To Look Or Look Not At As Game Mechanic
I think that I've got an extraordinary good idea to simplify and intensify social interaction in games.
It is by looking at an npc or looking not at him, which are signals like recognizing and ignoring, this is a simple and fast action by a short move of the mouse which is very close to the real life action of recognizing and ignoring! Even, if the player's character is mute and the npcs are mute too, he can interact with the npcs making many different decisions. Everything controlled by the move of recognition!
To rephrase my intentions from the former posts: I want to intensify the identification and raise the value of social simulations within an intuitiv gameplay! To raise the value of social simulations, I have to increase the number of options within interactions without making the controls complicating.
Let's use the idea in the Tom Sawyer Experiment.
Imagine, there is the first kid coming, Tom, the player's character paints the fence.
Let them communicate by looking.
The kid comes, stops and looks at Tom, if Tom doesn't look, the kid goes away from him, if Tom turns from his work to the kid and looks at the kid, the kid stays and looks at him.
Now, if Tom turns to his work again, the kid stays for a while and if Tom doesn't look at it again, it goes away, if Tom turns towards it within this while again, the kid stays another while longer.
Tom feeds the kid with attention (recognition), and the kid pays it back with attention (recognition), getting no additional recognition from Tom it goes away.
I'm not sure, if you are aware of the similarity of attention and recognition.
Hope so.
Let's proceed.
The look isn't only attention it is also the control wether one looks at you!
This way the look is both: giving attention and receiving attention.
When Tom looks at the kid, while it goes away, it wouldn't know that Tom looks at him. I mention this, because of the programming of such an interaction. It is similar to the switch to dialog with a dialog system.
Now, let us add another option.
What if the kid looks at Tom, but then at the paint in his hand? Or at the fence? Or at the already painted part of the fence?
This means, the characters can look at each other, but they can look at things as well, and these looks mean attention, recognisation, interest.
Now, combine this with the exchange of things among the characters.
Let Tom offer the paint. By moving the hand with the paint toward the kid.
The kid looks at the paint, looks at Tom again, then looks at the fence, but doesn't do anything else, when Tom continues painting the fence for a while, the kid comes nearer, let continue painting, now the kid shows a hand, turning with Tom towards the kid, we see a marble in its hand.
How can we take this marble? Let Tom move an empty hand toward the kid.
The kid hides the hand with the marble, and moves an empty hand toward Tom.
The game mechanic: show a thing in a hand to offer it, show an empty hand to ask for a thing.
Let Tom show the hand with the paint in it, but, to make it more complex, when the kid wants to take it, move the hand back and show the empty hand.
Then the kid has the option to give the marble, or to show both hands, the empty hand and the hand with the marble, and the player can control Tom, that he does equally, to make the trade perfect.
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QUESTION:
#1 Is it clear how this concept of an intuitive social interaction works?
#2 Does it make sense to you to use such a mechanic within a game?
#3 Do you see any potential in such sort of game mechanic?
