article thumbnail

Open world RPG design notes from Enderal, a big long Skyrim mod

Radiator Blog

Whenever an NPC is about to dump backstory and exposition on you, they'll ask you to take a seat. This is a convenient diegetic way of locking the player in-place for a cutscene, while also priming the player for an extended cutscene. Diegetically, the NPC has to prepare a machine or potion, or get supplies, or whatever.

article thumbnail

Darner's Digest, vol. 3: on the Yarn Spinner v2.0 release + a YS primer

Radiator Blog

Some games do all their cutscene scripting and even enemy AI in Yarn Spinner, because really, it's just a simple scripting language that does whatever you tell it to do. Nothing stops you from adding more commands, functions, markup tags, or new ways to process the script. // custom NPC AI script example?

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

Sandbox vs themepark

Raph Koster

It was like resetting a little stage-play; the NPC actors hit their marks and reappeared at their start location. The scripting on WoC made for better combat too, because you weren’t stuck with just the built-in combat AI for your enemies. Breadcrumbs, dialogue trees, cutscenes, progression paths.

Sandbox 64
article thumbnail

Deathloop deconstruction / design thoughts

Radiator Blog

NOT telekinesis, only works on NPCs / PvP) Havoc (temporary shield / damage buff), very useful for people who keep dying (i.e. me) or PvP buff but conceptually rather boring Aether (cloak + invisible to laser sensors, attacks cancel it, can be upgraded to only consume mana while moving). It would feel terrible.

article thumbnail

The three most important qualities in an RPG

Keith Burgun

Part of what makes them so soulless is their lack of specificity: we aren’t seeing the feelings or aesthetics of any particular human, but rather the almost AI-generation-like amalgamation of what the marketing department thinks others will like.

Fantasy 52