Idea: Video Game Recap
Something I’ve long thought would be great to have in video games – especially complex ones – is an automatic recap after it hasn’t been played in a while.
Having the game know when it’s been a month, for example, wouldn’t be very difficult, from what I know. As far as what you’d be shown when you boot up the game again, I think would fall into three main categories:
Controls and gameplay – I imagine this taking the form of either very brief videos going over what each button does, and in what circumstances, or an interactive tutorial area; but a much more in-your-face presentation than any from the initial one. What I’m thinking is an area where you can just walk around freely with no barriers or hoops to jump through, as you read overlaid text easily and quickly, and run a few quick tests if you like.
Story – This could be a text overview, or voiced video ones with a modular structure so as to allow very accurate and up-to-date retelling of the story for that exact file/user before they jump back in. Either way, this would be easy to implement from a birds-eye view, but would get complex — though not impossible — the more granular you want the user to be updated.
Choices – This is likely integrated quite tightly with story, and I think is self-explanatory, as the story update would explicitly include details of the choices you made, but I think another aspect should be choices you’ve made as far as skill trees, abilities, and maybe even what traits in items you’d tended to use (e.g., you’d been focusing on ice damage buffs, or crit chance seems to have been a priority); though that last one would be very difficult to implement.
Where’d this come from?
I can’t tell you how many games I’ve enjoyed initially, but walked away for one reason or another. The thought of returning to them, after forgetting all that I’d learned and done when I played it all those weeks ago, can be daunting.
There is a kind of dread in re-learning it all and figuring it all out – I know that I can’t easily just jump in and play, and that thought deters me from re-visiting all those great games.
Keep it Simple
In order for this to be effective, I would suggest this entire concept to be very candidly presented, break the fourth wall, and be self aware in what it’s trying to accomplish. Trying to weave it into the game too much would take up too much time –for both developers, and players.
“It’s been [x time] since you played – do you want to review the controls, story, or choices you’d made when you played last?”
The whole idea is to get the player able to pick up where they left off last time as quickly as possible, and to get them back there, outlines or reviews would shorten the curve significantly.
