Just so this makes a little more sense I’ll re-iterate.
We’ve been mainly working backwards from the ending to the beginning, for one simple reason we didn’t want to write ourselves into story based technicality issues going into the second game.
Now it’s time to make first impressions, there were some interesting tidbits of information in the Doom thread and I wanted to continue getting feedback related to the opening of an FPS / RPG.
Firstly cutscenes:
I have two options, first one is to use a more traditional voice over introduction. As a shuttle arrives at a derelict. This cutscene will lay out some of the lore, apply context and set the game up.
I could just jump straight into the action, where I have a five second cutscene which again shows the ship flying towards a derelict and has a small text layout pretty much describing location / date and nothing more. Then try to weave the story arc’s into the rest of the scene.
I’ll leave this out for debate, I see a few negatives / positives of both.
Secondly, layout and structure. I took some advice about things like “secrets” and having rooms you can actually explore and go back to (instead of constantly moving forward) the intro is quite linear in structure although the rest of the game isn’t. So again I’d like to avoid giving the wrong impression, any notes / tips / feedback is welcome.
Lastly, I’ve been allowed for this portion anyway to show blockouts / design information / intro plans etc. I’d like some feedback on atmosphere / etc. which I’ll post and link in the WIP section.
The main use I see for an opening cutscene is cuing the player to why the protagonist is involved. Maybe add some exposition on the setting, but something under a minute is fine. Most of the details about what the player needs to do are better off put into the world as something the player has to find anyway.
As far as structure, are we talking about full on metroidvania or just a keycard hunt?
One idea I’ve toyed with is making the ship a mechanic. Imagine having to manually start a ship’s reactor, then booking it to turn on systems that will draw enough power so that the reactor won’t overload and explode. It’s mostly just giving the player some reason to think creatively about where they should go.
I agree with @RockoDyne about keeping any opening cutscene under 60 seconds. Always write your story under the assumption that the player will bypass every cutscene possible. If the story reveals itself during gameplay, however, the player can’t miss it. Metro 2033 is a good example. The moment the game starts, your mentor says, “follow me.” You quickly absorb the world and story by osmosis as you follow him through the camp, listen to him talk, and eavesdrop on passersby, all while doing things and almost always retaining total control of your character.
Side paths are fine, but please don’t make the player backtrack. For example, say the goal is to get from the Landing Bay to the Command Deck. I’m happy to explore the Supply Room early on, but don’t force me to go all the way back there for a keycard once I’ve gotten as far as the Living Quarters.
I really like RockoDyne’s idea of giving the puzzles context within the level and the story. It’s much more interesting to me to feel like I’m actually doing something ship-related (like starting the reactor) rather than collecting generic keycards.
Is there a gameplay purpose to the level, such as stepping the player through gameplay controls, or introducing new mechanics?
I assume there’s a story purpose to the level, being the intro, but it’s particularly satisfying to me to play games that introduce gameplay and story seamlessly in parallel.
This part is only a very small portion of the game, it’s purpose is to introduce player controls / set context and bring them into the lore of the galaxy they’re in.
After that you can pretty much do whatever you want, most of the lore / setup is in-game and there aren’t that many cut-scenes apart from the main quest, you have to go and discover what’s going on. That’s one of the main purposes of the game and it’s heavily decision based.
The reason you’re a scavenger is because it’s set 30 years after this quadrants humanity lost a war, the faction that “won” literally destroyed their solar system and destroyed the eco-system of the remaining colonies. Any survivors were moved to the planetship Dragos.
In a twist of fate the “winners” in a loose sense are being invaded and you get caught up in something bigger (can’t go too much into that “spoilers”). You have to decide your place in the whole thing, even if it’s not quite what it seems.
An example mission (which is one of the first so what the hey), people in your colony section don’t have much in the way of food. But there’s an ample amout of meat, so you can go off and investigate, you’ll find out that they are using society’s baddies as a source. You can either put a stop to it or let good people starve.
Or you could just ignore it completely… Up to you really.!
That’s why getting this bit right is important, because without setting the scene you could be entirely lost as to the purpose for the rest of the game…
I vote for having a cut scene that explains the lore. You want to make sure the player is connected to the characters personality. (hero, villain, anti-hero) You don’t want someone thinking they are Lawful-good aligned when the reset of the plot suggests a chaotic-good alignment. then you will run into some identity conflicts and the player will less likely get hooked into the story. So If story doesn’t matter as much, then just through them right into the game. this will sent the message to the player that they are the character and they can make what ever choices they want and not be railroaded.
when I first tried Fallout 4, I thought to myself I’m going play this game like a total dick and kill everyone I see until I find my son… I was quite disappointed when I had to help the Minutemen. So make sure the intro to the game sends the right message.
I know you are a guy who likes biting off big projects, but I would really recommend setting a smaller, simpler goal for the first ‘proof of concept’ playable or perhaps a simplified prototype of the area.
You have a lot of questions that need answering like “what’s the goal of the level” and at least personally, when I have to answer too many questions all at once, my work tends to suffer.
One compromise is to put the backstory cut scene before the main menu. Most players will watch the opening cut scene once before starting play. But it becomes easily skippable for future plays.
@frosted well the goal of the level is to intoduce the player, I have already put something together but before I get to the final polishing phase I always try to reach out for as much feedback as possible.
I guess the question is, if you take a pass at this zone and it ends up being a turd that needs to be significantly rearranged how much time would that cost? If the answer is a couple days, nevermind, but if the answer is a couple weeks or more - then it seems like a risky first playable production target.
If you have an idea for an area or mission that’s more linear and has fewer demands - perhaps a single cinematic, linear path, etc, it might save you time.
I just tend to assume my first pass at anything is going to suck and require a few iterations, so the least time up front required to iterate the better. Especially, if this will also be a kind of test run you rely on for some of your other systems (hud, inventory, dialog, etc).
To clarify: I’m definitely not saying your area is going to be a turd, but in my own work - I’ve learned that the first draft is almost always horrible and needs a lot of revision. Instead of trying to get all the questions right up front, I find that it saves me a lot of time if I can work on stuff in a way where if I’m wrong about something it doesn’t cost too much time. Just the standard rapid iteration approach, I guess.
Yeah, I get you… The HUD / UI / Inventory etc. was done eons ago, it was tested in an alpha… So don’t have to worry about that, I just need to get the art / story / setup right for this part.
I suppose I could run test just the intro portion of it first and see how it plays out, even that would take a week to re-iterate but there’s not much I can do about that.
A week to reiterate on a sub section is a pretty serious investment. Maybe a prototyping pass? Like story boarding the level out, but playable, with primitives or whatever. Just to have a sanity check might be valuable, just to check stuff like “is this hallway too long” - “does it feel right when you go from transition A to transition B, or is the timing weird?” - etc.
I think a lot of that stuff is tricky to judge from a floor plan, really helps if you can experience it in engine just to get a sense of how the time feels. I know from the very simple prototype scene I built that getting the timing right, especially in a tutorial sequence can really be tricky, I never got it dead right. One of the reasons I never got it right was that it ended up being too annoying moving stuff around by the time that I worked in the tutorial prompts, so I just sort of cludged it all together.
I also realized that I wanted a couple extra areas, but by this time I would have had to redo the whole zone.
It’s never the prototyping that’s the issue, I can sling a scene together in a couple of hours… Have it all tested out for navmesh / AI and even do basic texturing / scene views. Doesn’t take long…
What does take long is when you implement all the quest stuff / animations / voice overs / audio / polish etc. just to realise it didn’t actually work in principle …
Possibly invert the scenario. Have the player defending the ship against raiders. This automatically establishes others as the bad guys, short term quests can be given to the player i.e. get to the engine room. Enemy AI can seem a bit simpler in a situation they are unaware of, allows for more show than tell. The beginning cutscene can be very short and have an establishing shot of the ship being attacked. It more easily sets the scene for a dystopian violent universe in which dog eats dog. You could split the map and have 2 smaller ships, with the player having repulsed the initial raiders, charging onto the attackers vessel. You could even have more than one attacking vessel and do a Nelson’s Bridge. A scene where the player has to defend can be more dynamic and threatening and you can still have the exploration element on the other ship whilst showing the combat strategy and tactics involved in close quarter combat during the initaial assault. Usually lengthy exposition can be left until later as every player understands what a home invasion scenario is and no lengthy instructions required. When a scenario is laid out like this in a series of potential beats, it makes it easier to create the combat map for effect and allows for a more objective view of whether the situation is immersive and exciting to play and throws the player immediately into the action. Of course, I have no idea what the game actually is so possibly this scenario is way off the mark anyway.
If you really want to draw in a player I’d open with the action. This is the best way to get someone’s attention and hold it would be by playing them off against against something big but easy allowing them to feel like they can take on the world while really much more challenging enemies are still out there. If you want more info I suggest taking a look at the Extra Credits series on youtube they do some really great stuff.
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