Design Problem
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2003 2:17 pm
So I've got this scene where the player sneaks back into his apartment. I think I've mentioned this before. Anyway, inside the apartment are two essential items and several items that aren't necessary to beat the game, but useful in one form or another. The scene is supposed to end with the people the player snuck past showing up and trying to kill him and afterwards the apartment will probably be cut-off for the rest of the game.
At first, I was just going to have the bad guys arrive according to a timer. This is the obvious solution, but carries the similarly obvious risk of having the player get locked in an unwinnable state.
So, the alternative is to have the bad guys arbitrarily arrive after the playerhas snagged the necessary items (either immediately after, or based on a triggered timer). But, I feel that this kind of penalizes the player for efficiently doing what he's supposed to do. Someone who wanders around, lost and searching everything just because it's there is going to be more likely to stumble upon the optionals than someone who figures out why he's in the apartment and acts according to his obvious motivation. I'd much rather encourage the latter behavior.
Also, it'd be about a thousand times easier for me from a design perspective to have the player be in one specific room at the time the event occurs. There are theoretically three other rooms available to him and, while it's unlikely that the player will be in two of those rooms, the possibility still exists. If I have the event triggered immediately by the grabbing of the neccessary items, this reduces the player's possible locations to two, one of which is the room I want the player in.
I can kind of think of a way for the player to get one of the two necessary items even after the apartment is closed off, but not, realistically, the other. The completely inaccessible item is in a room I don't want the player to be in for the event trigger.
I don't know if I've been too vague for you, but I'd appreciate any suggestions.
At first, I was just going to have the bad guys arrive according to a timer. This is the obvious solution, but carries the similarly obvious risk of having the player get locked in an unwinnable state.
So, the alternative is to have the bad guys arbitrarily arrive after the playerhas snagged the necessary items (either immediately after, or based on a triggered timer). But, I feel that this kind of penalizes the player for efficiently doing what he's supposed to do. Someone who wanders around, lost and searching everything just because it's there is going to be more likely to stumble upon the optionals than someone who figures out why he's in the apartment and acts according to his obvious motivation. I'd much rather encourage the latter behavior.
Also, it'd be about a thousand times easier for me from a design perspective to have the player be in one specific room at the time the event occurs. There are theoretically three other rooms available to him and, while it's unlikely that the player will be in two of those rooms, the possibility still exists. If I have the event triggered immediately by the grabbing of the neccessary items, this reduces the player's possible locations to two, one of which is the room I want the player in.
I can kind of think of a way for the player to get one of the two necessary items even after the apartment is closed off, but not, realistically, the other. The completely inaccessible item is in a room I don't want the player to be in for the event trigger.
I don't know if I've been too vague for you, but I'd appreciate any suggestions.