The Gamer's Quarter

[Ketch]

Are people here really that tired of lock and key design? Or is it just when the keys are literally keys rather than the actual solving of puzzles, Ie. when they keys lack imagination and flair?

[dessgeega]

[SuperWes]

No. I love it. Nearly everything fun about nearly every game involves some sort of Lock and Key design if you break it down to its essence and think about the Locks and Keys and how they're used.

Ico's level design is the lock and Yorda's the key.
The colossus is the lock and beating it is the key.
Metroid's high ledges are the lock and the jump boots are the key.
Myst's puzzles are the lock and the solutions are the keys.

It really just depends on how you look at things. I'm even fine with literal locks and keys as long as the player has to put some thought into how the keys are used and there's some sort of reward for unlocking the lock.

-Wes
_________________

[Lockeownzj00]

At first I was all up for your hypothesis, Wes, but I think you made it a little too broad.

As in, making things that really aren't analogous sound like they are. I mean sure, technically speaking virtually any game mechanic involving getting to somewhere you haven't been in some sense, in any game can be considered as a "lock and key" scenario. But I think there are better, specific examples.

Although I can see the argument that there's different levels of "Lock 'n' Key"-ness. Ie, Mario and Luigi 2's locks are the unreachable platforms (and arguably, levels), and the keys are the various moves you learn + baby mario/luigi. According to this hypothetical theory, this makes it a more advanced manifestation of LnK, say, level 3 (arbitrary number).

Anyhoo. One brand of LnK I really loathe is the trade quest. I mean, I can tolerate it to a point. But some of the trade quests in Zelda games are just tedious--Link's Awakening, anyone? Every once in a while, I can go for it, because even though I'm just traipsing around tiles accomplishing technically the same task over and over again, if the game's good, I feel immersed in the world, like I'm really running around transporting valuable goods.

Still, one thing I think trade quests lack is attachment to the objects with which you bargain. The pattern is boring to players who have grokked it because it's impersonal--"yeah, yeah, Magic Harp. Whaddaya want? Holy Conch Shell? You--Forest Flute? Alright, hold up, let me write this all down."

However, when the player acquires an object and you actually have to use it, and you grow to love and rely on it in some capacity, trading it is much more real (even if it is a compulsory trade in order to advance in a main/side quest) to us, because now we have to actually feel the sense of loss and acquisition involved in a (n allegedly) balanced trade.

[simplicio]

It would be neat to see a multiple path/ending game where the paths hinged around trading off items. What if you could have the jump boots or the Bombs?

Then again, it would be easier to make a bad game based off that idea than a good one.

But to reiterate one specific point: any and all trapezoidal purple gemstones can go screw themselves, RIGHT NOW. (So long as they don't propogate.)

[helicopterp]

I think the essential problem with the Lock/Key structure (whether literal locks and keys or something a little more abstracts like the high-jump boots in Metroid or playing the big goron to sleep in Majora's Mask) is that it is an unavoidable and definite experience. If you think of a game as a whole world based on interactivity, then each lock and key breaks down the creativity the medium offers. Each lock and key moment is a move from pregnant possibility to hard necessity.

But these moments might just be necessary. Anyone else picking up a life metaphor in this? As much as we design ourselves (at least as adults) and our interpersonal relationships through choice and innovation, a certain structure emerges with each inevitable in life--death, taxes, whatever. That games so typically tap into this notion is an exciting thought, although too much structure over experimentation (some of the above item-bartering sequences) can prove too restrictive.
_________________
Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[DaleNixon]

There are many instances in the game Black where the lock is a wall and the key is an RPG. Conveniently, an RPG is usually lying around nearby for these moments.

[SuperWes]

[Lockeownzj00]

[SuperWes]

[ApM]

Psychonauts; Boyd's brain.

I mean, I done wrote an article about the fact that lock/key can work really, really well.

[simplicio]

[SuperWes]

[squidlarkin]

So you do actually have to do some trading, but only up to the monkey bridge point. Right?

My stance is that LnK should be used very sparingly unless the key is enjoyable apart from just being a key. Virtually every item you get in a given Metroid functions as a key, but it also makes Samus more dangerous / versatile, until at the end of the game you're a nigh-invulnerable spinning ball of death that just happens to be capable of surmounting every obstacle you run across. Contrast with, say, Soul Reaver. One of the last abilities you get is an attack activated by running in circles around your target until it triggers. Completely useless in battle, but useful for turning objects that in a sensible world you could just rotate with your hands. When I got that I immediately thought "Oh, it's a key. And a stupid one."

[a_plus]

actually, you do need to trade up to the end -- that text you read in the book gives you directions through the last maze, which is otherwise impossible to get through.

[Shapermc]

I thought that the trading was very obviously mocking the LnK type quest. Perhaps I was overshooting in my analisys?

Anyways, while Wes is technically correct I think he is being far too broad. Then again, I know that he loves this style/design. So obviously he is going to be more defensive of it. Aside from something like the RPG without saves that John discribed in issue 3 of this magazine, you can't really get around it the abstraction of the LnK design. If you wanted to get that abstract though we could just say that the LnK is a metaphor for life. I think we need to look a little more literally or just slightly less so: ie, how transparent is the LnK design in this game?
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dessgeega]

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

so unintentionally sarcastic, then.
_________________

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

i am undone
_________________

[Shapermc]