Am I the only one who loves corridor shooters and dislikes nonlinearity?

[Dragonsbrethren]

fraggle said:

I think that stories in games are generally incompatible with nonlinearity. You need some degree of linearity in order to have a story you can tell, and there's no real escaping from that. Games like Deus Ex are often cited as counterexamples, but they aren't really non-linear - there are just multiple paths you can progress down. Doing that gives it some replay value but you're still constrained.

Yeah, Human Revolution is probably the best example of the kind of level design I like. It's not nonlinear, but it has plenty of branching paths and alternate route in each required area, and you always feel like you're moving towards your goal. I'll take that over true nonlinearity any day.

[schwerpunk]

I think it was gggmork who identified that type of open-endedness as granular non-linearity. I.e. the ability to choose how to approach distinct scenes, or rooms, in a variety of ways (e.g. DX:HR). The over-arching game is still linear, though. I believe that's the kind of non-linearity that gamers mean they enjoy when they say they enjoy 'non-linear games.'

I think the lesson to be learned here is that there is no such thing as total linearity or non-linearity in video games (concession for weird exceptions like Desert Bus, Typing of the Dead, Minecraft, etc.).

[hex11]

This is really ancient stuff. You can trace these design techniques back at least to 1986 (AD&D 1st edition, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide) and probably earlier in other publications, and much earlier still in various implemented forms across game mediums (whether board/wargames, tabletop RPGs, computer games...) The earliest text I'm familar with is the DSG which presents the AD&D Dungeon Master with three types of caimpaigns: linear (typical, highly scripted "railroad" with detailed plot and timeline), matrix (a bunch of mostly independent sub-plots or quests connected in various ways like points on a grid), or open campaign (aka sandbox style). The nice thing about the matrix campaign is it allows you to put a lot of work into fleshing out the various plots, locations and NPCs ahead of time and then it's just a matter of letting the PCs decide which one they want interract with. The book even suggests using using a combination of "soft" or "hard" methods (carrot or stick approaches) to keep the PCs from going too far off-map. The sandbox style is by far the hardest to implement, even for a human DM (unless he has a knack for thinking on his feet).

BTW, remember the old Fighting Fantasy gamebook line? Those mostly varied between linear and matrix style (depending on the book), but there was one series called "Fabled Lands" that was basically completely open/sandbox style. The only real problem is that after you played it so many times, you've seen everything there is, and it starts to become repetitive. That's not a problem with a human GM, because he can ensure the players always experience "fresh meterial" to some extent, but a dumb algorithm (be it in book form or a computer program) doesn't have that kind of insight.

[188DarkRevived]

Da Werecat said:

most of the Hexen weapons feel very satisfying for me.

Absolutely! I confess that I also admire the weapons of Hexen 1 way more than the weapons of Heretic 1.
In particular, I'm obsessed with the mage's Arc Of Death so much that I even built and released a PWAD which transfers it into Heretic 1 to replace the much-overused Ethereal Crossbow. (Although it's only a half-way conversion, since I'm not a scripter.)
I'm also obsessed with the cleric's variant of the green flechette potion. It literally has the same effect and same damaging rate on the monsters as the mage's Arc Of Death. The only real difference is that there's a cloud of gas instead of electric flashes.
Either way, both of those weapons make me feel like some mighty Sith Lord, and that's all that matters. The satisfaction of watching an enemy dancing around in agony before their demise is far greater than the satisfaction of watching something spontaneously explode into nothingness. Amen. :)