Heartland: Interact EVERYTHING!

Well, well. Each week it passes, one more day the weekly report is delayed. But it is here nonetheless.

This week's report includes an important aspect of games that ironically we often forget to include in our games. I hope you're guessing it right--Interaction.

Interaction is what makes a game be, well, a game. Otherwise it'd be like watching movie, or like reading a book just that more visually (in case of RPGs). Games of course are interactive. Heck, even walk simulators are. The level of interaction, however, varies from game to game. But we will be talking about RPGs for simplicity.

In JRPGs the 'interactive' part often reduces itself to moving around, go from place to place and battles. And menus. Some JRPGs include 'extra' stuff to appeal more, like the overused (yet never boring) fishing minigame for example. Puzzles are also among the most popular examples. From moving rocks to reach somewhere, to pressing the right buttons in the right order, as well as the classic 'find the way to move an object so the floor switch keeps pressed and you can continue your journey through the dungeon'.

Everything of this, however, relies on the same interactive factor (player movement and pressing action key at much), just re-invented to be fun. But interaction can go much further than that... or closest.

What if instead of pressing the action button (often 'Z' key) to open a chest, you'd have to do something else? What if to pull a lever up or down, instead of just pressing Z to make it go one or the other, you could press UP and DOWN when you're close to it? In fact, why opening doors by just colliding into them, or, once again, pressing the goddamned action key? Have you ever thought the motion one does when grabbing the knob?

That's what I mean by closest. Player interaction can (and must!) be actually re-invented in order to make the most ordinary stuff (again, opening chests, activating switches, etc.) a bit more 'fun'.

Heartland's today actualization includes this... in several ways.

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Maintain the action key pressed close to a lever and proceed to choose wether to pull it down or up, by pressing the corresponding up/down arrow key :)

Chests are often heavier than pulling levers. Maintain the action key pressed while close to a chest and proceed to press the up arrow twice.

Open the door by maintaining the action key pressed close to it while you perform a semi-circle sequence, just like if you were turning the door knob. The above signal can be translated to (1.→ 2.↑ 3.←). Folks that like fighting games will get the hang of it quickly :p

Other actions can be more complicated. Precision action is an example of this. Activate what's in front of you by pressing the action key right when it's time. Otherwise nothing will happen!


There will be more actions to objects! Not only variations of the same (double-tap down key, right semi-circle, full circle, etc.) but also other type of more complex actions (short QTE, other mini-mini games like the focus one, etc).


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Player interaction doesn't end there, however. We said those are the closest forms of interaction--what's in the most ordinary stuff. Other ones are more original themselves, and situational--therefore needing a special action.

As an example of this, here's the Memory Focus mini-game. It happens in a matter of seconds. If player succeeds, not only Rose will recover memory from the person she's trying to remember, but also will get a special bonus. If player fails, she won't recover info from them, and will not get any bonuses whatsoever.

There isn't any GIF for this one, but I'll try to explain.

You have to help Rose focus on remembering that someone. For this, press the action key as hardest and fastest as you can. The fastest you tap the key, the smaller it'll be the circle and the closest you'll be to achieve success. If you aren't quick enough, the circle will get bigger. If it gets out of the boundaries, you'll lose.

Once you success, info will be shown, as it can be seen in the third frame of the image shown above.

How's that? Leave your comments here! I'll appreciate it alot.

More's coming for Heartland!