03-25-2007, 06:40 AM
Let's carry this concept to Midnight Mansion and assume that an implicit contract exists between mansion builder and mansion player. What would be the builder's end of the contract?
...well, of course that's open to interpretation, and mine can be summed up like this: when I die, I want it to be my fault. The mansion builder has the implicit responsibility to make sure that the player can only kill himself, instead of being killed by the mansion.To act, and not be acted upon.
Another part of the implicit contract is that the mansion should never become unfinishable. That's what we call a Jack-stuck. I suppose it's reasonable to use this as part of the design of a mansion, but you better darn well do it on purpose and make sure the player knows what happened.
If you violate the implicit contract...IMHO...that's unfair!
This is how I think of it, too. It feels like there's an implicit trust that exists between me and the level architect when I play a new mansion. I trust that the mansion won't kill me without giving me a reasonable chance to defend myself. I trust that the mansion difficulty won't vary wildly without warning. I trust that walls will act like walls and ladders will act like ladders and backgrounds will be backgrounds, that there will be some consistent rules and physics, so I can relax and work on the challenges that I encounter. There's sort of a trial period at the beginning where the contract gets established. And it's very easy during that trial period for the level design to break that trust, and it can be very hard to get me back in the mood again afterwards.