Increasing and rewarding intrigue in flick-screen game design

[Sendy The Endless]

This is partially based on a discussion from the old Y! JSW/MM Club (RIP), between (at least) Andrew Broad and myself.

We were talking about a few ways in which you can go beyond functional box-type rooms in flick-screen games, and create intrigue and the desire for exploration.

The first of these are frequently referred to as Promised Lands, aka "How do I get there?!" where one room has at least two parts which are inaccessible from eachother. Think of The Security Guard in the original JSW, and the little tunnel it connects to in The Drive. The dreaded Banyan Tree has two mysteries to new players coming in from the right - the cave under the tree with the ring, and actually getting to the left side of the tree (let's face it, none of us got through the Banyan when we were kids, right. Right?!)

Going outside of JSW, there is the top-right part of the screen on the second room of Monty On The Run. Especially when I was a kid, there was something seductive about this. Even today, as a jaded adult (disguising a still fairly unblemished inner child lol) I still love this feeling in games. Geoff Eddy's games seem to employ this a lot, even to the point of one room (I forget which) which splits the room down the middle, and getting to the far side gives a real dopamine hit. Whether it's a tunnel running through a room that goes to some part of the map you haven't visited, or something more complex, I feel this is an oft-overlooked design tool which is easy and fun to impliment!

 

The second type are called Hallowed or Forbidden Grounds (or Forbidden Holy Grounds in Dr. Broad's nomenclature in Nomen Clature). Places like the top of the off-licence roof and the platform mid-right of The Ballroom West spring to mind. There's no reason to think, as a novice, that you might not step foot in these places eventually, but, without cheats, it's never somewhere you can actually be. Unreachable exits, side areas you can see but can't get to; just to add atmosphere and get the player wondering... All part of worldbuilding and piquing curiosity and commonly underutilized.

 

The third type which I just thought up, a fusion of the first two, where passage is either prohibitively difficult or otherwise ambiguous. Getting through the Banyan Tree is a good example. If you can do it, it's a shortcut, but it's quite difficult until you master the game. Technician Ted had "The Photocopier", I remember reading a review of this game in a mag when I was a kid, and the reviewer remarked that it was "almost impossible" to get through it, but it provided a significant shortcut if you could pull it off.

This also extends to disguised or ambiguous passageways, like for example the passageway to The Forgotten Abbey. The animation of the conveyor is a nice clue that something's not quite right here, but I should think first time players parse The Wine Cellar as having no exits at all to the right. It's only when the player gets more experienced with how ramps and collision work, that they can finally get rewarded by one of the hardest rooms in the game, and then wish they could go back to not knowing 😆

More trivially, think of the cracks too small to fit through in the mineshaft section of Wanted: Monty Mole. It's a space in the game you can't utilize, and hence it adds a richness to the environment that sells the fact that you're underground. The fact that they're non-functional and might as well be walls is actually the point in these cases.

 

Finally, perhaps the least "useful" one, but sometimes I like to put rooms that are just nice to hang out in, don't lead anywhere, and have nothing to collect or do in them. I tend to call these Secret Gardens, but they don't have to be secret. It just sounds nicer than "pointless rooms" : ))). Good things to put here are low-risk "playground"s, sight gags, or if you're feeling fiendish, a completely obscured invisible passage to someplace else (usually a shortcut, extra life, shout out to player, teleports, etc). A room that's non-essential but rewards inquisitive players.

 

The whole crux of this long and rambling ode to exploring in platform games is, going beyond pure gameplay considerations can allow an ambience to be built around your little world in miniature. Does anyone have a favourite instance of this kind of thing, or a memory from childhood (or post-adult covert childhood 😉)?

Edited February 12, 2023 by Sendy The Endless
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[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for this description, Sendy! I totally agree with most of it 🙂 .

I believe the standard name which was used on the JSW/MM Yahoo! Group for the second type you described was "Forbidden Holy Ground". This term was also going to be used in Andrew Broad's unfinished Nomen Clature: A MM/JSW Glossary (you can see it there, but without a definition). I believe it would be best to stick to it to keep the terminology as unified as possible 🙂 .

Personally, I am not too fond of these:   

On 2/4/2023 at 1:22 PM, Sendy The Endless said:

Finally, perhaps the least "useful" one, but sometimes I like to put rooms that are just nice to hang out in, don't lead anywhere, and have nothing to collect or do in them. I tend to call these Secret Gardens, but they don't have to be secret. It just sounds nicer than "pointless rooms" : )))

It's probably because I'm generally results-oriented. If the ultimate purpose of the game is collecting items, it is collecting items. If a room has no items and it is not necessary to pass through it to complete the game, it is pretty much pointless from my point of view. 

I recently re-recorded a walkthrough of Stuart J. Hill's "Utility Cubicles" (the YouTube video can be watched here). It does have a prime example of a Secret Garden - it's "Doc Shiels' Sea-Head Factory" (63), a nice room hidden to the left of "Ore-Rich Cavern" (39). You won't see it in my walkthrough, though, because my walkthroughs are meant to present elegant, efficient solutions to games. So if there is a room where there is no item and no need to enter, it won't be documented in the walkthrough.

While "Doc Shiels' Sea-Head Factory" actually *feels* like a Secret Garden room as per your definition, there are several other rooms in "Utility Cubicles" which do not have to be visited to complete the game, because they have no items and the player does not have to pass through them - but I wouldn't call them Secret Gardens. These are: "Synthetic Lair of the Pac-Worm" [11], "Pathway to the Pyramid" [20], "Confusion Pipe, Primary Level" [26], ""Confusion Pipe, Secondary Level" [32], "West Wall of the City" [48], "Broken Pipe" [54]. So 7 rooms out of 64 do not need to be visited at all. For me, this is the weakest point of this otherwise excellent game which I have always liked. And it has 175 unused items, so it would just be enough to use 7 of them to put an item in each of these rooms to force the player to visit them.

I would also like to mention one of my favourite secret passages in JSW games. It's in Matt Doughty's "Maria's Revenge". To access it, you need to start in "The Factory" (you can see it at 26:34 in my walkthrough).  You have to go through three following rooms and in the third of them, "The Barn", you are now able to exit upwards, which takes you to two more rooms and one item. I remember when I first played that game it took me a long time to figure out what needs to be done. The beauty of this design is that you pass through these rooms at the floor level, you see them, and yet it's really hard to envisage that you need to pass through them also at a higher level. The starting point is concealed nicely too (in plain view!) - it's not an obvious jump at all. This one is a real classic for me 🙂 .

[jetsetdanny]

I will just add that browsing through the old messages from the JSW/MM Yahoo! Group I can see that Stuart once wrote, "I always like to include a secret room which (hopefully) ties in with another game". The "Doc Shiels' Sea-Head Factory" room in "Utility Cubicles" was a harbinger of his second JSW game, "Monstrum!". Similarly, Stuart's third JSW game (and the first one using the JSW64 game engine), "Willy and the Dodecahedron", features a Secret Garden room called "The Lemonade Man" (081), which is a reference to Stuart's planned sequel to "Willy and the Dodecahedron" called "Willy Meets the Lemonade Man". Stuart once wrote that "it would be a smaller game with (ideally) more sophisticated rooms". 

It hasn't materialised yet, but hope never dies in JSW world 🙂 . I sincerely hope Stuart will make another comeback and present us with the Lemonade Man adventures one day 🙂 .

[Sendy The Endless]

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I believe the standard name which was used on the JSW/MM Yahoo! Group for the second type you described was "Forbidden Holy Ground". This term was also going to be used in Andrew Broad's unfinished Nomen Clature: A MM/JSW Glossary (you can see it there, but without a definition). I believe it would be best to stick to it to keep the terminology as unified as possible 🙂 .

Yes but I think my term sounds cooler. 🤠

The concepts of "forbidden" and "holy" are nicely wrapped up in "hallowed", and it feels like a more secular/neutral term (even though I coined the term "Hand of God" for when an invisible force saves you from death, I borrowed that from football, which I'm not really a fan of... I don't know where this parenthetical is going, lol). Andrew lists "vanishing wall" as a synonym for "opening wall". I think my term has its own merits, but I'll agree to also use the terminology from Andrew Broads list in forum postings if you prefer.

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It's probably because I'm generally results-oriented. If the ultimate purpose of the game is collecting items, it is collecting items. If a room has no items and it is not necessary to pass through it to complete the game, it is pretty much pointless from my point of view. 

I recently re-recorded a walkthrough of Stuart J. Hill's "Utility Cubicles" (the YouTube video can be watched here). It does have a prime example of a Secret Garden - it's "Doc Shiels' Sea-Head Factory" (63), a nice room hidden to the left of "Ore-Rich Cavern" (39). You won't see it in my walkthrough, though, because my walkthroughs are meant to present elegant, efficient solutions to games. So if there is a room where there is no item and no need to enter, it won't be documented in the walkthrough.

 

But the ultimate purpose of the game is NOT neccecarily collecting items, just as the purpose of running is not to reach the end of the course, but to get fit and enjoy the adrenaline rush of challenging your body; the purpose of a platform game is exploration, the joy of discovery, and to test planning and reflex skills. The average player of any JSW-like picks their battles when it comes to items, seeing how many they can collect, perhaps challenging themselves to best their record etc. Getting all of them is a big task way off on the horizon, often prohibitively difficult for casual players (even with cheats and save-states and the like).

Yes, placement of items is very important, as they're nodes on a journey that makes planning an optimal route for an experienced player more compelling, and of course, touching things and collecting them is just something gamers are satisfied by (hunter/gatherer instincts which are now redundant being expressed, perhaps); but the primary function to me is to create a miniature world with atmosphere, and the exploration aspect of these games, and the payoff of getting past hazards to reach new locations is the primary dopamine hit.

The fact that Secret Gardens don't appear in longplays makes them all that more special to me. It solidifies their point as something off the beaten track that only a few curious minds will see. They can also fill out a screenshot map and make it seem more "organic". It's obviously a super subjective topic, but S.J. Hill's ones are a perfect example to me. What neat little easter-eggs they are!

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While "Doc Shiels' Sea-Head Factory" actually *feels* like a Secret Garden room as per your definition, there are several other rooms in "Utility Cubicles" which do not have to be visited to complete the game, because they have no items and the player does not have to pass through them - but I wouldn't call them Secret Gardens. These are: "Synthetic Lair of the Pac-Worm" [11], "Pathway to the Pyramid" [20], "Confusion Pipe, Primary Level" [26], ""Confusion Pipe, Secondary Level" [32], "West Wall of the City" [48], "Broken Pipe" [54]. So 7 rooms out of 64 do not need to be visited at all. For me, this is the weakest point of this otherwise excellent game which I have always liked. And it has 175 unused items, so it would just be enough to use 7 of them to put an item in each of these rooms to force the player to visit them.

Interesting point. In this case, I'd classify these just as junction rooms, but as they have gameplay challenges in them, I agree it's a shame those 7 objects aren't there.

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I would also like to mention one of my favourite secret passages in JSW games. It's in Matt Doughty's "Maria's Revenge". To access it, you need to start in "The Factory" (you can see it at 26:34 in my walkthrough).  You have to go through three following rooms and in the third of them, "The Barn", you are now able to exit upwards, which takes you to two more rooms and one item. I remember when I first played that game it took me a long time to figure out what needs to be done. The beauty of this design is that you pass through these rooms at the floor level, you see them, and yet it's really hard to envisage that you need to pass through them also at a higher level. The starting point is concealed nicely too (in plain view!) - it's not an obvious jump at all. This one is a real classic for me 🙂 .

OMG, yes! I love stuff like that, where entering and exiting rooms in a certain way is part of the puzzle, and making use of verticality in a room to split it up.

There's also what I consider to be one of the lamest examples of a secret passage in Where's Woody, lol. Right at the beginning of the game, and I believe it's the only way you can actually go, unless you want to take that vertical "tour" all the way down to the bottom of the map and lose all your lives : )

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It hasn't materialised yet, but hope never dies in JSW world 🙂 . I sincerely hope Stuart will make another comeback and present us with the Lemonade Man adventures one day 🙂 .

I was so happy to see Willy and the Dodecahedron. I really thought Monstrum was going to be it. I can tell he enjoys making these so I'm fairly sure, whenever he has time and inspiration, he'll surprise us with Lemonade Man!

Edited February 12, 2023 by Sendy The Endless
Not enough time to explain

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for your thoughts, Sendy! 🙂

I don't think we will be able to define the "ultimate purpose" of the game in absolute terms. It depends on the point of view and one's preferences (like pretty much everything else in this world IMO). Undoubtedly, completing the game involves collecting all items, reaching the bed and successfully making the toilet run to end up in the toilet. But then you could claim that for many people completing the game is not important, playing it and enjoying the exploration is. So it all depends.

I only expressed my personal point of view above, and explained why I'm not too fond of Secret Gardens. I don't have to be, it's my choice. I understand others have a different point of view and different preferences, and I respect that. I also take these other points of view into consideration when designing games, to increase the chances that they will be enjoyable to people who have a different approach to things. It's a question of balancing my own attitude and preferences (which may be minoritary in some ways) and possible attitudes and preferences of others (which I will admit may be majoritary).

My personal "primary dopamine hit" is in completing games, not in exploring them. That's why I play all games recording them and using he Rollback feature, because it allows me to enjoy constant progress. I roll the recording back to the spot where I failed. I never have to start the game from the beginning because I've lost all lives. I get my kicks because I progress and I'm ever closer to the completion of the game. Completing it provides my "ultimate dopamine hit".

I don't enjoy having to struggle with the same obstacles over and over again. What's more, I don't have time for it. I'm not 15 any more, I don't have long school holidays, my spare time is very limited, while the numbers of things I would like to do in it continues to increase. I would have absolutely no pleasure in having to replay the game over and over again, passing through the same obstacles, only because I keep losing lives, or fall into a Multiple Death Scenario, and have to start from the beginning. I don't have time for such futile (from my point of view) exercise. I have too many interesting things to do in my life to just keep replaying the same rooms. I don't enjoy exploration for exploration's sake, either, because its aimless (from my perspective), it doesn't lead to the completion of the game. If I explore the game, it is with one purpose: to gain the knowledge necessary to complete the game (learn the geography, tricks related e.g. to the quirky features of the game engine, etc.).

I have to admit that I am often amazed that people (let's say "members of the general games-playing public") complain that various JSW games are difficult. I am not referring to the dozen of the "hard core", really difficult games (like "STRANGEL", etc.), but to such games like the recently released "AmAZiNG WiLLY" (I have seen some comments that it's difficult). When you play saving and reloading snapshots, or using Rollback, most games are NOT really difficult. "AmAZiNG WiLLY" has quite a number of places where you need to think ahead before you make your move (great design by Carl Paterson!). You jump onto a certain platform and then realise you are trapped, you will have to lose a life. OK, that can be very frustrating if you are playing in the "regular" mode (some people would call it "without cheating"). Yes, definitely it is frustrating if you only have 7 lives to start with. However, I don't understand why anyone would want to play in the "regular" mode today, having the possibility of "assisted" play, like Rollback or saving/reloading snapshots. For me, it would be a waste of time and a source of frustration. I understand the speedrunners who beat these amazing records of completing the game without any "assistance" don't use it, because it's their objective, to achieve the best completion times without any assistance (incidentally, they are results-oriented like myself, I believe). But casual players? Why would you want to repeat the same struggles if you don't have to?

I guess for some people it may be a question of honour (???), the notion of completing the game without "cheating". That's fine, it's their choice, their attitude. I'm absolutely not implying it's wrong in any way, I'm just saying that from my very personal perspective it seems hard to understand why people prefer not to use these "assistive technologies" when they have them at their disposal (and they didn't have them before the emulation era; an infinite lives and other POKEs would have been the most they could get back in the 1980s, I think).

Now that I think about it, though, I will share the following reflection. I have a feeling - and I could be wrong - that not too many people complete the new JSW games for the Spectrum which are released from time to time. There are not many comments by people saying "I've completed this game!". So either people don't complete games or they don't bother to comment on it. It could be either, but I do feel that a lot of people have a go, or two, or three at a game, explore it a little bit, maybe even a little more, but fail to ever complete it.

I dare say that the reason for this is because they don't use the "assistive technologies" (and don't have enough determination to complete the game without them). How much time can you expect a person to devote to a game? I probably wouldn't have completed most of the games I have completed either if I had had to struggle with them and start from the beginning every time I lost all of the (usually 7) spare lives. But then if you don't complete a game, even if you enjoyed exploring it, etc., you don't get a full experience of it, only a limited knowledge. And no real satisfaction, either, at least from my personal perspective. And authors don't get that gratifying info that someone has completed their game.

Okay, enough rambling 🙂 . Once again, this is just my very personal take on things. I'm not saying it's better than anyone else's. But I do claim it's not worse than anyone else's 😉, because I believe all personal points of view are equally valid, as there is no supreme arbiter who could say: This point of view is right, that one is wrong; not even Matthew Smith 🙂.

[jetsetdanny]

14 hours ago, Sendy The Endless said:

The concepts of "forbidden" and "holy" are nicely wrapped up in "hallowed", and it feels like a more secular/neutral term (even though I coined the term "Hand of God" for when an invisible force saves you from death, I borrowed that from football, which I'm not really a fan of... I don't know where this parenthetical is going, lol). Andrew lists "vanishing wall" as a synonym for "opening wall". I think my term has its own merits, but I'll agree to also use the terminology from Andrew Broads list in forum postings if you prefer.

I like the word "Hallowed" for use in JSW terminology 🙂 . However, I doubt that it conveys the meaning of "forbidden" strongly enough. These places in JSW games we are discussing are simply inaccessible, you cannot and you will not reach them (unless you use the Writetyper cheat or POKE the game). I wouldn't argue about it (not being a native speaker of English), but if you look at these examples of "hallowed ground", for instance, and the definition of "hallowed" itself ("used to describe something that is respected and admired, usually because it is old, important, or has a good reputation"), I don't see the element of the entrance to these places being forbidden at all.

So perhaps a "Forbidden Hallowed Ground" would be a good compromise? 🙂 

Not that it matters much, of course 🙂 . I made my remark about the "Forbidden Holy Ground" simply because I am so used to it, and I made my remark about sticking to unified terminology probably out of my subconscious desire that it would be the optimal scenario (as it would allow us to avoid any possible misunderstandings and save one's time thinking about what term to use if that term came to mind immediately because it was so universal). However, I suspect that our destiny is rather "unity in diversity", so of course feel absolutely free to use any term you like 🙂 .

[IRF]

On 2/13/2023 at 1:58 AM, jetsetdanny said:

But then if you don't complete a game, even if you enjoyed exploring it, etc., you don't get a full experience of it, only a limited knowledge. And no real satisfaction, either, at least from my personal perspective.

It's all about personal perspective, and as you say everyone's is different but all are equally valid.

For example, some would say that if you don't hack into the game engine and the various patches that have been applied to a game, then you don't get a full experience of it, only a limited knowledge. 😜

Edited February 15, 2023 by IRF

[Sendy The Endless]

No, these are exactly the kinds of discussions I was hoping for. Not to find out who's right, but to see things from other people's perspective (and show mine)!

There are a million different ways to approach designing a game, even within the realm of what's possible in base-game JSW. That's what makes it interesting, we're all building ships in the same little "bottle".

And to be honest, I don't consider save states/rollbacks cheating, they've been a main part of modern games ever since, what, Wolfenstein 3D? Excluding long plodding adventure games where you could save off your progress because the game is so long (that usually took time) - the ability to jump back in time and redo something in an instant has just made games more playable to more people.

And many consider the concept of lives outdated anyway, especially if there's no way to replenish them by score or something. An infinite lives option and other "accessibility" options are good, look at the hit platformer Celeste - no lives system. In JSW we still have the problem of infinite death loops, but those can be eradicated with meticulous design. I still put a deliberate IDS in JSW:RR though, because I want speedrunners to feel tense, and have to make the trade-off of starting their run with that bit or saving it for later when it could ruin everything. Even then, the jumps are pretty basic. I'm still considering whether to seal the IDS off though.

Anyway, just to give a practical example of how this all comes together. I played Willy in the Mirrorverse last night, no saving etc, to see what it would be like. First room, OK, this is a bit long but interesting. Second room, it's the same but in reverse. Third room, I'm thinking, conceptually, this is really cool, but it's the same gameplay almost as the first two... by the time I saw something new, I think the Void screen, I had already lost 4 lives from rushing. Then on the next screen, the Particle Collapse room (from memory), I died a few more times working out where those single pixel platforms ended (eventually I remembered to use Willy's sprite as a reference), and then of course bumping my head on a fire block with only one pixel in it.

By the time I got to the really interesting screens (something to do with plants), I was on my last life, and when I died... well, nobody would replay those first few rooms. Next time I play I'll use savestates, but I like trying things out "vanilla" first. It's a very interesting game, and I love the concept of it, but without a branching path near the beginning to mitigate repetitiousness, savestates and infinite lives are a must!

When I die in regular JSW I don't feel this way. I can pick a different route, try different things, etc. I think it's easy (and I have done this tons of times) to forget about the "player experience" when designing, and just express your own creativity and vision, without thinking how it will appear to a casual player. Not to knock this game, I really like it. I'm just using it as a case study for "vanilla" play vs. "assisted" play. I have more to say about this in a future thread ; )

And I had an absolute blast playing We Pretty and Goodnite Luddite with savestates. It's like rock-climbing. Each stavestate is a new safety cable, and the rest is sheer force of will to inch upwards : )

It's a good idea to figure out who you're designing for, what kind of audience, and make that known in the "marketing" and on-ramping text of the game, as Andrew did in his games.

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So perhaps a "Forbidden Hallowed Ground" would be a good compromise? 🙂 

Agreed, I like that. And same acronym as FHG ; )

[Jet Set Willie]

Sendy, in your starting post in this topic, you said aloud my thoughts about JSW/-type game design! 🙂In a better way, though. I like the idea about "secret gardens", one could put up a room what is beautiful or interesting in players´ eyes.🙂

I´d want to say to anyone, either being a master in JSW game designing or a novice thinking of possibly making a JSW game, if you want to make a room(s) you´d like to make, don´t listen to anyone who don´t like that kind of rooms or feels they are useless, just use your imagination and make your game real, no matter a big or small! 😃 But I want to note, that I understand other views too. 🙂

[Sendy The Endless]

Danny's just stating what he prefers, and how he thinks.  I can see his reasoning - you make a nice room, give the player a reason to go there. I generally tend to agree, but I like a smidge of purposelessness and illogic in my worlds : )