Update log
Full Theropods update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Repeated intro
Hey everyone, Kostas and Sarah here! We’d like to share our progress over the last few months in this update and what we have next on our to-do list. Let’s dive in!
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- Performance
- Events
The core of an adventure game is its story and naturally, any great narrative requires a level of drama. Narrative tension is often conveyed through exposition, interactions between characters and setting high stakes from the outset, but it can be tricky to truly immerse players within the world when typical conventions around point and click games don’t allow for fast-paced gameplay or action scenes. So how do you communicate these emotions to the player?
What We’ve Been Working On
Over the past few months, we’ve spent time creating assets and moving much of the game over to the new engine. With this work complete, alongside fundamental interactions, story and core gameplay, we were keen to turn our attention to the question that has been on our mind from the start - how do we represent action scenes within a point and click game?
Our initial idea was to simply lean into the curve and include a number of sequences that required fast movements or typical player action. These are uncommon within point and click adventure games, and we understand why.
Point and click games are typically enjoyed from audiences that appreciate slow, contemplative gameplay. When looking at the average computer specs for similar titles, performance can be limited, so it stands to reason that any level of challenge of this type would need to be appropriate.
Some action sequences in point and click games have been done before. For example, Full Throttle had a full minigame, which was of course impressive but players found it difficult to play.
Unavowed created a ‘sense’ of urgency, although it felt rather artificial.
After researching many other games, we decided that Canabalt best embodied the ideas we hoped to create for Theropods, essentially a one-click runner.
Action sequences fundamentally act as a departure from the core gameplay of a point and click game. When porting to consoles, we would further have to consider how to approach establishing a set of controls for exploration and a second set for action. This was not going to be feasible. So, what other options did we have?
Option 1: Action with a failure state could be communicated through quick-time sequences, but we would continue to face many of the issues above, even if the skill requirement were less extreme.
Option 2: We could perhaps allow for slow, methodical gameplay set against the backdrop of an accelerated soundtrack and visual cues such as action happening in the background or looped animations that appear to threaten the player.
Option 3: Replace gameplay with cinematics. Even though creating cutscenes was going to be a lot of work, it would be significantly less complicated and time-demanding than creating the action sequences. Action sequences also had the risk of not working at all and us having spent a ton of resources for nothing.
Check out these action tests we did:
Pterodactyl Action
Tiny Dino Action
Barbarian Chase Action
So this option we decided to go with, as it requires no frantic movements on the part of the player. It also avoids any issues in console porting, or in departing from the conventions of the genre. Cinematics also act as a reward to the player. It’s an opportunity to sit back in your chair and let something play out on screen
Source