• Clicking the left stick button once keeps up the sprinting. There’s no need to hold it down while running, which is always bloody awkward
• Ammo drops are linked to your weapons. I didn’t see a single batch of combat rifle ammo before I started carrying a combat rifle
• The comparison window shows which stats are higher or lower on each weapon
• There’s a marker on the HUD sensor to let you sight up on enemies while you’re crouching behind cover (ok, this kind of feels like cheating but I use it anyway)

Of course, the great experience is then completely shattered by an atrocious vehicle control scheme and total split-screen design fail.

Can't see!

What games give you a great user experience?

In that vein, LevelUp’s Gaming Tidbits last week pointed me towards Improving Usability in Games. I fully agree with the points in part 1, with particular emphasis on point 5: Know what the f’k I’m doing.

A player should be able to put down a game for a period of months at a time and still be able to hop right back in. Anything else is self-defeating and counter-productive.

How to Make Games User-Friendly: Part 1 – James Portnow on Next-Gen

This problem is exactly the reason why I’m so passionate about journal systems in games. It applies to games as simple and linear as Army of Two or as complex and unwieldy as Deux Ex: Invisible War. I and so many other gamers, simply cannot afford to play every day or even every week. When we do find the time to get return to a game after a holiday, (or after a month of Guitar Hero 3 obsession ;) we need to be reminded of what the hell we were trying to achieve before RL got in the way. A simple log of what’s just happened and where we could go next would make our game experience so much happier.

I’m not quite as enamoured with part two of the series but James makes some good points about the advantage of an in-game manual and SD-TV compatibility. Read them yourself at How To Make Games User-Friendly: Part 2

What are your most reviled game design decisions?

Please, cRPG designers, think about the journal early in your game design. Unless your game has all the complexity of Doom 3, a journal can make or break your game. Here is your cut-out-and-keep checklist of things to consider:

General Points:

1. Hired genre-appropriate writer?
2. Logged all known quests?
3. Category: Trailheads
4. Category: Quests in progress
5. Category: Quests completed
6. Category: Quests on the backburner
7. Category: Quests’ area

Quest-specific points:

1. Logged all details given in dialogue?
2. Logged information source?
3. Logged information source location? (if known)
4. Logged promised reward? (if known)
5. Logged what player has already done?
6. Logged where player should go next? (if known)
7. Logged known map locations?
8. Logged visited vs. unexplored areas?
9. Logged acquisition of unique quest object?
10. Logged loss/discard and location of unique quest object?

Click on each item to get the detailed explanations. Do you think I’ve missed anything? Do you disagree? Let me know.

[HRODC website found through Experts Exchange]

This post is all about fleshing out your RPG journal. Make it useful. I’m not about to tell anyone how to write. Rather, I’ll focus on what to include and what’s safe to discard.

Record everything

RPG quests can be horrifically complex. Well-written dialogue provides a lot of information. Journals for computer role-playing games are there to take some of the strain out of remembering. Don’t forget, us gamers are busy people. Between blogging, learning VB.net, having a social life, household chores and everything else, remembering the fine details of a D&D computer RPG quest is pretty low on the list. It is crucial not to overlook pertinent facts when writing a journal. Here’s a list of things you should include in every quest entry.

• What or who gave me the information
• Where to find them later
• What they’ll give me in return for doing their menial task
• What I’ve already done
• Where I should go next

By no means am I advocating a dumb “go here and do this” journal. When it’s appropriate to the mission, it’s much better to simply say “I have heard that Joraq is hiding in Mardon’s bar,” when he’s not, than to spell everything out. We gamers like to think now and then, though we keep that well-hidden.

A Bad Journal Entry

Using an example from NeverWinter Nights 2: I had to talk to every guard post in the Docks and convince them to ignore the highly illegal actions of Moire’s gang. I played this mission over two sessions. On the second session, I logged in, checked my journal and had the following entry:

“Your sweep of the Docks is nearly complete, you have only one guardpost left to visit”

Well, great. The writer managed to check both the “What I have done” and “What to do next” boxes while simultaneously providing no information whatsoever. Last time I played this game was three weeks ago. He or she may as well as written “Yeah, I talked to some guys. Still gotta talk to some other guys.”

Fortunately, this entry was saved (barely) by putting the location of the final guardpost on the map, not that I knew this at the time.

A Good Journal Entry

A good journal entry for the same quest would look like this:

I have already convinced three of the guard posts to ignore the criminal activities of Moire’s gang. I just need to visit the last one in the north-east corner of the Docks area before reporting back to Moire’s house. It’s a good thing she marked all the posts on my map.

Please overlook the slightly ham-fisted exposition. I am not a fantasy writer.

A Great Journal Entry

A great entry would look like this:

“These guards are useless. No wonder Moire’s thieves practically run the Docks as it is. Outside the tavern, I just had to mention her name and they crumbled. The guards stationed by the armoury almost showed some backbone but caved when I slapped them a round a bit. In the north-east corner I paid the sergeant a bit of money to work for me but we’ll keep that quiet from Moire for now. I just need to visit the guardpost round the back of the Watch House and then it’s back to Moire’s for tea, biscuits and a few thousand gold pieces. Sweet.”

See how that works? Obviously, it’s much easier for me to write the above entry after the fact than it is to create entries using a database or other data-driven system to write plain English. I get that. Still, the ‘good’ entry should be entirely within reach of everyone.

So far I only know of one game where the journal truly aspired to greatness. That was Planescape: Torment and it succeeded magnificently. Sure, the game had other flaws. In some parts the plot was entirely driven by the journal but hey, I’m talking about journals. I’ll ignore that fact.

Check back in a few days for Part IV: Maps and Inventory