Re: Slow storyline = Tutorial!
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:16 am
Hahaha that is a damn sick story.
I'm kinda in agreement with Tokage about having a morning tutorial rather than a slow storyline. For instance the bar fight, why should the player have so much confidence and restraint in his abilities to gently block attacks and try to carefully trip his opponents to the floor? In the first fight of the game, I don't want to have to baby with the enemy, I want to rabbit kick the drunk bastard who punched me in the face and send him through the window, then I want to pick up a bar stool (or see if I'm able) and break it over someone's back and try to impale someone with the broken chair leg. Bar fights are not meant to be passively observed, they are meant to be dove into, unless you are already an expert fighter and this fight is below you, or you at least already quenched your thirst for blood lust in a previous fight, but not the first fight, the first fight should be fought!
I also liked the storyboard in the blog, I think that would be the very best way to start the game before any story happens. I also liked the original Lugaru's fighting tutorial and that it didn't hold back or try to overly teach you something (like lock up all the controls and gradually unlock them as the tutorial progresses, I hate that the most), it was extremely quick and taught you everything you needed to know and then moved on. I think something like that tutorial should happen right before the first fight, and it should be with imagined characters, not with people, because Turner is a hero and is known for it, and he knows how to fight already, so bartenders and other characters shouldn't be teaching him or observing him learn to fight, he should just teach himself and right off the back appear as bad ass in front of other characters as possible. When you fight the three enemies trying to collect your bounty it should be after you had already imagined fighting three enemies at once, and not until you won that fight decisively in your mind. Later fights like the bar fight, can be much more natural to the player after he's had his share of kills.
The player can later choose not to fight in the bar fight because he is so bad ass, or he can choose to go easy and disarm his drunk opponents, either way I think it helps the story and gets the player to better believe he is this hero named Turner.
I like Scene 1, aimlessly allowing turner to explore the city is a cool way to teach a player how to run jump, crouch and wall jump in the form of appropriate hot spots where jumping and crouching is needed to jump higher; I don't think there should be a jail house tutorial that far into the game that says how to make Turner crouch or rabbit kick, that should take one second to teach or shouldn't be taught at all because it is so simple.
I'm curious to how you would do this in a video game and not a book. How do you have narration in the story that tells what Turner is thinking, or that while he wandered the land for five years he heard crazy brave heart stories about himself that made him laugh at loud? Just a flashback cut scene of this happening?
Lastly, I like good stories but I don't like long tutorials. A game can be ruined having too much tutorial. I love Assassin's Creed, I give it a 9.5, but I hate however that the tutorial and beginning exposition is like 4 hours long. I beat the game and tried playing it again but I couldn't, the tutorial was unnecessarily long and was directly involved with the story so it couldn't be skipped. Also, you don't learn your moves all at once, it takes until the 4th assassination until you can actually, counter, combo-hit, dodge and sprint, a ridicules thing to hold back from the player because they are so simple to do and extremely important to know. In my opinion, the player should be taught and have access to everything as quickly and as soon as possible, with as much brevity as possible without confusing the player. Then create stories like escaping the jail, that the player can figure out, using moves he already knows how to do, but definitely not wasting a good puzzle by giving away the answer in tutorial form.
I'm kinda in agreement with Tokage about having a morning tutorial rather than a slow storyline. For instance the bar fight, why should the player have so much confidence and restraint in his abilities to gently block attacks and try to carefully trip his opponents to the floor? In the first fight of the game, I don't want to have to baby with the enemy, I want to rabbit kick the drunk bastard who punched me in the face and send him through the window, then I want to pick up a bar stool (or see if I'm able) and break it over someone's back and try to impale someone with the broken chair leg. Bar fights are not meant to be passively observed, they are meant to be dove into, unless you are already an expert fighter and this fight is below you, or you at least already quenched your thirst for blood lust in a previous fight, but not the first fight, the first fight should be fought!
I also liked the storyboard in the blog, I think that would be the very best way to start the game before any story happens. I also liked the original Lugaru's fighting tutorial and that it didn't hold back or try to overly teach you something (like lock up all the controls and gradually unlock them as the tutorial progresses, I hate that the most), it was extremely quick and taught you everything you needed to know and then moved on. I think something like that tutorial should happen right before the first fight, and it should be with imagined characters, not with people, because Turner is a hero and is known for it, and he knows how to fight already, so bartenders and other characters shouldn't be teaching him or observing him learn to fight, he should just teach himself and right off the back appear as bad ass in front of other characters as possible. When you fight the three enemies trying to collect your bounty it should be after you had already imagined fighting three enemies at once, and not until you won that fight decisively in your mind. Later fights like the bar fight, can be much more natural to the player after he's had his share of kills.
The player can later choose not to fight in the bar fight because he is so bad ass, or he can choose to go easy and disarm his drunk opponents, either way I think it helps the story and gets the player to better believe he is this hero named Turner.
I like Scene 1, aimlessly allowing turner to explore the city is a cool way to teach a player how to run jump, crouch and wall jump in the form of appropriate hot spots where jumping and crouching is needed to jump higher; I don't think there should be a jail house tutorial that far into the game that says how to make Turner crouch or rabbit kick, that should take one second to teach or shouldn't be taught at all because it is so simple.
I'm curious to how you would do this in a video game and not a book. How do you have narration in the story that tells what Turner is thinking, or that while he wandered the land for five years he heard crazy brave heart stories about himself that made him laugh at loud? Just a flashback cut scene of this happening?
Lastly, I like good stories but I don't like long tutorials. A game can be ruined having too much tutorial. I love Assassin's Creed, I give it a 9.5, but I hate however that the tutorial and beginning exposition is like 4 hours long. I beat the game and tried playing it again but I couldn't, the tutorial was unnecessarily long and was directly involved with the story so it couldn't be skipped. Also, you don't learn your moves all at once, it takes until the 4th assassination until you can actually, counter, combo-hit, dodge and sprint, a ridicules thing to hold back from the player because they are so simple to do and extremely important to know. In my opinion, the player should be taught and have access to everything as quickly and as soon as possible, with as much brevity as possible without confusing the player. Then create stories like escaping the jail, that the player can figure out, using moves he already knows how to do, but definitely not wasting a good puzzle by giving away the answer in tutorial form.