Vidya mechanics

mah nigga

but user
i am a tool

wow man , how many layers of irony are you in ?

sage for not so good post

Hey OP!

Take your head out of your ass
Stop playing only AAA shit
Play everything else

There are a sea of games that most people never play, never talk about, never enjoy. Why? Because you are a child who wants to be spoonfed what's good enough to be hyped about. How about you make an effort and go discover what's already out there.

Of course he doesn't, he wasn't around then. And you can't expect him to play old games, eww I mean look at how bad the graphics are.

So I'm underage because I think OP is a faggot for doing the usual.

Kill yourself nigger, both of you.

OP is a retard I'm pretty sure he's that cuckchan fag that tried to get Holla Forums to raid us.

wew

Fantastic response 10/10

what ??

this a thread discuses the lack of gameplay creativity in this industry
in the 80s 2d graphics limited our creative power but gave a challenge that smart designer need to work around
in the 90s the industry was at its creative peak and most of what you play today was made at that time just less polish

the lack of new gamplay ideas plague both AAA and indie scene east and west

wrong thread friend

So it is you isn't it?
You need to go back
>>>/cuckchan/

It was, and it was fucking fantastic. Too bad it was hidden inside of a game with nearly every RPG sin. Translation patch of Shanghai.exe when?

Modern game design is against new game mechanics.

it was a breath of fresh air

what ?
what am i ?
go back where and why ?
are you high or something ?

look here buddy
when you say something
you prove it
ok ?

Modern game design is more about polishing which due to the typical game reviewer rushing into the game means "Make it play like every other game in the market.".

please tell me people told those shills to fuck off and die

Can anything new even exist now? Is there something that hasn't been done?

I feel just making existing ideas and mechanics better with modern computing and techniques is the only way forward. Better AI, ballistics, movement etc. for shooting. Better physics and lighting and weather and more for adventures and platformers and horrors.

We have sports games. Third and first person shooters. Real-time strategy, grand strategy. Turn-based combat and real time combat. Open world and linear levels.

I don't think anything new can be done, just mixing other ideas and concepts together, just improving existing ones.

Lets say MGS V was given all the time and money it needed, an open world stealth/combat game with base building, soldier recruitment, dozens of gadgets and weapons, reactive AI and letting the player decide the best course of action sounds great. On its own, it hasn't been done, at least as far as I know. But its still open world, still has stealth and shooting and driving, soldier recruitment and base building, reactive world, a big and varied arsenal. All of those have been done before, but not together, at least not well.

WHY CAN'T THESE SHITSOCKS STICK TO THEIR CRAPPY, HIP, CELLPHONE CAMERA ARTHOUSE FILMS AND LEAVE INTERACTIVE MEDIA ALONE!?

They're not wrong, though.

He is. Has the same posting syntax, posts images of no relation to his posts, and vague ideas. Expect a post about "fixing Holla Forums" sometime soon.

lethal league seems kinda different

Bioshock Infinite was different from its predecessors. The game would have linear parts usually for the sake of story-telling and then go to arenas in which majority of the gameplay took place. To navigate these arenas quickly, hooks and railways for the skyhook were provided as an easier means of navigating the area. I feel that, besides the dumbed-down mechanic with Elizabeth, that the mechanics of Infinite were good. What I did take issue with was how underused they were because the arenas weren't designed to support this. I also feel that the lack of enemy diversity also hurt the game. For the linear parts, they should have made alternate pathways that required Elizabeth's power if the area wasn't essential for the story progression. It's not a bad game I would say, but certainly a disappointing one when you see the older gameplay trailers.

The problem with modern vidya maps isnt that they are just straight corridors it's that they feel nothing but that…

Like an example you are shooting shit down on some underground lab or such shit and it's nothing but going STRAIGHT constantly and there's barely even doors you cant open on the sides.
Who the fuck would build an underground lab/secret hideout and have it few kilometers of nothing but tunnel with few corners here and there?

Nicve try, but even a mongoloid knows that story>mechanics is only ever true for media that are primarily story-driven.

Reminder that Telltale don't make vidya- they make visual novels with a graphics bump.

I'd love to know what brought him here.
I didn't he just stay back in cuckchan?
He'd fit right in.

a huge amount of AAA games are unpolished buggy shit
here you have been mistaken to believe that reviewers as an active agent in the game development inside or outside of the sausage factory or they have any effect what so ever on the game making decision
they are nothing but glorified marketing tools in the hands of publishers
what do you mean by "reviews" i call " money "

money influence the devs more than anything else

i think that you are right here
the standardization of gameplay mechanics is something that limit the creative scope of gaming today

this shit looks fun
i will check it out

There are some games where that's actually true like pic related and most isometric rpg's from the late 90s

If Planescape:Tormet would've had the story of Dragon age 2 no one would've played it.

Problem is that practical architecture usually isn't fun for shooting/hacking and slashing your way through. Good level design requires almost savantish levels of creativity. That's why level design, like optimisation and sound engineering, is becoming a lost art - people who can do them well have years of experience and innate talents for them.

It's harder to find someone that can design levels that just suck you in, and it costs more to hire them. than simply picking among the million CVs you have lying on your desk from your average paid-in-pennies Bioware writer. The mainstream market today dictates the returns aren't worth the money it takes to employ real professionals.

kill me if you want to
but portal 1and2 have great level design that uses the light shapes and perspective to make you read the info better

dark souls1 was more traditional with its approach to level design although that didn't hurt the level design quality that much

There is a reason why I italicized polishing.

Obsidian lost royalties due to point in Metacritic.

A hand full of publishers. Not everyone has the money to do this.

It isn't just reviewers but casuals as well.

Those isometric RPGs had pretty par graphics for the course, with 3D being as meh by comparison with good 2D as it was then.
In Planetscape's case it wasn't the case that story became more important than gameplay: The game was made by the story being singly good enough to carried the it on its own merit. There's nothing to say that you can't have a mindblowing story, but fucking no one likes QTEs, and only masochists and plebs enjoy watching hours of cutscenes after sitting down to play a game. Those are both symptoms of the 'cinematic' approach to game development.
Don't get me wrong- I love 2006's The Bard's Tale, which is a failed abortion from a gameplay, graphics and programming perspective, solely for the British humour writing. In TBT's case they were were working with tried and trusted IP, and the game itself was mostly a matter of shitting out a modernised reboot of the old games. The strength of a franchise like TBT doesn't rely on actual programming, but on writing, and the issue I have with it is that it could be that much better if they put in the effort to improve it.
If you're allocating budget to make an original work authentically good, you really ought to prioritise mechanics, because writing is such a crapshoot.

Actually, the formal elements of every medium are more important than its story - this includes paintings, books, film, etc. Not that story isn't expected to be there, but what matters more is how the story is told through the medium rather than what the story is. People care about Citizen Kane not because of its story - which is pretty mediocre - but how it told its story through its camera work and editing.

Of course you'll always have plebs like and where the only thing they'll take away from any game/film/etc is its story, regardless of how good or bad the work is underneath that. Planescape Torment is good not just because of its story, but because of how its story is interwoven with its gameplay.

fair enough
get that bethzcuck out of my face

all though i think that simply scaling enemies level and stats is lazy game design

we need something better and more mechanically deep

Seems like the kind of retard that would have zipped straight off to the Border Worlds after getting jump access in Freelancer and bitched about the "difficulty curve".

This user gets it. The way a game tells it's story through mechanics (or lack thereof) is what is most important if story is present in a given game system. If things weren't true, then Gone Home and Deus Ex would be closer to equal footing, a thought that makes me shudder.

Still doesnt make the "gameplay" good, only a drooling retard will find "click enemies with your mouse for auto attack and dice rolls until they die" type of combat good.

i said at once and i will say it again
the gameplay should be the story told in mechanical level and vice versa

sage for edited post

Question: do you know even know what defines an RPG? The specific combat interactions, while lacking, aren't the be all and end all of Planescape's gameplay.

What doesn't? I haven't said a word about what makes gameplay good- I've talked expressly about how poor priorities lead to putting less creative work into developing gameplay than writing.

It's Gesamtkunstwerk you idiot

dose this please your german autism ?

One of common complaint about Fallout: New Vegas and I guess Fallout 3 is that it doesn't allow you to play the game after the end like in Skyrim. Skyrim had very unfulfilling ending because of this and many other things.

Are you being serious or are making fun of art games?

Because it is
graphics, sound, music, story, UI, etc.
mechanics, rewards/punishments, controls, AI, etc
>Experience
stuff between the first two and
balance, pacing, intuitive design, story through gameplay, difficulty, tutorials, etc.

Not to say story isn't important because people fuck that up too (webm related). It is nice if the story and the mechanics meshes together especially in RPGs because it allows more hints to lateral thinking solutions.

magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/bursting-flavor-2003-02-24

This is why I'm against the charging for critical system in FO4 besides problems as a mechanic it doesn't make sense.

magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/ten-things-every-game-needs-part-1-part-2-2011-12-19

i think story have it place in video games
it adds an extra flavor to the gameplay

I was talking about how you put story and presentation in two different categories.
Also, see

i might like your categorization better
although i will remove tutorials they should be part of the pacing

and add choice to either the experience or the gameplay categories

choices are these wired things that are in a limbo between story and gameplay they act in the two of these categories

Experience is what I call things that between gameplay and presentation (story).
For Experience, I would add Game Feel.
Not Egoraptor.

game feel is an anti immersion design doesn't mesh well with the rpg gerne but is very good for other more arcade like games

...

What is FPEG ???

Are you has having brain problems? That's exactly why every FPS is so stale now.

Immersion (at the crappy version that Bethesda tries to peddle to faggots) is anti-abstraction which is against the whole point of RPGs. Can't lock-pick a door because you don't have the right skill? Immersion broken! Any perspective besides 1st person or over the shoulder 3rd person? Immersion broken!

Bethesda only keeps levels and shit to pretend that they are still making RPGs.

How he said that BS:I wasn't bad game should give you a hint. BS1 was also shit.

First Person Exploration Game

Combined with VR, it often becomes a physics puzzler/sandbox

I assume you haven't played many tabletop RPG (the original RPG).
A good GM is never going to say no to a player if they ask to attempt a task they are not prepared to do. Say, you are playing Cyberpunk 2020 and a brutish player with absolutely no idea of Electronic Security and low TECH grabs a tech toolkit and attempts to disable the alarm system. Can he do this? Other than his party, there is nothing that could stop him from simply opening the box and sticking his tools in it; succeeding, however, is much more difficult.

It makes sense that Bethesda games let you insert the lockpick into the lock because it would be dumb to make the character outright refuse to attempt a task because it thinks it will not be able to do so. "No, I don't want to try this because I know jack shit about this but somehow I know this is way above my level" is not only retarded even for game logic standards, it is superfluous.

Continuing with the CP2020 example, the character finds himself in front of a complicated-looking green silicon thing with lots of circuits and messes of cables. In his unexperienced head, the best tool for the job (for all jobs, actually) is a hammer, and so he grabs a hammer from the tech toolkit. The techie in the team, now tied up and gagged because she tried to convince the solo that maybe finding an alternate path would be more secure than attempting to disable an experimental military-grade lock (30 target difficulty), is now silently weeping because she knows this will be the day she dies. The corp is trying not to look at the wreckage because he knows it will be painful; he would be trying to stop the madman, but he knows he is no match for him, as he is good at business but not at fighting 120 kg muscle moles. The solo finally smashes his hammer against the panel, and the GM asks the player to roll. In Interlock, this would be TECH + Elec. Security + Tech Toolkit bonus + 1d10, which translated to our case's numbers would be 4 TECH + 1 Tech Toolkit + 1d10.

As you can see, if the solo rolls 9 or lower, the maximum he could roll is 14, but this game is using exploding dice so the theoretical maximum is infinite. That said, He just has 1/10 chances of even getting a basic crit.

In almost all rolls, the solo would fail to disable the panel, but the Dice God decided to smile at this suicidal bastard and conceded him a critical. That would be 15, but he has to roll again, and he somehow gets another critical (1/100 chance), and so he rolls again and gets a 7, making a grand total of 32, which is enough to succeed. To everyone's surprise, the panel's one weakness seemed to be brute force. What were the chances? Very low, but these things can happen.

Obviously, this doesn't really happen in a regular game because, unless you are roleplaying a retard, nobody is dumb enough to attempt such a thing. This is the real limitation: it is not a good idea to attempt something you are almost guaranteed to fail.

Problem is, Bethesda games don't stress this enough. It is extremely easy to succeed at lockpicking even if you have no fucking idea of how it works. Skyrim was somewhat harder than Oblivion's (which was ridiculously easy after some gitting gud), but it was still stupid easy, specially considering you always had several dozens of lockpicks in your inventory at any given time. On top of that, time stopped so you could conveniently spend the whole afternoon with absolutely no consequences.

nice post i agree like 80%
but i think the tabletop rpg system are inferior to what Crpgs can achieve we are freed from a huge amount of tapletop rpgs limitation

but we keep going back for that shit
the fact that we limit our self's to the old rpg design keep a lot ideas in the dark

Well, in terms of mechanical complexity you are right. CRPG are "simple" in their mechanics because nobody wants to spend more than they already do making table lookups and calculations. This is why most systems involve sums and not multiplications, or why we preferred to use dices rather than complex table lookups (some old systems use them; you can imagine how sluggish those combats feel). Combat is already fairly slow in P&P and I don't want to imagine how slow would it be if you expected players to calculate complex formulas and flip pages of the Rulebook like crazy for each action. To simplify things, tabletop mechanics opted for RNG abuse because it's piss easy and fast to throw a piece of plastic into the air.

However, in terms of flexibility, P&P RPG are unmatched. In a P&P RPG, you can do anything you can think of as long as it can be explained and doesn't conflict with the rules of the universe, but in CRPG you are often doing not only what the developers thought you would try to do, but what they want you to do. /tg/ is full of stories where players have absolutely wrecked all the expectations the GM had for his campaign, and that's a day ending with a y in the world of tabletop. We still have a lot to learn from CRPG, just not from their mechanics.

I am surprised as to why the fuck has nobody made some RPG Maker-like game to let a GM play with its players in a vidya-like environment. That shit would have to be like, the funniest RPG ever.

CM pls

You are trading avatar skill for player skill. At least for the case of Fallout 1 and 2, locking picking is purely stats based; and even if you meet the minimum requirements to unlock the door, there is a chance of failure. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas removed the random chance and replaced it with player skill. The visible skill check requirement was added to make it easier to know that you aren't wasting your time. IRL, I can only probably murder another person with a sword using the sword equivalent of a sucker-punch.

A better example is the job class system. While I don't think a single player RPG which you control only one character should have a job system, the point of job system is so that the character wouldn't be able to do everything.

No, it is treating shit games like good games. The favorite thing modern game designers like to claim how a mechanic is outdated.

Gaming's experimental phase was cut short by the Internet and market research.

Like a virtual board game maker?

Rocket Leage was a bit of fresh air, but the general idea of the game has been done before.
It seems mechanically the only new ideas we get anymore are the real simple ones that aren't elaborated much, making them small cheap indie games.

Holy shit.

In some way, Skyrim is unique, as it's one of the most detailed open world games out there, but that's just because Bethesda has ridiculous resources to waste on mappers. Still doesn't mean the maps are great, nor makes the game good at all.

Deadly Reflex still is infinitely better than any combat system Bethesda has invented.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT I AM MAD.

What can I expect from the fanbase that actively rejects multiplayer, the only thing that could make modern Bethesda games fun.

Yes, but no. Thing is character skill in things like lockpicking has absolutely no meaningful weight in the minigame, but outright removing player input would not be a good idea. As mediocre as Skyrim was, I don't want to imagine how fucking insipid it would be if it relied on pure P&P mechanics. I guess it would be exactly like a P&P campaign with the worst, most railroading GM you could imagine.

Imagine Oblivion or Skyrim's minigame. How could we make it rely more on character skill to make it more "realistic"?
Could a totally clumsy character still lockpick a lock? Yeah, if he gets a "crit", which involves both player skill and dice alignment. Should he? Probably not, he has more to lose if he even attempts to do it.

Yeah, more or less. The idea would be to make an easy to use map tool; drop in some default tilesets, characters, music, visual effects for most common settings (fantasy, sci-fi, 20s stuff, you name it), add a way to implement rule scripts (request dice from player and if it succeeds, trigger damage calculation, for example) and some simple default rulesets, as well as some default weapons and attacks, a chat and a networking system and you are good to go. Most of the things would be controlled by the GM so you wouldn't really have to care much about balance or even gameplay (literally "modders will do it", except in this game it's justifiable because that's the point), nor complex AI (some pathfinding or path definition would be good to avoid overworking the GM), not even about writing. All you have to do is the engine, piss easy to use tools and the assets, which would admittedly be painful to do but still much less work than any modern AA or even A game.

In game, players take control of their characters, and the GM takes control of the rest, both NPC and enemies alike. Every dialog is between the GM (with one of its many identities/NPC) and the players, every fight is between the GM and the players, and so on.

Just allow map edition on the fly, with easy to use ingame tools, and then let the players connect to the GM's server. It pretty much makes itself.

I was more upset about "You don't want Fallout to be a TES clone? You are the ones that want to play the same shit over and over again. You don't want the RPG genre to evolve by homogenizing into TES in different settings.".

Also, how is game feel anti-immersion?

SKYRIM WAS A FUCKING MISTAKE

Most of that about lockpicking is somewhat "fixed" in morrowind, mostly by removing the minigame altogether. If you're going to have a minigame, at least give it some depth. Bioshock's hacking minigame added mechanics as the game went on, and things from the main game could make the minigame easier.

Would the GM be creating things from scratch on the fly, or prior? The thing about having a blank canvas is it's much much harder to start than you initially think. Tabletop RPGs are good because that "canvas" is much easier to "paint" than a 3D environment with complex level design, placement, decorations, etc.

Instead of having the GM start from scratch, you can have level packs like .wad files, and/or scripting for procedural generation. The GM would see ahead, and be able to change the layout with a few clicks before the players can see it. The GM can only edit things inside the 'fog of war', so he can fuck with the players by changing the levels on their way back, and make sure enemies are always placed properly. The gameplay mode should probably default to an action-based combat like the Infinity Engine CRPGs. Text chat could just be based off IRC, the GM could change the character he's speaking as by clicking
So like Doom but with RPGs? Be sure to make it as libre as possible. If it catches on, you wouldn't want bad tools

As with most games, the whole thing should be still playable offline, with the level packs having a default (so a GM-less campaign can be created and enjoyed just as much)

Also, the GM controlling all the enemies would probably be a poor choice. Too much work on the GM, takes him out of his gameplay mode of editing and planning, and encourages him to kill the players, not make it challenging for them. Plus, battles should give the GM time to edit and plan out the further points of the dungeon. Strong enemy encounters can also discourage the pack from breaking up, or guide them in certain directions.

This thread is nothing but nostalgia faggotry. The only thing you needed to say to complete your shitshow is by saying you'd like a revival of WW2 shooters when everyone got sick of them.

Fuck off you foreign faggot.

I really hope OpenMW gets finished and we could have ten New Vegas's (games that prove that Bethesda is just incompetent) and modders would stop support Burchthesda.

Where is the nostalgia in analysing the gaming current creative state and compare it to the past highs and lows?

...

but he's not wrong, developers haven't experimented with new mechanics for a while. It's all trying to be semi-realistic, instead of diversifying the market place. and I don't mean making the protag a nigger, I mean actually making fun games with different gameplay styles, settings and mechanics

to be honest even the original fallouts wasn't that mechanically adventurous
it was good i will give you that but they didn't explore any new territories
just like all of the infinity engine rpgs

Wait you really think the 90s exemplified an era of diversity in gameplay? That user is right to call you a fag

no i think it is an era where both outlandish gamplay mechanics took place with a somewhat good polish
in the 80 the devs were more adventurous i know

but in the 90 they hit right in the sweet spot between new gameplay and polish

Uh, you don't get to discuss!! here

k i am sorry for having a discussion here

k i archived this thread
it was a nice thread tbh
archive.is/sVYtm
archive.is/20160606001355/https://8ch.net/v/res/9548022.html

There is a lot of alternatives to level scaling. Level scaling is just the easiest. They could have made enemies stronger depending on what quests that have been completed. They could have made enemies stronger gradually over time. However, people demand level scaling because they just want a walking simulator with some easy fights.

This is retarded because it goes against the game's progression. It would be interesting if you needed to be at the level cap to finish the game or a certain level to progress but no.

No, you're fucking retarded. You clearly don't understand anything about how "new mechanics" are really just combinations permutations of established ideas. The same dumb people that think VR or motion controls will breathe life into games can't fucking fathom that "new things" aren't simply skin deep, but truly mechanical differences and mixtures that can't be seen immediately. Why the fuck do you think they're called mechanics?

Maybe if you actually explored games beyond what's advertised to you constantly, you'd come across interesting mechanical concepts that shine or fell flat as wholes.

it is ok bruh one day the gaming industry will move past the old rpgs conventional design compromises

i will make my own mechanically deep crpg the only problem i have is that where i live tapletop rpgs don't exist you cant find them and there is no community to play rpgs with

so i just watch table top games and reviews in the internet , so far i have been interested in the burning wheel , GURPS, dread , savage worlds , call of the cthulhu etc… i avoided D&D on purpose
but because i can't play them myself i started to notice where these rpgs system weaknesses

so i am free from B&P design influence

your post explain everything i wanted to say in a better english ,
you don't need this hostility
i say that we before we bring shit gimmicks like motion controls and VRs we need to go as deep as we can in the already not so fleshed out mechanics in find sub-genres with in the big genres

and if we can make a new fucking genre out of no where

No, you still don't understand.

There isn't a single person or group dictating the entirety of games. It's multitudes doing different things. You're choosing to be narrow minded by only focusing on one aspect and making statements about how the entirety is stagnating.

i talked about the lack of gameplay depth and variety these days in general and nothing else

and my only focus is to ask why is deep gamepaly something from the past

my narrow view is inevitable part of me trying to focus on this narrow subject

i know that there is not one but many causes of this issue

am i still a retard ?
or is it my terrible English ?

There is a lot of homogenizing going on this industry and very few IPs have their own style.

While this guy can be a giant faggot, he is right in this case.

No, the problem is the game designers don't understand why things are like that in first place.
For example, people said the tank controls were in RE to make it scarier. That is fucking bullshit. Grim Fandango had that the spooky skeletons weren't really meant to be scary. The tank controls were popularized in 3D adventure games (like Grim Fandango). The tank controls is the best way to control a character when you have no control of the camera and it keeps moving. It also allows the character to closely inspect the surounding which is a big aspect of these games. I played games that offer both character relative and camera relative controls and the character relative controls were the easier one to use.

Your lower case typing starting to irritate me.

You're falling for the same trap he is.

Do you see superhero movies come out and exclaim that all movies these days are CGI action tripe?

This is a dead-end of a subject and I'll be on my way out. Y'all niggas have fun crying about how AAA games these days aren't as good as AAA games from the past.

CONSIDER
The same number of good games is being made, to the same crowd, but there is a much bigger mainstream group of gamers now who want shit and will pay good money for it. This of course overshadows the companies not willing to spend $100 million on ads.

Gaming isn't dying, it's being split into two camps who barely interact. The smaller camp is definitely harder to follow.

the cancer is spreading to the AA and the indie scenes

The indie scene is the most pathetic , what a wasted potential
Instead of being this place where new mechanics get made with minimum polish and deep gameplay
It is nothing a pretentious hipsters circlejerk

The other "hardcore" "AA" market is dying with no hope of recovering
They don't have enough money to make the deep games that i want

What is your opinion on vidya design education then ?
Do you think it will solve this problem?

The western indie scene is basically a cabal.

Almost too intertwined into marketing and undoubtfully a circlejerk.

For example, DotT is almost universally considered superior to MM. IMO, DotT is not only a step down but actually quite a bad game (I liked GF). DotT popularized the Lucas Art style of no failure states while that does have some merits it also has a lot of downsides that swept under the rug. Certain acts are locked out because it would interfere with future solutions. In MM, you needed open an envelope to use it send a letter. Opening the envelope by hand would make it unusable. The game tells you this by letting you fail. In DotT, the game would give a smug "No, that would be illegal!" even if you are suppose to open the envelope anyways. In DotT, BA, and even GF; you need fail in order progress in the game and people are surprised that BA is shit. This system doesn't just not punish trial and error; it encourages trial and error. I tried to dress up Dead Ed for the beauty contest only for me to realized that the game will only let me do that after I push him there.

Also, the microwaving the hamster thing was only funny because you didn't have to do it. Fuck you DotT.

It is a combination of needing a more holistic view of game design and looking at things in a case-by-case basis instead of trying to apply philosophy to everything.

There is also the problem of videogame patents. Imagine what it would be like if someone holds the patent to "Choose Your Own Adventure" books or slow motion.