JoeJ.

I have actually answered all those questions but….

The game is 3rd person, though it could be 1st.

The game is played with a controller. As for the exact controls, I haven't given that much thought.

The goal is simple, make sure all the other animals have their needs met.

Progress consists of, you start off somewhere in the center of the zoo, and you gradually branch out, in a non linear way (though platforming, getting keys, hitting buttons, through obtaining new items (such a rope to scale the fence), and with the help of other animals you've help (ie the gorrila is strong enough to lift a gate for you to roll under. The pandas have crafted a bamboo ladder for you. ect) until you have access to the whole zoo, and have helped ever animal who needs help. Then the credits roll.

…….I'm quite aware of those potential issues you raised man!

………………………..

And I don't care what you call it man…. But a story driven game with the central gameplay mechanic being finding/using items, does have quite a bit in common with the Return to Monkey Island or whatever!

Seriously man… Imagine if Grim Fandango sold like pancakes, and so Tim Schafer was told that they'd give him whatever he needed for his next game…….. surely he would have been thinking about these kind of things!? (You can already see elements of it present in Grim Fandango)

@taby its good your doing the cool lighting framework! Thexder, I remember a school friend ages ago playing that game, he was into it, and I was intrigued a little by it, its a very old game. but looks fun, I like the automatic lazer aiming its got in it.

Blackberry said:
until you have access to the whole zoo, and have helped ever animal who needs help. Then the credits roll.

That's surely not enough for the ending.
You say you can branch out in a non linear way, which means the order of accomplishing goals (helping gorilla first, then pandas, or vice versa) is not fixed, i guess.
If so, the story can't rely on order, and thus the story can not build up towards some final climax or showdown.
It might feel like ‘I've already helpend animals x,y,z, and i have just helped the goose, and now the game is suddenly over? I did not yet expect it to end yet, and i feel disappointed.’

So i think you need another governing goal beyond helping everybody. There must be a deeper reason, a distinctive final goal. You could need the help of each animal to achieve it, which also gives a better reason to help them.

I remember the recent cat game Stray as an example. They start the game showing how a group of cats cares about each other, e.g. by licking each other and having fun with strolling around. But then you get seperated from your family / friends of other cats by falling down a hole. The motivation is now set: You want to get back to them, so all the cats can be happy again.

This is very effective visual story telling. Within the first minutes they introduce teh main character, it's background, and they motivate the player to solve the given problem.

Notice that just 10 years earlier almost all AAA games have completely failed on this. They throwed you into some huge world, and you have to kill everybody without a given reason.
Terrible. Older games are not always the better resource to learn from.

Blackberry said:
The game is 3rd person, though it could be 1st.

3rd seems better suited i agree. But getting animations right to interact with physics objects will be though.
Look at Uncharted 4 for example. this game is extremely ambituous regarding character animation. All this climbing, swinging on ropes, two characters helping each other to get up somewhere, moving crates and physics puzzles.
The guys who did this are real experts with animation and player controllers. But the outcome still looks silly most of the time. It's obvious that laws of physics are constantly broken, and it feels off. (Just saying - it's still impressive, the game is good, and i like them pushing the boundary of what's possible.)

I assume that's your main design challange: Find some visual style so the physics interactions can lack accuracy, but still look believable and acceptable.
Assuming some cartoony artstyle, that's at least easier as with the realistic Uncharted.

---

So - that's the potential issues i see. Not meant as critique or doubt, yep? The rest looks fine to me.

Blackberry said:
And I don't care what you call it man…

You do care way to much about how i call it.
If you wouldn't care - as you say and should - we would not need to argue about the RPG incident still now, 5 pages later.

So, stand to your word! ;D

Blackberry said:
Give us an example of how you think more complex interactions with the environment, could aid to gameplay, or create who new types of games?

Well, i would give NetHack as the example. Recently i've learned about the term ‘systemic games’, which means that all objects in the world can interact with each other, to achieve depth and complexity to spur player creativity, i would say.

NetHack seems the best example for this. It's an ASCII game with terrible controlls. I'd need to learn every key on the kb and it's function. Not accessible enough for me, sadly. But it seems a very interesting and influential game. Reading what players have to say about it is inspiring.

“I did not yet expect it to end yet, and i feel disappointed”

Why didn't you expect it to end? The goal was simple, help all the animals, the goose was the last animal, you just helped him, it's over, how is the not clear!?

….Maybe it wasn't clear that the goose was the last animal, but again that's just poor game design to blame, not the idea itself!

(I've actually played a game with this exact same premise called Putt Putt Saves the Zoo, and it didn't at all leaving me feeling like it randomly ended!)

…….yeah this is a simple story, not some layed thriller, but so what!?

…….instead of just repeating over and over again “if you don't do it properly, it will be done properly” why finally address the topic of the thread “How could game befit from more complex.intetactions with the environment?”

……lets just imagine it without the story, and with only PS1 visuals!

And say you're placed in an area, and you're simply told to get from point a to point b! And doing this requires useing an array of objects along with the environment in creative ways!

Can you see any way (with the best talent, and unlimited money) that this could be interesting/fun?

If you can, then describe what you see!

And we can begin to have a real discussion!

…..Surely the mind of anybody who's ever played a slow horror (Silent Hill) video game is just flooded with a million different ways of how this would improve the genre 10 told! (IF DONE PROPERLY!)

Blackberry said:
Why didn't you expect it to end? The goal was simple, help all the animals, the goose was the last animal, you just helped him, it's over, how is the not clear!?

It may be clear, but it is not satisfying.

As i imagine it, the worst case of your progression would be:

Save the Pandas
Save the Gorilla
Save the goose

But it can happen in any order, as the player decides.
Which is the poi9nt where i start to think it's like an RPG. And here we could sum it up like so:

There are 3 quests in the game.

Compelte them in any order, and you're done and win.

But becasue thios lacks a final achievement, depending on completition the 3 quests, so i'm not satisfied.

If there is a final achievement, e.g. you, panda, gorilla and goose joining forces to defeat some common threat, or building some boat together to escape the iseland, … Only then i'm satisfied with the ending.

Now i guess your case is not the worst, and your quests are partially ordered and related, but my concern still stays the same. I use this example of independent RPG quest only to illustrate my point better.
In any case, you need a proper ending if you tell a story. An open ending, leaving questions unaswered can still be good for example. But an abrupt ending after completing all sidequests is bad. And by increasing player options, we also create a tendency to degrade all our quest into sidequests.

So my concern comes from the assumption that you do increase player options. Meaning there are multiple ways to save the gorilla. If the player has more options, he becomes more creative on solving the problem. This way the problem is no longer the focus, but the solution. By removing focus from the problem, we also remove focus from the backing story explainign and connecting all those problems or quest, and so they start to feel like sidequests.

That's something you can counteract by making the story stronger. But you intend the opposite: You want to cut the story climax, althoigh all those point and click adventures you think of use and need such climax even without player options.

Blackberry said:
…….yeah this is a simple story, not some layed thriller, but so what!?

Simple is fine. But missing a climax, it is incomplete.

That's at least my impression.

Blackberry said:
…….instead of just repeating over and over again “if you don't do it properly, it will be done properly” why finally address the topic of the thread “How could game befit from more complex.intetactions with the environment?”

I do not understand the first part at all. Makes no sense.

For the second, read the thread title you gave us. It's nothing about “How could game befit from more complex.intetactions with the environment?”.

If you want to discuss this topic in general, independent from your specific game idea, make a new thread and st the title accordingly. Or ‘properly’, if you like that better.

I'm done here. It's turning cicles around confusion and pointless self defense.

……lets just imagine it without the story, and with only PS1 visuals!

And say you're placed in an area, and you're simply told to get from point a to point b! And doing this requires useing an array of objects along with the environment in creative ways!

Can you see any way (with the best talent, and unlimited money) that this could be interesting/fun?

If you can, then describe what you see!

And we can begin to have a real discussion!

…I made a new thread for you, please don't be a clown there!