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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: WHICH OF THESE DO YOU PREFER IN IF?
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Lucian P. Smith <lpsmith@rice.edu> wrote:
>In your example, then,
>if you didn't want the player to go to section 2 without item X, either
>make item X required for getting to section 2, put a replacement X in
>section 2, or try to make the design such that it's clear in one move that
>'whoops--have to go back and pick up all the stuff I left behind'.  The
>last is the most dangerous.  And explicit warning could be annoying,
>though.

One of my problems with this scenario is I'm just not clear
why one ever makes this game design move in the first place:
If there's a bottleneck/milestone going from section 1 to
section 2, why choose to put tools needed for section 2 in
section 1 in the first place?

Presumably because "it's fun" or "it's cool" or "it makes
sense in the story", none of which seem to hold much weight
against the "this arbitrarily closes the game off".

Another reason might because you have an object needed for
both section 1 and section 2, in which case you can either
make it undroppable during section 1, or else decide that
the game design law of "unwinnability" is more important than
the game design rule "it's neat to make things with multiple
uses".

I can't think of many commercial games that allows making
a game unwinnable, except possibly for simulationist reasons
(e.g. using up all the ammo intentionally, making it impossible
to kill a particular enemy). There may well be some players
who are happy with or prefer that philosophy of game design,
but I suspect they're in a small minority.

SeanB
