Announcing a new Thimbleweed Park mini-adventure

I just figured out something. Delores = De Lo-res = The low resolution! :smiley:

5 Likes

:exploding_head: :exploding_head: :exploding_head:

2 Likes

Figured that out long time ago!
That’s how I remember to not to spell it as Dolores.

1 Like

I’m still thinking about the new UI in Delores… I think it’s really, really clever. As we know, @RonGilbert has managed to remove the “it doesn’t work” generic error message when combining two objects: if you drag an inventory object over a room object that isn’t the “right one”, the cursor does not react, and the “custom sentence” does not appear, so you can’t release the mouse. This way 1) you will never have “it doesn’t work”, and 2) you will always know exactly what would happen before releasing the mouse.

So far so good. But now, you might think this makes the game more brute-forceable. You think: with this UI, I can just quickly drag one inventory item over every room item, without thinking. As soon as I see the cursor changing, I release the mouse and I have solved a puzzle without thinking. It’s much easier than before.

But no. This isn’t true. Because Ron can simply handle combinations that are wrong. He can handle them with puns or jokes. So if he handles enough combinations, the game will not be brute forceable. So this system shifts some burden on the designer, because he has to handle more combinations and invent more jokes, but it’s something that the designer would have had to do anyway, if he wants to make a good game. So actually there’s no drawback at all in this approach… clever, clever.

1 Like

So as a consequence the player doesn’t have to think about a puzzle that much anymore?

Yep. I think this. :wink: But not only this: You give the player hints (implicitly).

But this is a problem: Ron has to write answers to more combinations. This is much more work. (And the voice actors have to record more lines, which makes the recordings more expensive.)

But what’s the difference to the SCUMM system then? :wink: In SCUMM he could write funny reactions to more combinations too. (I refer here to the inventory puzzles - with nine verbs there are much more combinations of course.)

btw: “Edna & Harvey: The Breakout” has different reactions for all possible combinations.

Brute forcing is just “A” possible way to solve any adventure game. Contrary to say completing an action game blindfolded, you just have more chances of getting to the end in an adventure game by simply exhausting all combinations as there are less of those. Or there are less that turn out to be lethal for the in-game character the player is controlling.

https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/yay_testertron3000

Unless you kill off the player character (hey Sierra-on-line) and forcing them to reload/restart when solving a puzzle wrongly…

In theory, you could even complete a game that has all of the visuals scrambled AND is in a fictive random language.

Or complete a jigsawpuzzle with the picture facing down, where all pieces are just one out of 4 shapes or so.

And they would all be as much fun as brute forcing your way through an adventure game.
Not a lot! That’s also why you shouldn’t overthink anti-brute-force-measures: the player is punishing oneself enough as it is.

I think you simply need great puzzle design and writing to setup situations that do not drive a player brute force techniques or solving them by accident.

Even the pre-check mechanism in Little girl in Monsterland risks to become like that Madame Morena dialog.
“You see?”
“Yes, I see.”
“But do you really see?”
Etc etc

3 Likes

I agree. As long as the puzzle is well constructed and logical, there’s no reason to try brute force. Brute force is usually done when you really have no idea, otherwise you’d have tried it. Most of the time, a player already feels ashamed to try. And if the puzzle was logical, the real punishment is the “oh god, of course” feeling you get once you see the solution. It makes you feel a failure of a player.

Of course there are those who bruteforce because it’s the only way they can play the game. You shouldn’t care about those, they’re not puzzle lovers.

But almost all of the times I found myself bruteforcing a game, it was because the game made no sense or was so frustrating that I stopped caring about my playing experience. And when I found the solution, my only reaction was “how the hell is a player supposed to know that?”

3 Likes

@Sushi and @Guga: let me summarize…

I said “it’s not true that Ron’s UI makes brute forcing easier (if enough wrong combinations are handled)”.

And your reply is: “Yes, but even if it did make brute forcing easier, (that is, even if you didn’t handle the wrong combinations), this would not matter at all. You should not worry about players who brute force, because they are already punishing themselves enough”.

Is this your argument?

If it is… well, it’s contradictory. Because you just assumed that brute forcing has become easier. But then, it’s no more true that those players are punishing themselves enough!

It’s important that brute force keeps being costly to players. Otherwise it’s not true that they are punishing themselves enough when doing it. And more people will do it. They might not even perceive it as brute-forcing anymore. They might believe they are supposed to play like that. And then it would be total disaster.

Punishment doesn’t come from the process of bruteforcing, but the fact that you resorted to it.

That’s like having a hint button. It’s easy… but if you press it, you feel ashamed. At least, if you are the kind of player that likes solving puzzles.

I wrote a blog post long time ago about why I didn’t include hints in KY.

http://gugames.altervista.org/on-spoilers-an-ode-to-frustration/

It sums up why I think that even making bruteforce easier doesn’t mean hardcore players will resort more to it.

1 Like

Well, the difference is that with scumm you can’t completely avoid the generic error message (it doesn’t work, or similar).

because you can’t handle all combinations with custom messages. (some combinations don’t make sense, some do but there are no good jokes about them that you can invent)

Now you will probably ask what’s wrong with the generic error message. But that’s a different question… one which is very hard to answer. I myself , until yesterday, thought there’s nothing wrong with the custom error message. I thought: “it’s just punishment for trying something that doesn’t make sense.” But it turns out this way of reasoning is problematic for several reasons… (is anybody interested in discussing that? :slight_smile: )

Go on, create a new topic. Slow day at work, new discussions are welcome :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like

Oh, ok. But if you stop perceiving what you are doing as brute force, you don’t have this kind of punishment either…

And I believe they would stop perceiving it as brute force. They would think that’s the way they are supposed to play. Imagine to apply Ron’s UI to Kill Yourself. What would happen? I believe the player would start playing in a totally different way. He would start trying everything on everything “just to see what happens”, “just to see if that makes sense”. And if you try to object, he would tell you “how am I supposed to know if that makes sense if I don’t try?”

(removed duplicate)

That’s true. In fact, I would just throw in a big set of bogus interactions/reactions to avoid the problem we all found, that is, dragging around an object on the screen to see if a sentences comes up.

Think of the microwave. You can put almost everything in the microwave, if it fits. With an interface like Delores, I’d probably add even more, because now it’s not just “put inside”. If I drag the wrench, I can have “hit” or “disassemble” and have the guy say the doesn’t want to ruin the microwave because it’s the only thing he cares about.

I’m adding new interactions thanks to the extended verb spectrum, but I’m not changing any puzzle. I have room for more jokes while also reducing the chance of an accidental, bruteforce solution.

A flaw I see in the interface is that inventory is only meant to be dragged. I like when inventory objects have more uses - one with another, and one by itself. If you could right-click inventory, you could add even more (but I think this feature can be added via script, I’m not sure).

Think of food (as I personally do all the time). Right click shows “eat”. But drag it to the microwave to reheat it. Maybe a cup of tea, which you can drink or blow on it to make it colder. Drag a pack of sugar onto the cup of tea to sweeten it. And now you also have “stir” as an option. But if you drag it to a character, you offer it.

2 Likes

Not if we focus on the inventory puzzles: If you have, let’s say, 3 objects in your inventory then you can combine each of the objects with each of the other two - regardless if you are in SCUMM or in Delores. The designer has to find reactions to all of them.

Yes, you can. :wink: Have a look at “Edna and Harvey”. Beside that you don’t have that many combinations as it seems, because in most adventure games you have round about 10 objects in your inventory. And Ron wrote somewhere that he would like to keep the amount of objects in the inventory low (if I remember correctly).

And we have another drawback: In a drag and drop engine like the Delores engine, I can’t interact with the objects in the inventory in different ways. For example I can’t “open” a tool box or “squeeze” a plushy to make a noise. (edit: Ah, @Guga has mentioned that already :slight_smile: )

It’s a punishment for people who don’t think. :wink: If the puzzles are well-designed, the player will rarely see those generic messages.

You guys could hijack my thread " The new interface in “Delores”". :wink:

I though we were already there… I posted in the wrong topic :sweat_smile:

2 Likes

This is exactly how I feel :slight_smile: Above, I wrote “it’s a just punishment for trying things that don’t make sense”.

But this line of reasoning has assumptions that are problematic. It contains the assumption that “the player is not supposed to try things that don’t make sense”. And people deny that assumption: they say things like “I don’t want to be punished for being curious about the world” or “I tried that just to SEE if it made sense, and you punished me” or “how am I supposed to know if something makes sense before I try”. Here we have uncovered a serious problem of assumptions about what an adventure game is

1 Like

Well, I’m curious… I don’t see how it’s possible, unless 1) the game has few rooms or very few inv objects, or 2) most of the jokes/reactions suck.

Yes, that’s what I called “handling wrong combinations”.

it’s what you already did with the microwave oven.

So we’re saying the same thing… 1) Ron’s UI requires this kind of work, in order to make a game not brute-forceable. And 2) a good game should have this anyway.

1 Like

No.

I just wanted to point out that brute forcing is always possible and that the ways to prevent it (if the game designer would be worried about that) are sometimes less enjoyable to players who do not brute-force their way to a solution. Or not purposely at least. There’s always going to be some collateral damage.

Why? There’s also readers who’ll flip to the last page of a book first. Their loss.
Implementing a quiz you have to mail in and pass with at least 90% to prove you were paying attention before you are allowed to see that last page - via return mail- would be the equivalent of trying to prevent brute forcing.

There’s always going to be delusional idiots out there. Some even become president of the US of A.
Again… as long as they don’t go on Twitter to diss your game as “stupid… no action… involves puzzles with all kinds of logic…walking simulator”, who cares?

4 Likes

My sarcasm meter exploded. :bomb:

3 Likes