Adding a little spice, Mmmm... Options

[Knot]

Ok, there's been plenty of threads on what makes a game stand out to you. But, this isn't about those big things like characters or story or gameplay. This is all about the little things. We arn't talking lamb chops but those tasty seasonings, those touches that make you smile a bit inside, that tug at your heart strings and let you know that the developer really cares about his/her game.

For example (from The Way):
When given the chance to share a bed with Kloe in Chapter 4, you can choose "Share the bed (no touchies)". This has the obvious effect of sharing the bed and a bit of comedic dialogue ensues.
However, later in Chapter 5 a whole dialogue segment relates back to this little choice you made. It doesn't change the game it just has a small segment of different dialogue.
I really loved this, it personalised the game and really made it feel like my little choices mattered.

So, for me, I really love to see my actions or choices have an effect down the road no matter how small. I'm not talking world changing, but just extra dialogues or small cut scenes based on whether you entered a room or took a particular action earlier on or maybe even interacted with an object. It doesn't take that much effort, just a little forethought and a view of the big picture.

So what little touches make a game come alive for you? Things that developers can do to add that little extra bit magic. Things that don't take all that much work, but really make the game pop?




Ideas so far:
Small things:
-Choices and interactions that affect things down the road, even if they're just small bits of bonus dialogue.
-Party banter when interacting with objects, let's you learn little things about the characters and makes bumping into things fun!
-Thoughtful weapon names, shows a bit of forethought and can make purchasing or acquiring weapons more entertaining.
-Little goodies/easter eggs/secrets for thinking and behaving outside the box.
-Sprite animations in cut scenes.

Medium Sized Things:
-NPCs that arn't carbon copies of each other, instead having personalities and interests.
-NPCs that develop and progress just as the main party does.

This post has been edited by Knot: Feb 10 2012, 02:00 PM

[heisenman]

Something that I personally would love in a game and that takes very little effort to do is seeing a little dialogue between party members when interacting with objects.
Usually interacting with an object only gives you a description in a third person pov -> "It's a painting of a sunny landscape."
And I would like more of ->"A: Why are you looking at this painting so insistently?" "B: It reminds my of my home country before it got destroyed." "A: Oh, I didn't know you where from X country." "B: People always assume I'm from Y country because of how different I look ahah"
...and stuff like that, where you are given little random information that might be interesting but not totally relevant to warrant bigger screen time, and you also get to see party members talking to each other.
I like when there's interaction between party members that's not directly related to the main character.

This post has been edited by heisenman: Feb 8 2012, 10:38 PM

[Kaust]

Yeah I like games to be really interactive too, its just kinda nice to be rewarded for not trying to rush through the game as fast as possible.
I also like a little item personalisation. The name doesn't always have to be a pun or the description a one-liner (but I like these best ), but why even have a description like 'Broadsword- A basic broadsword'?

[Cleril]

Pretty much as the OP stated, I love when games really make my choices matter. Which is exactly why I do so in my own games.

The only downside development wise to this is that depending on how anal you are it can be disheartening to know 90% of people won't pick option A and therefore consequence A will never be known to much of anyone who played the game.

[Knot]

Ah, some great suggestions!

@heisenman: I can definitely agree with the party interaction/banter. I especially love it in dungeons where it can break up the battling a bit. It can add a bit of humour and is a great way to give your characters personality.

@Kaust: Yeh, it seems that in a lot of rpgs I just go to the shop and by the most expensive gear, I never bother to read the names because it's just not interesting. I always smile though in games where swords may come from a certain region or blacksmith who you then meet later. It's always nice to see a developer care about ever the names of their weapons.

@Cleril: I just think about those 10% who do experience it and how special they'll feel knowing that their choice actually changed something =P.

I'll add all this to the original post so that everything is nice and tidy, in case anyone wants to incorporate these ideas. Keep 'em coming!

[heisenman]

The only downside development wise to this is that depending on how anal you are it can be disheartening to know 90% of people won't pick option A and therefore consequence A will never be known to much of anyone who played the game.

I agree though this topic is more about small things that enanche the experience but will not really make or break the game on their own, so even if someone misses them it's not a big deal.

Ok another quick idea along the lines of "choices have consequences".
Have some NPCs whose future you can influence.
Like having a young boy that's unsure of what job he should specialize in, and you could influence him so that when you came back to his town/city he either has opened an armour shop where you have small discounts, or a magic shop with rare spells for sale, or he has joined a mercenary group so he could be recruitable for some side missions etc...
Also, there could be bad consequences too, like he has turned into a fugitive criminal and you have to track him down and eventually fighht him as a boss. The latter sounds more like a sidequest though.

[bulmabriefs144]

Ideas so far:

1. Choices and interactions that affect things down the road, even if they're just small bits of bonus dialogue
2. Party banter when interacting with objects, let's you learn little things about the characters and makes bumping into things fun!
3. Thoughtful weapon names, shows a bit of forethought and can make purchasing or acquiring weapons more entertaining.

1. Let's see, I've done dating type scenarios, which sorta counts for the first.
2. Mainly the hero reacts to stuff, but occasionally you have some novel and the characters are like "that's my favorite book as a kid." Or have one of them a foreign languages expert, but only the half-elf character can read Elvish.
3. Somewhat. More humor than cleverness though, especially in the description text. I have references to songs, word puns, and stuff like that.

I'd add another one based on a game I think has a great deal of this sort of thing (Atelier Iris):

4. Item gathering/creation, especially if accompanied by scenes from characters or shopkeepers.

(The game example above had actual shopkeepers playing out their side stories in addition to cute little conversations)

Have some NPCs whose future you can influence.

And they did that too...

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Feb 9 2012, 06:21 PM

[Cleril]

Another suggestion:

Reward unexpected player behavior. For example, in my game Words the player can accept work from X. This work involves testing Y. If the player talks about work with the NPC again they get a bit of humorous dialogue about how the job can't be done until either Y does what it's supposed to do or it explodes and kills everyone (The NPC says something along the lines of finding out if it works or not based if the party gets back in one piece).

Also see: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main...nksOfEverything

[Jens of Zanicuud]

2. Party banter when interacting with objects, let's you learn little things about the characters and makes bumping into things fun!

I completely agree with this, but in some case, making a cutscene in which party members appear or place themselves near the hero (it depends on whether your using a caterpillar script or not) can be pretty annoying.

Honestly, I think that a party-shift-command would work as well.
(e.g.. Message you read and pictures you see depends on who first party member is).

One of the master games as regards "your actions influence NPC fate" is definitely Final Fantasy X-2.
While it had too many discordant notes, it was highly player-choices-influenced:
for example, you were able to determine the fate of a whole people (Guados) by fighting or not Garik Ronso in chapter 3 (or 2, I can't remember at the moment); in addiction, the difficulty of that battle was determined by how you answered Ronsos' questions, while finding them on the way to the cliff where Garik was waiting.

Well, little things like this add a consistent replay value to the whole game, in my opinion.

If I can add another point... I feel that every NPC should be different from the others.
I mean less clones, less civilians equal to each other in every towns you explore.
In my opinion, every NPC should have a name, a surname and a different graphic (except for the soldiers, guards, robots and generic fighters).
I know this is not simple and can be both bothering and annoying to do, but it would add more variety and deepness to the game.
Players would be spurred to talk with every NPC in sight and not to avoid them as almost always (I'm such bored to talk to NPCs whose best statement is "Hey! It's raining! I have to return home!")

Jens

This post has been edited by Jens of Zanicuud: Feb 10 2012, 02:17 AM

[Cleril]

Players would be spurred to talk with every NPC in sight and not to avoid them as almost always (I'm such bored to talk to NPCs whose best statement is "Hey! It's raining! I have to return home!")

Jens

Which is exactly why you should never have NPCs that say that stuff. It's worthless, adds nothing to the game, and just shows a piss poor job of writing. Every NPC must count especially if you're going for any focus on a plot. Every single word in your game should be absolutely necessary, otherwise it shouldn't be there.

Pretty much the first rule of video game writing really.

This post has been edited by Cleril: Feb 10 2012, 07:15 AM

[Milton Monday]

Ys 2 provides some excellent examples of how silly, pointless little additions can make a game a lot more fun.

1) In Ys 2, magic is a lot of fun to use. You can fireball helpless NPCs and observe their terrified reactions (it doesn't actually hurt them, but they freak out), and transform into a monster to further terrify innocent civilians, or talk to monsters and hear their horror stories about the red-haired butcher who's killed all their friends.

2) If you don't feel like being a bastard, you can give presents to NPCs instead of trying to burn them. This is mostly just for fun, but some of them will give you things in return if you make them happy enough. Woe be upon you if you try to re-gift Zalem's home-baked cruberry pie, though...

3) Roos will speak to you in runes unless you're in monster form. However, apparently somebody at Falcom is a huge fan of the Ultima series, because they use the exact same fake runic alphabet. Their "gibberish" is directly translatable to English, even in the Japanese versions, and is often hilarious (One of them is trying to hit Adol up for a loan)

4) You can explode the pumpkins lying around the Lava Colony by fireballing them. This serves no purpose whatsoever, but is incredibly amusing.

These are the sorts of things I love to see in games, stupid little things that don't really add anything to gameplay, but are just fun little easter eggs. I'm currently attempting to work the "using magic to torment NPCs for funsies" into my own project.

[bulmabriefs144]

Players would be spurred to talk with every NPC in sight and not to avoid them as almost always (I'm such bored to talk to NPCs whose best statement is "Hey! It's raining! I have to return home!")

Jens

Which is exactly why you should never have NPCs that say that stuff. It's worthless, adds nothing to the game, and just shows a piss poor job of writing. Every NPC must count especially if you're going for any focus on a plot. Every single word in your game should be absolutely necessary, otherwise it shouldn't be there.

Pretty much the first rule of video game writing really.

Bah, rules are meant to be broken. Compare the approach to NPCs for a game like Breath of Fire or something (where everyone's concerned about the ruling kingdom or the Big Bad invading... to Earthbound, where some are, but others are either concerned with their own agenda, or downright goofy.




VERSUS




But "hey, it's raining! I have to go home" is bad for a different reason. It's contrived dialogue. Yes, some NPCs should definitely say important things, but this is the meat. The spice is when you add funny or unique character lines to make things interesting.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Feb 10 2012, 09:08 AM

[Knot]

@heisenman:
NPCs that have lives and develop as the player does, ey? I do love recurring NPCs, not the O’aka from FFX kind, I mean he was great to restock your supplies but he was basically just following you around. Although, there were other NPCs who you met multiple times along your journey which really made it feel like the world was moving with you. Even in a simple town, having an NPC who’s outside, but maybe reappears inside the armoury or the dinner adds a nice dimension to town, making it feel like it’s moving instead of having a new npc for every little occurrence. Having those same NPCs appear later at a story event (such as a murder scene or riot) is a bonus.
Being able to influence the direction of NPCs kind of mixes this idea with the “little choices”, so it’s kind of the best of both worlds.

@Milton Monday:
Mmm...easter eggs, they’re kind of the perfect example of things that make a game pop. I mean, if a game isn’t any good to begin with I don’t care or want to get involved with the easter eggs. If a game is already fun, however, then the easter eggs can really push it that little further.

@Jens and bulmabriefs:
Oh, NPCs, the bane of so many rpgs. I can definitely agree that NPCs should each have a bit of personality, even the simple act of worrying about their own little problems can really go a long ways is teaching players about the town and culture. This, to me, is much better than how NPCs usually just spurt out random pieces of information or facts like tour guides.

@Ceril:
By NPCs that influence the plot do you also include NPCs that help flesh out the setting or the world? What about NPCs that kind of stroke the player’s ego by commenting on their past victories or NPCs added in for a bit of humour like the example bulmabriefs gave? These obviously don’t fit in a novel because they’re just clutter, but I kind of like them in games since you are so much more involved in the world.

Edited the main post and put NPCs in a “medium size” category because they may take a little work. If I didn’t capture exactly what meant, feel free to tell me! Same thing if I forgot to put something up.

This post has been edited by Knot: Feb 10 2012, 01:34 PM

[Cleril]

@Ceril:
By NPCs that influence the plot do you also include NPCs that help flesh out the setting or the world? What about NPCs that kind of stroke the player’s ego by commenting on their past victories or NPCs added in for a bit of humour like the example bulmabriefs gave? These obviously don’t fit in a novel because they’re just clutter, but I kind of like them in games since you are so much more involved in the world.

I do not, those serve a purpose. An NPC stating that they must go home because it's raining with no backing (as in it's not theming anything related to te game) or anything 100% useless to the player is wasted time for the player. And if you have NPCs that do any of what you say then you should make them optional for the player to listen to always. Not every player wants to know X piece of lore. Some just want action or just to understand the main story, not the allegorical stuff like lore.

[kayden997]

By "lore," do you mean background history?
Didn't Dragon Age have a bunch of Codex that talked about everything?

Also, A little spice to make your game stand out more would have to be character animations during cutscenes. (like a person gets hit, falls down, your character kneels down beside him).
Tho it requires a lot of work, but still a nice touch.

[Knot]

@Cleril:
Yeh, they would deffinitly have to be optional, there's nothing worse than padding in the main story. Everytime I get sent on a quest or go through a dungeon just because the developer (deffinitly happens in commerial games) decided that they needed more gameplay I start to develop an angry twitch.

@Kayden:
Yes! I keep reminding myself to do this everytime I see it in a game, but I forget. Heck, even something like a wink goes a long ways and is a cinch to pull off (just paint over the eyes with some skin colour). It can also be a lot easier than customizing entire face sets for different states and emotions.

[heisenman]

One thing I saw recently in a game (Star Stealing Prince) is references to other games.
In a library there were books that referenced Memento Vivere, Twice Upon A Hero, Master of the Wind, Freebird Games studio and other things I probably didn't recognize.
Thought that was a nice touch because I played those games.

[Kaust]

That's called intertextuality, I use it a lot for filler npcs, just favourite music/books/film quotes and stuffs.
Double points when their relevant to the place or the story.

[Jens of Zanicuud]

Players would be spurred to talk with every NPC in sight and not to avoid them as almost always (I'm such bored to talk to NPCs whose best statement is "Hey! It's raining! I have to return home!")

Jens

Which is exactly why you should never have NPCs that say that stuff. It's worthless, adds nothing to the game, and just shows a piss poor job of writing. Every NPC must count especially if you're going for any focus on a plot. Every single word in your game should be absolutely necessary, otherwise it shouldn't be there.

Pretty much the first rule of video game writing really.

In fact I have never wrote something like this in one of my games (it's rather obscene!) but I came into some RPGs made by friends in which there were lots of those meaningless phrases (though the one I quoted served only as an example). Actually, I think employing NPCs to provide details on your main character coudl be a good tactic.

I'll provide an example:
Let's say you take control of a character whose name and appearance are the only things you know about him.
Let's say this char is quite famous in his/her world and almost everyone knows him better than the human player sat on a chair and playing the game by means of a keyboard.
Let's say those NPCs, talking with your char, reveals trivial details on his/her past, role, deeds, etc, etc, etc...
This way, you can rebuild your actor's past & personality by means of these dialogues, without a major narrator/narration, spurring the player to catch the highest amount possible of pieces of information...

Jens

This post has been edited by Jens of Zanicuud: Feb 11 2012, 02:40 AM

[Knot]

@heisenman
That's really cool, referencing the very community it spawned from, it could also get players playing those other games when they find out where the quotes came from. I like this a lot, I should get around to playing Star Stealing Prince.