WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? (GAME DEVELOPMENT EDITION)

author=StormCrow
Is it okay to restrict Save Points to increase tension (a la the Ink Ribbons & Typewriters in Resident Evil, the Dark Souls' franchise's extremely frugal placement of checkpoints) or is "save anywhere, anytime" an absolute maxim of good game design? Is it okay to expect players to get through a medium-long section of gameplay (towards the end of the game if it matters), starting over at the beginning of that section if they get game over?

There's nothing inherently wrong with restricting how frequently the player can save, but you need to be very careful how you go about it. It's very easy to make it needlessly frustrating rather than difficult.

This might be a controversial opinion, but one big problem I have with Dark Souls, despite having played through it several times, is that I think the game would benefit from having save points before bosses. I know it's supposed to add to the tension, and they say that getting back to the boss is part of the challenge, but I never really felt that way. Let's be honest, how many people actually fight all the enemies leading up to the boss every time they die? I can't speak for everyone, but I always run past all the enemies once I've been through the area so I can get back to the part I actually want to do. Everything else just feels like an extended loading screen.

In the case of Dark Souls in particular, I feel like not having bonfires before bosses just makes the game more tedious rather than challenging. I wouldn't even mind if they made the bosses significantly harder, as long as I had the chance to immediately try them again. I'm not an incredibly patient person, but no matter how ridiculous a challenge is, I'll always have far more patience for it if I have the chance to immediately try it again. I still love Dark Souls, mind you! But personally (and maybe this is just me), I've always preferred harder, more condensed challenges as opposed to longer yet easier ones.

Considering the nature of Dark Souls, I think you need some kind of length to make mistakes meaningful. Like why not start at the middle of the boss's HP if you die there? Why not just bring you back to life where you died? The amount of mistakes you can potentially run into heighten the difficulty in a way and that really defines the game. It's a staple of a lot of good NES games actually. The satisfaction of knowing the level, getting through a hard section without getting hit and being rewarded with an optimal chance at the boss. And if you do make mistakes along the way and are disadvantaged, and STILL kill the boss, the glory becomes even more immense. Your character didn't level up, you leveled up etc. But I think the level is just as important as the boss, there's a sort of bottleneck that the boss ends up creating because the parts before it are there. If it's just the boss then it's just kind of a different area or level with one enemy in it. There's a dynamic to the classic level>boss setup that I think is crucial.

But idk it really depends on the game you're making. Is your game about optimizing mistakes or is it testing some other skill like management or story progression. In the original Resident Evil (or REmake) they are really affected by the layout of the mansion, the inventory space you have, and whether or not you did a good "run". Problem I have with RE as it good as it is, is that the elements arent as hard hitting as they could be.

also an additional note: Dark Souls does technically save anywhere, you can pretty much exit the game whenever you want and your character will still be in that spot with inventory/souls for the most part. There's a difference between saving to store progress and check points to accommodate death/souls lost.

some tips by ozzy i wanted to save
now to figure out how to actually achieve this

author=StormCrow
Is it okay to restrict Save Points to increase tension (a la the Ink Ribbons & Typewriters in Resident Evil, the Dark Souls' franchise's extremely frugal placement of checkpoints) or is "save anywhere, anytime" an absolute maxim of good game design? Is it okay to expect players to get through a medium-long section of gameplay (towards the end of the game if it matters), starting over at the beginning of that section if they get game over?

There are no rules at all, besides one. You should not make it easy to get "stuck". Here are some examples. You have a dungeon that you enter for a sort of point of no return, and you can't escape until it's done. In a situation like this, running out of either items or low on hp and then saving basically means you die again and again. The other thing is making it so hard to save that it's not even once per hour, but like Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter (a game I decided immediately not to buy after hearing about the gameplay), where the game feels out to get you.

The most evil game I ever played was a sequel to Link to the Past, Ancient Stone Tablets. It's a TIMED game, and there are no save points. You have to basically finish in an hour or import to the next section the save. I got stuck in a room.

Does anyone know where I can find good baby alligator character sets for RM2K3? I'd hate having to make my own, as I'm particularly inept at pixel art.

Gretgor, that is perhaps the weirdest request I have ever seen on this website.

Thank you, tale, this looks nice :) However, I need something that looks more baby-like. I elected to make the sprites myself, and I'm getting some help from a friend of mine that's better at this stuff than I am.

Also @LockeZ, believe me, it makes sense for the world I'm building. Hopefully the game will turn out good enough to warrant a quick playthrough in the future :D

That sure is Goku.

Why is Ace's slowest speed for scrolling text so damn fast?

I'm currently double-checking some "mission complete" and "advance plot" switches to make sure that I remembered to add all changes to the world that are supposed to take place once those switches are activated. I'm always paranoid of scenarios in which I forget to change a certain event or NPC's appearance or behavior based on a mission or plot event, and then the world becomes a confusing mess where NPCs keep yelling at you to do something you've already done because I forgot to add a single page to a single event (or ended up adding a page with the wrong switch).

This is literally the most freaking basic thing in RPG Maker ever, but it's the thing I'm the most paranoid about. There's always the chance I do something wrong and the player ends up softlocked for good, or a situation in which an NPC comments about how awesome their best friend is even though they're supposed to have died in a plot event. That's all coming from a guy whose project involves a ton of RM2K3 CMSes made from scratch (most of which I still didn't show because I think they're rather ugly).

More people should comment on reviews. I know they are the givers of feedback, but reviewers want to get feedback too.