I’m hoping to get some art/gameplay mock up done soon. I’m currently
working on implementing a full demo using a side story. But since neither are
actually ready, let’s talk about the mechanics we’re going to see.
The most obvious mechanic is going to be the dialogue tree.
You make choices, response to people, and different things happen. The story itself
isn’t going to be branching. It all leads to one path. But you will not experience
the story the same, you will get different information based on the choices you
make. These differences will warp the view of the story, like two people on
opposite sides telling you what happened. The player character’s
personality/reactions to things will also change based on pervious actions. I’m
curious, what do you guys think is better; once the “threshold” is reached do you
think that your personality should stay the same for the rest of the game? Or
have an opportunity to revert it after it’s already set?
Another thing we have is the Response System or RS(name pending).
Sometimes dialogue will appear like a hyperlink. But to better explain it, here
is the text from the tutorial:
“Today we are going to talk about the Response System. Whenever
you see a phrase that looks like a link, this is called The Response System or
RS (name pending). When it appears, you have the option to click on the phrase
to further press about that subject. It will cause the conversation to derail
from its original path. This action is not reversible; you will not be able to
go back to the original path. Also, not all RS will have useful
information. Over the game you must use
your digression on which things are worth pressing and which are not. The
effects of RS might not show up immediately and could have lasting
results.“
Basically what the means, is you need to decide what
information is worth asking about and what isn’t. You will not be able to find
out what you missed by not clicking the RS or vice versa unless you
restart/replay the game! It’s your job to put the story together.
Because the game is story based, there is a lot of stuff to
remember. That’s pretty rough. Why should you have to remember what the
password was? Or actually use a pen and physically write it down? I mean, who
even does that anymore! I have two things to help ease this pain. First, during
the entire game there will be an option to go back and read the story thus far
like a book. It will include your options and only what you have seen. It’s your
version of the story. Which is pretty cool, but maybe you’re only looking for
one piece of text? It’s going to be a pain to skim through all the story. That’s
why we have Investigation Mode(name pending)! The player character will have an
“investigation notebook”. You are able to write in this notebook by
highlighting dialogue and pressing a button or something similar. This will
make all the dialogue you think is important easily accessible. There also
might be options of highlighting phrases in the notebook or connecting them in
a certain way to get special dialogue from the player character. Maybe even
open different options in the dialogue tree. Investigation mode is still in
development so if you have any ideas on what you would like to see, I’d love to
hear them!
There are other cool features mechanics in the works, but
these are what I’m most excited about! What do you think? What would you like
to see in IF?
Alex Acton 