>>15447>And just my two cents but some effort in the game (like the process of that 28 story of the process behind Lavender Waters) is worth itRight, but like you said, depending on how it's done. There should obviously be a lot of extra things for people who act on whims or pay enough attention, it's cool when people have different experiences or find stuff that they missed once they visit the game again. If it was linear and handheld you through everything that you can see, then I think it'd take away from the game. So, it's okay for there to be things that you need to strain yourself a little bit to see, or have the intuition for them. Or just by sheer coincidence that you get to them. All of those three feel satisfying and add to the experience when they happen.
But that's the thing, it shouldn't be too convoluted or you'll have none of things things happen, because almost nobody will be able to reach them in the first place. It's supposed to be a laid-back and immersive dream exploration game, not an RPG from back in the day where they purposefully hid things in a retarded way simply to extend your playtime.
If the majority of people who play are simply going to have to look up a guide to make it happen, then it shouldn't be in there. Pretty much all immersion is lost the second something gets so tedious that you can't be bothered anymore and want to tab out of the game. I've never felt that with the original, while with 2kki it's just incredibly often.
Anyhow, I'd honestly be okay with a couple of somewhat convoluted things in there, but more importantly it needs to not hinder your progress to get to the ending of the game. No effect should be locked behind any kind of puzzle or a thing you need to specifically notice, I feel like.
Take for example, the area where you get the Invisible effect in 2kki. You can only obtain the effect if you keep going in the direction that the NPC there is facing, four or so times in a row.
It might just be me, but, how many people are going to notice that by themselves and do it? Especially if they're the kind to have their brain turned on while playing the game, thinking about anything except what they're actually seeing.
Somebody could easily figure that it's just an area with nothing in it which you can't get out of, because there are a retarded amount of those in 2kki. That's for another rant, but, whatever. So, they'd end up leaving that area and not give it much more thought, definitely not the one that there'd be an effect to get in there.
Let's say that fifty percent of the people who play are paying enough attention to notice that they need to go where the NPC is facing, but the other fifty percent figure that it's a world without anything to it.
The latter group of people will never find that effect that they need in order to progress through the game, and potentially wander around the rest of it for however long, trying to find it without considering that one area where it actually is. Because that area was made out to be so empty, and you need to notice something in order to progress with it, you can't naturally get there by a whim or luck. So, after enough time has passed, they're obviously going to have to resort to looking up a guide. Which will just make their overall experience with the game worse. Do you think that's good design?
Consider this, if you were given the effect once you came into the world and interacted with the NPC there. Then you start wandering around the maze. After that, anybody who notices the thing they have to do would do it and be rewarded with a special sight for it, and anybody who feels done with the world could just wake up to get out of it. Everybody gets the progress they need to make, but the ones who look harder get more out of it.
This is just really simple and the whole game should be shaped that way once when they wanna introduce effort, with the farthest complexity of what you need to do being of that same example. At least in my opinion.
Imagine if every single special event that you see was just what you needed to do in order to get an effect. That would make it look like there's not much to see in the game other than what you're required to do, right? Not locking your progress behind things is what makes them feel special once you run into them, you didn't need to do them in order to finish the game, yet you still found them because you were curious enough. That's what makes the experience feel large.
The original already had the concept of how much effort you need to put in to see everything implemented pretty well, I feel like. From what I recall, it was just for the most part based on the effects you had.
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