heh heh....Butt! (as one of Gru's minions)Greebo wrote:It must be my warped sense of something, but using hindsight to refer to ass staring made me grin!
One of the things I didn't like about SITA was the lack of hit targets. For me, there is an additional level of immersion when I do things like clicking on lips to kiss, or the cheek to kiss the cheek, or the neck to nuzzle the neck that is lost if I just select them from a text menu. Essentially, with hit targets, it's still a menu, but it feels more interactive and immersive. Very few games that I play actually spell out all the choices that are available to the player, and I don't really care for the ones that do. With that said though, when it comes to hit targets, there is a difference between having small, but sensible hit targets, and actively deceiving or hiding them. I try to avoid active deception in the placement, although some do end up seeming deceptive. I like hearing about those from playtesters so that I can consider how to relieve the unintentional deception. An example in the bar scene from an earlier round would beExLibris wrote:...However, I do agree that concealing links, either by making them small or by having a more obvious link present to distract the player, is not a very interesting form of gameplay. I actually wouldn't mind all that much if all of the options were visible as text links. You would be sacrificing a certain amount of player agency by giving that information to the player rather than allowing them to find it, but it would eliminate the tedious business of actually finding the links and focus the player on deciding what to do next.
I also think that finding things that were missed before is an important aspect of replayability, and that also isn't really possible with a text only menu. The challenge is making sure that options are missed because a player happened to overlook it. What I mean by that is what I think of as the 8 out of 10 rule. Eight out of 10 casual players should find the target without trouble or significant searching on the first playthrough. Some items that are more subtle should still be found by at least half of them on the first playthrough. Once again, I try to go with a head-slapper idea about finding missed items should be followed by a mental "I can't believe I missed that," and not a mental "Man, that was brutal to find."
Yeah, it's pretty rough at the moment. I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it unless feedback indicated it would be the preferred method. the final version will have visual cues that hopefully will make it all self explanatory. Basically Achievements are broken down by day and scene. The other achievement mode would go away completely if implemented, so clicking achievements from the menu would go straight to the day selection screen (currently a cityscape placeholder image) rather than having to go through the current link on the intro complete achievement.ExLibris wrote:I did glance at it, but unfortunately the cityscape made me think it wasn't implemented yet. On closer inspection it does seem to be much easier to use. However, I do think it needs a bit more explanation about how it works.
I might do this too. Continue has always bugged me a little bit. Currently, if there is a "continue" hit target, there is never anything else to click on.tlaero wrote:From now on, in my games there will never be a hit target that is just "continue." Continue will always be in the bottom table as "(Continue.)" That way, if you see a yellow outline on the image, you know there's something worthwhile to click in there somewhere.
In general, I agree with you. Hit targets should usually be associated with something to click on. There are times where I think it is OK to have unanchored hit targets. Your "get behind her" example is one where I think it's appropriate. In that case the hit target was anchored to an empty space the player would move to, so we could have a philosophical debate on whether it was actually an anchored (to empty space) or unanchored target.tlaero wrote:I don't think clicking empty areas is right, though I've been known to use empty area hit targets in my games ("get behind her"). I think you've got to make it so that the person is clicking something in the image. Since tips are put in stockings or panties, it's fine to have the tip target be on those spots. I understand what you were doing. From the POV camera angle, holding up a tip would show up at the bottom of the screen. But it certainly didn't work for me.

Also, just as a teaser for day 2
Finally,
Hopefully, the difficulty is not in finishing the game to a satisfactory ending, but rather in finding all the endings and achievements. I'm aiming for the complexity will be seen by players as variety. I don't know if I have the skill to pull that off or not, but that is what I'm aiming for. When there is no longer a chance for a satisfactory ending, the game will end for that playthrough. If you make it home at the end of the day, you're still in the game.ExLibris wrote:I do think that this game is going to be difficult, perhaps overly so, but that has more to do with its size and complexity.
Wolfschadowe