unforum

[Tien_Le]

The fate of the Noah Boddy Guide

[Dark Side Of The Moon]

I must admit that I grow weary as well Tien...I like the game aspect/ puzzles, but the storyline is a yawner...I'm not getting anything out of it at all lately, but I'll continue to work it until at least Chasing the Wish starts up...that seems intreresting to me...Noah Boddy has become too text oriented...which is fine, providing the text is interesting/good story...

It's just that my interest/imagination has failed to be piqued like Push did...different media to be sure, won't fault NoahBoddy there...but they have to pace there story better or I'm afriad people will wane...

But until The Wish is out, I'll keep giving Noah Boddy a chance....

[kenbo]

I'm glad someone brought this up. I thought it was just me.

[catherwood]

me too, not that we're taking a poll.

I have no "real" experience with immersive games, but I assumed they need to maintain an air of believability. I was OK with the Reverend's journal, but I cannot read milady Selene's emails with a straight face. The renaissance language breaks the illusion for me, i'm sorry.

I won't completely write off the genre based on this one game.

[cem]

I find the story just plain hard to get "immersed" in. My interest was piqued at first, but it seems there's not enough information or forward movement to sustain my interest.

As DSOTM stated, there is just too much text to wade thru'....and my problem with it is that once you've devoted your time to actually reading it, you're still left no farther ahead it seems. And now Lady Selene's page gives us more reading material....like I said just plain hard to get thru'.

I find Lady Selene's posts, so far, to be less informative (for an in-game character) than some people playing the game. That may change now that we are reliant only on her (for the present anyway) and with the addition of her site.

Maybe I'm just the impatient type...lol...but not feeling into the Plot carries over into my desire (or lack thereof) to spend any excessive amount of time on the Game's puzzles.

Anywho...I'll carry on, but I feel I've become more of a lurker day by day. Maybe we just need more "interaction".

~cem

[kingohugs]

My problems so far with getting motivated come from expectations of the puzzles serving the story/text, not the text being an excuse to have a puzzle. To me, a good captivating game has puzzles that make sense to the story, not something as bland as "solve this puzzle to get to the the next chapter" (or find the e-mail address to get more info).

[moa-Night]

Yeah, my main problem comes from the fact that there is nothing to do with your puzzle solves. We're not given a puzzle to advance the story, find a new webpage, or access someone's email, we're just finding stuff. In addition to being boring, we also have no real indication of whether or not we have the correct answer.
</gripe>
I'll still be playing along, because we know the PMs are reading the (at least Y!) boards and could very well modify how the puzzles work in that sense (this game is, after all, a test).

[vpisteve]

This would be a great topic for the PuppetMaster's Guide (is somebody still working on that??). Generally accepted/proven rules of puzzle authoring.

We've seen tons of examples of good puzzles, and even more bad puzzles, imo. It might be nice to try to quantify what needs to be there for a puzzle to be effective, along with what things not to do.

Having no feedback to know if you got the answer correct or not, as stated above, is a good place to start.

[SpaceBass]

[moa-Night]

Taken from the second entry on Noah Boddy's journal:

[SpaceBass]

Hrm, well that's interesting considering they are not the first to try this by a long shot. Although they don't seem to have learned anything from those that came before, so maybe they just aren't aware of any of the previous efforts.

[kenbo]

I think the main problem with this game is the same as wb's SDX game. Too much interaction with the PMs. They set up the Yahoo group for it, Noah Boddy has an "Out of Game" clue site,etc. Maybe it's just a personal pref. but a good game needs that whole "this is not a game" feel. When the PM's come along and say "THIS is clue #1", "THIS is clue #2" it looses that feel. and hence my interest.


The puzzles have been great tho!

[frangraves]