- Jan 22, 2019
- 378
- 700
yep linear story does not = bad story, the same way a "dynamic" story does not = a good story, in fact most good game storys ARE linear storys, the dynamic way is extreamly rarely a good oneLinear game is not a bad idea when it has a great story to tell and plays like a visual novel but with great animation and scenes, the problem is when you try to add puzzles that are about dexterity and not solving solutions. I don't mind some puzzles that make you think and work if you do not have a time limit to do them in unless it's a real priority to the story. For example a puzzle that you have to solve to defuse a bomb but don't ever make them a don't touch wall type puzzle but one of them get the circuits connected in proper order and give enough time to solve them.. say the bomb has 5 minutes to explode than give that time to solve it. Even the 3 in a row for certain type of battles are not bad if you have a decent amount of time, but always keep the story first.
Game's don't have to be open you do not have to restart this story if you do a bit of rework to make it more story oriented as people enjoyed the game enough to support you! Don't undo all the work you have done that they enjoyed enough to support you just fix the problems... Make it more story driven and people will love the story and not even care if it is linear! Also if you want a bit more open game you still have time the part of the game that it's at now would only be considered a prologue to the chapter which would be linear anyways as it's the story of him getting to join the Academy and training. The outside missions can be designed as open as you want. You can almost call the part you done as the Opening ARC.
My suggestion would be minor changes to the Opening ARC you done now and keep it more linear as you can almost think of it as the Opening Prologue and than the outside area the missions can be as open as you want. In this way the story can progress. Use puzzles that do not require hand dexterity and just a bit more thinking ones. The row game like you was using was not bad since it was your power against her will but give a way to raise the power that makes it easier. Example first time you try the time is too short and you fail to use your power so you have to train it more so next time you have more time. This makes the power have a reason to be leveled up. If you catch the girl off guard say something strange or that it confuses them and the use of your power than has a one level up boost so you have more time. Make it a bit of a challenge you fail you go away until you can train your power more. Ideas like this means you do not have to throw away months of work and the people that donated do not feel they been cheated but will get a better game. It's early in development you have a good framework just improve on it.
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the whole linear = bad , open world = good is a AAA gameing excuse for mediocrity, were games have the world,story and gameplay width of an ocean, but the depth of a puddle