I’ll have to try and look up at all the previous posts here to get a better grip of the whole discussion. The screenshots in the previous posts were of high quality, of course, but the discussions in the blog are what have really sparked my interest towards the project now :)

If the player fails in another way, such as failing to coax the filing clerk from the example in my last post into giving you the documents, the game will continue and the player will not be able to rewind. Later, when you come to the point in the game when you would have used the information contained in those documents, you’ll have to find another solution to the problem instead. The rewind feature will ONLY be used after a character death. Thus, the player will never have to worry about deciding whether or not they should rewind and try a puzzle again. Failing in a non-fatal way will always provide the player with another means of proceeding.

In this way, there will be the possibility that a player may want to play the game again, to try passing these non-fatal scenarios in various ways, but for the most part, Resonance will be similar to other adventure games in that there won’t be a lot of replayability. But them’s the ropes when you want to have a strong and moving narrative.

Normally, I would say that the inherent nature of adventure games is that one does not return to them over and over again due to its narrative structure that resembles that of a movie or a novel; The only adventure game that I truly go back to is Monkey Island 2, and that is completely between me and MI2 – it really has nothing to do with its two gameplay modes :D Thus, it feels that three meta-game modes like outlined here would sound somewhat redundant. Why?

Firstly, Vince said that “I’ll have to make it clear at the beginning that the only difference is the way the game handles death. … So players should choose the style that best fits them without worry.”

I feel there is a clash here related to the way Resonance seems to offer, to the player, several possibilities of “failing” during the narrative of the game, yet all this seems to have no impact on the endings of the game. I feel this could take away from replayability – how will we know exactly when we failed? How will we know which things to correct in order not to fail – and ultimately, why should we bother with this?

Should I rewind when I choose wrong dialogue? Should I rewind when I pick up the wrong item? My concern here is this: How can you be sure, as a designer, that the player makes an educated decision regarding his/her play style and chooses the appropriate method? Similarly, if a choice is actually being offered in this vein, would not most everybody just home in on the “normal” mode, true-and-tested?

Against the backdrop of no alternative endings, but still potential failure within the game, if the only reason for such an in-depth, special rewind mode is to slightly alter “the way the game handles death”, how do you really sell this to a player? Vince might have outlined this very well somewhere else so if I’m repeating a theme I apologize.

I’m not sure if I’m making sense as I do find myself struggling to vocalize the doubts that I have related to the choice of offering players different modes. There just seems to be some disparity between the rewind feature and its manifestation in the actual game.

The three modes are just meant to accommodate different play styles. Some players, like Matt, prefer the old Sierra way of doing things (save, die, reload) and I want to respect that. Others, like myself (and apparently Deirdra) prefer to go through a game without having that nagging feeling that I need to save every few minutes to prevent having to replay a bunch of the game if I die. For people, who just want the safety net, there’s the safe mode. The third mode is for people who want the safety net, but still want the threat of losing.

To respond to Pod’s comments about multiple modes, I hope not to make the player feel like he’s missing something. I’ll have to make it clear at the beginning that the only difference is the way the game handles death. I’m quite adamant about not implementing better endings or some such thing for players using a harder mode, or never dying. So players should choose the style that best fits them without worry.

Recently, I played Hotel Dusk for the DS, and in that game, if you fail at something, the owner will kick you out of the hotel and you lose the game. It then gives you the option to quit or jump back to the scene before you failed (quite similar to Resonance, actually). However, if you use the automatic restart option, the game won’t let you see the full ending. It’s reserved for those players who never failed. Of course simply quitting and reloading your last save keeps the game from knowing that you failed, so you can continue on to the full ending. I have three major problems with this.

One: They’re punishing the player for using a game feature. That feature is now worse than useless.

Two: The fact that it stops you from seeing the full ending is nowhere documented, and the only way you would know it’s doing it is to check a walkthrough or something. How many players have played the game and seen only the half-ending and thought that was it?

Three: Having the use or non-use of a meta-game feature effect the flow of the story, something that should be completely separate, just doesn’t make sense. Is there some mystical connection that knows that the character made a mistake in some alternate timeline and thus prevents an important conversation at the end from taking place?

As such, you will not have any penalty for using any of the modes.

I will consider just using two modes. The first two may be the only ones needed and that the point system may need to be thrown out entirely. I’ll throw that question to the play testers, and we’ll see if the point system actually adds value to the game as I intended it to.

And regarding Notwithabang’s comments, there will be some later consequences for failure in some aspects of the game, but not regarding death. The rewind system is entirely in place to help handle the issue of in-game death. Unfortunately, it would take a lot of time to write different scenes for whether or not a certain character died previously. Each of the characters must survive the tasks laid out for them as their survivals are necessary for the game’s story.

If a character dies as a consequence of the players’ actions or inactions, the game will force either a game over or a rewind, depending on the game mode.

However, failing in other tasks, like pissing off a filing clerk when you’re trying to talk her into giving you some confidential and important documents will not offer the player the chance to rewind and will instead allow the game to continue and lead to some branches in the story and/or puzzles.

As for making a mistake leading to a worse/different ending, I’m not currently planning to add multiple endings to the game. I feel that the planned ending is tight and appropriate for the game and don’t want the player walking away with anything else! However, some choices in the game can effect the relationships between the characters and have a slight impact on things. Hope that clears it up!

If failing a particular puzzle, or losing a character early on, etc., yields content that is substantively different from the “ideal” storyline, thereby enhancing the player’s experience of the story, then I think that there is good reason to implement a system of play in which consequences are more permanent (and it sounds as if that is what VXII has in mind). Such a system could add a lot of replay value, as even the most adept players would try different solutions to puzzles, in order to see the many ways in which the story could play out (e.g. Fallout). However, if making a mistake during the game merely results in a more negative ending, then I think that omitting a straightforward save-function would really just boil down to keeping a score, if not in name.

* A player starts with 30 points
* The game is only saved when the player closes the application (prompted, of course.) Naturally reloading is there to resume a game.
* When a player dies, they lose 5 points.
* If they “finish” the dangerous situation the points are reset back to 30
* If they run out of points (they die 6 times on the same puzzle) then they “lose”. Whilst not as harsh as “hit the eject button before your robot explodes” it still is quite a severe (and properly forwarned) punishment.

Also, in regards to mutliple modes: Firstly, it might cause confusion and panic that a player is missing out on something. If it was toggleable ingame then this would be avoided. But then the player could just switch it to unlimited when he’s running out of points ;)
Secondly, 3 seems like overkill. Why not just have rewind mode and classic mode?

How about the game starts in rewind mode, the player dies in that basement situation you mentioned THEN is asked “did you like the way this was done?”. If they tick yes, you leave it enabled. If they tick no, they must rely on saving themselves.

Regarding the 3 choices, in my humble opinion, I have always somewhat detested (although that is a strong word) multiple difficulty modes at the beginning of games, particularly adventure games. I just feel that there should be one set level of difficulty for the player, specifically chosen by the designer. Although this is a somewhat different example, In Curse of Monkey Island, I didn’t really like having to choose between two puzzle options. I chose the latter, harder version, and then I just am left wondering if I should’ve chose the easier version since I didn’t really feel like completing 10 puzzles to do 1 mundane task.

Anyway, I don’t really know what I’m saying. Maybe if you could allow the player to switch between modes during the game after he/she’s figured out if it’s too hard or easy for him/her.