Missing the Message
October 27th, 2007I’ve just uploaded a new version of Chivalry is Not Dead, because a little while ago, a friend of mine managed to find a couple of bugs that none of my beta testers were able to come across.
To be honest, I think this says far more about the nature of the game itself than it does about the people who tested it. It appears that due to the high number of possible options, there are some actions in the game that only one in about twenty or thirty people will actually get around to trying. I think it’s pretty cool, and at the same time, slightly disappointing. There are, after all, a handful of situations I put in that I thought made for really interesting ethical questions which I’m surprised no one has mentioned yet, but it’s also occurred to me that it’s possible for said situations to have been skipped over entirely, simply by virtue of most people not taking the required actions to reach them.
I think I’m starting to understand why a lot of game developers don’t find it worthwhile to include more interactivity in their narratives. Slowly but surely, I’m learning that if you’ve got a message you really want to convey, you’ve got to make sure that your players will see it or some other version thereof, no matter what paths they take. Of course, if you make something hidden deep within the surface, it’ll be an even greater reward for the rare people who do find it. Oh, the tradeoffs…
Completely unrelatedly, I’ve got a new poem up at Scum and Miscellany, called “You Go About Your Business”. I’ll let you figure out for yourselves what it’s all about.
October 28th, 2007 at 9:49 am
hmmm. Do you think it’s a loss if players don’t find ALL the paths? Isn’t the nature of this sort of thing that people find their own?
I haven’t had time lately to replay it lately (or reply to your email! Sorry about that - I’m a slacker!), but I’m hoping to get back into it. One of the things I tried to do when I started was find alternative paths - the sort of things you can’t usually do in games. Most them seemed to involve me ending the game early with various creative uses of my dagger! And, of course, running off with the prophet-lady was one of the cooler endings.
Perhaps I’m just stuck in the mindset of how you usually play these games, but I had trouble figuring out how to solve some of the puzzles in ways that weren’t the more immediately obvious solutions (Ie, waving my dagger in people’s faces!). When I go back I hope to find another way to get that damned sword. I seriously tried for a long time to get it in a way that didn’t involve violence, or tricking people into drinking poisons.
I have a question - do all the endings finish (assuming the game doesn’t end en route) at Lord Horrible’s castle? Or, depending on an early choice, is there a widely divergent story path?
Also, I wouldn’t get too hung up by lack of feedback (particularly on the more interesting aspects of your game - like moral dilemmas, etc… I think people usually have less to say about things that make them think. They don’t have easily canned responses.) That’s been my experience with my books, really. Would be nice to get feedback, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t get it or enjoy it.
October 28th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Oh, I definitely don’t intend for all players to find all paths. That would completely defeat the point of having all those paths in the first place. I’m just saying that if there’s something especially important you need to say, as opposed to something ancillary, then you should make sure people don’t miss it.
About the endings, yes, the last possible place you can finish is at Lord Horrible’s castle, particularly since I don’t have the time or budget to widely diverge the story path. Plus, there’s no real point in me doing so, other than gimmickry.
And I think you’re right about people generally not having easily canned responses to things that make them think, as I’m slowly realising. (And I think I might often be guilty of this too.) It’s a little sad, though, because one of the reasons I like making games is so I can spark dialogues with others. I guess now I’m curious to know whether knowing that there might be a non-violent or non-deceitful way of progressing through a situation make players less comfortable with performing the obvious ones, or more frustrated when they find themselves unable to figure it out, and what the game is telling them about the world as a result. Of course, if no one has a canned response for that, then I’ll understand.
October 28th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I like the question you posit at the end of your post. I kind of felt ‘weak’ for resorting to the dagger in the end, but sometimes I felt like it was way harder for me to figure out the non-violent way. IE, you made it real easy to use the dagger, and not so easy to work things out peacefully (Which might be generally true of real life). At the same time, I think it would have been cool to have some endings where using the dagger obviously didn’t get the effect you were looking for. (ie, you pull the dagger on the guard and he kills you instead.) Stuff like that.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
I’ve played your wonderful Chivalry eight times now, and nuance, or ambiguity of choice makes this one of the oddest and most intriguing games I’ve played yet. Our dear Phlegmwad is not a standard character who either starts out “good” or “bad” and stays that way, or is “bad” but learns “lessons” along the way and is redeemed at the end. Because of your branching storylines, Phlegmwad could go in any direction, and I think that may make some gamers uncomfortable. He’s an assassin–but the poor fellow obviously had some traumas in his early life. He tries to do the right thing–or does he? Is he just trying to get by the best he can?
I, unlike some of your fans, love the branching. I am ever one to explore possibilities, and many games do not offer those kinds of opportunities. Sometimes “revelations” are made about a character along the way which surprise us, but we don’t have a way to choose a moral path, usually.
I love the colors, and the characters and settings are very clear. The point and click is very simple. I kind of miss having more choices there, such as using combinations of inventory items–but that wouldn’t really add to the story, and story is the thing–at least for me.
As a musician, I had to love the minstrel, both for his career choice and his persistence. Yay! Thanks Deirdra! P.S. I read your poem, and I will not believe that any of your creations will ever lack soul.