Books that actually ARE readable

[FreeSTONE]

Fellow survivors.

I think it would help to immersion of the game, if players would feel more pity when burning books. Currently, no regrets, as the books are not usable in any way.

This is how I imagine it can be done:

You could actually open the book and read few pages: while your water is boiling and storm is raging, you can scroll several pages and see some real content: tips, hints, pictures ... could hold real-life knowledge. Could be real survival tips, random page from a novel ... or trashy poem from toilet wall. Content of those could be added over time, or even crowd-sourced. (You can make each book to have only 1-2 readable pages first, and then, if lot fo players pay for their content, they can have more pages! Bigger books should then also weigh more, but also produce more heat, if burnt)

I would happily pay $5 to have my drawings in one of these books!  (This idea was successfully used in STEAM game "Prison Architect". Win-win situation for game designers and also for players!)

Some books may be unique. You burn it - it's gone! Now you really think before burning the books.
Each book can have unique cover - or, at least, different cover color (=simple for game designers). Player could get achievement for collecting all books on some topic, or from the same location, or from the same year... 

For another $5 DLC, you can get special notebook, something like journal, but now are just allowed to draw in it. And when you die, this book will be spawn to some other players, when they starts a new game. Kinda "pass it on" book throuth time.

For an extra $5 DLC per book, they could be narrated by some famous person. Just imagine Morgan Freeman quoting Poe's The Raven, or Jennifer Lawrence reading Matrix quotes. The books would, of course, keep being read, while you walk through a blizzards or something. You could even get random "voice flashbacks" from the books you read, while you travel. <<-- Man, I really love this idea, even though I just invented it!

 

Please, do it! I really WANT the game to be enriched like this, and I also WANT to send another $15 dollars your way!
(kinda "shut up and take my money" situation)

 

Edited December 19, 2022 by FreeSTONE
Added details and fixed typoes

[Kranium]

Cool. Would be neat.

 

I've long thought one should be able to pass time by reading random books. Doing so would also avoid cabin fever. Downside being that it makes you tired; perhaps you could fall asleep while reading, being dependant on your current energy & calorie levels or something. So there would be a risk of drifting off for an hour or three unplanned, thus freezing.

 

I mean, that's how we pass a lot of the winter out here. Reading tons of books!

[Leeanda]

It's one of the first things I asked for when I joined the forum so I'm definitely up for it.

[codyh]

What we learned from Skyrim is that if you populate a world full of even partially readable books, people *will* go and collect every single one. It's also hard to overstate just how much that created historical depth to the world in Skyrim.

Since the Long Dark doesn't have people to relate the stories, books would be an amazing way to build history. Crowdsourcing it might help with the work but Hinterland would need to define a high level arc for them to fit within (e.g. books providing snippet-level insight the history of particular towns or mines or areas). Skyrim had a good example there too, most books were just a few pages, just a short cut-out that provided some summarised history.

You can certainly picture "Hiker's Guide To Great Bear" being a coveted title...

 

[Naimad]

Some books are read readable in the game by default, but there is no visual to reading. It is A time waster to increase your skills. Honestly this could stay the same it is, but I would like more readable books in the game. You could introduce something new to the wellness meter. Make it so if you have a book in your inventory you can read it to treat cabin fever.

[odizzido]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIUvKW89SgI

[Leeanda]

Don't remember Astrid wearing nail varnish !  But that's cool😊

[xanna]

Is it frostbite 😬

[ManicManiac]

I mean there is a lot of material that could be brought in from Project Guttenberg (meaning it's all public domain) to "fill books..."
I don't know that I would ever use TLD as a sort of interactive "Kindle," but it's an interesting idea I suppose.

Considering the time scale is 1:12
It just doesn't feel practical to try and sit and read an actual novel in-game though...
I feel like I'd be interrupted by survival tasks while trying to read just a little too frequently for that to be enjoyable.
so... perhaps maybe just short stories/novellas from Project Guttenberg then?

Edited December 21, 2022 by ManicManiac

[stratvox]

Poe, ERB, H.G. Wells, and a growing amount of Lovecraft is public domain, and they both have lots of stuff that'd be in the right size range to be practical to read while sitting next to a fire in a cave while a blizzard blows outside.

Finding a copy of Paradise Lost in the Gray Lady's house in Milton would also be quite cool given the obvious echoes to it in Episode Two. Tom Thomson's paintings are all public domain now, I believe, so finding a "print" of Birches in the attic of the Barn in PV would be pretty damned cool imho, esp. given that you can basically go up that rise opposite the road from the barn and look right at it.

There is a lot of scope to run this kind of stuff as little easter eggs throughout the game. It's not actually possible because it's not public domain, but I always thought it made more sense to hear Gould playing that piano piece on the radio during an aurora. The Idea of North could be another good choice by Gould. And something like a flickering display of "La Paysagiste" by Jacques Drouin from the NFB on a TV during an aurora (mebbe a big ol' curve front console TV from the 70s in the PV Farmhouse) would be super all right to come across. 

Edited December 21, 2022 by stratvox

[Leeanda]

5 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

I mean there is a lot of material that could be brought in from Project Guttenberg (meaning it's all public domain) to "fill books..."
I don't know that I would ever use TLD as a sort of interactive "Kindle," but it's an interesting idea I suppose.

Considering the time scale is 1:12
It just doesn't feel practical to try and sit and read an actual novel in-game though...
I feel like I'd be interrupted by survival tasks while trying to read just a little too frequently for that to be enjoyable.
so... perhaps maybe just short stories/novellas from Project Guttenberg then?

I agree we don't need long books ,just ones like the skill books but not of a practical use.  Just something to pass the time when you're stuck in blizzards or aurora's and there really is nothing else to do...  

Trying to read war and peace would probably take longer than the run itself.🙂

[Kranium]

I'd love books like this: https://www.amazon.ca/Plants-Coastal-British-Columbia-Pojar/dp/1551055325

Great book, here's what a page looks like:

 

 

[FreeSTONE]

On 12/21/2022 at 4:11 AM, odizzido said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIUvKW89SgI

That mod is great! Almost perfectly what I meant.

[odizzido]

On 12/26/2022 at 5:31 AM, FreeSTONE said:

That mod is great! Almost perfectly what I meant.

From what I recall the text in the book is just from a text file so you can make it anything pretty easily.

[FreeSTONE]

14 hours ago, odizzido said:

From what I recall the text in the book is just from a text file so you can make it anything pretty easily.

Are you saying... I should... hack my way to victory? :-))

I actually believed in something more nuanced: like, having option to "Use" the book, then there would be opened book visible, with pages of text and occasional pictures... and I could actually scroll it. Also, the reading could be narrated by someone, so I could read myself and listen to the narrator. Morgan Freeman would work fine for me. Or the survival expert lady, Kinga Philipps, that commented The Long Dark on YouTube:

"If you've seen one dead body - you've seen them all."

[Drakias]

This idea sounds fun, I posted another idea a couple weeks ago about making the books you find throughout the world a way to stem cabin fever.

[FlamingFuball]

On 12/20/2022 at 1:07 PM, codyh said:

What we learned from Skyrim is that if you populate a world full of even partially readable books, people *will* go and collect every single one. It's also hard to overstate just how much that created historical depth to the world in Skyrim.

Since the Long Dark doesn't have people to relate the stories, books would be an amazing way to build history. Crowdsourcing it might help with the work but Hinterland would need to define a high level arc for them to fit within (e.g. books providing snippet-level insight the history of particular towns or mines or areas). Skyrim had a good example there too, most books were just a few pages, just a short cut-out that provided some summarised history.

You can certainly picture "Hiker's Guide To Great Bear" being a coveted title...

 

Petition to include the Lusty Argonian Maid as one of the books findable on great bear?