Black and White 2 - How To Construct A Giant 26
Gamasutra has another GDCE postmortem, this time for the sequel to the god-in-a-box sim Black and White. From the article: "The design philosophy that Lionhead Studios adopted for the sequel to Black and White was to enhance the player's feeling of being a god in the game world by immersing them as fully as possible in that world. What this meant in practice was to largely reject the standard model of game menus and data-panels for an interface that forms part of the game world itself. This presented the design team with all kinds of challenges which were made even harder by the decision to expand the scope of B&W 2 beyond its god game heritage to include elements such as real-time strategy, simulation, city building and a physics engine. "
Someday, Lionhead will realize menus are good ... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things that absolutely wrecked B&W (gameplay issues aside) was the lack of any kind of real, usable in-game menus, icons, etc.
I can't think of any game where lack of menus actually led to a greater sense of immersion, but I can think of plenty of games where an outstandingly crafted UI with menus, buttons, bars, numbers, etc, led to a deeper sense of immersion and a better game experience overall. I suppose Myst would be an exception that comes to mind.
I respect that Lionhead is trying to do something new(ish) with their game design, but since they haven't gotten it right yet, maybe they should try doing something that will actually make for a fun game, and then work on modding that fun game with the EVIL MENUS OF DOOM to match up to their design paradigm of NO MENUS ONLY IMMERSION.
I don't think I'm that far outside the realm of the Typical when I say that I found the no-menus vague world-based feedback (village statues, condition of your animal) requiring a lot more time to analyze to decide what to do next than using a simple menu-driven system.
From the article, it sounds like they are implementing tooltips and things as a compromise, so it might not be as bad. But I genuinely don't see the gain they're talking about from taking tools away from the user. Having complex underpinnings and status in a game is swell, but it doesn't matter if I can only view it through primary colors and simplistic graphics.
Re:Someday, Lionhead will realize menus are good . (Score:2)
And if you want stats, there are keyboard shortcuts to displa
Re:Someday, Lionhead will realize menus are good . (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish my last girlfriend had a better status meter above her head or a control panel of some sort. Making gestures at her just seemed to make her mad. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell exactly how mad until she flung some poop at me and left.
If she only had a nice indicator panel to show me just how mad she was... My mind is rather worthless at figuring out the status of things, especially the mood of things without a number or gauge showing everything.
That's something I missed in the first B&W.
When I slapped around my pet, I wanted to see exactly what that meant to him immediately. I don't recall seeing detailed feedback, other than he might have eaten some of my villagers later. This might have been a random act or a response to my beating... which made me wonder how to properly dicipline the beast.
Re:Someday, Lionhead will realize menus are good . (Score:2)
Did I try to give her my banana too often? Not enough? Was she displeased with the banana itself?
Or did she just enjoy flinging excrement and eating villagers?
Attempting to evolve the concept of visual feedback is a noble goal, but there are times when a simple informative display can save your banana when angry girlfriends want to fling villagers and excrement at it.
Re:Someday, Lionhead will realize menus are good . (Score:1)
Re:Someday, Lionhead will realize menus are good . (Score:2)
Only thing I didn't like was that stupid Shrine you had to fly around in. Could never remember what room stuff was in.
Re:Someday, Lionhead will realize menus are good . (Score:1)
Re:Someday, Lionhead will realize hotkeys are good (Score:1)
Re:Someday, Lionhead will realize menus are good . (Score:2)
The menu-less aspect is interesting. Context works well in a lot of places (eg file browsers) rather than a global menu. Although having pop-up/drop-down menus rather than obscure gestures would make it more intuitive for me.
Shame they took out the sun moving idea, that did so
Arcade vs. Complex (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly, as demonstrated by classic arcade games (Frogger / Pac Man / Dig Dug / etc), you don't need menus for a very simple arcade game.
However, more complex such as strategy (Warcraft / Master Of Orion / Civilization) would be impossible to implement without clever use of menus.
I don't think you can say menus always SHOULDN'T be included any more than you can say they always SHOULD be included. It's more of a matter of genre and complexity as to whether or not menus are appropriate.
Re:Arcade vs. Complex (Score:1, Interesting)
All the examples you've given include a lot of menus, but they are built-in to the GUI and HUD of the game itself. You don't have to pause the game to access them, or leave the game world to access them.
Menus are bad when they take you away from the game. If Lionhead feels like thats what menus were doing to their game, I say take them bitches away!
RE4, a nearly perfect game, had some flawed menus that were its only probl
postmortum? (Score:1)
Re:postmortum? (Score:1)
Re:postmortum? (Score:2)
My thoughts on this new trend. [slashdot.org]
I wonder how much of this actually made it in. (Score:4, Insightful)
Good old Peter Molyneux, always promising stuff that he can't deliver. I'll be surprised if most of the stuff on the above list isn't really basic, assuming that it's there at all.
I at least hope that they, you know, actually fixed the problems with the first game while they were adding all of this stuff.
Rob
Re:I wonder how much of this actually made it in. (Score:2)
Re:I wonder how much of this actually made it in. (Score:1)
Yes, there was a lot of disappointment about the short story-mode, but that didn't last long.
Most of the community ended up playing online or skirmishes, anyway. There were even sites that collected creatureminds. And we [planetblackandwhite.com] know.
B&W2 will have more islands, but as with any game; you can play it as fast or as slow as you want. Most of the people who complained that Fable was too short didn't even do any of the side quests. Same goes for B&W2.
Either way, take it or leave it. The previews so far are
Re:I wonder how much of this actually made it in. (Score:2)
-ReK
Re:I wonder how much of this actually made it in. (Score:1)
How quickly people have turned on one of the greatest games designers. There is now a small army of forum visitors and IRC junkies complaining about how he never delivers.
The Theme park seri
UI Modding (Score:1)
What Lionhead should have done, IMHO, is implement a UI modding system such as the one in WoW.
Different people prefer different ways of controling their game - no menus might work for some, but trying to force people into a gaming style that doesn't work for them is a sure way to lose customers. IMO one of the best selling points for WoW is that it provides a way to customize the UI using a relatively simple scripting language (Lua).
It's a win-win situation - the gamers get a way to view and control the g
Input v. Output (Score:2)
I understand what they're trying to accomplish with their avoidance of menus, and I think it's a noble goal. They just need to remember that there's two types of menus in a game (three counting options and all, but you can't do without those):
First is boxes telling you wh