Some Thoughts
Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 12:59 pm
Well I fortunately had some time to play Love & Order and thoughts I would give some feedback on it.
First I very much enjoyed the theme/setting, art, and the overall game. It is nice to have a break from the school games. Even though I don't watch law stuff or crime stuff on TV, I have a good friend who is in law so it made it a little more personal for me on that level.
To me the greatest strength of this game was the mystery. Trying to manage stress, work, and figuring out the mystery really was the game for me and I loved it on this level. I thought the tasks gave a feeling of the workplace, and I like how the stress can snowball fast if you're not careful, I know for a fact that people at a law firm often can put in overtime. Having the mystery to solve made me want to put in that overtime, play the stress game, in order to figure out whats going on.
If you're not trying to complete the mystery however, then the game gets fairly tedious. It becomes no challenge to handle peoples requests without putting in overtime, the dating isn't very interactive (More like a bonus to the mystery), and otherwise the gameplay is rinse-wash-repeat until the game ends on it's own.
Some things I feel would really add to the game:
(1) Lunch events (or other events). The game encourages taking a lunch, but the lunch feels empty and lonely. This might be one of the best (and easiest) places to add some character interactions. I found that although the characters seem fairly interesting, you just don't really interact with them personally, and thus don't know much about who they are.
(2) Flesh out characters by having stuff happen to them (events?). Again who are they? What are they about? I had the event of the power going out and having to either bus or taxi to work. But does anything happen in their lives? Maybe a relative got really sick, maybe an old relation is bugging them, maybe they have a dog, something that happens to them and being able to see just the effect of it somehow can flesh out their characters and give a feeling of life to the game.
(3) Poor Dana seems to be all alone, did she just move to that city? In fact you don't even know which city you're in till later, it made my finding out Dorothy had an accent kinda weird, as I had no idea where in the world they actually worked only that Dorothy came from Toronto. Perhaps some more elaboration on the setting would be good. Doesn't have to be right at the start, maybe it could be in a short events which happen early game?
(4) No friends? No hobbies? I think it would be interesting if part of the gameplay was about trying to find a balance between work, personal relations, and friends. This would be a pretty big thing to add in and would change the game but it is an idea for another perhaps. Having some kind of friend would really make Dana seem more human, having the option to do more then just watch tv or spend money would be nice. Easily you could just add a couple more options then watch tv, even if they have the same stress effect, like read a book, surf the net, etc.
(5) I'm running out of time so I'm picking up the pace. It would be nice to relax a bit on the weekend, or even work on the weekend. The weekends feel very empty and that is often a time for people to relax.
(6) As the game progresses the success messages on work tasks becomes more confident.
Also it would be good to have music start playing when you load the game rather then be silent. Once when I loaded at work, I was wearing casual clothes, seemed odd. Ok I have to run, hope that helps.
First I very much enjoyed the theme/setting, art, and the overall game. It is nice to have a break from the school games. Even though I don't watch law stuff or crime stuff on TV, I have a good friend who is in law so it made it a little more personal for me on that level.
To me the greatest strength of this game was the mystery. Trying to manage stress, work, and figuring out the mystery really was the game for me and I loved it on this level. I thought the tasks gave a feeling of the workplace, and I like how the stress can snowball fast if you're not careful, I know for a fact that people at a law firm often can put in overtime. Having the mystery to solve made me want to put in that overtime, play the stress game, in order to figure out whats going on.
If you're not trying to complete the mystery however, then the game gets fairly tedious. It becomes no challenge to handle peoples requests without putting in overtime, the dating isn't very interactive (More like a bonus to the mystery), and otherwise the gameplay is rinse-wash-repeat until the game ends on it's own.
Some things I feel would really add to the game:
(1) Lunch events (or other events). The game encourages taking a lunch, but the lunch feels empty and lonely. This might be one of the best (and easiest) places to add some character interactions. I found that although the characters seem fairly interesting, you just don't really interact with them personally, and thus don't know much about who they are.
(2) Flesh out characters by having stuff happen to them (events?). Again who are they? What are they about? I had the event of the power going out and having to either bus or taxi to work. But does anything happen in their lives? Maybe a relative got really sick, maybe an old relation is bugging them, maybe they have a dog, something that happens to them and being able to see just the effect of it somehow can flesh out their characters and give a feeling of life to the game.
(3) Poor Dana seems to be all alone, did she just move to that city? In fact you don't even know which city you're in till later, it made my finding out Dorothy had an accent kinda weird, as I had no idea where in the world they actually worked only that Dorothy came from Toronto. Perhaps some more elaboration on the setting would be good. Doesn't have to be right at the start, maybe it could be in a short events which happen early game?
(4) No friends? No hobbies? I think it would be interesting if part of the gameplay was about trying to find a balance between work, personal relations, and friends. This would be a pretty big thing to add in and would change the game but it is an idea for another perhaps. Having some kind of friend would really make Dana seem more human, having the option to do more then just watch tv or spend money would be nice. Easily you could just add a couple more options then watch tv, even if they have the same stress effect, like read a book, surf the net, etc.
(5) I'm running out of time so I'm picking up the pace. It would be nice to relax a bit on the weekend, or even work on the weekend. The weekends feel very empty and that is often a time for people to relax.
(6) As the game progresses the success messages on work tasks becomes more confident.
Also it would be good to have music start playing when you load the game rather then be silent. Once when I loaded at work, I was wearing casual clothes, seemed odd. Ok I have to run, hope that helps.