Quicktime event.

Because the interactive movie fad of the cd-rom era worked so well. 

Developers have for a long time struggled with how to implement their ideas. How to make the player do something awesome when all you have for reliable game mechanics are jumping on crates and hitting stuff with a sword? Cutscenes are falling out of favor, because the anti-Hollywood luddites refuse to cease insisting that our media has to be "interactive" all the time. The answer is really quite simple: you give him some buttons to press.

(Personally, I love a good cutscene. In fact, quite often, after I've watched a good one, if I've still got some milk duds left in the box I'll go and get myself killed just so I can watch it again. Developers who 'get it' make that part easy for me, with tons of bad guys and instant death traps right after a healthy dose of exposition. So I don't have to go looking.

I'll tell you about a developer who doesn't get it: Bungie. First cutscene I experienced in Halo I was so thrilled I immediately grenaded myself to death to sit through it again, only to find out they put a checkpoint save after the cutscene! Come on, fellas! You put all that work into an animated sequence and the player only gets to watch it one time? No wonder Microsoft kicked those guys to the curb.)

What if we want the player to be able to climb a giant statue and stab its eyes out? Too fantastic for you? Get up and leave the room. This is a discussion for problem solvers. For years developers have been wishing their awesome ideas and visionary action sequences could be made into movies, but unfortunately, the best they could do career-wise is games, where they're hobbled by the constant annoying presence of this entity known as "The Player." (Hollywood is smart - those guys don't give a fuck about who's on the other side of the screen. *clicks his powerpoint presentation to a slide of George Lucas* )

But how do you stage and animate the player character climbing this colossal statue while still fulfilling your token obligation to be 'interacting' with the player? Easy: you make a token gesture! And that's why we have QuickTime Events. By forcing the player to press buttons at regular intervals, you ensure he stays awake and that his thumbs haven't gone all tingly, AND if he can lose by not pressing them fast enough then it still feels like a game! But there's a third benefit: the player doesn't have to wait to the end of the cutscene to watch it again! Now your game controls intuitively serve a second role as fast-forward and rewind buttons. Yep: one step closer to the movies.

Back in what I like to call the "Dark Ages" you'd have to write a whole statue-climbing system and simulate the whole affair (plus, your statues would have to be concepted by the level designers - oh god!). After that much expense, you'd pretty much have to make your entire game just about climbing statues and stabbing them in their sensitive bits, and you'd barely have time to pad that with something dead simple like a riding-around-on-a-horse mechanic. And who the fuck would buy that game?

What a modern age we live in. 

Thanks, but I think we're all stocked up on impotent whining. If you know where that shipment of solutions is though, I'm all ears. 

How dare you!!?

oh no, wait a minute....


.

Yes it is 

If you know where that shipment of solutions is though, I'm all ears

-> write a whole statue-climbing system and simulate the whole affair 

"write a whole statue-climbing system and simulate the whole affair"


That's not a solution, it's a pie in the sky wish. I can do that to:

"Make the funnest of the funnest game and make it really fun and super great!"

Same level of usefulness. 

QTE is the answer to a question no one asked. 

Quick-Time-Event is managerial speak so they sound like they know what they're talking about 'Oh, so its like quick time?'
'Yes' (no, you fucking tard)
Usually after not having played the game mechanic in question.

Limiting the players input and the good/bad results of input reduced the amount of gameplay in the game.

This is not a good thing. 

"Quick-Time-Event is managerial speak so they sound like they know what they're talking about 'Oh, so its like quick time?'
'Yes' (no, you fucking tard) "

Where on earth are you getting that from? 

The silent hill fight sequences described above are excellent gameplay mechanics, but they will be labeled as quicktime, which has a shitty, shitty reputation.

Quick Time Event is a modern phrase that has little meaning. What people mean when they say it is limited player input. 

Ahh OK, sorry. I over reacted. 

"Make the funnest of the funnest game and make it really fun and super great!"

Same level of usefulness.

Well... No. Not really. While I could write an entire design doc on how the system should work, I'm not actually a professional games designer (unlike yourself (as you are so often want to remind us)). However, if GTA can manage to have different control systems for driving/flying/walking/swimming/cycling/pogo-sticking and not confuse players then I'm sure you can construct some kind of useful system to allow the player to actually climb a giant statue and stab it in the eye without resorting to 'press X now!' every minute or so while pretending it's not just a more annoying version of a cutscene.

Of course if you actually meant 'unfortunately it's unfeasible to create 200 different control/gameplay systems within the restricted budget/development time of a modern game' then that would be more understandable (and a seperate discussion on the problems symptomatic of the modern games industry). But that's not what you actually said, is it? 

driving / flying / walking / swimming / cycling / pogo-sticking / fuck your auto abrv. system metl ;p 

write a whole statue-climbing system and simulate the whole affair...you'd pretty much have to make your entire game just about climbing statues and stabbing them in their sensitive bits.

FYI: he's talking about Shadow of the Colossus. 

I assumed this board was games-are-art enough to get the reference tbh...

And statue of the colossus was more interactive levels taken to extreme than statue climbing really. Also they were stone mechs.

But yeh, good game, prefered Ico tho. 

http://www.us.playstation.com/PS2/Games/Shadow_of_the_Colossus/OGS/

Did you honestly not catch the reference? 

Quicktime events sort of make me feel like i'm being forced to take a creamy facial from the lead cutscene animator. It's all about him stroking his ego (cock) in my face whilst he's forcing me to keep my eyes open all the way through it. Meanwhile, I've got no choice but to keep hammering away at my joypad so I can pretend to myself that I'm at least getting something out of it (but I'm just going through the motions at this stage; it's a pretty fucking shallow, soulless affair) and to be honest I don't give a fuck how visually impressive it is, all I know is that it gets up my nose and leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and at the end of the day he's getting far more out of it than I am. 

Quicktime events sort of make me feel like i'm being forced to take a creamy facial from the lead cutscene animator.

'Everything goes better with cock.' 

"Did you honestly not catch the reference?"

No, it was fairly obvious. I'm confused now. Did you write that whole post to drop that single reference? 

but you behaved as if you completely missed it. You know, equating my sardonic but exact description of the game's core mechanic with unachievable fantasy, as if in defiance of the fact that such a game was out and well received. Which I guess in a way indirectly supports my point about huge developers making safe games as a means of hedging the huge up-front investment.

Does the Colbert Report confuse you too? 

The Colbert Report is witty. That's the difference. 

The Colbert Report is irony?

d/l Brass Eye Lun, you'll like it. 

I mean buy, dammit, buy. Purchase. Consume. Buy in.

And for reference;

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118273/ 

But I can recommend SPAM. Not quite the same thing, much more twisted.

It's a common belief that American humour doesn't have much irony.

Lun, what's that smiley symbol you used there? Never seen it before, from you at least. 

It's a common belief that American humour doesn't have much irony.

Like raaaaiinn on your wedding day? No, wait, that is Canadian. Unless you mean North America in general then that totally over looks the brilliant irony of Spies Like Us, which is also pretty much Canadian (peeps from SCTV involved). I mean, when Akroyd and Chase jump out from behind the bushes dressed as aliens yelling 'beep-beep-beep-beep-beep' didn't your spinal cord rivet with delight at the sophisticated and dr�le irony of the humor. Okay, who am I kidding, still would prefer Fletch over Brideshead Revisited any day of the . . . . going to go sulk in my bottle now.