Topic

Suggestion: Hints

I'm relatively new to the alpha, but wanted to make a suggestion for the biggest thing I feel missing in the game. So far the game has been a lot of fun, but a lot of times I end up feeling aimless, not sure what to try next, wasting entire energy bars on singing to butterflies....

My idea is for a hint mechanic to help very new players like me figure things out (WITHOUT just asking the forums for help and they supply the answer). For example, here are some confusing things:
- I have a quest that says drink a lot of beers. How do I get those beers if I don't have a recipe for them? I know blending but not cocktail making -- I don't want to waste the time and currants on cocktail making unless I have to (being relatively poor and having not much inventory space), so I'd like to make sure it's something I really need before I invest in it.
- Mining... what's it for? I see all these rocks around, but not sure why I would want them. Food/Drink (and related skills such as cooking, animal tending, blending, etc) give me an obvious benefit -- they help give me more energy/mood. Again, it seems like I should focus more on skills I know will benefit me unless I understand more about what I'm getting myself into.

My proposed solution:
- Allow people to get hints in exchange for energy -- each hint costs some energy or mood to get.
- The mechanic could be anything -- perhaps singing to butterflies about certain quests. This could even be listed in the description of Animal Kinship II: "Allows singing to butterflies about quests or items."
- Getting a hint (by singing, whatever) about a quest might hint about how to get one of the required things in the quest. Example: quest to harvest all the different kinds of trees might give a hint "Egg trees can be found underground." as one of the random hints, to give a simple example (or in butterfly-speak "Egg trees gro under grownd, go way!" ...? )
- Getting a hint (by singing, whatever) about an item might hint about how to get/make that item or its ingredients. Example: a hint for cheese might be things like "Need butter to make cheese" (which might then prompt the person to ask for a hint on how to make butter...)
- If the hints are via butterflies, one way to do this would be to add a menu option to the butterflies such as "Sing about....". You would then be given a text box to enter the exact name of the thing you want to sing about. If what's typed matches something there's a hint about, a random hint of the available hints for that topic is given. If it doesn't match anything, then the butterfly tells you to go away and stop bothering it.

Perhaps this won't be necessary when the game goes live -- I'm sure someone will write a guide for the game online, and people can always ask on the forums, but it seems a bit more fun to me to have this in-game.

Posted 23 months ago by Cora Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I think one of the main selling points of Glitch is the exploration needed to complete even the most simple quests. Sure you might wait for cocktail making, and buy the martini shaker, and that wont work, so you'll go to the grocery vendor and just buy the beers. It may have felt like a waste of time, but thats the beautiful thing about mechanics of the game; nothing is really a waste of time. Now that you know cocktail making, a whole new quest is going to be presented to you that is relevant to that skill. I feel like a hint system would more or less stifle the creativity and exploration needed to figure out some of the puzzles in-game. I could be wrong, but if all it takes is one energy, and typing your question in to a butterfly to get the answer, that seems a bit too simple when the main point of the quests is to explore and figure it out on your own. Just my two cents.
    Posted 23 months ago by Leviathan Subscriber! | Permalink
  • from Glitch's blog on whats coming pre-beta: "and for those who want it, guidance in what to do in the world.".
    Posted 23 months ago by Hburger Subscriber! | Permalink
  • As an admittedly totally lazy player who feels zero shame about asking how to do things in the Help channel...I like this idea of making a butterfly sing like a bird! It would certainly give folks more reasons to practice doing the butterfly jump.

    I think the question for me is--if you spend currants to get a hint, you should be able to specify in what area/quest, but it seems like that might make the mechanics of a butterfly way more complicated (correct me if I am wrong), maybe too complicated. However, maybe free hints could come from butterflies but just be randomly generated-- I am just not sure how useful that would be to anyone at all.
    Posted 23 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I really like the idea of being able to ask for a hint, especially a hint that helps me figure something out, rather than asking in the help channel and being ignored or getting a "duh" sort of attitude. I'm not saying that's happened in this alpha group of folks but that has happened to me in older games.

    Also, it is hard to tell sometimes if an ingredient is something one needs to make (or grow, or squeeze) or buy (and from what kind of vendor).
    Posted 23 months ago by Wren Bramble Subscriber! | Permalink