Should the new King's Quest game have unwinnable states?

[BagginsKQ]

There are actually quite a few different death animations for killing Conner in KQ7 by different methods (and sometimes by way the enemy killed him). All pretty worth discovering. There might be some dialogue you can only hear if you arr killed by certain enemies. Plus the extra bad ending where Conner is sucked down into the dark Abyss. Our at the end of the game.

I still like how it was done in KQ1VGA, KQ5 and KQ6 (and a lesser extent in 7) the best with the pop ups with a funny message and sometimes a special animation, much like the space quest deaths. Like space quest I loved discoveryimg how you could kill off a character. In the earliest KQ they sometimes had special animations to show a death like graham turning into a green possessed zombie and committing suicide, or turning purple afte drinking poison water. Rosella becoming a zombie too. Sometimes you gotta go out of your way to discover some of the deaths.

[Lambonius]

Here's a great article that makes an excellent case for why autosaves or retry buttons ruin the sense of tension and atmosphere in games. The article obviously is about survival horror games, so it's a bit off topic, but the overarching concept of the value of limited retries and actual punishment for deaths is relevant to a discussion of adventure games as well. And it's just a good read in general, and reminds us of the gradual dumbing down of games as a whole.

http://gamecritics.com/guest-critic/...urvival-horror

[MusicallyInspired]

A great read.

[Darth Marsden]

Seconded. A lot of great points there.

As for King's Quest... I've never been a fan of dead ends, seeing as how they force you to start the game all over again, which isn't something I find a particularly pleasant thing to do (having been forced to do so in action games due to glitches, most recently in Lego Harry Potter). I'm not usually into deaths in adventure games either (unless there's plenty of warning), though I will concede that when done well, allowing the player to die can add a lot of tension and intensity to a story - provided you disable saving during the scene in question, otherwise you can accidentally save mere seconds before you die and essentially screw yourself over (Hi, 7 Days a Skeptic!).

But given how the KQ series is known for both, how about this. When you first start the game, you're given an option. Classic or Modern? If you select 'Classic', you get no hints and no option to retry when you die, just like the good old days. If you select 'Modern', then hints are available should you need them (while still being disabled in the options for people who want a compromise) and when you die, you go back to a nearby checkpoint to try again.

Best of both worlds?

[Sleeq]

Death by design is never an enjoyable experience. Neither is not picking up an item in the opening sequence and then finding out you need it for the final sequence.

I would like a Demon's Souls / Dark Souls way of doing things; it was not easy and it didn't hold your hand, yet if you missed an item / killed an NPC they were not integral to finish the game but you missed out on these items which could have helped you or learned more about the story.

I know they are not the same genre but my worst experience with Sierra games as a kid were those unwinnable situations and the completely obtuse puzzles (KQ4 etc)

[MusicallyInspired]

Death by design is completely different to unwinnable states.

[Sleeq]

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

Death by design is completely different to unwinnable states.

That's why I mentioned both.

[MusicallyInspired]

Death by design is gameplay balance. It has to be challenging.

Oh, why am I getting into this again...never mind.

[Sleeq]

Yes, it might get ugly; what a person might think is "a challenge" is what others call "bad design".

[MusicallyInspired]

Death is in every genre ever. Why is it so shunned in adventure games? Here's the answer, because of LucasArts. I picture LucasArts adventures as a half-breed between adventure games and puzzle games, which is largely a boring lifeless time-waster genre. That's why I don't prefer them. They're just a tad too boring and not very exciting at all. Luckily usually the stories are great and it has funny dialogue to save it, otherwise I'd not play them at all.

Either way, there are multiple opinions on the subject and the very fact that there's a sizable audience out there for Sierra style games means that it's not bad game design. People enjoy it. No group of people can call it bad game design when even one person appreciates it. And there's far more than one person that does.

[Sleeq]

Death wouldn't be shunned if it wasn't for moon logic puzzles and unwinnable states. It's no longer fun, just frustrating.

No one said that games should be easy and only hold your hand. We as lovers of adventure games and other types such as RPG's etc don't want to have everything handed to us. But it does not justify ruining your whole game because you didn't have that one item.

[Olaus Petrus]

Originally Posted by Sleeq

Death wouldn't be shunned if it wasn't for moon logic puzzles and unwinnable states. It's no longer fun, just frustrating.

No one said that games should be easy and only hold your hand. We as lovers of adventure games and other types such as RPG's etc don't want to have everything handed to us. But it does not justify ruining your whole game because you didn't have that one item.

I recently replayed first King's Quest and Space Quest games. Sure there are some unwinnable situations, but most are relatively easy to avoid if you explore the locations carefully. And even if you have to restart, so what? Those games aren't long and if you know what you're doing you can play those from start to finish in hour or two. You spend at least the same time in replaying one mission of modern shoot em up game, because you accidentally saved over your only save just before sniper's shot kills you.

[Sleeq]

All I'm saying is, having multiple unwinnable states in one game (sometimes to the point they are parodied such as KQV) isn't something to strive for.

Hence why I brought up the Demon's/Dark Souls concept.

[MusicallyInspired]

So what you're saying is, unwinnable states makes deaths not fun? So what is your opinion on deaths without unwinnable states?

[Speedball]

Death scenes? Yes. The comedic way they were handled in the King's Quest series is a small part of the series' charm and would indeed seem lacking if they were not possible in the new game.

Dead ends? No way. Most dead ends ocurred when a player followed a path that altered from the one intended by the designer. This often meant that if a player decided to follow a path other than the most obvious one, because they wanted to experience every delicious morsel of the game possible prior to advancing the story, they would often end up stuck in the game with no way to continue. What's worse, the games never told the player they had just entered a dead end, so the player is forced to go back and continuosly beat their head against the wall thinking there might still be some hope of advancing if they could just figure out the solution to the puzzle. A puzzle that didn't even exist. This can reduce an adventure game to a methodical labor of clicking every item on every object in every screen sequentially until you hopefully hit the sweet spot. Only with a dead end, you would exhaust that process and still be stuck. What is the point in punishing the player by causing them that level of frustration, uncertainty and wasted time. Dead ends are bad in gaming in general. Their level of bad is compounded exponentially in adventure games.

[Darth Marsden]

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

So what you're saying is, unwinnable states makes deaths not fun? So what is your opinion on deaths without unwinnable states?

Deaths are fine in adventure games so long as they don't come from nowhere and there's either a checkpoint or enough forewarning to let players save their game beforehand. If not, that could mean restarting the entire game, which would be a massive no-no.

[MusicallyInspired]

If there's a checkpoint then what's the point? I just don't see the big deal with having the danger of starting an entire game again. Again, every genre ever does this. Games are too safe now. They make intense situations meaningless because there's a safety net and it turns a gripping and exciting gaming event into a increasingly frustrating nuisance that you must sit through every time. Sure you can argue manual saves give the same effect, but at least you did the work yourself, knowing that if you didn't the game could have been entirely over.

The control must be in the hands of the player. That's a truth that works on multiple levels and on multiple arguments. Excessive cutscenes, for example.

[Olaus Petrus]

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

If there's a checkpoint then what's the point? I just don't see the big deal with having the danger of starting an entire game again. Again, every genre ever does this. Games are too safe now. They make intense situations meaningless because there's a safety net and it turns a gripping and exciting gaming event into a increasingly frustrating nuisance that you must sit through every time. Sure you can argue manual saves give the same effect, but at least you did the work yourself, knowing that if you didn't the game could have been entirely over.

The control must be in the hands of the player. That's a truth that works on multiple levels and on multiple arguments. Excessive cutscenes, for example.

I agree with this. Why should adventure game have checkpoints (I don't oppose those, but I just don't think those are necessary, because good player saves often). But I admit that while I play many games in "ironman mode" it doesn't serve much purpose in adventure game unless there are dead ends, because you'll just end up doing the same things again. If we could get rid of that, then I think that a great adventure game could have dead ends, but it also should offer alternative solutions, so you could still save the situation if you didn't pick some object in first scene. But the alternative solution should be more difficult to achieve (and you still could miss it) and you would also miss the chance to get perfect score.

[MusicallyInspired]

The first couple King's Quests come to mind, where there were alternate puzzles for almost anything if you forgot to pick up or do something. However, if you didn't have the alternate inventory items you would still be stuck. Also, the alternate solutions were not favourable and would not grant as many points, and in some cases, cost you some.

[Darth Marsden]

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

If there's a checkpoint then what's the point? I just don't see the big deal with having the danger of starting an entire game again. Again, every genre ever does this. Games are too safe now. They make intense situations meaningless because there's a safety net and it turns a gripping and exciting gaming event into a increasingly frustrating nuisance that you must sit through every time. Sure you can argue manual saves give the same effect, but at least you did the work yourself, knowing that if you didn't the game could have been entirely over.

The control must be in the hands of the player. That's a truth that works on multiple levels and on multiple arguments. Excessive cutscenes, for example.

Have you ever had to start a game over because you died? It's not a nice experience. EVER. Especially if you happened to bear near the end of the game. As I was. TWICE.

The checkpoints can be as far back as you like. Hell, you could even replace them with autosaves made every half an hour or so. But if you're going to punish players just because they didn't have the frame of mind to physically save the game in case they happened to die, then you're still punishing players. That's never cool.

Yes - checkpoints can remove tension, and they can make certain sections repetitive. But if that's the price I have to pay to avoid starting over or having to lose an hour's worth of progress, then I'm more than happy to pay it.