Legend of Grimrock

[Crash.]

to 2) - nanana, monsters must have their chance. fault is fault, At max a lesser effect,

You are right. Scratch number 2 off my list.

I guess I never bought the idea that the characters would be incapable of aiming a few degrees to hit what was actually a monster, but instead would whiff a huge fireball into a blank area just because I forgot whether they were standing on the right or left. It gets to the idea of knowing what you want to do in the game, but being unable to do it because of the control, interface, or design decision. The important thing should be that your intentions are carried out by the game characters, right? There are plenty of ways for the monsters to have their chance, such as dodging, or shooting back. I would rather they dodge sometimes, or even for the fireballs to have a skill based chance of going off course a bit - things that could spice up the gameplay.

Cheers!

[Lord_BoNes]

I think that it did add a little to the original DM aswell:
Imagine having a party worth of fireballs saved up, only to round a corner and find a water elemental... you then have to clear out at least one person's runes (losing the now wasted mana) to cast DES EW.
Now, imagine that none of your characters have enough mana left, after the runes are cleared, for DES EW... you've got to run away and regenerate your mana. If you gained the mana back when clearing the runes, then there's no longer any point to running... regeneration, and preparedness, become less important.

It may have only been a minor part of the game's mechanics, but it sometimes had a major effect on gameplay.

[Crash.]

I can see the reasoning behind how the runecaster was implemented in DM. I just get annoyed when the game lags a bit and I enter one too many runes by mistake. This is one of the most minor concerns.

Cheers!

[Gambit37]

If you gained the mana back when clearing the runes, then there's no longer any point to running... regeneration, and preparedness, become less important.

I don't think anyone is saying that recanting runes should ALWAYS give back your mana; it's just any runes cast by mistake.

And there's the rub -- you can't know if the player cast something by mistake or not, so why design something to second-guess that? It doesn't make any sense.
The right solution is to implement NO solution: the player should suffer the consequences of their actions.

[beowuuf]

These days are not like the old days. There are far more things competing for (and deserving of) your time. Many of us who play games have disposable income to do so at the expense of the time to play. We can say 'yes, in the old days games were tough and you weren't hand held' but also, you have to ask is there really any reason to punish a player when a game is supposed to be fun and a strsess reliever? Dead Island doens't punish you overly for death, you don't lose weapons and skills etc. You lose a small amount of money. Even then Gambit, you've still grocked against that punishment for death (in a hard game) to the point of cheating to gain money to make the game fun to play.

If DM's spell system is all about experimentation, punishing a person in terms of time and resources to experiment seems a little harsh these days. Just a thought!

[PetriH]

It wouldn't make it any easier to find all the spells in the game. You'd still need to know what runes are "useful". You'd still lose your mana for actually casting any given combination... typing the runes into the spell-casting box doesn't tell you whether or not the runes will actually do anything. And it's only by casting the given rune combo that you find out if it works.

Ah, of course, thanks for pointing that out!

All work and no play makes Petri a dull boy. All work and no play makes...

[Gambit37]

You have to ask is there really any reason to punish a player when a game is supposed to be fun and a strsess reliever?

I think you missed my earlier comment where I made the same point: "[Is] your focus on making an easy-to-pick-up action game or a tense role-playing game?"

Dead Island doens't punish you overly for death, you don't lose weapons and skills etc. You lose a small amount of money.

Actually that's not the case -- Dead Island does indeed punish you due to buggy checkpoint/save game handling. You can lose all your weapons, and if you then keep dying because of it, you'll lose all your money as well. If this happens when you're sufficiently advanced in skills and a long way through the game, the enemies are now tougher to match you -- and you have no hope in hell of defeating enough of them to be able to find more wepaons, so it's basically game over and you'd have to start over. *That's* why I applied the cheat -- to mitigate sloppy programming.

I still think not restoring mana is the right way to go -- and don't forget the secondary point: Petri is wanting to design a feature that anticipates player mistakes and compensates for them, but without knowing the player's true intention. Designing for intent is a really hard thing to do, and if in doubt, you shouldn't do it.

[PetriH]

I don't think anyone is saying that recanting runes should ALWAYS give back your mana; it's just any runes cast by mistake.
And there's the rub -- you can't know if the player cast something by mistake or not, so why design something to second-guess that? It doesn't make any sense.
The right solution is to implement NO solution: the player should suffer the consequences of their actions.

Actually I was thinking that erasing runes could just as well give back your mana in DM without breaking the game balance. Sure you could cast a few more spells every now and then but it would be easier and friendlier system for the novice player. You could convert your prepared fireball into light, and vi bro to vi, but hey that's just more gameplay options. And you'd still want to prepare spells in advance because it saves time. Thanks to Lord_BoNes for pointing out my erroneous thinking, I'm still wondering what was the original design motivation...

[PetriH]

I guess I never bought the idea that the characters would be incapable of aiming a few degrees to hit what was actually a monster, but instead would whiff a huge fireball into a blank area just because I forgot whether they were standing on the right or left. It gets to the idea of knowing what you want to do in the game, but being unable to do it because of the control, interface, or design decision. The important thing should be that your intentions are carried out by the game characters, right?

In a game where everything moves along two coordinate axes and turns in 90 degrees, something that flies diagonally would appear very inconsistent and would seem to be breaking the laws of reality. DM has it's own internal very consistent rules (mind you, they are not the same as in the real world), and that is one of the key ingredients why the game is so damn good even today. Consistent rules make it easier for the player to grasp how the game works and it creates this amazing feeling that everything you can imagine you can pretty much do in the game.

[Crash.]

I can accept that, it is just that what the player ends up doing is manually switching the character's positions in cases where one magic user has run out of mana and the monster happens to be on one side of the hall. It is an extra step and I always found the character positioning to be somewhat fiddly. The player's intention is to kill the monster, so the easiest way to do that (particularly with exploding spells) is to have it impact something that is on both sides of the hall.

Perhaps this could be a perk for the higher level of the spell, such that it is physically bigger and hits anything in the passage. Otherwise, if there are not two monsters standing side by side, the creature could smoothly move to the center and this would be a non-issue. It is just in Dungeon Master where on the monster on one side gets killed, and the other takes its time about centering, or doesn't bother to change formation, which always took me out of the game a little, such as two skeletons standing one behind the other instead of side by side and both attacking.

Anyway, I'm sure you guys will figure out what works best, what is most fun, and which things can be user options that allow customizing the gameplay experience. Crossing my fingers for "Old School Mode"

[Paul Stevens]

The player's intention is to kill the monster, so the easiest way to do that

is by providing a K(ill) key option that
kills all monsters in view.

[Bit]

10 PRINT "YOU WON!"

[Crash.]

You got me!

[Bit]

I still feel guilty killing DM's dragon by running up the stairs and regenerating until I got him.
And that theme (resting) is another important one.

[Lord_BoNes]

And on that note, how is sleeping/regeneration going to work in LoG? Is it gonna be exactly like DM? Or is it going to be different?

And when it comes to recanting runes, you could always have it randomly give the mana back. So, for example, a level 1 wizard has a 5% chance that each rune recanted will return the mana... and a level 10 wizard has a 50% chance. Or something like that.

[Bit]

only if casted an insurance spell before (me runs&hides)

[Erik Bauer]

The DM Magick Lore doesn't explicity state anything about casting mistaken runes. But I think that reading between the lines it's pretty obvious every rune consumes mana, regardless of the intention. The manual *does* state "Only caution will spare him from foolish mistakes."

So, to summarise, 2 points:
1) The onus is on the player to pay attention and make sure they cast the right runes
2) You can't know whether the player cast a mistaken rune or not, so why are you giving them the benefit of the doubt?

I realise this is a small point, but it's a subtle distinction and I guess the way you implement it depends on if your focus is on making an easy-to-pick-up action game or a tense role-playing game? If it's role-playing, then you should not make assumptions about what you think the player wanted to do .

Ditto.
Doing different than DM would be the same as if Super Mario corrected your jumps when you missed platforms by just some pixels. Magic is very powerful and has to be balanced someway.

[babebridou]

In my opinion, all these "annoyances" are nothing but artificial difficulty.
They should be present in the gold version of the game as optional "realism" flags, that toggles food, water, non-trivial fake walls, that hides a lot more pits, that doesn't refund mana on wrong rune clicks, that hides weapon characteristics so that the player has to experiment by trial and error, etc.

Just design the whole game without those in mind, only specific hidden pits, only specific hidden walls, no food, no water management (those should be clearly labelled as trash loot and/or not even appear), fully visible attributes, mana refunds on error etc. The game difficulty should come from the cleverness of traps and deadliness of monsters, not from the time it takes to determine that a brand new dagger was actually crap or something.

With that said, if you include the "realism" option, I personally will gladly turn it on all the time

[Ameena]

Surely food and water, at least, are a major part of a game like this? Managing your resources when you have no idea how long it'll be till the next fountain is half the adventure, at least the first time you play it. Starvation and thirst can be manipulated by the dungeon creators to provide even more of a challenge - I mean, they may have whole huge sections with no food or water, so that you have to be careful with what you've got. It's a big scary dungeon that's probably been untouched for quiiiite a few years - resources aren't just gonna be lying around all over the place . If you find a load of food and then eat it all or don't bother looting it and then later starve because of those actions, then well, that's your own fault, like clicking on the wrong rune when trying to cast a spell .
If poisonous foods are going to be included (I know they weren't with DM but some of the custom dungeons, like Conflux, I believe, have certainly done so), some way of telling as to their status without actually scoffing them and going "ouch" would be nice. Or even just a hint, you know, like make it look mouldy or something, or maybe some previous adventurer left a note lying around saying how disgusting that <insert creature here> meat was that he ate and that now he's really feeling very horrible inside. You know, and then the note is beside a pile of bones or something .
DM was never about "easy mode" - if you want that, go play something else .

[Gambit37]

DM was never about "easy mode" - if you want that, go play something else .

Indeed! However, Grimrock might be about "easy mode". I mentioned it before, but we don't know if Almost Human's intention is to make an easy-to-pick-up-and-play action game, or a nuanced roleplaying game. So while I think it's good for us old school fans to offer perspectives on gameplay issues, I'll still respect whatever is delivered in the context of the game they set out to produce.

At the moment though, I can't tell what type of game they are aiming for... quick and easy, or slow, subtle and complex?

[Trakl]

Oh please!

DM was just right the way it was! Actually the challenges of food management and unknown weapons greatly improved game enjoyment.
DM was always tricky, but never unfair. The hardest part was probably not the last levels but the one with the accumulating spiders and knights...

BTW I would appreciate greatly if there would be a "play original DM dungeon" option... The maps are already available via RTC or similar clones.
I would love to play the original with the new engine!

[PetriH]

we don't know if Almost Human's intention is to make an easy-to-pick-up-and-play action game, or a nuanced roleplaying game

We believe that these two options are not mutually exclusive. Our goal is to make a game that is easy to get into but that offers enough depth for the veterans of the genre. For example, for newbies there's the automap feature (it can be turned off), for veterans there are optional puzzles and secrets.

[PetriH]

BTW I would appreciate greatly if there would be a "play original DM dungeon" option... The maps are already available via RTC or similar clones. I would love to play the original with the new engine!

It is unlikely that we would ever do this for a couple of reasons, for example, copyrights, different rule set, and somewhat incompatible dungeon mechanics. Maybe a clever user made mod could do this but some dungeon mechanics in DM would probably need to be changed.

[Trakl]

BTW I would appreciate greatly if there would be a "play original DM dungeon" option... The maps are already available via RTC or similar clones. I would love to play the original with the new engine!

It is unlikely that we would ever do this for a couple of reasons, for example, copyrights, different rule set, and somewhat incompatible dungeon mechanics. Maybe a clever user made mod could do this but some dungeon mechanics in DM would probably need to be changed.

I see. Well, judging from what I've seen in the gameplay trailer, there's not much to worry about for the average DM veteran.
Though I hope you will include the "doors kill monsters" feature, which I thought was very unique and has never done before or since.

[Trakl]

we don't know if Almost Human's intention is to make an easy-to-pick-up-and-play action game, or a nuanced roleplaying game

We believe that these two options are not mutually exclusive. Our goal is to make a game that is easy to get into but that offers enough depth for the veterans of the genre. For example, for newbies there's the automap feature (it can be turned off), for veterans there are optional puzzles and secrets.

What I recall DM was exactly like that. First level is like a "built-in tutorial", then difficulty is cranked up constantly to the optimal. Challenging, but never frustrating. (Except for the aforementioned spiders&knights...)

[Crash.]

Hey, that is a good point; I loved the way that DM would introduce you to different mechanics one at a time as the game progressed, and then start to combine them. It taught you how to play, as you played the game.

As far as the list of things I would change or adjust, these are basically the only things that I can think of in a game design that is one of the best ever conceived. I complained about certain things that were a little frustrating, or reminded me I was playing a game. What I am really interested in, is whether any of you have ideas about what you might do differently if you were creating a DM or EOB style of game. It seems that Almost Human has thought a lot about these things over the years, but I imagine that each one of you that has created your own dungeons, or played these games many times, have some feedback that may provide an interesting discussion.

I have no complaints about a game being hard - even very hard, but my idea of difficulty is having to stop and think, scratch my head, search and explore, and maybe even walk away from the game for a few hours or days before figuring out how to proceed. I enjoyed having to try different combat strategies before coming up with the right one. I also don't mind areas where you basically have to make a run for it, because the creatures may be overwhelming, or sections where the resources are very scarce so you have to hurry, or backtrack to resupply, before finding a rich source of food and water again. I am not looking for a game where you have one button to kill all monsters in a single shot and win the game, I just want it to be fun, and not force me to play the same section over and over again using trial and error. I complain about any game that has design elements that inhibit fun, in particular, control and interface issues that result in me knowing what I want to do, but interfere with my ability to accomplish it. I play many games, and enjoy analyzing them in terms of mechanics and interface design.

Cheers

[Ameena]

Conversely to the "don't let me kill everything instantly" idea, you also don't want the "haha ytou're dead because you stepped into this square and though there was no indication it would do so, it spawned twenty high-powered mobs all around you and they insta-killed you so I hope you just did a save, ha ha" - ie the "gotcha"-type thingys where you can be instantly killed or otherwise have your game messed up with no hint given beforehand or suggestion it was approaching, or anything like that. You should at least have a chance to run away or something, and leave that bit till later. Or if it's a deathtrap, do something with the structure of the area to make sure that people not powerful enough to deal with it yet either can't get in there, can't get stuck, or get enough of an indication beforehand (however subtly - notes on the wall, scrolls lying around, bonepiles at the end of an apparently blank corridor, etc) that the area is A Bit Nasty and that maybe they might not want to go there just yet until they've maybe got a few levels or something .
Of course, I have no idea as to whether Grimrock has any such areas - I'm just mentioning it as something I don't like in games. Having multiple puzzles/areas to solve at once is good too, 'cause if you're getting frustrated trying to solve one area, you know you can always bugger off anf leave it for a while to have a bash at another puzzle somewhere else. Multiple possible solutions to some harder puzzles are good too - for example, there are many ways to reach most areas of CSB, some a little more desirable than othesrs .

[Crash.]

Agreed; well said! Hey AHG... get your freelance level designers right here! How many of you are thinking of trying to convert something you've created once a LoG editor comes out, or have already started planning something new?

[Bit]

Balancing a game is an art that most of the mod-makers don't understand.
In addition, creating a level or puzzle, of course you ever miss the effect of surprise - for that you need a lot of testers that are able to describe emotions in some situations, so that you get the right idea if the plan worked, which is - in the best case - one, you still talk about years later - like we do here. If you'd ask people about such 'events' you may collect ideas, but copy them and you're doomed.
That way it's naturally kind of a must not to clone DM, for that the clones here should be powerful enough. Planning the things carefully, so that you are able to 'implement phantasy', LUA is surely the emergency exit for late ideas.
As Crash mentioned, I'm also a slow player who loves to explore each and every square - speed can panic me. So, make me feel absolutely safe, so that I move all my items from A to B, thinking it's a nice safe haven - and when I filled it with 90% of them - flood the room. I will never forget!
(happened already in Might&Magic, so don't copy )

[Crash.]

I guess I never bought the idea that the characters would be incapable of aiming a few degrees to hit what was actually a monster, but instead would whiff a huge fireball into a blank area just because I forgot whether they were standing on the right or left. It gets to the idea of knowing what you want to do in the game, but being unable to do it because of the control, interface, or design decision. The important thing should be that your intentions are carried out by the game characters, right?

In a game where everything moves along two coordinate axes and turns in 90 degrees, something that flies diagonally would appear very inconsistent and would seem to be breaking the laws of reality. DM has it's own internal very consistent rules (mind you, they are not the same as in the real world), and that is one of the key ingredients why the game is so damn good even today. Consistent rules make it easier for the player to grasp how the game works and it creates this amazing feeling that everything you can imagine you can pretty much do in the game.

Here is my problem with this whole issue...

The front characters can attack diagonally, but the rear characters cannot. If the intention is to adhere to consistency, it would be necessary to make the front characters only capable of attacking directly in front of them, as with the rear characters - but this would make the game unplayable. What I am asking is essentially to correct an inconsistency in the design of Dungeon Master, allowing ranged attacks to hit the intended targets (a monster somewhere in front) just as the melee attacks do. It would not be necessary to graphically represent a fireball flying diagonally, but it could still explode when it arrives at the plane where a monster stands, even if it happens to be on the other side of the hallway. It is supposed to be magic...

Thanks for your consideration