Full Games List
Featured Games
New Games
Reviews
Images
Blogs
Game Updates
Images Feedback Summary
Game Design Highlights
Tutorials
Articles
Scripts
Utilities / Plugins
Resources
Engines
Engine Bulletins
What is Makerscore?
Past Events
Achievements
Forums
Post History
Chat
New to RMN?
Full Store List
RMN Music Pack (free)
Add Review
Subscribe
Nominate
Submit Media
RSS
Feeding the Player Dark Secrets
unity- 01/26/2016 02:58 PM
- 5596 views
Hello everyone! ^_^ Production has been going on pretty steadily since the last update. I'd like to thank Maki for finishing all of the character art (and it looks totally awesome, btw!), Pizza for the amazing tilesets he's created for the project, Geoff Moore for his wonderful music he's composing for the game, and Sooz for her general support, inspiration, and for listening to me babble about the game on end.
After trying to tackle creating all the battle animations from scratch, I've gotten some help on that end as well, and I am so happy to welcome JosephSeraph to the team! He's making some amazing animations for the psychic powers, and I can't wait to show them off!
Being able to work with so many people I respect from the RPG Maker community is amazing, and I want to thank you all again for all of your hard work! ^________^
Today, I'd like to talk about the secrets of the plot (without giving away spoilerific specifics XD), and, specifically, how you go about delivering those tidbits of information to the player. In Weird and Unfortunate, while you're dealing with all the stuff on the surface, there's a darker backstory to how things got all messed up, and I've been pondering on how to give this information to the player, bit by bit.
These are supposed to be secrets, snippets of story that aren't vital to enjoying the game, but things that the player can seek out or stumble on to learn more about what's been happening to make this town go crazy.
After playing Undertale, I was a bit fascinated by W.D. Gaster, a character who is only barely hinted at anywhere in the game and who you can only learn more about by messing with the game files. He seems to be more of a dummied-out character than something you were every supposed to find out about, and yet, I found the idea of hard-to-find NPCs whispering secrets about a dark part of the game to be fascinating, but, of course, it's an idea I'd like to put in the actual game rather than have people have to go through data files to find it.
At first, I thought, "What if you had a random number generator that ran whenever you moved from map to map, and if it picked the right number, a document or NPC would appear that would give you some of this dark secret backstory? If I have multiple spots like this, it's likely that the player will find one or two of them and have some bits and pieces of the secret story!"
While the part of me that likes secrets found this to be a cool idea, the part of me designing gameplay did not. Leaving any element up to chance irks me a little from a gameplay perspective, even if it's something non-vital like this. The gameplay-loving side of me thinks it would be much more fun to leave, say, items that open doors scattered in hard-to-reach places and then put the secret story scraps behind those doors.
What do you all think? When it comes to secrets like this, how do you think it should be handled? Have other games tackled something like this in an interesting way? I'd love to hear any ideas or suggestions! ^_^
After trying to tackle creating all the battle animations from scratch, I've gotten some help on that end as well, and I am so happy to welcome JosephSeraph to the team! He's making some amazing animations for the psychic powers, and I can't wait to show them off!
Being able to work with so many people I respect from the RPG Maker community is amazing, and I want to thank you all again for all of your hard work! ^________^
Today, I'd like to talk about the secrets of the plot (without giving away spoilerific specifics XD), and, specifically, how you go about delivering those tidbits of information to the player. In Weird and Unfortunate, while you're dealing with all the stuff on the surface, there's a darker backstory to how things got all messed up, and I've been pondering on how to give this information to the player, bit by bit.
These are supposed to be secrets, snippets of story that aren't vital to enjoying the game, but things that the player can seek out or stumble on to learn more about what's been happening to make this town go crazy.
After playing Undertale, I was a bit fascinated by W.D. Gaster, a character who is only barely hinted at anywhere in the game and who you can only learn more about by messing with the game files. He seems to be more of a dummied-out character than something you were every supposed to find out about, and yet, I found the idea of hard-to-find NPCs whispering secrets about a dark part of the game to be fascinating, but, of course, it's an idea I'd like to put in the actual game rather than have people have to go through data files to find it.
At first, I thought, "What if you had a random number generator that ran whenever you moved from map to map, and if it picked the right number, a document or NPC would appear that would give you some of this dark secret backstory? If I have multiple spots like this, it's likely that the player will find one or two of them and have some bits and pieces of the secret story!"
While the part of me that likes secrets found this to be a cool idea, the part of me designing gameplay did not. Leaving any element up to chance irks me a little from a gameplay perspective, even if it's something non-vital like this. The gameplay-loving side of me thinks it would be much more fun to leave, say, items that open doors scattered in hard-to-reach places and then put the secret story scraps behind those doors.
What do you all think? When it comes to secrets like this, how do you think it should be handled? Have other games tackled something like this in an interesting way? I'd love to hear any ideas or suggestions! ^_^
Posts 
Pages:
1
View playlists
CloseWith the addition of Jo to the ranks, Unity has officially created the most OP RM team in history.
I am a huge fan of weird, hidden stuff in games, so the more the merrier. I've been super bummed as of late since I can't figure out how to hide QR Codes in the tilesets for my current project. Gotta get up on that secret train.
When it comes to the RNG aspect, I'm actually fine with that? At least for something weird that's supposed to happen by chance anyways. The player isn't necessarily missing anything if they don't see it- that being said, it will annoy people who are trying to find it deliberately (especially now that you've mentioned you want to include that stuff.)
Perhaps have it depend on controllable things, like the play time to get to a certain area, the number of times a given character has died, the number of a certain enemy killed- stuff that's out of the way and not immediately noticeable, but controllable by the player?
I am a huge fan of weird, hidden stuff in games, so the more the merrier. I've been super bummed as of late since I can't figure out how to hide QR Codes in the tilesets for my current project. Gotta get up on that secret train.
When it comes to the RNG aspect, I'm actually fine with that? At least for something weird that's supposed to happen by chance anyways. The player isn't necessarily missing anything if they don't see it- that being said, it will annoy people who are trying to find it deliberately (especially now that you've mentioned you want to include that stuff.)
Perhaps have it depend on controllable things, like the play time to get to a certain area, the number of times a given character has died, the number of a certain enemy killed- stuff that's out of the way and not immediately noticeable, but controllable by the player?
Do both.
Have some stuff in hard-to-find spots, but then do a lottery box for the appearance of the weird and unfortunate secrets. (Basically, as each wrong RNG result is pulled, it's not replaced, thus the chance of it appearing go up. You could easily do something like this by starting at 0.5% and adding 0.5% every time it's rolled, or whatever values you prefer.)
edit: pizza beat me by seconds wit ha better answer
Have some stuff in hard-to-find spots, but then do a lottery box for the appearance of the weird and unfortunate secrets. (Basically, as each wrong RNG result is pulled, it's not replaced, thus the chance of it appearing go up. You could easily do something like this by starting at 0.5% and adding 0.5% every time it's rolled, or whatever values you prefer.)
edit: pizza beat me by seconds wit ha better answer
I'm gonna place a story under the hide-tag, but, I've a funny feeling I've told it before.
Waaaaaaay back in the early 90's, my brothers and I picked up Might and Magic V - Darkside of Xeen. At this juncture, I've played, but never actually beat, the first two games in the series, and have never touched the third or fourth game. The game didn't really surprise me until I reached the volcanic area of Necropolis. There, I found a pair of spaceships. I wasn't really sure what I would find in them, but, I could only really explore one of them.
Dairgaaz, the backstory I found there! I mean, it was basically a huge text-dump, but, it was, like, the entire backstory of the series thus far from the perspective of the antagonist. I dunno, maybe it's because I was younger then, and because I actually played the other games to a degree, but, it just wowed me, and re-kinded my interest in playing the other games.
For full disclosure, this kind of moment is what I was aiming for with a certain sequence *cough*hacking into Project Saturn*cough* in Konae's Investigations, but, I don't think it actually worked. All the information that you get is just thrown into the Case Notes without any fanfare.
Waaaaaaay back in the early 90's, my brothers and I picked up Might and Magic V - Darkside of Xeen. At this juncture, I've played, but never actually beat, the first two games in the series, and have never touched the third or fourth game. The game didn't really surprise me until I reached the volcanic area of Necropolis. There, I found a pair of spaceships. I wasn't really sure what I would find in them, but, I could only really explore one of them.
Dairgaaz, the backstory I found there! I mean, it was basically a huge text-dump, but, it was, like, the entire backstory of the series thus far from the perspective of the antagonist. I dunno, maybe it's because I was younger then, and because I actually played the other games to a degree, but, it just wowed me, and re-kinded my interest in playing the other games.
For full disclosure, this kind of moment is what I was aiming for with a certain sequence *cough*hacking into Project Saturn*cough* in Konae's Investigations, but, I don't think it actually worked. All the information that you get is just thrown into the Case Notes without any fanfare.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
This lineup's looking great! I can't wait to see where this goes!
I don't know how to feel about leaving backstory up to chance. As long as it's not vital to the story at hand, I'd say it's fine. Personally, I would put more control in the hands of players by having the party come across remnants of events that happened in the past which triggers the appearance of this NPC either there or some other place. Said NPC would give a vague hint about where the next location is, and it'd be up to the player to figure out where to go and how to trigger the next event from with that info.
I don't know how to feel about leaving backstory up to chance. As long as it's not vital to the story at hand, I'd say it's fine. Personally, I would put more control in the hands of players by having the party come across remnants of events that happened in the past which triggers the appearance of this NPC either there or some other place. Said NPC would give a vague hint about where the next location is, and it'd be up to the player to figure out where to go and how to trigger the next event from with that info.
If you put the random spots in places you have to revisit, the chances are going to be higher that the player will notice it. "That wasn't there before...?" Craze's idea about making each chance higher works too.
Another way to tackle it might be to have a skill or piece of equipment that allows it to be seen, otherwise having it easier to miss/hidden. Maybe something that highlights what to check or beeps when you near an item of interest.
Another way to tackle it might be to have a skill or piece of equipment that allows it to be seen, otherwise having it easier to miss/hidden. Maybe something that highlights what to check or beeps when you near an item of interest.
MakioKuta
6556
Hmm, personally I like it when spooky strange games have things left to chance at being seen.
The fact that the recent Undertale update has made it so the door in Waterfall can be encountered by chance without editing the game files - Uboa in Yume Nikki (actually a lot of encounters in Yume Nikki) Though I can see where it could be annoying for a player specifically seeking it. (flicking that dang light switch over and over) But leaving it random just helps make it stranger and if the player doesn't know it's an RNG thing at work - it'll make them second guess themselves. (especially if others hadn't seen it) Anyway! That sort of suspicion can really add to the game's atmosphere.
What if the stranger, wilder, and more revealing aspects of it are controlled by RNG, but smaller aspects are not. However, the smaller aspects can lead the player towards something that will allow them to have control over affecting the random number? Essencially giving them full control over activating the stranger, wilder, and more revealing aspects - a reward for following the smaller list of clues?
The fact that the recent Undertale update has made it so the door in Waterfall can be encountered by chance without editing the game files - Uboa in Yume Nikki (actually a lot of encounters in Yume Nikki) Though I can see where it could be annoying for a player specifically seeking it. (flicking that dang light switch over and over) But leaving it random just helps make it stranger and if the player doesn't know it's an RNG thing at work - it'll make them second guess themselves. (especially if others hadn't seen it) Anyway! That sort of suspicion can really add to the game's atmosphere.
What if the stranger, wilder, and more revealing aspects of it are controlled by RNG, but smaller aspects are not. However, the smaller aspects can lead the player towards something that will allow them to have control over affecting the random number? Essencially giving them full control over activating the stranger, wilder, and more revealing aspects - a reward for following the smaller list of clues?
I would hint at some optional stuff through the course of the main game (villain mentions that he destroyed protagonist's hometown; players decides to return only to find that the sailor's son survived. The survivor tells the protagonist about the incident in detail. During his final moment, the protagonist is given an accessory from the survivor, which has always given him good draught on his fishing trips). That way, it will be up to curious players to look up said secrets and most likely be rewarded for doing so.
Side quests in general would probably be pretty good lore-givers. You could also add documents/reports/diaries etc. containing various lore.
Maybe you could add some sort of encyclopedia with info about monsters, npcs, items, historic events etc. Item descriptions themselves can add quite a lot of story if you're good at writing much at telling much with little. In the end, it's all the little things that count.
Side quests in general would probably be pretty good lore-givers. You could also add documents/reports/diaries etc. containing various lore.
Maybe you could add some sort of encyclopedia with info about monsters, npcs, items, historic events etc. Item descriptions themselves can add quite a lot of story if you're good at writing much at telling much with little. In the end, it's all the little things that count.
Have you played Fleuret Blanc by Merlandese? Finding things out in that game is super satisfying and I think part of the reason is because the player takes logical steps toward realizations - it's not random. I could see this working out well though if the revealing of the secrets is supernatural in nature. In that case your idea is pretty fun too just in a different way!
Thanks for all the terrific feedback, everyone! :DDDD I think I'll go with the suggestions of doing both the randomly generated secrets and, for the more story-important ones, the ones you can unlock by finding cards that open doors! ^_^
Oooh, I keep meaning to play that game but haven't. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks Gourdy! :D
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more this appeals to me. Not for all the secrets, but for some of them, as stuff like this is just super cool! Those elements in Yume Nikki give it a ton of charm and mystery, too! And wow, it's cool to hear that Undertale has put a chance of the waterfall door in the game proper!
I like these ideas! I think I may add a couple of them in! Thanks! ^_^
There's also the fact you mentioned, that I'm telling people ahead of time that there are secrets in the game. Having updates where I ask for help and have dialog with the community kind of de-mystifies some of the mystery, as people know to be on the lookout for that stuff, but I think it's acceptable, as the tradeoff is that I get great advice that I wouldn't have thought of on my own and it's great to get all the input :D
author=Gourd_Clae
Have you played Fleuret Blanc by Merlandese? Finding things out in that game is super satisfying and I think part of the reason is because the player takes logical steps toward realizations - it's not random. I could see this working out well though if the revealing of the secrets is supernatural in nature. In that case your idea is pretty fun too just in a different way!
Oooh, I keep meaning to play that game but haven't. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks Gourdy! :D
author=MakioKuta
Hmm, personally I like it when spooky strange games have things left to chance at being seen.
The fact that the recent Undertale update has made it so the door in Waterfall can be encountered by chance without editing the game files - Uboa in Yume Nikki (actually a lot of encounters in Yume Nikki) Though I can see where it could be annoying for a player specifically seeking it. (flicking that dang light switch over and over) But leaving it random just helps make it stranger and if the player doesn't know it's an RNG thing at work - it'll make them second guess themselves. (especially if others hadn't seen it) Anyway! That sort of suspicion can really add to the game's atmosphere.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more this appeals to me. Not for all the secrets, but for some of them, as stuff like this is just super cool! Those elements in Yume Nikki give it a ton of charm and mystery, too! And wow, it's cool to hear that Undertale has put a chance of the waterfall door in the game proper!
author=Pizza
I am a huge fan of weird, hidden stuff in games, so the more the merrier. I've been super bummed as of late since I can't figure out how to hide QR Codes in the tilesets for my current project. Gotta get up on that secret train.
When it comes to the RNG aspect, I'm actually fine with that? At least for something weird that's supposed to happen by chance anyways. The player isn't necessarily missing anything if they don't see it- that being said, it will annoy people who are trying to find it deliberately (especially now that you've mentioned you want to include that stuff.)
Perhaps have it depend on controllable things, like the play time to get to a certain area, the number of times a given character has died, the number of a certain enemy killed- stuff that's out of the way and not immediately noticeable, but controllable by the player?
I like these ideas! I think I may add a couple of them in! Thanks! ^_^
There's also the fact you mentioned, that I'm telling people ahead of time that there are secrets in the game. Having updates where I ask for help and have dialog with the community kind of de-mystifies some of the mystery, as people know to be on the lookout for that stuff, but I think it's acceptable, as the tradeoff is that I get great advice that I wouldn't have thought of on my own and it's great to get all the input :D
MakioKuta
6556
author=unity
There's also the fact you mentioned, that I'm telling people ahead of time that there are secrets in the game. Having updates where I ask for help and have dialog with the community kind of de-mystifies some of the mystery, as people know to be on the lookout for that stuff, but I think it's acceptable, as the tradeoff is that I get great advice that I wouldn't have thought of on my own and it's great to get all the input :D
We who know just have to do our jobs right and deny anything we read here today in the future when people who haven't read this start spouting nonsense like RNG events in the game. ;D
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Random numbers don't exist. I bet you believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny too!
i have to say i'm all in for this. it gives a sense of life and richness to games.
also i'm happy to be helping with this game <3 waah
i need to do some fanart sometime too uhsushsuhsuhsuhs
also i'm happy to be helping with this game <3 waah
i need to do some fanart sometime too uhsushsuhsuhsuhs
MakioKuta
6556
author=Sooz
Random numbers don't exist. I bet you believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny too!
Next you're going to tell me that the Tooth Fairy is a lie, aren't you? Fiend.
author=JosephSeraph
i need to do some fanart sometime too uhsushsuhsuhsuhs
ooooo I would be excited to see that!
Pages:
1
