diegetic interfaces, puzzles, gameplay length, etc.

I recently played "Stories Untold", and that made me warm up to the idea of making a game focused around interaction with diegetic interfaces. I wanted to research a bit and took that as an opportunity to finally start playing "The Room Two". I quite like what it's doing but I couldn't help but think that from the developer perspective the ratio for time spent on making all the million little things you can interact with in the puzzle's various stages, and the time it takes a player to go through those, looks really daunting. I know I can't make a game of that size on my own, there's way too much handcrafted stuff in there. Hats off to them.

I guess my question is, what would be a way to focus a game around a diegetic interface, or direct object interactions, while using game mechanics that are more systems driven, and have a much better ratio of total dev-time to gameplay time? I'm struggling to come up with ideas for a "quick to make game" that still can be executed to a high degree of visual polish and realism. Also I'm not very familiar with the puzzle game genre, I mostly play shooty/stabby games. So maybe a game that partly answers my question comes to your mind that you can point me to.

Also what's your favorite game in the realm of giving you a feeling of really "having objects in your hand" when you interact with them?

 

My favorites along those lines are all cockpit games — flight simulators or mech games. It can work for a driving game too.

Beyond that, I don't really see it. (But then I've never even heard of "The Room Two," so maybe I'm simply missing out.)

 

Have you seen Receiver?

It was a Unity game made in seven days for a game jam. Definitely check it out. I think $5 on steam.

Basically, you have a pistol on the screen, and all of your interactions do something to operate the pistol. The HUD is just the pistol and magazines and flashlight you have in the bottom corner of the screen, and they slide into view when you select them. So the whole thing is extremely intuitive and immersive.

Again, it was built in seven days by four people I believe.

I always wanted to make a 3rd person dungeon crawler -- and this was my idea before Dark Souls existed! -- where you have zero HUD and no stats or anything. You begin in a spooky dungeon, and fight monsters to get out of the dungeon and then out of the castle.

You only have weapon objects in the game world that you can pick up and use, and the only indication of their worthiness is by how rusty/beat up they appear. Nothing has a name. Nothing glows to indicate usability. There is zero numbers and no inventory. The player has to only think about and contend with the gameplay.

Health and stamina is told via heavy breathing and animation. A la original Doom characters face as the health bar, but in this case the 3d character just limps or is visibly bloody.

Just some ideas.



Also:

Tresspasser (if you don't know, you better google this one real fast!)

 

That raises two more questions for me:
Do you know any games where you directly interact with all the buttons in the virtual cockpit with a mouse-only interface to control all the functions?
Do you know any games that are focused around "cockpit simulation" without also having a high-fidelity view into the outside world?

On my long list of random game ideas I had a VR game about being in a mech-cockpit that has damaged screens/cams that would give you your normal view into the world, and you need to make do with more abstract representations of your surroundings and follow instructions given to you via radio to get back to your base alive. Something like a "rookie's first mission gone wrong" experience.
But I thought it might not work without VR controls (I have no VR hardware), be too niche, and also I was unsure if I could actually make a fun game out of this (or even make it at all).

If you like "adventure game puzzles" then you might be missing out. Here are some links:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/288160/The_Room/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/425580/The_Room_Two/
They are available on iOS as well, and a third part is out there already I think.
And the third one I mentioned:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/558420/Stories_Untold/
Does not come with non-conditional recommendation from me though, I liked the first 3 episodes more than the last one and thought the way they tied all the sub-stories together kind of diminished them.

I still have the box sitting on my shelf and I played through it 2 or 3 times in my life. One of the most under-rated (and buggiest) games ever . Imho it was so far ahead of its time, I think it's a tragedy something like this wasn't tried again.

I have seen it on steam, but never played it. I sympathize with the concept of "gun micro management", but the rest of the game didn't look appealing to me. For me to enjoy a gun in a game, the environment and enemies must hold up to a standard that I don't think I can deliver (and neither does receiver for me).
I was following the progress of D.U.S.T. for a while, because they seemed to want to do something more along the lines of Insurgency with the same concept and it looked somewhat like that game too. But reading about the controls I thought they really overdid it with overcomplicating gun-handling. And also the project is officially abandoned now I think. Here's a video:

Spoiler

As someone who actually fired guns, is this appealing to you, or do you think he has overdone it to the point of having to remember too many keyboard shortcuts for stuff that would be much more intuitive with a real gun?

 

This is exactly what Receiver did. But yeah, Receiver wasn't really a full game. Just a demo. But the mechanics are just really well done. You have to do each of the actual real life steps necessary to operate a weapon. It may seem like a lot at first, but with like an hour of practice -- assuming you know how guns work -- you'll be enjoying fast reloads and smooth operations. If you had no idea how guns work it would probably take you some more time because you wouldn't understand what you are doing. So I think a tutorial that teachers firearms 101 would be a good idea.

As long as the gamer understands what they are getting themselves into and are approaching the game with the intent to learn something that will take some time, I don't see why they wouldn't enjoy it.

Me, personally, I think its great and is really satisfying to actually have to "train" at something for a little bit and then be able immediately see yourself actually grow in skill. If I played with the controls maybe I would want to change some of the keys, but I don't see how you could include some steps but skip over others. Maybe toggling the safety selector isn't necessary, because why would you put your safety on in a game?

Anyway, for all the attention to realism they put in there, there is some things that are way off. Like when you aim, your nose is touching the charging handle, so the rear sight post should be much closer to the camera. And i don't know what this flipping the gun over stuff is about. Maybe checking the chamber for double feeds or something? Not necessary for normal operation.


About lots of keys: Certainly a lot to learn compared to your typical shooter, but its not as complicated as learning to type. So long as all the keys can be reached from the usual WASD position, I think you are fine. I think the typical gamer could become proficient in a game like Dust or Receiver in just an hour or two. But the great thing is, what a challenge you have given them. Once they are trained and ready to go, they will be eager to take their new skills into battle where they will be tested under pressure. I think there could be some really satisfying gameplay there, especially if you get into high pressure close quarters stuff.

 

Oh, and Dead Island. That was a somewhat diegestic interface, at least concerning the melee weapon play.

 

Based on the game concepts you talked about for your game, I think your personal frustration-tollerance in multiplayer (I think that's a very important distinction here) games might be higher than that of most people. I'd expect most people to get rather frustrated when they die in a game because they e.g. picked the wrong magazine pouch to reload from, or their muscle memory for regular shooters kicked in and it does something different in the game. And vice versa, going back to a regular shooter and then being stuck in muscle memory for the weird sim-type gun handling can be problematic too. I'm rather wary of these things because I often have trouble with things like that when switching between different games, even ones that use fairly standard control schemes.
10 years ago I would have learned playing quake 3 left-handed just for the fun of it, if I hadn't noticed that it made me play worse when switching back to normal right-handed play...

Don't get me wrong, I totally like the idea of "pistol micro management" and that learning process being part of the fun in a singleplayer experience. I think having just one gun, and doing that one gun really well, is a solid concept. But I think drones and turrets aren't fun enough to shoot, and I'm not optimistic that I would be able to make much better opponents and big enough environments to really make a solid game out of it. Looking at gameplay from Receiver I don't feel the desire to play it, even though I totally get how fun it must be to learn and master that gun handling aspect. You know what I mean?
I might enjoy making the gun part of such a game, but not the rest.

I liked the games too, but something like that is far out of reach for me.




One game genre that I think would work really well with diegetic interfaces is "idle clicker games". You could have rack mounted devices that you install in server racks and then interact with dozens of little switches and dials. After playing universal paperclips I talked about that idea with a friend and he talked me out of it. He basically said that raising production values is always fairly easy, but that specific genre doesn't benefit enough from it, as is evidenced by the fact that I really enjoyed universal paperclips in spite of that it looks almost like an excel spreadsheet.

 

I just used those as examples. Receiver isn't really fun or interesting beyond the gun manipulation concepts. Just something different that made a fully immersive, zero abstractions use of HUD.

And Dead Island, yeah that is AAA, but I just meant to look at the way the melee mechanics worked from a design standpoint.

Any of those things, I don't have a clue how they might be useful to a more typical, one man indie type of game. I.E. something 2d, point-and-click, etc.

 

Yeah, that's my problem too. Simple small scope games like match-3 games etc. are entirely outside of the gaming bubble I spend my time in. I'm hoping for some input about such games with abstract concepts that could be transferred into a not-abstract immersive gaming experience.

 

How about an occult SciFi archeology game where you dig out demonic artefacts and have to use fancy equipment to locate them in the ground, dig through different kinds of material, set up spot lights around your working area, use projection scanners that give you visual feedback how close an artifact is to the surface of your excavation area, carefully remove the last layer of dirt without damaging the artifact, then analyse it, and maybe in later stages set up containment measures to avoid accidentally unleashing demons from hell?

Yes I have been playing Doom lately...

 

I think an archaeology game that's gameplay flow consisted of the player being introduced to geology 101 and then having to observe a given scene and use finite resources to find "a needle in a haystack" might be interesting. In that case, how the artifacts are uncovered doesn't really matter, it's more about the decision making -- the treasure hunt.

That could be interesting for a small niche. How a diegesic HUD might be put into play.... like you said, maybe its a matter of using some equipment, and you just look at the feedback mechanisms. Like watching or listening to the tick of a metal detector. Or maybe you do things like thump your mallet to listen if something is hollow... a bit of research into archaeology tools might give inspiration. I don't know nuthin about that kind of stuff.

Maybe each scene is introduced with the character observing the visible sedimentary layers in the hills nearby, and mumbling notes to himself that will give the player clues about likely places to search. Definitely interesting idea.

But, I was thinking, for top down 2d click to move games -- say maybe a Diablo clone -- I think you could do away with HUDs by replacing classic UI staples with audio or in-game-world visual cues. Maybe your mage is casting spells. Well, each spell can have a distinctive charge up animation. Maybe the player discovers a new weapon. Just show an image of the weapon on screen that the player can inspect. Is it shiny and sturdy looking? Just make sure the weapons have noticeable differences so that the players will find it beneficial to inspect things visually to discern their worth. But of course you could still have the RPG elements of stat building. But this clean HUD approach might blur the lines between a pure numbers RPG and an action RPG that is also more focused on aesthetics.

 

And I think there may be an audience for that.

I'm not a huge Diablo type of game fan -- what do you call them? Looters? -- but what actually interest me in games like that is usually the atmosphere. It's the grindy gameplay that turns me off.

So if there was a top down RPG that still had the pull of stat progression, but the gameplay did away with numbers but focused more on visual feedback and had a strong visual style, I could myself getting into that.

 

I doubt you'll ever see such a game on the market. If Path of Exile isn't your jam I can't recommend anything specific for you.

I'm thinking less treasure hunt and more equipment usage simulator. Something that would appeal to people who like things like Eurotruck Simulator, Spintires, or Viscera Cleanup Detail. "Job Games" if you will. Or "toys for grownups". Something like the gun handling micromanagement in Receiver, maybe dialed back 50%, and then applied to all the equipment pieces. If I can think of ways to make the gameplay more systems-based and emergent, then that would be even better. I'm starting to really like this idea for my next project. I think I'll experiment with this.



Thanks for all the replies everyone! I'll let you know if I'm getting anywhere with this.

 

I don't know about the others, but ETS and ATS are good because they're sit back and chill games. You don't have to think hard. You don't have to do anything complex in-game. You're not trying to remember 10 sequential steps to do something intricate. It's just driving.

I don't know about the others, but I imagine it's the same for a few other "sims" like Farming Simulator or Rail Simulator (don't remember the exact name, the one with thousands of dollars of DLC). It's not about figuring stuff out at all, it's basically a passive experience.

 

Good point! I'm hoping for something that is interesting for the novelty factor at the beginning, while you learn systems and mechanics, and then after a while you should get into a routine where you don't have to think that hard anymore.
But I'm not super sure yet if I can make it "podcast compatible", which seems to be one of the major selling points of these truck games. My personal go-to podcast game is often Dark Souls.

 

I've never heard of ETS/ATS as "podcast compatible." Not saying they aren't, but take a look on the Steam forums and you'll see that their audience is pretty hardcore, with a great deal of them being truckers themselves.

I'm not really sure what "podcast compatible" means actually.