Post
by Nico » Thu Dec 31, 2009 1:42 pm
To add to an old discussion...
After reading through this thread, two things popped into my mind.
First, I really like the idea of slowing the player down as they approach the barrier. If a wall must be implemented, I think this is the most elegant way of doing it. As long as the barrier is not too far from the playable level, they should be able to find their way back.
Secondly, I think there is one dynamic that hasn't been mentioned as a way to discourage the play from straying too far from the battlefield. If Overgrowth has cutscenes in a similar manner as Lugaru, then this has great potential. For example, let's imagine the player is running away from the intended level: at first, he enters a cutscene where two or three rats appear behind him and yell "Oi, where do you think your going?", to which the player can respond, or another rat can humorously say to the leader, "Why do we care - lets just get his goodies!". At this point, Turner has to fight off a wave of, in the very beginning at least, weak enemies. Gradually, these waves get stronger until Turner is overwhelmed. First he can fight rats, then maybe more rats and some dogs, all the way of the food-chain until the player has to face wolves (unless, of course, the whaleman is the top of a food-chain...)
The advantage of this method being:
• the enemies can appear essentially out of nowhere (as if they had been sneaking of on Turner) using cutscenes
• the cutscenes could have dialog which would hint at the proper direction for the player to go, and give a sense of how far the player has gone off the level when they run into growling herds of wolfs chasing them
• the player doesn't feel like they are being stopped by a wall, but instead that they have a chance to overcome it. Thus, it doesn't limit the sense of open-worldly-ness.
• fighting waves of enemies is going to be a lot of fun for the player, and it may even take on a scoring system that can be submitted for competition with other players (a mini-game of sorts)
• if, at any time, a player wants to return to the level, there would be an option to do so, at which point, instead of attacking the player, the looters would tell Turner to stay out of their territory and point out the way "home".
This method, I believe, would actually enhance the sense being in the Overgrowth world, where survival is difficult and victory is hard to come by. The player wouldn't feel safe by running away from their enemy, but might actually rather face their enemy (like they are supposed to). A lot of work for the Wolfire team, I know, but it may very well be the best way to keep the player immersed in the world, and interested for survival's sake (as it would happen in the animal kingdom, not just instantly contracting horrible spontaneous combustion syndromes).
Last edited by
Nico on Thu Dec 31, 2009 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
