Gameplay Mechanic a Month: Keep/Share Prizes

Month 11 - November 2013

Mechanic Description:

The gameplay mechanic this month is about keeping or sharing the prizes you find while point-and-click adventuring.

Each player takes turns solving puzzles to get prizes. To solve puzzles players use standard point-and-click adventure style to examine objects and hints. When they have worked out a number code, they enter it in to the appropriate locker to attempt to unlock it. If they are successful, they can choose to keep the item entirely for themselves, or share with the other player. Players are notified of their turns by sending "in-character" emails to each other.

Since players take a number of turns, they will build up a picture of the type of person the other player is based on whether they are keeping or sharing. If one player always keeps the prizes for themselves, maybe the other player will stop being so generous...

Playable in the following game:

The Will

Platform:

Web

Genre:

2 player, turn-based, point-and-click adventure

Game Description:

Your father has died and left some family heirlooms to you and your sister behind locked doors in his study. You must take it in turns to solve his riddles and open the locked doors. When you find something, you can choose to keep it for yourself or share it with your sister. What kind of sister will you be? One who keeps everything for themselves, one who shares only when your sister shares, or one who shares everything?

Choose your playing partner wisely. Your choices will affect how these two sisters get along as they deal with their father's death. As you play you will discover more about the relationship these two sisters had with their sexist father.

This is a turn-based 2 player point-and-click adventure game. After you have taken your turn, you email a friend so they can continue the game. When they are done, you'll receive an email and a save game code so you can keep searching the room.

Screenshots:

Searching the Room You can search for clues on each of the four walls of the room using standard point-and-clicking.	The Locker Wall There are 6 lockers to open. You will open 3 of these lockers, your friend (the other player) will open the other 3. On each turn, you can only open 1 locker.
Keep/Share When you have found an item, you need to choose whether to keep the both items for yourself, or to share with your sister.	Sending email When your turn is over, you need to email a friend so that they can play as your sister and keep searching the room.

Gameplay Instructions:

• Start a new game.
• Read the beginning email (click anywhere to close email) and the tutorial and load into the room.
• Click on objects in the room to see up-close versions of the items.
• Use the arrows on the sides of the screen to look around the four walls of the room.
• Use the clues on the lockers to try to work out the combination number required for this locker.
• When you have an answer, click on the circular lock and enter in the combination.
• If you entered the correct number, the locker will open.
• Inside the locker is a family heirloom and there may also be some new hints you have found.
• You cannot open any other lockers at this point.
• When you are done looking around the room, click on the family heirloom you just found and choose whether to keep or share it.
• This will take you to a web form.
• Enter in a friend's email address and send off the email to them.
• Your friend will take their turn and send you an email back with a new code in it.
• Go back to the start page and enter in the code you have been given by your friend.
• Continue until you have found all the prizes.

If you get stuck while playing the game, you can check out the hints page.

Downloads:

The game can be played through through this website. Click here.

Acknowledgements:

This game was developed with the amazing help and support of:

• Deborah Chantson
• Ron Gilbert

Analysis:

An analysis of the gameplay mechanic written by me in March 2015.

Context:
I’ve loved point-and-click adventures for a long time. The Tree Mysteries game I was trying to build was supposed to be a multi-player point-and-click adventure game. Since the text-only version I’d tried out hadn’t really worked, I thought I’d attempt to tackle the problem from a different perspective. I knew I didn't have much time to implement the game & I knew nothing about networking. So the plan was to create an asynchronous multiplayer game.

What Went Right:        

           
• Keeping the game in just one room meant that I was within scope and helped allow players to see everything.
           
• I liked the idea that there was no real gameplay benefit for choosing to keep or share the prizes. It made the game a little “meta”, in terms of the player getting put into the shoes of one of the two sisters.
           
• Using codes to enter the room meant that I didn’t have to store save games or worry about actual networking. There were only a set number of ways the room could possibly be in.
       

What Went Wrong:        

           
• Trying to make the puzzles be dependent on each other or that you could only solve puzzle A after you had completed puzzle B was tough.
           
• Getting across the idea that you had to email a friend and wait for them was hard. I think that people may not have had someone to play with or the other person stopped playing.
           
• The email system was a bit clunky. I had a writer friend help me create the little emails that you sent back and forth to your sister. And these were supposed to change depending on how many items you'd kept or not, but I think it wasn't intuitive for people to read. It was also kinda weird that you ended up sending your friend an email from a fake/fictional character. Separating out the fictional from the real was hard.
           
• There was the feeling that maybe the other player might feel like they missed out on solving a puzzle or seeing what was in the other room. On each play through you’ll only see half of the content that was create, that was a strength, but it also meant that people had to replay the game to see both sides.
       

Hug Rating:
4 hugs

Verdict:
The idea worked well for this small demo, but convincing another player to play an adventure game with you asynchronously would be really hard on a longer term basis.