Originally posted by Andy Bush:
So let's provide Rage with some well-thought out suggestions and alternatives instead of complaints.
Well, I said it was a rant, and the ending seems to have damaged the game experience for a lot of us. My first posting talked about game concepts, and was pretty explicit about enjoying many aspects of the game. I am not a programmer, so I can only talk in terms of gaming concepts and mechanisms… I do know a bit about that, and a game hinges on its structure as much as it’s code.
I’m not on a rant now… I even replayed the finish a couple of times, and you can do it with guns, at least on easy settings. I’ll e-mail you how I managed if you still want that?
I also started the game again… I do like a lot of it, in fact I think it has some very original and innovative gameplay, especially at the interface between the ‘plane you are flying, and the rest of the game world: As a primarily strategic and conceptual gamer I really appreciate it if I can think ‘maybe if can get back to friendly airspace I’ll get help?’, and then watch the game do just that. It does this kind of thing in so many ways that the rest really needs to succeed. Honestly.
Another part of my first posting was about the ‘opacity’ of the player role within the game… I accept that I am desperately trying to get the strategic engine to react, and that isn’t going to matter to a lot of people, but it is difficult to accept a game that makes so much of it’s dynamic engine, and yet fails to re-take three empty sectors for the whole campaign. I am trying this time to go with the flow a bit, but knowing how the game ends, I don’t see that the campaign will do a great deal differently. Not making game play parameters explicit, and not engaging in a decent ‘Socratic’ dialogue about player perceptions can lead to resentment.
Anyway, I’m going to try to add my non-programming, non-hardcore, input to some of the comments that have followed my ‘rant’, so I hope I don’t offend too many people. Just to re-iterate: This game is often very good, and I think if some of the best content is built upon, there is a groundbreaking classic waiting to happen. Whether at the patch, add-on or ‘next in the series’ stage, I’m really not competent to judge, but I try to keep my thinking within the framework of the game structure ‘as is’.
Some of what has been said made me think about re-playability in games. You can divide games into two fuzzy categories: Games designed to play once (e.g., an RPG such as Baldur’s Gate), and, games designed to be replayed constantly (such as strategic games, chess (et al), and, of course, flight sims).
A ‘once only’ game hinges on things like its storyline, and in this sense, Typhoon’s story is structured as a ‘once only’ event.
For example, I just replayed the cruise missile section. My skill has improved, so I got them without any trouble. Nothing at all has changed because of this, so the game is telling me that my primary option is to crank up the difficulty if I want a different play experience.
A replayable game would change the conditions of the next ‘chapter’ in some way. By playing again, I would begin experiencing the dynamics of the game.
In a once ‘only game’ it doesn’t matter, as long as I experience the story in an immersive way (and like the story, but that is highly subjective).
Both game types are valid and enjoyable. They are also able to overlap to some degree… A strategy game based on a historical battle is enacted within a fixed domain, but a player can expect to get different outcomes at some level… And, importantly, it is usually clear what level of outcome the player is affecting.
Typhoon does this very well, as almost everyone is saying, at the flight level (the hardcore/litesim debate is a different issue… More about presenting the package to players).
Unfortunately, to experience this, the player must keep replaying the same basic learning missions (e.g., the cruise missile strike).
So, constructively, one problem with putting the ‘learning curve’ unavoidably in the main body of the game, without also linking it to a palpable in-game result, is that the game loses replay value. The player eventually gets sick of practicing gunnery against missiles.
Although Typhoon’s engine is dynamic, it seems to be slaved utterly to the external storyline. This means that even if you don’t mind replaying the learning scenarios for the same outcome, you simply go to another chapter that is itself unchanging. By the time you hit the end of the game there is a pyramidal reality ‘glitch’… I was getting news casts saying Iceland was about to fall, whilst getting no missions because the Russians had lost. If the Russians had been winning (as I think occurred in Manteau’s first campaign?), then the glitch would have been ‘so why are they nuking their own territory when another day or so would do it?’
In effect, the dynamic campaign engine works to undermine the plot, unless the player’s performance is ‘as expected 100%’… The further the number gets from 100, the bigger the reality glitch. Hence, I think, all the little idiosyncrasies that are in there to make sure you don’t get too far off the plot.
That is always a risky technique, because people are pretty creative when it comes to getting what they want out of something (read up on gaming theory for example). The worst effect in Typhoon is a degree of dissatisfaction with the most successful bit of the game… This board is full of discussion by people who like the flying, but don’t get it when their weapons performance is inconsistent… And inconsistent is the most common perception now that we are getting used to things.
You can structure a dynamic game into chapters with fixed outcomes at some level (to keep the plot), whilst allowing player action carry-over in other areas… For example, some games do it by moving play into different domains (new role for the squadron, e.g.), others with resource bonuses, and so on… I think we would benefit by discussing this in some depth… There is more than one good idea floating about on this board.
The suggestions will be more constructive if people know more about the underlying structure of the game, and what can/can’t be feasibly changed/added to/whatever. That is about game transparency, and now that a few of us have played it through, it would be helpful to know what is happening ‘under the bonnet’.
It would help development as well… Manufacturer’s of other games are reading this board and paying attention, but it would be nice for the individuals who worked so hard on Typhoon to be the one’s getting the ‘buy this now’ reviews at some future date.
Releasing files (or whatever it is you lot are talking about :confused) is a good step, but for those of us who can’t programme, discussion of concepts is a good way to contribute… And remember, if the coding’s good, then it is the concept that the player sees. If the concept’s good, the player gets immersed.
Moving on to the ending of the game, Steve has posted this:
Originally posted by Steve Hunt:
Shame you don't like the ending.... but look at the end of WWII (couple of well placed end-of-level bombs - job done!)
This is correct, and part of my complaint was about the frustration levels, though it does jar on many of my personal reality checks.
Again constructively, whilst a game can attempt to be realistic it is also by definition a metaphor for reality… Games tend to be a little more user friendly than the real thing, and we enjoy them because they (often spuriously) support our notion that we can control our destinies. War as I understand it is usually alternately boring and scary… Games I expect to be entertaining. This is also where games depart from novels and films, wordcount not withstanding, you can enjoy a novel in which the characters are frustrated, whereas it is difficult to enjoy a game where the player is frustrated. Frustration and difficulty do not equate in gaming.
You could certainly end Typhoon with a nuclear strike using new tech. For it to work as a game, you also need to explain what you are doing to the player in some way, and allow them to play it without getting too frustrated.
(IMO the rationale was poor given what had been a very plausible and contemporary storyline… But that’s IMO).
It also helps a lot if the explanations fit reasonably well with the players perception of what is occurring in the game, so it links quite closely with what I have been saying about the effect of player action.
So, to make that particular ending work I would suggest that you need:
...A reason for the strike that does not depend on events in Iceland, or does so in a dynamic way (3 reasons then; player winning, player loosing, player drawn?)
...Enough in-game hints and information to allow the player to succeed fairly easily at their preferred difficulty setting… It’s ok to replay a few times, as long as there are planned changes you can make. It gets frustrating when you haven’t got a clue and know that you ain’t gonna get one. c.f. hitting your head against a brick wall.
...A mid game experience that is dynamic enough (howsoever structured) that the player wants to play again even if personally the ending doesn’t inspire them.
But, in general, I would say that games that are so tightly slaved to one endgame scenario tend to be ‘once only’ games.
I do accept that you might have developed Typhoon as a ‘once-only’ game. I would prefer to have been told, as I approach different game styles in different ways… There are two full pages in the manual (48-49) that talk about 4 dynamically modelled levels within a framework described as ‘extra theatre influences’… Not quite the same thing as a rigid plot. A game about the battle of Ardennes would have WWII as an unchanging ‘extra theatre influence’, but you would expect to be able to win or lose the battle based on your actions as a player.
Despite our variously conceived replies, I think that a lot of us are plugging away at the same basic issues… So I’m glad a couple of you are getting to work at developing things a bit. Let me know if you want any conceptual level input… I know what I want this game to do, but how to get there… Not a clue.
If you are making an add-on version Steve, I won’t flame you, but I would like to see some really open discussion about what players want and how it might be structured… I mean, why do you think that a dynamic campaign needs to end with a ‘won/lost/return to desktop’ event?
- I need a break from looking at f22.dat 
