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[Umbral]

Immsims are essentially this...


Most games want the player to start at A and get into B.

The player can choose the green circle (stealth), or the red square (conversation), or the yellow triangle (violence)...but at the end of every objective, it doesn't matter because you're there to trigger the dialogue/cutscene. Once you do, your set in a safe place with full health and you're supposed to run to the next childrens shape box and do it all over again.

If we have to steal a letter inside a mansion it's not interesting to weigh your options. You're incentivized to go with the first opening you see because there are no long term ramifications.

It would be far more interesting to break into a mansion in real life because you're strategy matters deeply. You don't want to get caught or get hurt, breaking into a mansion because obviously there are consequences IRL.

I love the concept of the immsim but it's missing a vital ingredient for it to take off.

What about the process of getting to the letter inside the mansion? I would say that’s an interesting part. There’s also a layer of creativity with some imsims that allow you to do crazy things that, while not required, are interesting in and of themselves. Such as killing an Elusive Target in Hitman by bouncing a fire extinguisher up to them that explodes and kills them. The designers didn’t expect you to do that, they didn’t require you to do that, but you can do it and get the same result, which is the kill. I suppose the problem lies with the player and incentives? The player could just as easily shoot them from afar but the systems allow you to come up with all sorts of way to handle it, even if you would call them illusions. For me, that’s the selling point of an imsim.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Immsims are essentially this...

Most games want the player to start at A and get into B.

The player can choose the green circle (stealth), or the red square (conversation), or the yellow triangle (violence)...but at the end of every objective, it doesn't matter because you're there to trigger the dialogue/cutscene. Once you do, your set in a safe place with full health and you're supposed to run to the next childrens shape box and do it all over again.

If we have to steal a letter inside a mansion it's not interesting to weigh your options. You're incentivized to go with the first opening you see because there are no long term ramifications.

It would be far more interesting to break into a mansion in real life because you're strategy matters deeply. You don't want to get caught or get hurt, breaking into a mansion because obviously there are consequences IRL.

I love the concept of the immsim but it's missing a vital ingredient for it to take off.

Out of curiosity, what Immersive sims have you actually played?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

What about the process of getting to the letter inside the mansion? I would say that’s an interesting part. There’s also a layer of creativity with some imsims that allow you to do crazy things that, while not required, are interesting in and of themselves. Such as killing an Elusive Target in Hitman by bouncing a fire extinguisher up to them that explodes and kills them. The designers didn’t expect you to do that, they didn’t require you to do that, but you can do it and get the same result, which is the kill. I suppose the problem lies with the player and incentives? The player could just as easily shoot them from afar but the systems allow you to come up with all sorts of way to handle it, even if you would call them illusions. For me, that’s the selling point of an imsim.

So the ideal immsim is exactly what you described...with an overlay of risk & consequence.

If the player has 60 minutes to kill a target everything becomes nicely contextualized. It makes the player look at the first way in and say to himself "Should I go with that route or is it worth it to snoop around and look for a more effective infil point. I also think the ideal immsim should allow for the player to fail the mission, and still progress the story. Maybe your target is an arms dealer that equips the rest of the games AI guards with a higher level body armor.

That way it becomes a poker game with you playing your hand. More immersive. More sim.

Out of curiosity, what Immersive sims have you actually played?

Mankind Divided, both Dishonored games, all the Hitmans, Bioshock, and Deathloop. I'm somewhat of an expert on the genre.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Mankind Divided, both Dishonored games, all the Hitmans, Bioshock, and Deathloop. I'm somewhat of an expert on the genre.

And how many of those games obviously picked from gamepass you played for a non-trivial amount of time?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

And how many of those games obviously picked from gamepass you played for a non-trivial amount of time?

Rephrase this question.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Rephrase this question.

Have you played any of those at least halfway through?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Have you played any of those at least halfway through?

Most, yes.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Most, yes.

Which ones?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Which ones?

All except Mankind Divided, Hitman 3, and Dishonored 2.

 

[Guilty_AI]

All except Mankind Divided, Hitman 3, and Dishonored 2.

Bioshock isn't an immersive sim, and Hitman games are also considered questionable in that sense.

So basically the only imm sims you played were Dishonored 1 and Deathloop, the first one being somewhat divisive dues to the honor system and the second once not a very good game to begin with.

Putting all that together: no, you're not an expert in the genre. No wonder you held those kinds of views. Come back when you played at least one of the classic ones, or a good recent one like Ctrl Alt Ego.

 

[semiconscious]

depends. consequences as far as choices you make? probably okay. consequences such as having your dragon's dogma 2 pawn contract & then succumb to dragonsplague, thereby reducing the population of bakbattahl to 0? you can fuck right off with those kinds of 'consequences'...

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Bioshock isn't an immersive sim, and Hitman games are also considered questionable in that sense.

So basically the only imm sims you played were Dishonored 1 and Deathloop, the first one being somewhat divisive dues to the honor system and the second once not a very good game to begin with.

Putting all that together: no, you're not an expert in the genre. No wonder you held those kinds of views. Come back when you played at least one of the classic ones, or a good recent one like Ctrl Alt Ego.

Trust me. Expert status.

 

[Danjin44]

Trust me. Expert status.

 

[diffusionx]

Trust me. Expert status.

He's right though

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

He's right though

He is my pupil, and forever will be.

 

[Wildebeest]

Trust me. Expert status.

Research required for expert status: A list of games from a SEO blog post made by chatgpt, based on data scraped from Kotaku.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Research required for expert status: A list of games from a SEO blog post made by chatgpt, based on data scraped from Kotaku.

I've written dissertations on every immersive sim I've played. I do not absorb game design like you common folk.

 

[bender]

 

[Fafalada]

Is the industry slowly uncovering the fact that players want consequence in their games?

More like 're-discovering'.
80ies and early 90ies game designs were almost entirely consequence based - right down to having full-on non-linear real-time narratives where player agency actually mattered to the Story - not just triggering the next cut-scene or end of boss-fight.