29th July 2004, 10:02 PM
Haha, I get ya. Indeed, KQ7 actually does let you continue from JUST before the horrible mistake you made. Whenever you die, you get the character mentioning a small hint at you (sometimes humerous stuff like "maybe I should AVOID the gargoyle"), and then it asks you if you want to try again. Just say "yes", and there you are, right at the start of that dangerous situation. KQ7 also doesn't let you get stuck. To finish off the convenience, they even let you choose, from the beginning, which chapter you want to start from. It'll assume you did things the easiest way possible if you skip parts, and of course most people playing the first time through won't want to skip anything, but it's there anyway.
KQ games really don't have combat. I mean, you really don't enter any sort of combat mode or phase or anything like you do in Monkey Island for example. The closest thing is when you are in a very dangerous situation and your goal is solving a puzzle surrounding some villian. There are a couple games that do in fact end in a combat situation against a final boss, come to think of it, but for the majority, all the enemies are handled exactly like any other puzzle, only if you take a wrong step, boom, you get stomped on by a giant.
Let me tell you, I learned the standard quick save and quick load buttons fairly early on :D (F5 and F7).
Yes, it can be annoying when something seems totally harmless, and really should be, and then suddenly you die. You didn't save for a while because, hey, you figured the fisherman's shack was a fairly safe place and never expected to have hot coffee kill you :D. Though, really for the most part KQ games do give logical threats and a sense of danger for most lethal situations. For example, expect to drown from exaustion if you swim around in the sea too long, and expect any monster to generally be dangerous unless you assume otherwise. If you save and make multiple files, you can generally do as you wish though.
And yes, KQ7 really makes it easy to get things done and still have that sense of danger in the right situations.
Monkey Island's lack of deaths is just fine, and in fact, I think it actually helps the comedy. Guybrush has always been this laid back pirate ya know, and honestly I love how everything just works out for him no matter WHAT, so it's perfect that there's no way to kill off the guy, plus the whole attitude of the game is comedic and just a calm little journey, so a sense of danger is really only a comedic tool at best. In a game like that, no deaths is perfect. I'd also go as far as to say games set in the current day, except in really dangerous settings, should be safe. I recently got Syberia, namely due to word of mouth. The whole setting of the game really doesn't cater to my character dying all the time, so really a threat of death wouldn't fit here. It's pretty fun so far, though I got stuck and haven't played in about a week. I'll go back though, I always do with these games :D.
Just suffice it to say in some games dying can work if done right, and in others, depending on my mood, I just want an adventure where I can just calmy sit back and solve puzzles. If all the PC adventure games with dying handled it like KQ7, I don't think anyone would have complaints about those types of adventure games. Also, regardless of how old it is, adventure games where you can get completely stuck ARE flawed in design. Yes, I understand that is realistic, but it's better to just let you know you made a mistake that ends the game somehow. For example, after making the mistake, simply showing a bad ending resulting from it. then do the KQ7 thing for handling bad ending situations. The other alternative is to make any mistake reversible, but that's a good move for ones where there's just no reasonable way to make the mistake reversible. Anyway, again in those old games that didn't handle these things well, saving multiple files is important :D.
KQ games really don't have combat. I mean, you really don't enter any sort of combat mode or phase or anything like you do in Monkey Island for example. The closest thing is when you are in a very dangerous situation and your goal is solving a puzzle surrounding some villian. There are a couple games that do in fact end in a combat situation against a final boss, come to think of it, but for the majority, all the enemies are handled exactly like any other puzzle, only if you take a wrong step, boom, you get stomped on by a giant.
Let me tell you, I learned the standard quick save and quick load buttons fairly early on :D (F5 and F7).
Yes, it can be annoying when something seems totally harmless, and really should be, and then suddenly you die. You didn't save for a while because, hey, you figured the fisherman's shack was a fairly safe place and never expected to have hot coffee kill you :D. Though, really for the most part KQ games do give logical threats and a sense of danger for most lethal situations. For example, expect to drown from exaustion if you swim around in the sea too long, and expect any monster to generally be dangerous unless you assume otherwise. If you save and make multiple files, you can generally do as you wish though.
And yes, KQ7 really makes it easy to get things done and still have that sense of danger in the right situations.
Monkey Island's lack of deaths is just fine, and in fact, I think it actually helps the comedy. Guybrush has always been this laid back pirate ya know, and honestly I love how everything just works out for him no matter WHAT, so it's perfect that there's no way to kill off the guy, plus the whole attitude of the game is comedic and just a calm little journey, so a sense of danger is really only a comedic tool at best. In a game like that, no deaths is perfect. I'd also go as far as to say games set in the current day, except in really dangerous settings, should be safe. I recently got Syberia, namely due to word of mouth. The whole setting of the game really doesn't cater to my character dying all the time, so really a threat of death wouldn't fit here. It's pretty fun so far, though I got stuck and haven't played in about a week. I'll go back though, I always do with these games :D.
Just suffice it to say in some games dying can work if done right, and in others, depending on my mood, I just want an adventure where I can just calmy sit back and solve puzzles. If all the PC adventure games with dying handled it like KQ7, I don't think anyone would have complaints about those types of adventure games. Also, regardless of how old it is, adventure games where you can get completely stuck ARE flawed in design. Yes, I understand that is realistic, but it's better to just let you know you made a mistake that ends the game somehow. For example, after making the mistake, simply showing a bad ending resulting from it. then do the KQ7 thing for handling bad ending situations. The other alternative is to make any mistake reversible, but that's a good move for ones where there's just no reasonable way to make the mistake reversible. Anyway, again in those old games that didn't handle these things well, saving multiple files is important :D.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)