Structured chapters

[oceanxatlantic]

I'm just putting this out there and wanted to know if anyone else agreed with me.

I've been thinking back to some older games, and I really wish that more games had this one element that some of them have...

I really, really like it, for some reason, when games have more structured time frames. Chapters, if you will, that happen as you progress in the story. One good example of this would be FIN. I think this might be the only game that does this, actually. You don't choose when the day ends, rather a day change is triggered when you got to a different point in the plot. Oh, I remember now, SHA does this too, with day and night. Night would be triggered at certain parts of the game.

Now, I do also like the ability to pick and choose (MHM, DOG, etc.) but I don't know. For some reason when I was thinking about it, I realized I really like that. I think it has something to do with the plot. I feel that games with less freedom in this realm have tighter plots, with less insignificant or unexplained events and just progress more naturally...just a thought.

I'd really like to see more games with automatic structured day intervals, or day to night transitions. This also gives the player an idea as to how long a game is and how far they are, along with excitement that something big/significant is going to occur soon. Maybe it's just me?

I hated having the freedom to trigger day to night do this in DED, because it just seemed pointless, as far as the plot was concerned. And games that take place all in one day (TMB, ASH) just seem completely unnatural and unrealistic to a point that really irks me.

[blackmagicND]

I completely agree.

FIN is my absolute favorite game and that is one of the top reasons.
I also hated the night and day trigger for DED. It was super pointless. By my standards of switching back from night to day, it took Nancy about a month to finish the case.

[FarmGirlForever]

I definitely agree! Having the day automatically end let me know that I was doing something right, and I did everything that I needed to do.

[DetectiveK8ie]

I definitely agree 110%. Although I also really like games where you could set the alarm clock for a certain time (I believe most games 3-11 did this, minus FIN, SHA and DOG), I really loved FIN's story progression.

Although in STFD and DOG you would just switch between day and night, I didn't dislike that either, but I did dislike the way it was executed in DED. Like what blackmagicND said, I felt like Nancy solved the case in a month. (though, still better than when she solves it in a day)

I think DAN was another game that had automatic progression, am I right? I think you could also select to go to bed, but even if you didn't it would progress naturally on it's own to night/the next day.