It’s a good game, just with a very narrow target audience. (This site is probably a good place to find players who will get something out of it, since you have higher than average percentages of people willing to take a lot of time to think about and explore a cerebral game).
Some specific lessons I’d draw from that game and apply here:
Don’t penalize failure too hard. The Void’s single biggest issue (for me) is that even when you know what you’re doing you’ll need to experiment and every failure ends with death (often hours after the failure). I reached a point where every time I made even a minor failure I immediately loaded a saved game. If the purpose is to experiment, build the experimentation into the game so you can try again without much penalty (or make the penalty something that is merely psychological instead of an actual hampering of your ability to play the game.)
Don’t expect players to figure things out without help. There’s a difference between a game that teaches people to be rational and a game that simply causes non-rational people to quit in frustration. Whenever there’s a rational technique you want people to use, spell it out. Clearly. Over and over (because they’ll miss it the first time).
The Void actually spells out everything as best they can, but the game still drives players away because the mechanics are simply unlike any other game out there. Most games rely on an extensive vocabulary of skills that players have built up over years, and thus each instruction only needs to be repeated once to remind you of what you’re supposed to be doing. The Void repeats instructions maybe once or twice, and it simply isn’t enough to clarify what’s actually going on. (The thing where NPCs lie to you isn’t even relevant till the second half of the game. By the time you get to that part you’ve either accepted how weird the game is or you’ve quit already).
My sense is that the best approach would be to start with a relatively normal (mechanics-wise) game, and then have NPCs that each encourage specific applications of rationality, but each of which has a rather narrow mindset and so may give bad advice for specific situations. But your “main” friend continuously reminds you to notice when you are confused, and consider which of your assumptions may be wrong. (Your main friend will eventually turn out to be wrong/lying/unhelpful about something, but only the once and only towards the end when you’ve built up the skills necessary to figure it out).
Huh, sounds very interesting! So my awesome game concept would give rise to a lame game, eh?
This was my experience with the Void exactly. Basically all the mechanics and flavors were things I had come up with one my own that I wanted to make games out of, and I’m really glad I played the Void first because I might have wasted a huge chunk of time making a really bad game if I didn’t get to learn from their mistakes.
It’s a good game, just with a very narrow target audience. (This site is probably a good place to find players who will get something out of it, since you have higher than average percentages of people willing to take a lot of time to think about and explore a cerebral game).
Some specific lessons I’d draw from that game and apply here:
Don’t penalize failure too hard. The Void’s single biggest issue (for me) is that even when you know what you’re doing you’ll need to experiment and every failure ends with death (often hours after the failure). I reached a point where every time I made even a minor failure I immediately loaded a saved game. If the purpose is to experiment, build the experimentation into the game so you can try again without much penalty (or make the penalty something that is merely psychological instead of an actual hampering of your ability to play the game.)
Don’t expect players to figure things out without help. There’s a difference between a game that teaches people to be rational and a game that simply causes non-rational people to quit in frustration. Whenever there’s a rational technique you want people to use, spell it out. Clearly. Over and over (because they’ll miss it the first time).
The Void actually spells out everything as best they can, but the game still drives players away because the mechanics are simply unlike any other game out there. Most games rely on an extensive vocabulary of skills that players have built up over years, and thus each instruction only needs to be repeated once to remind you of what you’re supposed to be doing. The Void repeats instructions maybe once or twice, and it simply isn’t enough to clarify what’s actually going on. (The thing where NPCs lie to you isn’t even relevant till the second half of the game. By the time you get to that part you’ve either accepted how weird the game is or you’ve quit already).
My sense is that the best approach would be to start with a relatively normal (mechanics-wise) game, and then have NPCs that each encourage specific applications of rationality, but each of which has a rather narrow mindset and so may give bad advice for specific situations. But your “main” friend continuously reminds you to notice when you are confused, and consider which of your assumptions may be wrong. (Your main friend will eventually turn out to be wrong/lying/unhelpful about something, but only the once and only towards the end when you’ve built up the skills necessary to figure it out).
This was my experience with the Void exactly. Basically all the mechanics and flavors were things I had come up with one my own that I wanted to make games out of, and I’m really glad I played the Void first because I might have wasted a huge chunk of time making a really bad game if I didn’t get to learn from their mistakes.