Temple of Seasons is a little too "unclear".

Did you get "stuck" or "lost" at least a little somewhere?

  • Yeah, i got stuck once or twice.

    Votes: 4 26.7%
  • Never!

    Votes: 7 46.7%
  • I got heavily stuck.

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • Not really, but i was a little confused once.

    Votes: 3 20.0%

  • Total voters
    15

Own

Moderator
I'm a big, big fan of Show Don't Tell. Show me there is something worth investigating here, don't tell me what it is.


EgoRaptor did an incredibly popular video analyzing the difference between Megaman, Mega Man X and other games which go overboard in HEY YOU NEED TO DO THIS WATCH OUT FOR THAT!
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
While I do agree that it's pretty annoying to read up on the controls or be told very obvious things I still think that if you really want you players to see where they should go or what they should do then a text box is the easiest way to do it. But it is not only because of the very simple and easy way of just putting a little bit of text on the screen that I suggest this. The reason that every game is not showing everything like Megaman X is because the games are made on different platforms and they're not all 2d platformers. Just because it works really well in Megaman X doesn't mean that you can just copy/paste the concept into every game. In games where you're more focused on Story than Action it's easier to weave in a little bit of extra help for the player inside the dialogue to keep the objective clear for the player. Now in games like Call of Duty you don't have much of a story (shots fired?) and there is no way to put the controls inside the dialogue since a real soldier doesn't use a controller (duuhh!). In SoG you already have characters that talk to the player every now and then to give hints or just interact with the player with some normal conversation so the hint/text wouldn't just be "Press X to use your shield" but more conversation based that builds on the already existing characters. Naniva has already made herself (in)famous with he obvious comments and lack of intelligence (both when she tried to help Luke to solve the puzzle and when she explained the controls for the player after you've completed the first Temple). Having Naniva flying around and point at important stuff is not a bad idea but I think you could take advantage of the already established character and also make your life a little bit easier in terms of implementing.

Whow! Wall of text. #Rant
TLDR; Your suggestion about pointing at stuff is not bad but I think that you could do a lot more with just a little bit of text since you could expand on your current characters and make the connection stronger between the player and the little friends that follow him/her around.
 

Sean6258

Green Slime
Yeah but I think that would be harder to implement than just having Naniva saying something like "Hey, is that one of those phase plates you told me about?" (Winter) or "What? Where did the phase plate go?" (Summer) :p

You would have to make sure that no matter what season the player chooses first in that room, that Naniva seems as if she knows just as much as you do. For instance, if I changed it to summer the first time and she said "Where did the phase plate go?" I would be extremely confused.

Also, I really appreciate you referencing me in the post. Was very nice of you! :p
 

Sean6258

Green Slime
I'm a big, big fan of Show Don't Tell. Show me there is something worth investigating here, don't tell me what it is.


EgoRaptor did an incredibly popular video analyzing the difference between Megaman, Mega Man X and other games which go overboard in HEY YOU NEED TO DO THIS WATCH OUT FOR THAT!

Now, here's an idea. Just came up with this one. In response to how you like things to teach you, what if a the phase plate dropped from the ceiling as if it was stuck up there and landed in the puddle or something? Then the player would know that it's there.
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
Now, here's an idea. Just came up with this one. In response to how you like things to teach you, what if a the phase plate dropped from the ceiling as if it was stuck up there and landed in the puddle or something? Then the player would know that it's there.
That sounds like a lot of work just to show that there is a phase plate there. I mean if you wanna have it dropping down from the ceiling then you would have to come up with some sort of reason why it would even fall down in the first place and you would also have to make a splashing animation for when it hits the water. In that case I think it would be better to just think of a better design for the phase plats themselves. Right now they're just grey things on the ground and they don't really seem like they're capable of breaking down a person into a little ball of light and then send that little ball flying over to another plate where the person gets put back together. They could have a more high tech look with some lights on them or something that would make them easier to spot. If you don't wanna change the look of the phase plates then maybe there should be some adjustments to the leaf covering the phase plate in the Season Temple so that it's still visible during the Summer or maybe there should be something that catches the players attention on the platform you jump to with the phase plate so that the player has more motivation to find a way to get across which would not leave the player thinking "There is nothing in here that I can do now. Where do I go next?" which seems to be the case right now (I think).

I don't know, there are a lot of things that you could do to help point the player in the right direction. I guess if we just keep throwing ideas around we'll find a good solution eventually. :D
 

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
I think the "dropping plate" could be done pretty easily.
As it is winter when you enter, it could be frozen solid, hanging from the ceiling/wall and when you come back and play with the seasons, it can just melt and fall down. With a little help from the sound department, a small screen shake and a notification from Naniva this should be nearly impossible to miss.
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
I think the "dropping plate" could be done pretty easily.
As it is winter when you enter, it could be frozen solid, hanging from the ceiling/wall and when you come back and play with the seasons, it can just melt and fall down. With a little help from the sound department, a small screen shake and a notification from Naniva this should be nearly impossible to miss.
See, that's not a bad idea but has it always been winter inside the Season Temple? What I'm imagining is that Winter (the fae) has just recently taken control over the seasons which explains the farms situation on the west side of Evergrind City and that he is also the cause of everything inside the temple being frozen (I'm too lazy to go and check but I'm pretty sure that one of the guys at the farm says that it's supposed to be Spring or Summer so I think that should include Seasone and the Season Temple). I don't know the back story to the Season Temple well enough to say that that room hasn't been frozen for a long time and that the phase plate has been stuck in a block of ice in the ceiling but to me it seems weird that a random phase plate just falls from nowhere. I would rather have something more story related or something that can be explained easily by just looking at it. I think that we can come up with something better than a randomly falling object. :p
 

KoBeWi

Jumpkin
That pressure plate could be entangled in some vines. Then season changed to winter and it fell on ice and when the ice melted, this time it fell on the floor. That would be possible explanation.

But such thing don't need much logic, it's a video game after all. There are games (like Golden Sun) with dungeons where you have to solve puzzles and use all of your abilities to get to the end. Your enemies will then join you in seconds or even they are already waiting inside the final room. Does anyone ask for logic then?
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
That pressure plate could be entangled in some vines. Then season changed to winter and it fell on ice and when the ice melted, this time it fell on the floor. That would be possible explanation.

But such thing don't need much logic, it's a video game after all. There are games (like Golden Sun) with dungeons where you have to solve puzzles and use all of your abilities to get to the end. Your enemies will then join you in seconds or even they are already waiting inside the final room. Does anyone ask for logic then?
Just because there are games with no logic doesn't mean that you can't use logic in games. If we don't wanna use logic then the phase plate could be hidden inside an apple that fall down from a tree since apples fall down from trees (alright I used logic but you get the point). I see no reason to make a random event that just makes the player question the game design and story since they can't find a good explanation as to why said event happened. My suggestions have all tried to aim towards a more meaningful event that wouldn't seem like it's missplaced and that would rather make the player think "Wow, that's cool. I like how they added details like that." or any other compliment you could think of that would fit because in the end you want the player to be satisfied with the game and details can be one of those things that makes a player enjoy the game.

I'm not saying that my suggestions are better than yours and I'm not trying to be mad at you for speaking your mind since if I was then we wouldn't be able to have a discussion. All I'm saying is that I don't agree with what you're saying but I can't just say "I don't agree with you." since that wouldn't lead us anywhere with this discussion. I'm giving you my thoughts on the subject and if you all vote me down then I'll accept that. I respect your opinion even if it's different from mine.
 

KoBeWi

Jumpkin
I'm not saying that my suggestions are better than yours and I'm not trying to be mad at you for speaking your mind since if I was then we wouldn't be able to have a discussion. All I'm saying is that I don't agree with what you're saying but I can't just say "I don't agree with you." since that wouldn't lead us anywhere with this discussion. I'm giving you my thoughts on the subject and if you all vote me down then I'll accept that. I respect your opinion even if it's different from mine.
I feel like this paragraph is a bit useless :p Was something wrong with my post that led you to write this?

Anyways, I went again into the dungeon to think of some solution and noticed interesting thing. When you first enter the temple, there's winter and the phase plate is covered by leaf. Later when you change to autumn and again to winter, phase plate is visible under the ice. Frozen leaf appears again when changing from summer.
So, to make it more obvious, the phase plate could be visible under ice from the beginning.
 

Sean6258

Green Slime
I feel like this paragraph is a bit useless :p Was something wrong with my post that led you to write this?

Anyways, I went again into the dungeon to think of some solution and noticed interesting thing. When you first enter the temple, there's winter and the phase plate is covered by leaf. Later when you change to autumn and again to winter, phase plate is visible under the ice. Frozen leaf appears again when changing from summer.
So, to make it more obvious, the phase plate could be visible under ice from the beginning.

It would certainly help more than how it is now. I also like the idea of a redesign, perhaps putting lights on it. I think that might be a good idea.
 

Sean6258

Green Slime
Actually, we might be overthinking this. If there's a way to see the phase plate in every season, the player should figure it out. I'm not sure a new animation or anything is really needed. Maybe during Winter, you could sort of see the phase plate under the ice and during Autumn the phase plate could sort of peak out from under the leaf.
 

GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
I feel like this paragraph is a bit useless :p Was something wrong with my post that led you to write this?

Anyways, I went again into the dungeon to think of some solution and noticed interesting thing. When you first enter the temple, there's winter and the phase plate is covered by leaf. Later when you change to autumn and again to winter, phase plate is visible under the ice. Frozen leaf appears again when changing from summer.
So, to make it more obvious, the phase plate could be visible under ice from the beginning.
I've made a habit of specifically pointing out that I'm not mad or anything similar to that when I make a post that at least I think is a little bit agressive or harsh. Some people just don't like when you talk back to them and if they find you intimidating then they just start screaming and that often leads to fights that could have easily been avoided by just being more clear with your statement. Another thing that can lead to problems in a discussion is when one part talks highly about their ideas and thus place themselves higher than the other people involved in the conversation. In order for you to have a health conversation with people you don't know you have to show that you respect them and that you're all equal. Since I know that I can sometimes get too carried away and start to trash talk other peoples ideas I try my best to let everyone involved know that I'm still respecting their opinion so that we can work together to come to a conclusion.

I'm glad you didn't take it the wrong way and just felt like my calming words were excessice. Talking to people is hard. :p
 
I want to contribute to this thread, but I don't even know if I beat the Temple of Seasons yet. I fought Winter (three times by accident), but the quest still says to Explore the Temple and there is still a stone wall up in the main room. Is the rest NYI, or am I somehow just missing something massive?

EDIT: With the last update, there was an end to the dungeon after the reworked Winter fight. For some reason, I was a version behind even though it said I had the latest.

Anyway, I thought the Temple of Seasons was fairly straightforward and very fun. I never really knew where I was going, but as I played I just wandered where I hadn't been, and it all worked out.
There are some vines I can climb up to a small, empty area, and a large vine leading down, but I guess they'll just have chests. I just don't wanna go back to get the future chests, but I'm just very lazy.
There is still the case of the right stone wall and the right wing's sun door, which must be larger rooms, but I guess those are secrets yet to come.
 
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GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
There is still the case of the right stone wall and the right wing's sun door, which must be larger rooms, but I guess those are secrets yet to come.
The "Sun Door" is just a decorative wall... We talked a little bit about it in another thread I made and the design artist, Vilya, confirmed that it was not a door. I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say stone wall so if you could take a screenshot and post it here then I would appreciate that. (I'm lazy so I don't wanna open up the game just to check)
 
I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say stone wall so if you could take a screenshot and post it here then I would appreciate that.
Here's the shot of what I call the stone wall, as well as the fat vine place and the climbable vine place.

eDSDhWG.jpg

Stone Wall

Hr4dC0Z.jpg

Fat Vine Spot

FhxreSe.jpg

Thin Vine Spot (Is that a chest behind those trees? Can't get to it BTW)
 
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GarlicJelly

Friendly Moderator (Formerly known as GoodStuff)
Here's the shot of what I call the stone wall, as well as the fat vine place and the climbable vine place.

eDSDhWG.jpg

Stone Wall

Hr4dC0Z.jpg

Fat Vine Spot

FhxreSe.jpg

Thin Vine Spot (Is that a chest behind those trees? Can't get to it BTW)
It appears as if that Sun Door-thing could be hiding something behind it but I think that the stone wall is the way inside. That said we still can't get in there. :p
 
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