Mr. Gilbert explained in the blog that it was a mechanical, not diegetic, reason: it would have been too cumbersome and contrived to require the player to convey information between the characters for every little detail that one of them picked up, but that another must use. The player would also have to move the characters to the same room, which would be annoying and frustrating when solving large-area puzzles.
This was also before he “cracked” the inter-character conversations, which he also mentioned they gave up due to complications – they couldn’t get it to work in an effective manner, plus they were running out of time and it seemed at the time they wouldn’t be able to solve it.
In my opinion, it is not necessary to require this conveyance of knowledge from the player, but to allow it, so as to give the player the chance of maintaining the immersion.
Mr. Gilbert has said, and I agree with him, that it may be that since in those games the characters have a clear motivation to reach the same goal, and they are already close friends, that it is easier to accept the implicit subtext of omniscient communications.
In Thimbleweed Park, there are many factors against it, including the utter lack of inter-character reactions (at least at launch), the fact that they don’t really know each other, and their competing and counteracting motivations.
It may just be a perception issue, triggered by the atmosphere and character dynamics.
I haven’t had time yet to play the new TWP with inter-pc dialog up to the point where the four characters meet. Does somebody know if they managed to give a motivation to Ransome and Delores to team up ?
Yes. And it happens also in other situations within TWP.
Nevertheless, I found only this particular puzzle to be bothering to me. I’m not sure why, but I think that many people here (@DZ-Jay in particular) underlined the possible reasons very well.
Thanks to you and everyone for the contribution.
It occurred to me only when I played the game a second time and found out that the name in the graffiti was different than the first time.
Anyway, we are arguing about the sewers puzzle… while it is the very same puzzle as the PillowTron fan. You make Franklin call a number that he can’t possibly know, and there’s no way of exchanging that information as an object (like the “write down the number on a piece of paper and pass it through the manhole” solution).
By the way, once I got the number I immediately made Ray call it from her cell phone, I didn’t stop to think “she doesn’t know it”. Because all games that require cooperation between characters are based on the fact that YOU, not they, know what they should do. In DoTT, whenever you need to pass an object through time, you put it on the Chron-O-John with a character and pick it up with the other one. Why? How could Bernard possibly know that Laverne was going to need something, and how could Laverne know that Bernard did give that something to her? It’s the same thing. YOU know it.
Well, he is a ghost and there may be even some psychic connection to his daughter…
Regarding DOTT: They can talk to each other via the Chron-O-Johns. I don’t see a reason to explicitly show every possible communication between such characters but if you want to have it more realistic and believable you could use such explanations and imagine all kind of conversations.
They could talk? I didn’t remember that. Anyway, it doesn’t change the concept: characters cooperate because you make them. Even if they are friends like in MM or DoTT, there are lots of situations where a character can’t possibly know why he should stand in a particular spot or push a button or give an object and so on, but they do it nevertheless because you decided they had to.
True, but you must also accept that the motivations and goals of the characters in Thimbleweed Park do not align in the same way.
All things being equal, you are right, it’s exactly the same. However all things are not equal. In Thimbleweed Park, such interactions, at least to some of us, feel very different and odd – feel being the operative word.
Still, Ray and Reyes have the same goals (at least officially). So the sewer puzzle shouldn’t feel strange. And the fan puzzle happens at a time where all characters are reunited under a common goal.
Nothing stops them from regularly meeting up, discussing their further course of action and interchanging information.
This particular video game only forces you to meet up to exchange items, but as long you can explain everything else somehow believable and fitting for the game world I don’t have see a problem.
I think that adventure game players perceive “normal” the apparently inexplicable things of this genre that they have experienced a lot of times.
For example, in most adventure games the playable characters can put a lot of objects in their pockets, even very large items.
Some adventure games have provided an explanation for this unreal phenomenon and the explanation is coherent with the narrative, for example Simon the Sorcerer has a magic hat in which he puts everything.
Other games, like The Secret of Monkey Island used this unrealistic skill for comedy purposes, like when Guybrush gets the Monkey Head key (or the dog) from his pants.
But most of the adventure games just don’t explain how it is possible for the character to carry all that stuff: it’s a characteristic so common in these games that it has become part of the game mechanics and most of the players are completely OK with it, even if it wouldn’t make sense in real life, with real people.
A similar thing can be said for the management of multiple playable characters: having them a common conscience and knowledge is just a condition that it’s convenient to the developers because it simplifies a lot of things.
The only difference with the “infinite pockets”, in my opinion, is that the adventure games that have multiple playable characters are a small percentage and as a consequence players have not been exposed enough to this feature to make them feel comfortable with it as they are when they blindly accept the fact the they can put in pockets an endless amount of matter.
I’m also wondering if the player perception changes if he/she has played a lot of other games that belong to genres in which the “shared conscience/knowledge” is a common game mechanics, like simulators like The Sims.
Maybe the more the people have been exposed to this kind of mechanic, the less they find it incongruous in adventures games as well.
Not in this particular situation. In this situation one kid is “trapped” in the room above edna. Of course to be plausible you can go the super complicated route. One kid looks at the safe code in through the telescope. The kid that is in the room goes down the stairs (after the third kid has distracted Edna again) goes to the telescope room to hear the number from the kid that looked through the telescope (or look it up himself) then go back to the safe room (after Edna has been distracted a third time) and opens safe. But no one does that you usally have one kid look up the number with the other one opening it and in that particular scenario they have no way of communicating (except maybe shouting from one window to the other). Anyway in that sceneario you have to imagine the conversation that takes place just like you have to imagine the agents talking to each other through the manhole.
Exactly, that’s one possibility: open the picture, everyone meets up at their favourite place (i.e. the dungeon e.g. by getting caught), then one of the kids has to get up there again, bypassing Edna and open the safe.
Another possibility would be to just get the kid above Edna get caught, and the other kid from the telescope (now knowing the number) can then go through Edna’s room while she’s gone.
Or you use mirrors of the telescope to morse the numbers to the other kid.
Or you just show the other kid the numbers using your hands (those two rooms aren’t that far apart!).
Yes, those gigantic inventories is something players just have to accept (unless it’s e.g. Simon the Sorcerer) or they won’t be able to play most video games (they could still play The Cave ).
But what we are currently talking about is something which can be explained without Voodoo or magic (conversions between PCs or NPCs, even if not shown by the game).
There may be other problems in other games and when in such case I can’t find (even a far fetched) explanation then I may not be so happy and would call it immersion breaking.
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