HOW TO ENCOURAGE THE PLAYER TO EXPLORE?

author=Sailerius
The most important thing to encourage exploration is to not have there be enemies where you want players to explore. Exploration should be stress-free and enjoyable, whereas conflict is inherently stressful, so it punishes you for going where it is.

Incidentally, this is why random encounters intrinsically discourage exploration.

This is a pretty binary view on it. And pretty simplistic.

When exploring, say, a cave, a player has to weigh the risk of missing something vs the risk of dying. Without the risk of dying, they only then fear missing something, which means that they will tediously explore every nook and cranny with no real tension (just potential frustration). But I suppose that if your only goal is to get them to explore, then yeah, opt for the risk-free tedium.

When exploring, say, a cave, a player has to weigh the risk of missing something vs the risk of dying. Without the risk of dying, they only then fear missing something, which means that they will tediously explore every nook and cranny with no real tension (just potential frustration). But I suppose that if your only goal is to get them to explore, then yeah, opt for the risk-free tedium.

If you have lots of pointless nooks and crannies that would be tedious to explore, then your first manner of business should be removing them.

author=Sailerius

When exploring, say, a cave, a player has to weigh the risk of missing something vs the risk of dying. Without the risk of dying, they only then fear missing something, which means that they will tediously explore every nook and cranny with no real tension (just potential frustration). But I suppose that if your only goal is to get them to explore, then yeah, opt for the risk-free tedium.

If you have lots of pointless nooks and crannies that would be tedious to explore, then your first manner of business should be removing them.

Then you are just treating the symptom of your underlying choice of tedium. "Make it less tedious" is something worth pursuing, mind (ie- you've reduced the risk of dying to 0, thus reducing reducing the resultant tedium becomes your focus, to the point where you just give players reward for no effort). But then, suddenly, exploration is no longer part of the game. Just do a better job of balancing risk/reward in the first place instead of just dropping risk to 0 across the board. If the rewards are good enough and evident enough, people will explore to get them.

I found Myst tedious, but that's beside the point.

The dichotomy is between tension and tedium, and I posit that tension is strongly correlated with risk.

Put small and big treasure all over the map, even in towns, so just straying a little off the main path can get you find goodies. Also fun is to put obstacles in front of some of them the player can't pass until he gets a new item/skill/vehicle later on. Shrink High is a great game to see how it's done (though you might want to change the spread as that game only takes part in two major areas, Yabaize High and Mt. Ura)

Guys, when you say either "exploration should have no conflict" or "exploration should have definitely conflict" you simplify it all down to such a meaningless binary qualifier that limits what exploration is and what kind of games you can have in general. Imagine if all exploration in games was full of conflict. Wouldn't people yearn for the peaceful exploration that requires no conflict? But then imagine if all exploration was devoid of all peril. Sometimes you'd want to explore and simultaneously experience the danger of dying or being hurt, which produces adrenaline.

That is why there's variance in games, that's why games are different and provide different experiences. People may hate games like Fez or Dear Esther or even Myst but honestly these games should exist, and there are benefits to such games. They're a certain niche of games. I believe there's room for both types of exploration, but you should pick the type of exploration that fits your game's theme best, and experiment with that.

But honestly what I was thinking when I read your post El Waka, and I haven't played your game, but I was wondering if the problem wasnt that you required exploration in your game, but how intuitive things would be perceived to you as the developer, as opposed to the player.

If the player missed these walls, is it totally their fault, or is your walkable wall actually hard to spot? Is there something that makes it graphically different from the rest of the walls? If not, ask if this is optional or not, or if you're creating a compulsory condition in your game that is easy to miss? If so, is this even a good test of someone's abilities? Partially what makes exploration rewarding is that a person can be tested for how attentive they are to their surroundings. If there is no failure and the ability to continue on whilst having failed, then there exists a risk of stagnation and thus frustration, and this in my opinion is bad game design. Then again, it might just be that the player is inattentive or not using their head you need to draw that line.

In the end, it may be a case of trial and error and trusting your own feelings about it. If the exploration induces the sense of awe and wonder you want it to make the player feel, then chase after that feeling. Games are all about creating feelings, but you just want to create the right ones using exploration, and sometimes trial and error and personal judgment is the only way. This is because exploration is very contextual, and what may work in one game will not work in another. Similarly, what may work for one person may not work for another. Personally, I love games like Dear Esther and Fez where the exploration is devoid of conflict, but I can also see why exploration with conflict is an important thing too. I think it's important to have that balance, and I think too many people are closed minded when it comes to games. They only want what they think they need, and thus limit themselves to a very small niche of likes. Sometimes it's good to get rid of all of our prejudices and realize that maybe gaming is more subjective to emotions than we thought, and that our opinions aren't the only ones that matter. That a game can be beneficial even if we don't personally like it. Some games are like vegetables: they're good for us even if we don't necessarily like them at the time, but they benefit our psyche nonetheless.

author=LockeZ
I don't ever yearn

The key words. This is subjective.

author=LockeZ
and anyone who does should find a different medium.

Sorry, but I'm staying.

Mediums are so overrated. It's like genres. Blend the mediums. Just because you want a game to be fun, others might want it to be a trippy experience that messes with their mind, others might yearn for frustration. To limit an art form to just your expectations of what it might be... well, limits the art. Not every game has to be Final Fantasy. People don't experiment because they qualify things under game and movie and play and music and say "don't blend the two". Music games? No, keep within your own medium. Interactive games that work doubly as cinematic experiences and interactive experiences? Nope, don't go there, don't even try. All games have to have a mandatory level of gameplay to be considered games, anything else is obsolete.

Not all games wish to be fun experiences for the public, some desire to be expressions of art to be admired rather than loved.

Note that this is coming from a person who desires there to be way more depth of core gameplay and innovation in many RPG Maker games on this site. I'm not saying that the game should always be an artsy parade of bull, and I respect people's opinion who says Dear Esther and others are bad games, but to say they aren't really games at all irks me to no end. Who cares if they are and are not games? If it's not a game, then just judge it for what it is. If you find it not that engaging, then just say it's not engaging. That's a legitimate complaint. But it's not a legitimate complaint to say you hate it because it's not a game, because that's limiting all sorts of potential. The observation of the conventions of a medium is important, but to judge the value of a piece of art firstly by its willingness to adhere to the conventions of a medium is small-minded.