and hope for the best, and have confidence in their decisions, or re-load and try to see if that death can be avoided.
This is also a way of keeping the player from COMPLETELY screwing themselves over. say they have Megan and Lucid for some reason roaming around fields at night where it's 40-50 degrees with high winds, and Megan is for some reason wearing a swimsuit and covered in wet towels (this is actually possible, it's something you can do to help her get by in high temperatures). hell, lets make it rain too. she is going to get sick because of that. she may get VERY sick because of that. the player may decide to keep going, counting on letting her rest up and get medicine for her when they get where they're going. and then they save. and then they end up waiting too long, or the medicine they were hoping to find cannot be found where they thought it could be. they saved, and now Megan is extremely sick with no hope of getting better. she is going to die. and the player is going to be screwed. rather than just show them "GAME OVER", I think it would be more interesting if they were able to keep going and see how the story continues based on their actions. unless Megan was scripted to die anyways, they arent going to experience the game the same way. but they won't be screwed and HAVE to start over. it'll also hopefully drive up the emotional impact of such bad decisions.
the downside of course, is the uncertainty the player would feel any time a character in the game died. and people may be turned away from playing it at all.
it would also add a few hundred hours to the development cycle.
if I did this, I would also add a "new game +" feature that would render any character that died accidentally in the previous play throughs invincible in the next play through, so the player would have a better chance at seeing the full story.
it's something radically different, that I don't think has ever been done before, so I'm very worried about this idea and what the response from players may be. also, the work load scares me.
thoughts?
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