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[LaserBeing]

guys, Pac-Man has plenty of variety

there are FOUR types of ghost

[Kazz]

and like, a billion bonus fruits

[JDigital]

It seems we're not the only ones making lists of game rules.

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Re-reading DM of the Rings, I noticed that some of the (excellent) D&D advice was still very applicable to video games. Example:

While planning your gameworld, it should be noted that no matter what you do, the players are going to route around those aspects of the world into which you have poured the most detail and filled with the most interesting characters. They will skip right past those locations and insist on exploring the blank areas of the map.

Then they will grumble about the threadbare nature of the campaign.

If you prevent them from doing this, they will accuse you of railroading them.

A lot of tension in a story happens when the characters do something against the wishes of the audience. This isn’t really possible in the context of an RPG, because the characters ARE the audience.

Never provide a dungeon without treasure. The longer they search and find nothing, the more your players will be convinced that the treasure is bountiful and exceptionally well-hidden. If left unchecked, they will eventually dismantle and excavate the entire site in their search for loot.

Players are always in a hurry to reach town. Once there, they will be in even more of a hurry to leave.

How to motivate your players:

   1. Entice them with a compelling story.
   2. If you can’t do that, then bribe them with treasure.
   3. If you won’t do that, then let them know that if they don’t play along they will be stuck in this boring, treasure-less campaign forever.

Players complain so much about having to walk long distances. You would think they were actually, you know, walking there.

[Zaratustra]

Sorry I hit modify instead of reply and I kinda messed up your post.

Anyway. Characters can always do things against -each other-'s intentions.

One more rule. This probably won't work for RPGs but:

#5 The player can always start again.
#5.1 The player can always stop playing.
#5.2 The player can always restore from a save file.
#5.2.1 If they can't, they'll blame you.
#5.3 When restarting becomes a tool, the only tragic happenings are the inevitable ones.
#5.4 Nothing is dramatic the hundredth time you see it.

Is it possible to make a videogame player feel genuinely guilty?

[Burrito Al Pastor]

#5.4 Nothing is dramatic the hundredth time you see it.

5.4.1 All cutscenes should be skippable after you've seen it once (and maybe even then.)

Is it possible to make a videogame player feel genuinely guilty?

Sure. I've heard there's a bit in GTA4 where [spoiler]you have to kill one of two guys[/spoiler], and I've heard of people feeling genuine remorse about their choice. Why did it work? The game saved as soon as you made a choice. The action was made irreversible in a game where you can get blown up a hundred times and come back at the hospital every time, and that gave it gravity.

I always thought it'd be cool if a game uninstalled itself as soon as you died.

[Kazz]

In a multiplayer team-based game where one player totally drops the ball, yea.

[patito]

#5.4 Nothing is dramatic the hundredth time you see it.

5.4.1 All cutscenes should be skippable after you've seen it once (and maybe even then.)

Is it possible to make a videogame player feel genuinely guilty?

Sure. I've heard there's a bit in GTA4 where [spoiler]you have to kill one of two guys[/spoiler], and I've heard of people feeling genuine remorse about their choice. Why did it work? The game saved as soon as you made a choice. The action was made irreversible in a game where you can get blown up a hundred times and come back at the hospital every time, and that gave it gravity.

I always thought it'd be cool if a game uninstalled itself as soon as you died.

About that GTA4 thing, people only feel remorse for that because the reward for killing one of them isn't as great as the reward for killing the other, not exactly because of a moral choice.

Same thing with losing the torture minigame in MGS1, which erases your save.

But in actual practice a game that does that sort of thing every time or just uninstalls itself would just be obnoxious.

[Brentai]

Same thing with losing the torture minigame in MGS1, which erases your save.

...it does?  Man, I'm glad I never tested that.  Because I test EVERY game over condition.  I guess when you kill your PC off for a near-living you gain a sixth sense about that sort of thing.

[François]

I've felt guilty. Not often, but I have. In Baroque, for example, there are definitely a couple of "what have these hands wrought?" moments.

Mighty spoilers: (I am not even kidding this is brutal)

[spoiler]Baroque is a roguelike. Every run, you're given an Angelic Rifle, for free. This is a big gun with five bullets in it, and it kills any monster in one shot. Any monster. They instantly explode in a burst of light, and white feathers materialize from thin air, falling gracefully to the ground. Think of it as starting every game of Nethack with a superpowered Wand of Death.

Now pretty much every NPC in the game either hates that gun or is terrified by it, not because of what it might do to them but because of what it is (though it's unclear if it's because they know it or just because of a gut feeling on their part). So you're basically encouraged not to use it by nearly everyone you come across; it's made pretty clear that this weapon is bad news. But it's way too useful to just leave behind.

In fact, there are never any gameplay repercussions, whether you use it or not. There is no alignment counter, no karma system, no good guy/bad guy points. Use it or don't, it makes no difference.

And then, near the end, you learn the truth about the Angelic Rifle. The ammo cartridges are sentient creatures, innocent incarnations of pure pain forcibly removed from a broken, sick God. When shot into monsters they release their pain into them and die in torment.

In their natural form they look like little eyeless baby angels, and every once in a while you can hear their cries, and their screams of "Murderer! Murderer! It hurts!"

I never used the gun again.[/spoiler]

Now that kind of manipulation probably wouldn't work on everyone ([spoiler]"baby angels, really?"[/spoiler]), but I was really digging the plot and atmosphere the game had going on, and it pressed all the right (wrong) buttons.

[patito]

Same thing with losing the torture minigame in MGS1, which erases your save.

...it does?  Man, I'm glad I never tested that.  Because I test EVERY game over condition.  I guess when you kill your PC off for a near-living you gain a sixth sense about that sort of thing.

Yeah, you get the option of just giving in to the torture, which just kills Meryl, but if you just die from failure to mash buttons it just erases the last save.

Fun fact , in the same bit in MGS2 where Solidus is chocking Raiden, even if you don't mash at all Raiden's energy bar won't deplete completely, so you can't even get him killed in that bit as you could with Snake.

[LaserBeing]

Same thing with losing the torture minigame in MGS1, which erases your save.

...it does?  Man, I'm glad I never tested that.  Because I test EVERY game over condition.  I guess when you kill your PC off for a near-living you gain a sixth sense about that sort of thing.

Yeah, you get the option of just giving in to the torture, which just kills Meryl, but if you just die from failure to mash buttons it just erases the last save.

Uh... no it doesn't. It just doesn't let you continue from the Game Over screen, as I recall.

At least, I know it wasn't that catastrophic because I sure as fucking hell heard "Ocelot, you've done it again!" enough times before I finally succeeded.

[patito]

Same thing with losing the torture minigame in MGS1, which erases your save.

...it does?  Man, I'm glad I never tested that.  Because I test EVERY game over condition.  I guess when you kill your PC off for a near-living you gain a sixth sense about that sort of thing.

Yeah, you get the option of just giving in to the torture, which just kills Meryl, but if you just die from failure to mash buttons it just erases the last save.

Uh... no it doesn't. It just doesn't let you continue from the Game Over screen, as I recall.

At least, I know it wasn't that catastrophic because I sure as fucking hell heard "Ocelot, you've done it again!" enough times before I finally succeeded.

It deletes the last save, not all of them. So if you're diligent enough to keep more than a few saves it's a minor inconvenience.

[Detonator]

I always thought it'd be cool if a game uninstalled itself as soon as you died.

Of course there's the infamous Steel Battalion.  If your mech blows up without the pilot ejecting to safety, the game deletes your save.

[Arc]

Baroque... Angelic Rifle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEBXuwuzbeo

We should heed her advice, as she's clearly the sanest among us!

Yeah, you get the option of just giving in to the torture, which just kills Meryl, but if you just die from failure to mash buttons it just erases the last save.

You didn't heed her advice.

[Zaratustra]

Every time you shoot this gun, it kills a kitten.

[MadMAxJr]

... and the target is clawed to death by unseen forces.

[Romosome]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't delete your save.  The story I heard is Kojima WANTED it to and Sony told him "Uh, no.  Leave the user's console data alone."

It came up in the same interview that had the famous "I'd like to make a game that could hurt the player" quote.

EDIT: Baroque looked cool enough to interest me.  Is there an option for original Japanese voices?  (probably not, Atlus's response to that lately seems to be "who gives a shit")

[Kazz]

Is Kojima pure evil?

Does he want people to finish his games or just stop playing them after a certain point?

[Arc]

He's not a monster. He's just ahead of the curve.