It seems people want to create the same basic gameplay system that was in place in the original games - the whole dialog menu system of interaction. Personally, I think we need to move beyond that. The game, in it's day, was advanced and somewhat groundbreaking, but let's face it - the whole "choose what you say and the character will give you a canned answer if you chose correctly" system is old-fashioned and won't work anymore. We can do better.
I think we should have brainstorming sessions - like we are now - how else the game can progress. My ideas:
The problem with today's games: they're all physical dexterity - how fast you can aim/shoot - or strategy. There's little in the way of actual verbal interaction. I think this is where TM was so great - it aimed to get us to think and use problem-solving skills, rather than a bazooka or rocket launcher. A detective solving a crime will rarely have to pull a gun.
To be honest, I think there should be about 5 scripts written, with some overlapping storylines, similar to the "choose your own adventure" books. We don't want there to be such a rigid linear storyline, and there should be room to solve puzzles in different paths or orders yet not lose the game.
I have a few ideas for how to go about doing this.
1. create the puzzles and mysteries first. There should be Base puzzles and Peripheral puzzles. The base puzzles are the ones on which the basic storyline is held. The Peripheral puzzles are the ones that can help you solve the Base puzzles. We should create the "storyline" more like a "story tree", with puzzles interconnecting and overlapping.
2. We should have multiple methods for solving puzzles. Like real people have different methods or ideas for doing things, so to the game should be allowed that freedom. That should be easy enough to come up with if you have a small group of people working on it.
3. If there's going to be recording of voiceactors, they should be allowed some leeway to improv. They should come up with multiple responses to a question or comment. This should really be simple and would probably be a lot of fun for the actos. There can always be the required lines that were written by the writers, but if you give the actors some room and just keep the tape rolling... it would give a lot more life to the game.
4. The tricky part is how would the user interrogate/question/converse with the in-game characters. You can't just "click" on something - you need to have some sort of AI to figure out or understand grammar.... If people type in their questions, maybe there can be some sort of "keyword recognizer" ....??? any ideas on this one would be appreciated...
Yea, I know this is a lot of work, but hey - if we're gonna do this, we gotta do it right, otherwise forget it. True, we have to work with what we have, but if we don't have what it takes, we just don't have what it takes...
There are open-source projects out there. Maybe if we can submit what we'd like to see in a game engine they'd take on the challenge...
Sorry for the long post.
