A small rant about "items"

I'm always impressed with the moods Nifflas' games are able to evoke. That's my favorite part of playing these games.  The addition of the radio and little pinball machine to play with while you travel long distances is a nice touch, definitely adding to the immersion.

I have one gripe though.  "Items".  Nobody says "items" in real life, and the pervasive use of the term really breaks immersion for me.  I have no idea what "item" I'm going to get for visiting any given planet -- all it says is how many there are.  Why am I searching space for random things if I don't know what they are?  What kind of motivation is it to fly halfway across the galaxy just to get "an item"?

I think it would be much better if Saira knew upfront what particular items are on each planet, so she could make choices about where to travel.  Perhaps it could explain that her ship has some way of detecting the kinds of parts she needs.  And Perhaps the "items" menu could just say "equipment" or "parts" or something more fitting to what these things are.

On a completely unrelated note...

This game is very pretty, and it involves a lot of photography.  However, there seems to be no way to save my pretty pictures!  Sometimes I make it into some secret-ish place and just have to save a picture to remember it by.  Other times I come across a scene so pretty, I just can't bear to delete the photo.  But I have to be so sparing with the ones I keep, since my camera memory is limited.

I'd love to see a feature added to the Ship screen that allows you to move photos from your PDA to the ship's computer and organize them.  Either into albums, or a big collage.  It would be amazing to have a nice big page of memories by the time you finish the game.  And it would be a nice way to pass the time while you're traveling, when you get bored of pinball.

I'm always impressed with the moods Nifflas' games are able to evoke. That's my favorite part of playing these games.  The addition of the radio and little pinball machine to play with while you travel long distances is a nice touch, definitely adding to the immersion.

I have one gripe though.  "Items".  Nobody says "items" in real life, and the pervasive use of the term really breaks immersion for me.  I have no idea what "item" I'm going to get for visiting any given planet -- all it says is how many there are.  Why am I searching space for random things if I don't know what they are?  What kind of motivation is it to fly halfway across the galaxy just to get "an item"?

I think it would be much better if Saira knew upfront what particular items are on each planet, so she could make choices about where to travel.  Perhaps it could explain that her ship has some way of detecting the kinds of parts she needs.  And Perhaps the "items" menu could just say "equipment" or "parts" or something more fitting to what these things are.

Nifflas games have typically been about exploration. Take Knytt and WaDF for example. Knytt is entirely exploration. The biggest aid you get is the ability to point towards the nearest item. Also, exploration is another thing that draws you into the game. It really makes you feel like the ship has crashed and you have no idea where you are. In WaDF there are many different caves, and most of them just tell you hints. If fact, you can completely skip out on collecting balls 2, 4, 6, and 8, but the game isn't as fun if you selectively choose where to go. If you want a Saira game that tells you what items are located on the planets, make your own world and put it in the planet description. Plus, if you didn't visit certain planets, how would you get to the "secret-ish places" you mention? By choosing not to go to a planet you completely miss out on all it has to offer.

Nifflas games have typically been about exploration. Take Knytt and WaDF for example. Knytt is entirely exploration. The biggest aid you get is the ability to point towards the nearest item. Also, exploration is another thing that draws you into the game. It really makes you feel like the ship has crashed and you have no idea where you are. In WaDF there are many different caves, and most of them just tell you hints. If fact, you can completely skip out on collecting balls 2, 4, 6, and 8, but the game isn't as fun if you selectively choose where to go. If you want a Saira game that tells you what items are located on the planets, make your own world and put it in the planet description. Plus, if you didn't visit certain planets, how would you get to the "secret-ish places" you mention? By choosing not to go to a planet you completely miss out on all it has to offer.

No, I understand that.  As a player, I am already motivated to explore all the cool places and see what I can find.  What I'm getting at though is the believability of the story.  What is Saira's motivation for exploring the planets she does?  How can she know there are things she needs on this planet, but not know what they are?  I guess she just goes to every planet she can find?

Knowing where the items are also helps motivate the story.  The teleporter gives clear hints about what you need, but you have no idea where to get them until you do an exhaustive search of the galaxy.  I'd rather go through endings reactively.  Maybe the first time I didn't have enough power, so I go for the better power source, but then a blow a fuse, so I go for the better fuse, etc.  This would also make it more fun to speed-run the game to a particular ending, and would let you plan your hops better.  I know, I could play through the game and write everything down when I find it.  The game doesn't seem to even care to tell you what items you found when you find them though.

I keep thinking about things I wish this game had done.  Like for example, having to re-fuel your UFO and jump between nearby planets made me expect that there would be some reason to re-visit old planets.  Perhaps things could have changed, triggered by the story, and those changes would be made obvious during your run for the charger.  This is something that another episode could do.

I like your ideas, they'd expand the immersion factor nicely.

I'd especially like the ability to upload and organize photos on the ship, as it'd reinforce Saira's role as a passionate photographer (though as you probably know, outside the game you can manually copy/paste images from the folder if you worry about camera memory space).

I think Nifflas meant the 'item' label only to assist players, to help us keep track of the 'quest status', so-to-speak (another term that you'd rarely see being used in real life, but that doesn't stop games from using it frequetly... ). I agree that maybe 'parts' would increase the immersion more.

However, I'm not so sure whether knowing the location of the parts would serve the same purpose. To me, the game conveys a sort of 'scavenger hunt' feeling; to build the device by whatever means possible. Knowing where to find what would go against this feeling, I think.