Between Thimbleweed Park and The Cave

1

@uriel

At the core I imagine a point&click adventure, with all its elements (riddles, characters, dialogues …). Then you add direct control, some interaction with your environment, all the dynamic, options and joy a platformer can offer.

Dunno, let’s do something ordinary: You need some hay and are below a barn. There’s no visible entrance but there’s a dude inside the barn. He won’t give the hay away because he’s stuck (kids hid the ladder) and he wants to get out. You find a luke under the barn and agree, that when you find a rope, he can slide down and gives you some hay in return. Nearby you can find a rope, without luck, it appears too short and rotten to him, so, it’s time for a fab do-it-three-times-Grossman, get the ponytail from the pole dancer, the internet cable from the school and trap the giant green snake the Nickle News wrote about. One of your characters has knots powers but it won’t work until you hypnotize the snake (on hard the snake is shortsighted). Rope is done, back to the barn, give it to the dude. You need to jump and throw it at the highest point and clac his arm’s weird movements into as well (he has problems the hypnotist couldn’t fix), when things align, he grabs it, slides down and brakes his leg (he thinks, the rope still was kind of short), of course he forgot about the hay. So, you need to climb up the wall a little bit and jump at the rope at the right moment, then you can have some fun swinging around (beware the spiders, depending on your char) and climb up the rope to get your hay.

And so on. Once you start thinking about it, there are so many possibilities, you can combine in sequencial, interleaved and parallel ways (if you have the resources).

It’s just important that you get the controls right and that they’re fun (the jump&run, all the actions & selections and your inventory). The right balance between a game and its controls made some Arcades click.

Btw. Space Slime was fun because it was a nice design and the controls weren’t in your way. Once you placed the cursor on the button, you could lean back and enjoy the game.

2

Sounds like Candle:

Is this what you are thinking of?

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Nope, I want The Cave’s tone (or something grown up), real puzzles and Arcade like quality controls.

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Hm… but this is valid for Candle: It has real puzzles and you control the hero directly. It is very similar to The Cave, just the graphics are a made with water colors.

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I get a different vibe from The Cave. Its mood, its story telling, the more precise feedback from the characters’ animations (2.5D also is a good choice for such a type of game, you can keep a scene dynamic with the [silently changing] camera, reasonable lighting [not this goofy stuff on pixel blocks]). I want controls which are precise and fun. I’m not into Candle’s characters, I dislike its story (telling), the cutscenes, the graphics style, the way they utalisze effects.

Swinging on ropes is also more fun than pushing blocks. I want to emphasize Lucasfilm adventure like puzzles over platformer typical puzzles (both can be entertaining and could be mixed [to some degree] and influence each other [puzzles triggering a character’s capabilities]). I was coming from the angle, taking the puzzles and dialogues from adventures and combining them with the action and fun from platformers.

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Yeah certainly interesting idea. Might even be an approach to appeal a broader audience to adventure games…

Haven’t played that one. Did you enjoy it?

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Yes, but you should keep in mind that it has some flaws. For example you have to like the graphics style, the story and the controls. And in some cases you have to do “pixel hunting”, but that is intentionally and part of some puzzles (similar to a hidden object game).

But I for myself liked the graphics and the ideas of the developers. :slight_smile: Some puzzles are really clever. If you are not sure, if you should buy it, wait for a sale.

8

I wouldn’t expect it to appeal to masses but it could be a good game for people who enjoy good games.

9

Why not? Your concept has some elements that could attract even casual gamer. And if you once got them, you can “suck” them with a good story and interesting puzzles in the game. :slight_smile:

10

Thanks for your positive spirit.

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