Wow! I got a reply!


I think its all about suspense and surprise, and what you and/or the main character has/have to care for!

That's similar to Blattsalat's approach, but from a different start point. If a simple soldier with only a pistol can win against a tank with a strategy which the player finds step by step, then this works for suspense and surprise, as far as the player has an inkling, but didn't expect it the way how it appears.


Speaking about Tom Sawyer: Is Oliver Twist a better hero for a game?

I don't remember wether I cared about Tom, when I read the story for the first time, I was involved in his situations, I was he, anxious that something bad happened.
The paint the fence scene isn't dangerous, it is a comedy, the death within a comedy is laughter, it is getting ridiculous! When the others laugh about you, you know you have lost!
What have you lost? Not your life, not your health, you've lost their respect, and respect is their willingness for collaboration, you've lost your mental strenght, your power, your scope of action.

What's the suspense in Forest Gump? What does he have to fear? What is his struggle for survive (exept within in the Vietnam War)? What is the struggle in peace? It is the struggle for respect, for recognisation, for love, against powerlessness, against poverty. Dicken's stories and characters are better examples in this regard.

But, we are amongst a transition, translation, transformation from a piece of literature to a piece of game. Translation of lyrics sometime is a sort of re-invention of the poem. So is this transformation.

Okay, so far Tom's struggle is a struggle against getting ridiculous. So far the start, so far a set of goals are still saved for further events, for possible surprises. In Splinter Cell the situation and the goal often changes when you reached a certain part of a mission. These events are story-like, _scripted_, they are no consequense of your action.
A story puts the events in a row within a timeline, a game has to unfold them in a range or room (or net) of opportunities and a set of options, and the player happened to put them in a timeline depending his decisions and abilities, looking back at it as his personal fortune within the games mini cosmos.

- What set of actions do we need to get interesting interactions?

A dialog tree is very restrictive.
My wish is a sort of dialog as intuitiv and fast like switching between weapons and weapon modes.
What about a sort of Eliza system?
But vice versa: You don't ask the NPCs, they speak to you, they offer you themes and items, and you can: Ask for, Agree to, Reject, Ignore - and - to make it more flexible - you can choose on a scale how strong(interested) you ask, how weak(polite) you ignore, etc.

In this scene/arena the brush and paint are the objects of desire, Tom's desire: to get rid of them and the task to paint the fence, but if offers them without hesitation he earns nothing, but the necessity to paint on his own, and an audience which pleasures he can't bear.
It is a sort of trading system:
Without rejection Tom earns no price for his brush and paint, with too much rejection the others might go away, there should be different characters which react different to offers and rejections.

There should be several goals, sort of multitasking: getting the fence painted in time to get no room arrest by aunt Polly, earning several things from the other kids which are of use in the further levels/arenas...

- How can we involve the gamer emotionally as Shakespeare did within his plays?

What, if the player has to care for the feelings of his hero? How is he forced to care for them? He has to care for the feelings of his character when they influence the control of the character. Fro instance, if the character is weak, he runs slowlier, he refuses to near some ugly laughing guys, he gets paralysid like Link in Windwaker, when detected by the guards, he don't move on like the comrads in The Thing...

How can the player imagine the hero's feelings. NOT looking at a column of mana, or when facing resistance via controls, BUT by seeing and hearing the character's thoughts and 'asides'.
Imagine a character who throws himself to the floor and swears at you with a cascade of words, when you tried a third time to push him near to a feared enemy!
That's the part where an author's and actor's art can implement emotional involvement.
Probably, not as good as Shakespeare, but trying it, should give good results, at least.