Archive: 8 posts

---

Let's say you're playing a fairly story-heavy level. Early on, you get to the room where it explains the purpose of the level. It's about 8 magic mouth text bubbles and some pictures, which you float to one at a time to read the story at your own pace. I had considered turning these into a series of mini cutscenes, which would basically be just a slightly better version of the individual pictures with subtitle text that locks the screen while you read it. My question is: When faced with a block of story text like this, what's your preferred way to read it and keep your players interested?

2012-07-31 12:29:00 Author: Unknown User

---

Well, when reading long texts in the game, I prefer an option to skip them if they drag on too long or if you finish reading them before it closes. I also would rather read several interesting individual lines at a time than read a long, boring, paragraph with one picture throughout the whole thing. :hero:

2012-07-31 12:43:00 Author: Sackpapoi Posts: 1195

---

When you say mini cutscenes, are the characters in it moving or is it still a relatively...still image? My suggestion is, you can fake a dynamic scene with good camera movement. Don't just have the scene sit there, zoom the camera in/out or side to side in a way that helps you emphasize whatever you need.

2012-07-31 16:33:00 Author: xxMATEOSxx Posts: 1787

---

There probably wouldn't be any characters in the cutscenes, mainly because it's only a small part of an enormous level and the full thermo demands a simple solution. I guess my question should have been split into two parts... one for generally what people prefer, and the other would be how to tackle it in this specific level. The level currently features a simple jetpack-based vehicle. The NPC tells you that if you want to know more, ride it up and read the wall. The wall has picture "panels" with roman numerals marking the order in which they're read, and you ride up and read/close the magic mouths at your own pace. There are 7 pictures with a few lines each. So people reading them are doing so because they choose to (it's not mandatory to beat the level, but it's important background if the player follows the story) I wasn't sure if cutscenes would provide a better way to do this.

2012-07-31 16:59:00 Author: Unknown User

---

Majority of players will skip the reading, Make it a movie based off of your reading like movies based off of books.

2012-07-31 19:37:00 Author: Unknown User

---

Cutscenes will probably give the impression that you really put some work into the level, something that simple sticker images won't do. It will look more appealing.

2012-07-31 22:04:00 Author: gdn001 Posts: 5891

---

Thanks for the opinions... it really seems like cutscenes might be the way to go if I don't have to sacrifice too much thermo. I'm not worried about people thinking not enough effort has been put in (if they've gotten this far, they *know* there's tons of content/detail by now) but I do want to present the story in the most appealing way possible.

2012-08-01 12:52:00 Author: Unknown User

---

A possible middle term would have it like you had before, but instead of sticker pictures, you actually build the scenery in the pictures, and each magic mouth focuses in one of them, this way you will have something controllable an looking better than just sticker images. And not so thermo-demanding.

2012-08-01 23:24:00 Author: gdn001 Posts: 5891

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.