Tonight, I was thinking about RPGs, adventure games, and exploration games like Metroid Prime. I enjoy that Metroid Prime (if I remember correctly) billed itself as a first person exploration game. And it did it magnificantly. However, in a game in which you’re given a gun, it often becomes the primary tool that you use to solve problems with things that are agressive, especially monsters.
This brings me to Beyond Zork, which if you’re familar with the Zork series, are games that are generally more puzzle oriented, though there can be some combat.
Similarly to games like Metroid, you can attack things. You’re given a wooden stick (actually, a shillelagh) and other implements of destruction. You actively need to attack certain foes, and it becomes a go-to means of solving problems. But there are things that are monsters (and listed in the bestiary as monsters) that just hitting doesn’t work all that well. It’s less combat, more puzzle.
Spoilers for the I don’t know how old Beyond Zork follow…
In one segment, you’re in the top of a tower and encounter a powerful, hideous monster that can very easily kill you. Reading the bestiary, you note that this monster (a dorn) has hundreds of eyes. The solution? Roll a giant onion all the way up the tower and hack at the onion to cause the monster to go into an uncontrollable crying frenzy while you either make off with the treasure, or alternately hack and the onion and the monster until it dies. (Yes, the solution can partially involve killing it, and I like the XP).
In another segment, you’re confronted by a monster that can easily beat you to a pulp (by playing terrible music at you that is so painful to listen to that your hit points drop). It’s weakness? It can’t read. So if you give it a chest that sends it to another dimension (full of really irritated unicorns), it can’t read the warning and you dispatch it just by presenting it with the shiny chest, which it doesn’t know enough to not open it.
What would happen if you encountered either of these things in something like Metroid, or a lot of other games? The presentation in those games say that you need to shoot more, get better weapons, or attack a weakness with the main tool that you use for most things – your gun.
This may be a function of “those are two completely different genres”, but it’s important to note that we’re conditioning ourselves around certain actions. It’s about the expectations that you have and especially the verbs that you bring to the table with you. Part of the issue is that in something like Metroid, you’re expected to gather information, explore, and shoot things. Usually, running away isn’t an option (doors lock, and you can’t get away). Your only option is shooting.
In addition, a lot of the actions involve physical challenges. In Beyond Zork, you carry things in your inventory and occasionally have things (like the onion) that are too big to fit – and getting them around thus becomes a puzzle. In a Metroid or a Mario, part of the challenge would become how to move with this awkward object – grappling it or the like. In a Zelda game, you would have it in your inventory. It mostly would come down to fighting, and puzzle sections are (from what I remember) clearly not combat.
How do games mix how to tackle problems such that if they can fight that fighting doesn’t become the only solution?
How far can we mix our genres, and how much do we limit ourselves by the already known and the conventions we’ve made as to genre, style, and the like?
Game Design Idea 