Watch + Play

Discuss your favourite LRR streams!
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Dominic Appleguard
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Dominic Appleguard » 11 Sep 2014, 08:49

My cutscene pet peeve is when they pan the camera over to a point of interest super slow.
Like when you get to a new room in one of those "cinematic" AAA games and they give you that stupid fake crane shot over the vista. Or when Link hits a button and a door opens on a timer, and while the timer ticks away the game shows you the door over the course of 7-10 seconds.

You know, instead of allowing the player to discover something organically.

Or using a combination of level design and playtesting to ensure that the player sees what you wanted them to.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby CiderMuffin » 11 Sep 2014, 09:02

Some times that effect is nice and can have an impact but most of the time doing that just feels patronizing and hand-holding.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby MistahFixIt » 11 Sep 2014, 13:57

Dominic Appleguard wrote:You know, instead of allowing the player to discover something organically.

Or using a combination of level design and playtesting to ensure that the player sees what you wanted them to.


This is one of those things i think Valve does very well. There's an audio commentary in (I believe) Left4Dead that explains how, when they want a player to go somewhere or look at something, they make sure it's brightly-lit compared to the surrounding area. A very, as you say, 'organic' form of leading the player where you want them to go.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby korvys » 11 Sep 2014, 15:15

There's a really good commentary in Portal (2?) about stuff like that. Things like how for the very first portal that lets you out of the glass room, the exit portal looks back at the room, so you can see yourself going into the entrance portal, which is a pretty damn elegant way of explaining a pretty fucking complex mechanic.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby CiderMuffin » 11 Sep 2014, 15:59

MistahFixIt wrote:
Dominic Appleguard wrote:You know, instead of allowing the player to discover something organically.

Or using a combination of level design and playtesting to ensure that the player sees what you wanted them to.


This is one of those things i think Valve does very well. There's an audio commentary in (I believe) Left4Dead that explains how, when they want a player to go somewhere or look at something, they make sure it's brightly-lit compared to the surrounding area. A very, as you say, 'organic' form of leading the player where you want them to go.


I'm pretty sure they say that in all the audio commentary xD Alex talks about how it was in Half-Life's commentary.

But yea, that's like one of the best ways to lead a player.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby BlueChloroplast » 12 Sep 2014, 21:03

But with the Link example, it is an anti-frustration feature to know what door the switch on the other side of the temple opened.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Kapol » 12 Sep 2014, 22:53

Since we still don't have a Let's Nope thread, I just want to say that Five Nights was all I hoped it would be and more. Like... the fact we actually got Golden Freddy, as well as the creepy 'look straight into the camera' shot, makes me feel it was a success. I'm super grateful Ash insisted on being there though. I feel it would have been much worse without someone who's seen a bunch of the game before to help guide Alex.
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Dominic Appleguard
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Dominic Appleguard » 13 Sep 2014, 16:40

BlueChloroplast wrote:But with the Link example, it is an anti-frustration feature to know what door the switch on the other side of the temple opened.

That system has been used well, but they also use it when you're being timed. Which is annoying as hell, because it makes it super challenging to complete it on the first attempt while also heavily implying that the devs didn't think there was any way you'd get it on the first go.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Hiramas » 14 Sep 2014, 13:51

If I remember correctly, Valve is really crazy about gamer direction.
There was one example where they playtested the whole thing and if the player looked too long at a wall or was stuck (not with the puzzles, of course)
they redesigned that spot.
Which is kind of genius.
Imagine how better it would have been if they switched the bells in Dark Souls around and while the camera pins around you and the bell you see zen's fortress in the background opening?

Thing is, devs (or marketing departments?) take their customers for increasingly stupid and so artificial hand holding is more prevalent.
If they do this organically (instead of telling you nothing like Dark Souls), the game gets way more immersive and interesting.

But again, that would be good game design and we can't have that now, can we?
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby phlip » 14 Sep 2014, 16:29

My favourite one that sticks in my mind is in the back half of Portal, you're in a large room, and the way out is up near the top of the room... and people in general are terrible about looking up (if you want to hide something from someone, directly above them is probably the safest spot). So they put a broken ladder on the wall... it falls apart as soon as you touch it, but serves to draw your attention to the fact that there's something worth getting to at the top of the wall... and once you know where your objective is, now you can start actually solving the puzzle in the room.
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Dominic Appleguard
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Dominic Appleguard » 14 Sep 2014, 19:18

There's a scene in Portal 2 where you have to navigate a series of hazards by repeatedly redirecting an excursion funnel (those blue glowing tubes). They found that a lot of players would drop, for example, their blue portal in the first room with the excursion funnel, then forget about 30 seconds to a minute later which portal they're meant to place next. So, they'd drop the blue portal, cutting off the funnel and falling to their deaths.

Every other point in the game, it wouldn't really matter, because iterative problem solving is part of the game. But this one part was an important story beat that would lose a lot of its momentum if the player were obligated to replay it a bunch of times. So, they cheated. If you place the wrong portal at that point, the game actually retcons your previous portal placement so that you made the right choice.

I always thought that was really interesting.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby romangoro » 14 Sep 2014, 19:51

I believe they did the same thing with the final portal.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby AdmiralMemo » 14 Sep 2014, 22:03

Yeah, I couldn't place the "wrong" portal at the end. It was fixed.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby ritchards » 20 Sep 2014, 14:21

...people are watching Jim's video channel right?
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby empath » 20 Sep 2014, 15:07

Who? /Kappa
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Canageek » 21 Sep 2014, 08:14

empath wrote:Who? /Kappa


I'm guessing Jim Sterling?

As a note on the discussion at the top of the page: I don't mind the cutscenes so much, as I"m terrible at finding what I"m supposed to be looking at. *Sounds of battle* *I swing the camera around wildly, looking at everything but the battle, miss the cool cutscene*
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CiderMuffin
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby CiderMuffin » 26 Sep 2014, 04:28

ritchards wrote:...people are watching Jim's video channel right?


If by Jim you mean Jim Sterling, no I don't, I don't really like Jim or his personality and views.

Anyway, today is a watch+play right? I think I remember Graham or Alex say it was pushed back to this week but I can't remember.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby SAJewers » 26 Sep 2014, 04:51

If it's today, I should probably fire off a request for a W+P game then.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby CiderMuffin » 26 Sep 2014, 04:53

I'm hoping Graham some day takes my recommendation, it would be so awesome to see the game I suggested, especially because I know Alex would love it.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby SAJewers » 26 Sep 2014, 17:07

If it's a Steam game, you could check the LRL Profile and see if it's on there.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Mono_Snorsh » 26 Sep 2014, 19:50

I think the acquisition cutscenes could be really funny parodies of the video game Item Get thing in a better game. I have a feeling that any amusement the game has to offer is entirely accidental though.

You know, Graham, you could burn it onto a disk if you want something to break. That would be fun to watch.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby empath » 26 Sep 2014, 21:41

Oh, you mean "Hippocampl: The White Couch"?
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Mono_Snorsh » 26 Sep 2014, 22:36

Yeah, probably should have specified that.
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Kapol » 27 Sep 2014, 00:02

Breaching Hippocamp was pretty funny, but wore out it's welcome pretty quickly to me. If it wasn't just the same thing for 45 minutes, it might not have been so bleh. Still. It's a thing. That exists. And I'm still not sure why.

I feel like Uncharted: Not Nathan Drake's Not Adventure was much too good to be on W+P. It was actually decent. Derivative, short, kind of stupid, yes. But it wasn't bad. It was just kind of eh. I kind of agree with Alex that it felt kind of endearing despite being bland. Also, the endless town was wonderful.

Still watching and just got to Shadow Warrior. Not even the Viscera Cleanup Detail version guys? :P
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Re: Watch + Play

Postby Mono_Snorsh » 27 Sep 2014, 00:59

Hippocampal is one of the kind of draining Watch+Plays. I'm happy I spent the time watching it though.

Unearthed seemed mostly above Watch+Play level games. The looping driving scene was sufficiently sanity warping to belong though.

Shadow Warrior is just hilariously good.

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