Designing story-based games | jordanmechner.com…

One of the more popular ways to approach story-based game design is to offer the player choices. If i choose path A, that eliminates path B. This is one way in which designers hope to make their otherwise linear games replayable.

A lifelong gamer, a father of two, and an entrepreneur who runs his own games studio, the “free” time i have to play games is rapidly declining. i ALREADY don’t have enough time to play a game like Mass Effect. i gave it another stab recently, and it absolutely killed me that i was forced to make choices that excluded me from seeing other content in the game. i suppose a gamer with more time just says “i’ll have to play through again and choose the other path next time”.

As a gamer who fights to find the time to play through even once, i gravitate towards games that i know i can play through without worrying i’m missing anything.

i think what you’re saying is better applied to world-building – giving the player the sense that there’s a big, wide open world to explore, and many more stories to tell. The best worlds do this (and reap the benefits in sequels and spin-offs!)

- Ryan

Are you kidding? #11 is just a cheap trick, and it doesn’t improve a game’s quality AT ALL.

It’s a snall city and there are three days only to understand the city and have a glimpse about it’s mysteries, search for clues, talk with people, make useful friens, do illegal things like looking for drugs (he is an addict), to lie, to be persuasive, black mail people, etc.

There’s no way to be stuck on a certain point because you don’t know exactly what you need to get through this, so I tried to solve it by giving more than one option to the player at almost every point.

Another thing is when your character evolves in the game and sometimes you find yourself in the middle of something that you feel like taking a nap during a movie or “accidentaly” pick some item or choosing the right answer/question. I find a way to make sure that the player cannot find/solve something by accident.

The 4 day, is the trial. I think it is the best of the game, since I found a way to put pretty much everything from novies, like objections, evidences, testimonies, jury’s perfil and the hability to manipulate then, etc.

Oh, like I said, there are no score system – it kinda take away the suspense specially if it’s about investigating a game with no predefined “Game Over” or “You Win”. I like it because it gives diferent ends based on the player’s choices during the game and the personal sense of justice, so the end is different for each personality.

For instance, players can see VICTORY if he wins the case, regardless what he discover during the game. Other may think that find out what really happened is more important than win the case with some doubt. You know, the oposite ideas of professional ethics and moral ethics.

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Well, that’s enough. I’m very sorry, you can delete it if you want. Anyway, the game is free and if interested, you can download it on the company’s website: “Beware The Ladybeetle” http://www.beware.co.nr

Thank you and I hope you keep this great website to support the indie developers.
Bruno.