Game Over, You Lose

[+Moss Troopers]

I want to force a player to take a specific route between points.

 

It’s hard to describe in the hypothetical but let’s say there are three ways to get from point A to point B. Let’s call them Route 1, 2, and 3. When a player reaches point A they are told to go to point B. The logical thing to do is to walk from point A to point B along Route 1. As the player walks along Route 1 they are given challenges. If the player performs well with these challenges they will get to point B quickly. If they perform poorly it will take longer.

 

The problem is that the player can return to their car, drive to another parking spot, and access point B by Route 2 or 3, thus bypassing all of the challenges. My thought to prevent this is to set up a zone on Routes 2 and 3. When the player reaches the distance for this zone (shortly after leaving their car) they will get a message that will tell them (within the context of the game) that this route is not safe go back to point A and take route 1. If the player keeps going then when they are within proximity of the zone they will get another message that tells them if they continue they will die, go back and take route 1. If the player enters the zone they will get a message that they died, game over, start again.

 

Good idea or bad idea? How annoyed would you be if you ‘died’ while playing a Wherigo and had to start over? Keep in mind that point A is near the beginning of the game. Has anyone else done something like this before? I haven’t heard of a Wherigo cartridge that has a ‘you lose’ function. Does anyone have a better idea?

[matejcik]

i have never heard of "you lose" functionality, but some folks around here build cartridges that let you reach the wrong final coordinates, search for a cache, and then tell you something along the lines of "haha, look at you, you've answered wrong some time ago and now you can't find anything"

so i think that there is nothing wrong with that.

 

anyway, i don't know your circumstances, but wouldn't it help to keep "point B" disabled until players run through all the challenges?

[+MickEMT]

i have never heard of "you lose" functionality, but some folks around here build cartridges that let you reach the wrong final coordinates, search for a cache, and then tell you something along the lines of "haha, look at you, you've answered wrong some time ago and now you can't find anything"

so i think that there is nothing wrong with that.

 

anyway, i don't know your circumstances, but wouldn't it help to keep "point B" disabled until players run through all the challenges?

 

I'm kind of against the whole "you screwed up some time back, so I gave you bad coords" thing. Sort of seems like a good way to piss off people. Maybe if they give a "wrong" answer, have that trigger a new question, or an extra task.

 

Keeping "zone B" disabled until the other challenges are met sounds like a good idea though. One idea would be, if the players are off the "preferred route" would be to give them a message like " Uh Oh, The bridge ahead is out, looks like you will have to find a different path" with a picture of a bridge that has fallen down.

[+StaticTank]

I don't have a problem with the "You Lose" concept. I have two cartridges where if you fail to do something then you fail the cartridge and have to start over. There are multiple times when I remind the player to make sure they have completed the proper tasks before moving on. I based them off of the Carmen Sandiego games and that is just how it works. I think if it is done right that it shouldn't be a problem.

 

But from your description I would make them have to visit points before unlocking the next segment. This way they will travel the path you have set out for them. I don't know in detail how yours works but this makes the most sense on how it was described.

 

I have had several players screw up and have to start over. They have still complimented me on how much they enjoyed those caches.

 

StaticTank

[+Moss Troopers]

I too am against sending a cacher to the wrong co’ords. The cacher could end up damaging a sensitive environment or put themselves in danger searching for a cache that isn’t there.

 

I guess I forgot to mention a key point in my original post. It’s an action adventure kind of cartridge. The player won’t know about the challenges. I don’t want to discuss it in detail in the forums for obvious reasons. So the zone at point B needs to be viable so that the player can navigate to it.

 

The bridge out idea might work. There is even a bridge about 5 minutes walk on one or the alternate routes. I could give them a message that the bridge is out when they get close, then if they continue I can make the zone at point B not visible until they return to the right access point.

 

Thanks for the advice, you’ve got my brain turning again.

[+MickEMT]

Just as a quick idea, you could set some VERY hard challenges along the "wrong path". Evil, but fun.

[+jeffnerner]

If the cartridge told the user to follow route 1 and the user didn't actually follow that route, then I think it's perfectly fine to greet them at zone B with a "You didn't follow route 1. Go back to A and try again".

 

I'd be hesitant, however, to infer too much when/if you detect them "out of bounds" because it may be that they're simply taking a side-trip and will return to the correct path when they're done. Getting a "Game Over" because the kids had to go to the bathroom would be bad.

[+cx1]

This is a concept I want to put in my cart. How do you force a cartridge restart? I assume save & exit would not work since the cart would then be saved at the point where it would restart and cause an endless loop.

[matejcik]

restart is simple enough - just set all the properties to their initial values.

then you can force save

[+MightyReek]

This is just my poor programer mind speaking:

Why don't you set some "active-not-visible" zone in the correct way. When the player enters the area (even if he's not aware of it) it sets some task done, needed to continue the game when he arrives in thePoint B.

Or put the "ghost-zone" in the wrong way to the point B like a "kill zone": when the player enters this area show message game over and close cartridge, sort of thing...

 

Just an ideia, the sort of thing I'd do...

[+me2d09]

I think to prevent cheating (like turning wig off in zone A and on in zone B ) you must follow this scheme (see attached picture):

three initial zones:

zoneA: active, visible

zoneB: inactive, not visible

zoneC: inactive, not visible

On enter zoneA:
  message(you must follow route 1 or you die, to not turn your player on and of there!)
  zoneA->inactive
  zoneB->active,visible
  zoneC->active, not visible

OnExit zoneC
 if (player not in zone B)  --there must be this condition, because disabling zoneC also fire this event
 message(you die, try cartridge again)
 zoneA,B,C->inactive
 forceSave

OnEnter zoneB
 zoneC->inactive
 message(you did it,congratz)

Cartridge->OnRestore
 if (zoneC.active)   --cartridge was saved during trip from A to B
  message(you can not restore cartridge here, go back to point A)
  zoneA->active
  zoneB->inactive, not visible
  zoneC->inactive, not visible

 

note: zoneC must be large enought to prevent unwanted onExit events if the GPS signal lacking.

Edited May 12, 2010 by me2d09

[+ADTCacheur]

My 2 cents: why not simply have the zone where they meet the challenge start at the same coordinates as point B, but extend far enough out so that it happens before the player enters point B. By doing this no matter what direction they enter from, they will get a challenge, and if the one you had in mind was location specific then have that one as well and have the player only need to do one challenge. The down side would be if they drove by to the zone, they might not be able to do the challenge while driving

 

Not sure if this is making any sense, but wanted to get my opinion out there.