One Hour One Life Forums

Tebe

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 65

The joy of gesture

Gestures... A choice of emotional animation you can trigger at will. 1, 2 seconds of dance or grief or rage or love or fear.

The player would have to choose to do this, sacrificing precious seconds in order to express something aesthetically, but I am dreaming about this possibility. Dancing around a fire, falling to knees in sorrow when the chosen child dies, a farmer raging at a young buck plucking his last carrots. Being able to trigger and see these would make the experience endlessly touching and hilarious. Dark Souls has its gesture system, LittleBigPlanet has puppeteerable sackpeople emotions, and I have found both to result in absolute hilarity when utilized cleverly online.

Imagining the possibilities - I know it's purely aesthetic and wouldn't affect the core gameplay at all, but to think of these little naked people with their stick-legs dancing and raging and expressing has given me a giggle fit. Something to ponder!

Uncle Gus

Moderator

Registered: 2018-02-28

Posts: 567

Re: The joy of gesture

That would be awesome!

Doctor Flintrock

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 34

Re: The joy of gesture

This is a good idea—the part about body language—but it should not be player activated.

Right now a lot of grief and needless difficulty spawns from players not knowing quite how to handle community and social aspects vs. survival.

So if I abandon a baby (which I find extremely hard to do and have died countless times, sometimes trying to explain to the baby why it has to die), the baby should at least get to see the upset face of the mother to communicate to it that she's hungry; she can't take care of the baby. The baby-player will at least be given the chance to understand and won't be frustrated because this has probably happened many times to them.

This would also make it socially acceptable to run away from conversations or from a social gathering suddenly because other players would see that your are hungry or starving and need  to find food quickly.

The game would change radically (for the worse) if it shoved information into your face about what's going on in general; or if players were given the ability to communicate too effectively—but having basic body language/emotions (at least for hunger/starving states) would be a fine addition.

Tebe

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 65

Re: The joy of gesture

I'm thinking more along the lines of role playing/performative aesthetic fun over anything related to information.

A basic twist on LittleBigPlanet's emotions is what I'm thinking - four keys, like the arrow keys or number keys, each for a short animation or even an expression.

If a shot bear starts chasing me, I'd take the time to hit the "holy shit I'm terrified" expression, for the simple reason that it would be hilarious for other players to see me run through camp with sweat beads flying off and a horrified look on my face.

Or, if your hands are free, tiny animations for a tribal dance or a fall-to-your-knees-in-grief performance. My favorite part of the game by far are those hilarious moments between players in the world when an "event" happens that's communally shared.