It's summer, time of love and holiday, and I don't pay as much time as I'd like to development of SUBSEQUENTED. Still not giving up. In this post I would like to present you what I have been thinking over lately.
HUMOR
I like humor. But will SUBSEQUENTED be rather humorous game (comedy) or exciting (horror / thriller)? I would like it both, but not in equal proportion. Humor will be incorporated in a discreet way, hopefully not too much. What I mean? For example,what happens when Lensen is too long inactive? It is simple - it's time for one of the animations in which Lensen looks to the player (onto the camera which captures the scene) and pats on imaginary watch on his wrist :-)
INVENTORY SYSTEM
Basically, I came to three types of inventories:
1. The easiest ones - Objects (eg. a key) which Lensen finds are simply stored somewhere; and if you click on the proper interaction in the scene (eg. a locked door), the key is automatically applied (just like in Neverhood). But this isn't not right for SUBSEQUENTED.
2. The middle way - Before each interaction we have to choose found items from inventory and use them on a specific object / person in the scene, we can combine them with each other to create a new object.
3. Complex - Same as in point no. 2, plus: objects can be further explored, rotated, changed by interactions with certain parts, ie. an object may be a logic puzzle itself (before using it we need to set it somehow, deform it, or simply turn it around to see what is written underneath). By proper examination and modification we can create / discover a new object.
I am looking for a suitable combination of the last two types.
USER INTERFACE
What will be seen on the screen during the game? I prefer nothing, ie. that inventory will be hidden - until the cursor is over a certain spot, the menu is called up by pressing the escape. Thus, we will only see texts during dialogs and descriptions of the objects. I do not want teleshopping offers either. Just a really pure game screen!
And one more thing, I am playing point & click adventure Subject 13 now (which by the way has inventory system no. 3 I have described above) - try that game too!
Jakub