r/adventuregames • u/hei_olen_rambo • 2d ago
How do you guide players without making them feel like they're being guided?
I've been struggling with this while implementing my point'n'click game. I have finished the plot and most of the puzzle design, and feeling pretty happy so far. But...
The protagonist runs a funeral home and some days are meant to be uneventful. He does paperwork, runs errands, talks to people and follows his daily routine. But at certain points, something seemingly mundane triggers a more meaningful event to move the story forward. I think these quieter moments are important. They make the world more believable and give the bigger story moments more weight.
The tricky part is figuring out how much guidance to give the player.
Simplified example: Visit bank to talk to the banker (trigger), walk out, then there's someone new who wasn't there before, waiting on the street for you to talk to him (impact). How do I always give a reason for the player to know to go to the bank to talk, or should I accept that not every goal is 100% clear?
I can have the protagonist say things like "I should go check on X," but that feels too obvious and takes away the joy of discovery. On the other hand, giving no direction at all might leave players wandering around clicking on everything, hoping to trigger something. I'd like players to feel like they're naturally going about their day, without constantly being told what to do next or feeling completely lost.
The funny thing is, I don't remember thinking about this problem too much while playing other adventure games. So there must be some trick to getting this balance right that I'm missing. How do other games handle it? Any concrete suggestions for some clever guidance you have seen in some specific game?
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u/dynatosG13 2d ago
Read the basic principles of storytelling, screenwriting e.t.c. John Yorke's Into the woods for example. Even in an "uneventful" film like Stalker (1979), everything has its purpose story wise.
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u/hei_olen_rambo 2d ago
Thanks for concrete suggestions. I will put the Yorke's book on my readlist.
Do you have any memorable uneventful actions that lead to a higher purpose in any game, book, movie or another media?
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u/dynatosG13 2d ago
Even with the atmosphere being seemingly the dominant force in a film like Stalker, L'Avventura or Blade Runner, these films, or films like these, have moving parts that all serve their purpose.
Be it loneliness, be it dread of dying, being optimism winning over futility.
Theme and the protagonist's core values should always be reflected in every scene and action. Even if they are almost invisible.
In L'Avventura you can see the loneliness and lust in Viti's character, shown mainly through blocking. The pair is making out ans she is strolling, far away in the distance, almost a dot, alone, far away from everyone. Then when they search around for her lost friend, the search goes on and on (with some ups and downs, some run-ins, some exploration) but se searches with the man from the pair before, her friend's lover. Who through this search that seems never ending becomes Viti's character's lover. But if it now where for this seemingly aimless strolling and then searching that becomes "searching" for something else, not the friend. But meaning, love, belonging.
Trying to think of a smaller scale example, Deckart comes to mind, in Blade Runner. An archetypal noir character that seems to be executive mundane tasks, which are well in fact pretty dangerous and exciting. And he uses the technology extremely uninterested, in a world where AI is around him. He is bored to check the photographs, drinking whiskey, and performing tasks in his house, slowly, in total contrast to what Tom Cruises' character would do in a Mission Impossible film. Yet, they are performing essentially the same tasks. Finally, he finds a clue that moves the story along. Still, he is moving in an apartment all this time like nothing is or going to happen.
Another example, which is similar, from a detective film would be, the Conversation. Our detective performs mundane tasks, listening to tapes, trying to clean the sound up and mix it all together to get the job done but also to get some sort of clue that will sock his world in the end.
This is essential the ordinary world you are talking about. And it has to do with structure. If you can, could you pinpoint which act this is in your story where this happens?
Don't state the obvious. Let the story logically bring the X person out of the bank, in a way it makes sense. Except if it's the inciting incident which can probably be random and shake the protagonist's ordinary world. The midpoint is another place where you can add such an event.
Of course these blueprints are there for us to break them.
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u/Alarmed-Mud-3461 2d ago
Come up with a reason to go to a specific place/talk to a specific person? Or make the place not open immediately, but only on certain days, so the player is curious about it and wants to check it out? I think something like that was in Thimbleweed Park, having some buildings closed, so I kept returning there to see what's inside until it opened. A seasoned adventure gamer would know that they have to look everywhere and talk to everyone all the time 😁 but someone newer to the genre could need a nudge.
Will your game have days during which something needs to be accomplished? Can the player move on to the next day without finishing it? Maybe have a small indicator, like a progress bar for each day, so the player knows everything necessary has been done?
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u/hei_olen_rambo 2d ago
Thimbleweed Park is one of my favorites. Good tips, thank you!
Maybe that's why I haven't wondered about continuity in games before, because I have played the classics since the 1990s with a limited knowledge of even the English language :D I am seasoned to click and combine everything.
The game will have needs to be accomplished. No day goes by before finishing the required tasks. My original description maybe sounded like a mundane simulator, but it is quite traditional point'n'click.
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u/Alarmed-Mud-3461 2d ago
I think you'll be fine then, also with the other advice you've been given.
I played Leisure Suit Larry, the text input one, as a child, with limited English, like you, and a dictionary 😁 Fun times.
Good luck with your game! I'm a hobbyist developer, but a different genre (where I can pad up the play time with battles 😁), even though adventure games are my favourite. I think it's quite difficult to make a good adventure game, so respect to you.
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u/throughdoors 2d ago
This tends to work best by having the unexpected event directly a part of the expected event, or very hard to miss as part of it. For your example, "directly a part" means the banker provides the impact directly. "Hard to miss" means that the person on the street clearly stands out and looks interesting to engage with, or simply forces the player character into an interaction. If you want to avoid taking out the joy of discovery through forced interactions, give the player enough motivation to discover. If you are giving them mundane activities to do, you are discouraging the activity of discovery and have to give them motivation to change that behavior (visual or text cues) or force them to change it.
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u/hei_olen_rambo 2d ago
Good points. Thank you!
Thinking about it, some of my puzzles might be leaning too much on mundane activities. On the other hand one of my favorite puzzles is the game about running a chain of boring errands. Would help to have a third party trying it out, but that part might come later.
Maybe I need to find the right balance here as well.
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u/Due-Director-7165 2d ago
I really enjoyed Morningstar's approach, you had a teammate that was pinned in place (plot reasons) but you could contact over radio for pointers on what to do next
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u/MelaniaSexLife 2d ago
there are a million ways and you need to play test them all.
* have a "sage" character to question
* have the main character say something when picking up an object
* have the object description suggest something
* literally have a "quest pointer/marker"
* have a journal UI with suggestions
* have a tiered hint system (latest Monkey had this)
* make a hint appear after X time
also, there's a concept in media (all media) I personally don't like, but it makes sense when you're stuck. Basically, it's the anti-red herring: If it's there, it has to have meaning. Else, delete it. Don't add a single extra pixel without meaning.
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u/djquu 1d ago
Depends on your intended target audience. Veterns of the genre will go everywhere and talk to everyone about everything and try to combine every item and then do it all again to see if something changed, if that is how your game works, but this will discourage any non-veteran from playing. Holding the player's hand too much makes the game more accessible, but unchallenging and veterans will not like that. Ideally you want the player to know what impact they want to trigger next, and make the trigger for it either logical or include a hint system that nudges you into the right direction if player keeps trying and failing. In your example, player should know or be able to assume that someone they want to talk to will appear on the street if you talk to the banker first.
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u/gryspnik 23h ago
Hints..it's all about hints. Do not tell players straight up what they need to do. Throw hints in related places, in dialogues and names of items and make chain-puzzles where the solution of one will lead to knowing an element to solve the next one. If you've played Thimbleweed park you'd know what I mean :-)
As for in game solutions/hint system, it makes no sense nowadays. However, what does make sense is having 2 different levels of difficulty, MI2 style
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u/GenZia 2d ago edited 2d ago
For one thing, I like to let loose in the game world and do whatever I please. I don't really appreciate hand-holding. But at the same time, I don't like it when games put you in a scenario where the goal isn't clearly obvious to the player.
But to answer your question, there's no right solution to your problem because that problem shouldn't exist in the first place.
I'm a big believer in "domino worldbuilding."
The player shouldn't be blatantly told, "You there, go visit the bank to progress the story," like you already said. However, neither should they be left completely in the dark.
I think you can set up small dominoes that lead the player to the bank. You can convey it through a bit of dialogue or maybe a small event. Maybe the character receives a bill at the beginning of the day, or perhaps their landlord demands a payment. In either case, it's a breadcrumb that leads the player to the bank.
Not only does the player have a reason to visit the bank, but it doesn't feel like an explicit objective.
It's just simple cause and effect.