Some of my favourite films are The Lion King, Toy Story, Shrek ,Monsters Inc etc. Family films that adults can enjoy. Now compare it with many platform games (maybe I'm slightly out of date here though) THESE games share a similar graphical style to the above mentioned films. But in the main they lack real characters, they are more concentrated on the actual physical puzzle solving and head-stomping. I believe that we can *do more* in terms of integrating *characters* into the game. An example I hope will explain part of my thinking: I was playing Yoshi's Island on GBA last night, and when Yoshi eats a red watermelon he can breathe fire. It came out in a short burst, and this made me think of the Dragon in Mulan, it is about six inches tall and can hardly breathe fire. Which is the butt of several jokes in the movie, so I thought can we do the same kind of thing in a game? Ie. Have several characters and jokes based on their interaction and abilities. So I imagined a boss battle where you are fighting, and your dragon pal can't breathe fire properly yet. So you see him try to breathe fire at the bad guy, but all that comes out is a little puff of smoke! How embarassing, he yells keep distracting him Mulan! So you keep fighting, after you have avoided attacks for another few seconds, the dragon tries again! Puff, puff, again nothing! Then you keep going and after avoiding a few more attacks> Roar, fssshhh!!! Flames burst out of his mouth and ears huge jets, at last! The bosses armour melts. The dragon grins and wisecracks, and you get a chance to attack the bosses weakspot! Kapow, and he's down! So I think that there is more room in "2d or 3d platform" games to become action-adventures with real characters and character interaction. Where you can talk to your buddy and where (your *character*) and theirs play an important part in the game rather than just being 'avatars' for the player. Any thoughts on how to do this? And any problems that might arise? Or hey, even just that you like the idea :) EDIT: I can't help but think that there is an aspect of character centred games that I am missing here. Motivation maybe? For example put (St.) Mother Teresa in a game, and then put Stalin in the same gameworld, if you are playing as (St.) Mother Teresa she will have different motivations. Dog's Life might be a start along the lines that I'm thinking of, it is a semi-non-linear game where you need to collect bones to power up your character and open locks (dog's that send you packing unless you have more bones than them). Maybe what I'm trying to get at is a central gameplay feature that allows you to play as different characters with different goals, but still have an essential core experience. (Ie. You are the good guy > so you rescue power-stars to make sure the bad-guy doesn't get them). If you are a bad guy, you collect stars to make you more powerful. In both cases, the 'game goals' revolve around the power-stars, but the *character goals* differ in how they use and interact with them. [Edited by - Ketchaval on June 26, 2005 12:41:47 PM]

IMO it's a fine idea. But while integrating more character development, dialogue etc. in the game it would be good if it would not break the flow & fluidity of the platform action.

For example, Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) has lots of speech for a platformer, but every dialogue bubble interrupts the action, and it's especially unpleasant on replay when you know them all. So, it'd be good if you'd have an interface to communicate "on the move". On the other hand, in some tricky part you might miss important dialogue because of concentrating on the action.

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Original post by AgentC So, it'd be good if you'd have an interface to communicate "on the move". On the other hand, in some tricky part you might miss important dialogue because of concentrating on the action.

Like Half-Life (where you can move around while listening)? Also you could select dialogue responses by pressing Yes / No keys.

We need you to rescue the Princess.

Not yet, I've left the stove on.

Okay come back when you are ready, but hurry!

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Original post by Ketchaval Like Half-Life (where you can move around while listening)? Also you could select dialogue responses by pressing Yes / No keys.

Yeah, HL was on my mind too. Though, both HL's had the problem of some long, unskippable information dumps (ironically, in an ordinary interrupting conversation/cutscene system like DeusEx you would be able speed them up). But as long as conversation would be kept short & sweet your system would work like a charm. Maybe there could be a "shut up/move on" gesture for longer conversations?

I've wanted one of those for a long time.

NPC: Sargeant! Thank God you're here! We're two weeks out of Cairo and we got hit last night. They looked like raiders, but they were carrying some strange epuipment. I thought maybe you could identify this...

Player: Yadda, yadda, yadda. This is an action game. What do you want?

NPC: Um, well, you see, we're low on medical supplies, and three of our guys are wounded, so we though, you know, there's a town about three miles South-Southwest of here, so...

Player: State mission objectives!

NPC: Drive over that hill, pick up the white box, bring it back here. Shoot things en route.

Player. Roger that. Can I get a quick save?

That's how I want my chit-chat to go. Maybe a menu option. You could choose, "verbose", "brief", or "text". Then NPCs will either give you full voice acting, a quick summary of what's up, or say nothing, and have a little message bar appear on the bottom of your screen. Sometimes you want story; sometimes you want carnage.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbx/destroyallhumans

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Crypto’s intense hatred for our race and his willingness to fail missions just to !&%$@#* off his leader makes him this year’s iconic character.

Maybe this is the kind of *character* I'm thinking of. Where it isn't the story/game telling the character what mission to do, but the character's own personality dictating what we do. Which is the same thing but disguised better. Ie. You go through the front door of the enemies base, *because* it is almost certain death and your character is a Mel Gibson Lethal Weapon style nutter with nothing to lose.

So the tasks are designed around satisfying that character's take on the situation.

quick post: Starfox' slippy.

Slippy: help me fox, I can't shake him!
Starfox: ARGH.

I've been thinking about this myself. Personally, I tend to prefer platformer gameplay over RPG gameplay, and I like games with story and characterisation... so why not combine the two?