Designing milestones guidance

[Thomas]

A goal for our (frictional game's) upcoming game is to remove any sort of puzzle like obstacles, and instead just base the entire game on interesting interaction. The idea is that the player simply progresses by engaging interaction and does not encounter any game stopping puzzles.

Now the problem is that we need some kind of choke-points, ie milstones, in order to craft a narrative and to make the production feasible. What I want to have is some kind of clear goal for the player, that they can move forwards to, a goal that is pretty obvious yet provides exploration along the way. In mario-like platformers the goal is simply to go to the end of the level, many times simply by moving in a certain direction. This "move to the right"-approach is pretty nice for simple 2D games, and games like Everyday the Same Dream use this nicely.

However, we are going to have complex 3d environments in our upcoming game and a simple move to the right approach is ruled out. One could use something like Half-Life 2, where there is only a single way to go forward. However, this makes the journey very linear and forced, something I want to avoid. So what we have been discussing is having something like a gps-system that points the player in the right way. The problem I have this is that it does not allow players to think for themselves. It is very easy to fall into a play style of simply going directly to the assigned goal location. I had this problem in games like Dead Space and Bioshock, where I just followed the directions, unaware of what I was supposed to be doing.

Another idea is to have some kind of bread-crumb trail that leads to the milestone, for example blood trail or a pipe. This forces the player to investigate the environment in order to find the milestone and thus creates greater sense of immersion and encourages exploration. However, this can be quite hard to use for all milestones in a game, and will only fit for a few.

Finally, one can use a todo-list and simply list one or more tasks the player must do in order to reach the milestone. The problem is that you normally need a sort of map to go along with this, and thus you get the same problems as with the gps-like approach. Also, spelling out to the player exactly what to do can be really immersion breaking and end-up making the player not think about their actions. If vague hints are used the player becomes stuck anyway and it is not helpful.

The question is now what other ways there are of leading the player? I am curious to hear what other examples from games you liked or how you approach this problem your self.

[Michaël Samyn]

A goal for our (frictional game's) upcoming game is to remove any sort of puzzle like obstacles, and instead just base the entire game on interesting interaction. The idea is that the player simply progresses by engaging interaction and does not encounter any game stopping puzzles.

Sounds great!
I loved when this sort of thing happened in Amnesia, when I was doing things because I could. The only problem there was that I would often do things that were absurd in and of themselves (picking up a piece of pipe just because you can) because they only make sense in the context of a puzzle. I imagine for the new game you will make interactions rewarding on their own?

Now the problem is that we need some kind of choke-points, ie milstones, in order to craft a narrative and to make the production feasible.

My first question would be "Are you sure?"
If you haven't done so already I'd suggest you make a little list of the reasons why you need these milestones and then check if there's other solutions. Maybe there's a better solution.

So what we have been discussing is having something like a gps-system that points the player in the right way. The problem I have this is that it does not allow players to think for themselves. It is very easy to fall into a play style of simply going directly to the assigned goal location. I had this problem in games like Dead Space and Bioshock, where I just followed the directions, unaware of what I was supposed to be doing.

I had the same experience in Bioshock. But I was kind of thankful for it, because I didn't really care about the gameplay or the story. At least it prevented getting stuck in a place where you don't want to be stuck.

But: what if it's fun to get stuck? Maybe the problem could be turned into its own solution.

Another idea is to have some kind of bread-crumb trail that leads to the milestone, for example blood trail or a pipe. This forces the player to investigate the environment in order to find the milestone and thus creates greater sense of immersion and encourages exploration. However, this can be quite hard to use for all milestones in a game, and will only fit for a few.

I find this problematic also because it requires you to explain this trail in the narrative. And the explanation might be hard to believe, which would break the immersion.

Finally, one can use a todo-list and simply list one or more tasks the player must do in order to reach the milestone.

An alternative to this would be to simply require that the player does 5 things (out of a given 10 e.g.). It doesn't matter which 5 things. So you don't have to give anything away. This way players can also time their progress.

The question is now what other ways there are of leading the player? I am curious to hear what other examples from games you liked or how you approach this problem your self.

If you can't find a solution that can be part of the fiction or the narrative, maybe you could consider a completely artificial, symbolic solution.

When the game is satisfied with what the player has done, it could simply say "End of chapter 3", no matter where the player is. And then the player gets an option continue exploring chapter 3 or to move on to chapter 4. If the latter, you fade out and zap to the new location.
Additionally, you could have a symbolic representation of the number of "meaningful interactions" they can do in a given chapter and tell them how many they have done.

Is it required that the player walk all the way to the end of the level?
Are the chapters of the story separated by a door in the game world?
Is it necessary to map the linearity of the story to the space?

[Michaël Samyn]

(I added a whole chunk of ideas to that and my browser ate them all  )

The best one I can remember is to put entry and exit of a level right next to each other. So if the player remembers where they came from, they know where to go. If it's necessary, you can simply keep the exit door locked until the game is satisfied with the performance of the player. But personally I would leave the exit open at all times. And if the player wants to run through all chapters without doing anything, let him. It's his loss.

[Michaël Samyn]

Other ideas were to add an element to the narrative that justifies leading the player. I guess these are alternative versions of your breadcrumbs idea.
- the player is following someone who left marks
- when the time has come, a strange creature appears that taunts the player so the player runs after it; even if he couldn't catch the creature, he'll still be closer to the exit
- when the game wants to move on, the rooms furthest away from the exit start collapsing, or filling with gas, or flooding, forcing the player to move towards the exit

[Michaël Samyn]

Another, rather silly, idea I can remember: all levels are connected to each other by different means of transportation. A bus that only arrives when the game wants you to leave (the sound of the engine leads the player in the right direction). An elevator but the bell boy is asleep, dead or drunk. An airplane but you always arrive at the very last minute and when the game doesn't want you to leave yet, customs officers harass you so you miss your plane. A conveyor belt that only starts running when the game is ready to move on.

[Michaël Samyn]

I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea of requiring the player to have done certain things before they are allowed to progress. Is this what you are thinking? Is it really necessary? Can't you allow them to progress at their own risk of missing things?

Maybe future levels change when you have done a certain thing in former levels. And this change gives access to other parts of the story.

Would it be possible to craft a bare-bones version of the linear story that players can play through in five minutes but that isn't very satisfying (or scary in the case of a horror game -is that what you're making?)? And everything they do -voluntarily!- simply makes the experience richer (and more scary ).

Maybe different endings become available after doing certain interactions.
That way, you don't need to give away any surprising plot twists in the bare-bones version of the story.

[Jeroen D. Stout]

I agree with Michaël on the choke-points. The question is what the aim of the game is in the sense of what it tries to achieve with the player. But within the present cultural context that is difficult; just like smart AI can be there without being noticed (Dan always quotes Halo on this), so can rewarding detail. I know people who ran through the Graveyard because they could not register the woman was limping for not expecting it. Placing the exit next to the entrance and giving the player an unrewarding experience is from my perspective completely fair... but it will not register with some players if they expect the arbitrary puzzles.

In my oncoming game I have a fixed length and two 'choke points' - which I make possible by not giving the player the freedom to miss them; there is no freedom of movement. If the player causes the character to linger the character will chose faster actions to arrive at the same fixed point at the same fixed time. In a way I believe this eliminates both the 'have I spent enough time here' sentiment as well as the 'quickly as possible' sentiment. The player 'pushes' the boundary of the story in a way and it elastically snaps back.

Not knowing much about the content of the game it is hard to say, but something like Michaël's creature could have such an elastic function; if the player goes about too slowly it will pull him further.

Although aware of the danger I like the-entrance-is-near-the-exit idea. I remember the book The House of Leaves had a house in which the interior dimensions did not match the dimensions on the outside - and there appeared a door on fixed times which lead to an impossible labyrinth of corridors, all pitch-black. The main characters are never coerced to go in there but slowly got an obsession to find out what was there to the point where they took increasing risks to get a little further before returning to recharge their batteries and film. That is in some forms an ideal scenario for the player: because if he can exit at any time all his attention is voluntary. If not, you are coercing him in some manner from the start and that can lead to taught helplessness.

Another point is that if you go for actions that are rewarding in themselves a lot of things become less useless. The first concern is to communicate this in such a way to the player he will understand it. That is like watching the likes of Koyaanisqatsi - to really appreciate it you should have seen it before and there is always a first time. The second concern is that the interactions must be very interesting. For me that involves a considerable richness of culture and detail.

[Thomas]

Good suggestions, gives me something to think about!

My main reason for having these  milestones is that they basically serve as events that unlock certain part of the game + make up the most crucial parts of the story (this might be meeting certain character, finding certain item, investigating a certain location, etc). The minimum any game can have in terms of this are spacial based milestones where simply getting a certain distance from the start (or similar), triggers the milestone. Of course, milestones could be removed altogether, but that would mean there could not really be an end state (that being a milestone). And I am honestly not confident enough to try and design that

So I still want to rely on some sort of milestones, and I agree when you say:

I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea of requiring the player to have done certain things before they are allowed to progress

This is exactly what I am trying to avoid, by making the milestones in such a way that it is always up to the player if they want to progress. One way to visualize it is that I want big glowing "NEXT CHAPTER" button, that the player can press anytime they please and then surround that with interesting points of interaction (something you covered). To make this engaging, the collection of interactions would change when the player chooses to press "next chapter" and thus needs to consider what to do with more care. Also future states can depend on past interactions.

Now I am willing to do it this obviously, but want to have it more woven into the story. So i need to have some sort of device / design thinking that provides this structure within the game context. That is really the core of what I am getting at.

We are considering having a fairly short "base game", where most of the engaging and interesting things happen when the player strays. But there still needs to be milestones placed. And these milestones should:
1) Feel seamless to the player and be part of the game world. In a perfect situation the player does not even notice that there are milestones, but simply progress in a way they like.
2) The way of a achieving the milestones should have a very low probability of halting the player. Meaning that the player should feel that they are not sure what they should do next.

The thing that are closest to what I want is to have something like main road the player can always travel forward on. This main road is then filled with side roads that the player can choose to detour too. I am actually not sure that this might actually be the way to do it I just feel that it would take away the sense of exploration, by always forcing the player through a pre-designed route. Instead I want the player to feel as much as possible that they personally discover the things.

So just to state it outright: The biggest challenge is coming up with the condition for reaching a milestone, and not really the design of the milestone itself. Eg, the problem is to figure out what makes the conveyor belt to start and to figure out conveyor belt in the first place.

If you haven't done so already I'd suggest you make a little list of the reasons why you need these milestones and then check if there's other solutions. Maybe there's a better solution.

Perhaps I should not give up the thoughts of leaving everything totally open just yet. I just have a hard to time figuring out how to plan the basic plot points or having the player accidentally stumbling across the ending.

what if it's fun to get stuck? Maybe the problem could be turned into its own solution.

This is interesting, because a way to bypass is to make the stuck state more interesting, perhaps even rewarding. In most games getting stuck comes with large negative feedback (as all fun stuff suddenly stuck). But what if getting stuck would provide extra experience in some way? Of course, one can not provide endless extra content for stuck players, but it is a interesting way to think about it.

An alternative to this would be to simply require that the player does 5 things (out of a given 10 e.g.). It doesn't matter which 5 things.

This sort of design thinking can probably eliminate a lot of the chance to get stuck. On does not have to say in advance that only 5 was required either and make the player believe that they did as much as they could.

[Thomas]

Jeroen D. Stout:

I like this rubber band kind of approach. The lego games actually use something similar that they call "springy path" (I believe), where the player always have the simple route available but if deciding to go out and explore they game gets harder, and harder pushing them back. Applying something similar to overall narrative structure seem interesting, and having the game draw the player back in if they are not being "productive" (what ever that might be at a certain point in the game).

The hard part is only setting up these elastic functions for various parts of the game.

I just recalled that we did something like this In Penumbra black plague. At a certain puzzle the voice in your head (which was an actual separate character) gave you simpler and simpler clues the more time passed, at the end simply shouting out the solution. This was a very simply example though, and choosing the right amount of time proved quite hard. Still there where not many complaints to this method and I cannot recall any players complaining.

[Michaël Samyn]

My main reason for having these  milestones is that they basically serve as events that unlock certain part of the game + make up the most crucial parts of the story

In The Book of 8 -one of the prototypes we're currently working on- we unlock the play space chunk by chunk as well. This is a leftover from the original version of 8 -our first, unfinished project. Neither is a linear story. But we decided to use an unlocking structure because we were afraid that players wouldn't be able to handle a wide open space from the beginning of the game. We were afraid they would get lost and not know what to do, and thus not be motivated to do anything. So we decided to guide their experience by only making the space available bit by bit. At the end of the game the entire play space is unlocked and available for exploration.

Anyway, how we unlock chunks of the space it is through (implicit) secret corridors. When you find a special object, you return it to a certain place and that "opens a door" in that place to a secret passage through which you can find another part of the game world space that you couldn't get to because it was locked, blocked or otherwise separate from the part you did have access too. Players do not need to use that passage right away. There's opportunity to open more than one before entering. In that sense the game remains non-linear and only gets bigger.

In The Book of 8 we have stylized this a lot, though. Partially because of budget considerations, it is no longer a complete open world. Instead we're using the book metaphor where every page represents a room. Rooms that are not accessible yet are represented as pages that stick together (it's an old book and the entire game consists of cleaning it up). So we get the added advantage of the linearity of the book to aid navigation.

[Michaël Samyn]

The thing that are closest to what I want is to have something like main road the player can always travel forward on. This main road is then filled with side roads that the player can choose to detour too.

This is quite literally what happens in The Path. Hence its name! 

There's a straight path from the start of the main part of the game to the end. It takes five minutes to run it. Alongside of the path there's a spooky forest with here and there a light in the distance.

I am actually not sure that this might actually be the way to do it I just feel that it would take away the sense of exploration, by always forcing the player through a pre-designed route. Instead I want the player to feel as much as possible that they personally discover the things.

Don't worry. Very few players could resist the temptation to enter the forest in The Path. There was nothing to do on the path itself. If you wanted to have any fun, you had to take the risk and enter the spooky forest. It takes less than a second for a gamer to take this decision.

The only way we caused confusion (quite on purpose), was by telling players that they should go straight and not go off the path. That was the only rule of the game. And some players actually followed it. But if you don't play with them like that, you should be fine.

[Michaël Samyn]

So just to state it outright: The biggest challenge is coming up with the condition for reaching a milestone, and not really the design of the milestone itself.

Just for comparison. While our game The Book of 8 is completely non-linear in principle, it does have a specific ending. The condition to achieve this ending is that you have have cleaned up the game world sufficiently. And I guess the different choke points simply prevent players from cleaning it up right away (because at every choke point they get a new tool to do other types of cleaning -a tool they can use on rooms they have been in before).

I never really thought of The Book of 8 in this sense. Because as a designer I don't really think in terms of progression and I'm far more concerned with the design of the moment than with the flow of the experience. But I guess we ended up with a similar structure anyway.

[Michaël Samyn]

An alternative to this would be to simply require that the player does 5 things (out of a given 10 e.g.). It doesn't matter which 5 things.

This sort of design thinking can probably eliminate a lot of the chance to get stuck. On does not have to say in advance that only 5 was required either and make the player believe that they did as much as they could.

And you can cheat!
If the player has spent enough time in the chapter you can just open up the door without any reason. And if there is one narrative point that they really need to get before continuing, just make it happen automatically, if it seems like the player can't find it.

[Thomas]

So I have been thinking about this so more and changed my approach to this problem.

I started out with the hope of coming up with some kind of magic bullet. I wanted an idea that I could apply throughout the game that always lead the player on the correct path. But as I have been reading your suggestions I have been coming to the conclusions that this is probably a bad idea. When we started designing Amnesia we (at least I) were obsessed with the iea of finding ONE game mechanic that could drive the entire game. After several months we gave up on this idea because it constantly clashed with all the other things we wanted to do (atmosphere, building an immersive world, etc). I think I am barking up the wrong tree again, with having a ONE mechanic that solves the player guidance.

Instead I will embrace the fact that creating this kind of experiences are hard, and try and shape the guidance mechanics depending on the situation. This way I can instead focus on what it is I want to convey and then design the virtual in a way to achieve this, by using a mix of the techniques discussed above and more.

I do think that Jeroen's idea of having a stringy narrative can act as a good guideline, but that I should not try and find a specific mechanic to accomplish for the entire game. So my goal will be that the game always steers the plaeyr in the right direction, using different methods each time, and perhaps different methods in the same part, so it caters for different play-styles. This is actually a bit what we did to the better designed puzzles, we simply implemented whatever the solutions the testers tried out, not worrying about having out own "ideal" solution intact. I think this should work with guidance towards a milestone to, adapting the progress to how the player plays. Of course, one cannot cater to all play-styles, but just adding a few options could make the feel a lot more intuitive and fluid.

With this in mind, do you recall any moments in games (Amnesia would be nice, but suggestions from any games are welcome), where you where stuck in progress and suggestion on what would have helped you move on? Would be of great help!

[Thomas]

This is quite literally what happens in The Path. Hence its name! 

There's a straight path from the start of the main part of the game to the end. It takes five minutes to run it. Alongside of the path there's a spooky forest with here and there a light in the distance.

So I finally bought The Path this week and intend to play it next week during my "vacation"! I know I am bit slow with this, but better late then never eh?

Also hope to buy and play Dinner Date too! But time tends to run faster than you expect