Illusions - Game Design

For this project, we were given the task of reimagining one of a selection of games given to us. After a little bit of debate within our group, we chose to do the Portopia Serial Murder Case. This presented quite a challenge in regards to research, as the game was never translated into English and is pretty aged on top of that. Outside of flat out piracy, the easiest way to get some experience with the game was to search up various lets plays. Eventually I stumbled across a Let's Play that took screenshot form, along with flavour text in paragraphs below each one.

Link to Let's Play.

One of the most important things I took away from this Let's Play was that the threads to follow for the red herrings and to the murderer themselves were not overly convoluted. Most of it was as simple as following directions and pursuing each possible suspect until they could be dismissed/cleared of suspicion. This was a huge relief to me, as one of the most daunting ideas about doing a game in the spirit a murder mystery was the idea of having to weave the various pieces of the plot intricately together in the style of a murder mystery novel. With that worry eased, I looked into other areas of the game. In terms of UI, Portopia features a menu based command system, the kind seen in titles such as Deja Vu. Portopia, as I found after looking into the history of point and click games, was indeed an inspiration for titles like Hideo Kojima's Snatcher and Deja Vu.

John Szczepaniak (February 2011). "Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken". Retro Gamer. Retrieved 27-10-2012. (Reprinted at John Szczepaniak. "Retro Gamer 85". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved 27-10-2012.)

This interface, while acceptable for the genre and time, could be considered cluttered and unnecessary in today's games. Modernized, many point and click games have a far simplified interface. Games took on more streamlined methods of interaction, either simplifying it straight to a click or allowing the player to scroll through a more condensed list of interactions via the mouse wheel or a quick menu. Often, this completely eliminates the need for most of a traditional UI.

From this..

To this!

Point and click games have found a comfortable home on the Nintendo DS system, replacing mouse based point and click with stylus based touch. Many DS games combine the point and click features with the feel of a visual novel, due to graphical limitations and stylistic choice. The ones that specifically caught my interest in this area due to their similarity to Portopia -- they feature detectives and murder mysteries.

The games focus more specifically on different areas. The first, Phoenix Wright, details the adventures of a lawyer and the murder cases of those he chooses to defend. The player participates in both the evidence hunt/detective work, but truly comes to life when the focus shifts to the courtroom. The second game, Hotel Dusk, follows former detective Kyle Hyde as he attempts to unravel the mystery of his missing partner. Both games focus heavily on plot and puzzles. The former uses puzzles in terms of the interrogation and detection of lies from witnesses, while the second features more traditional point and click puzzles -- using your items and environment to creatively overcome obstacles. These games, in my mind, feel very much like modernizations of what Portopia brought to the table -- though perhaps with much more complex a story due to relative budgets and project sizes.