thePyro_13

I've been implementing a Entity Component System and have found it to be very clean and easy to control.

Entity's store data. Controllers are attached to entities and add or alter the entities data(usually after reading it) they also handle events. Observers act on data changes and fire events.

I currently have an explicit controller, that takes the user input and changes the entitys state.
An implicit controller that takes movement states and turns it into actual movement.

An observer that watches entity movement and fires collision events.
and an observer that watches entity positions and animations and sends updated data to the renderer.

Such a system can require some intermediate techniques to set up, but has many advantages. Controllers and observers each only have one task, and so are very simple. Game data is cleanly split from the renderer(and both can be moved to different threads much easier).

Controls, the visible interface and consistency are the things that stick out to me most. If I can't make my character do what I want, or if I find my self frustrated with the HUD, or unable to find what I want on the HUD, I'll immediately lose immersion.

Other than that, immersion is all about consistency, if things behave in a consistent way then the game will be immersive, this is true of both game mechanics, and story elements.

Mechanics should be consistent.
If blue keys open blue doors, and I need to get though a blue door, then their better be a blue key around somewhere; if not, then the game needs to explicitly explain the inconsistency though character dialog or some other kind of notification. For example, tell me that we're not going to get though that door, of present an alternate objective that will allow passage.

And Art should be consistent.
IMO realism has the opposite effect toward immersion regarding this, the more realistic the game is, the more things will stick out when something is slightly less realistic(as we cannot make everything look exactly like reality).

Fake fullscreen is my preferred mode. I fall back to real fullscreen if my performance is pushing it. Or sometimes go window for slower paced or casual games(so that I can read or youtube while I wait for stuff to happen ).

I think that it's perfectly fine to cut support for real fullscreen. So long as you're still supporting multiple resolutions and fake fullscreen/window mode.

How old is your SFML2 library? Their was a bug in the RC that caused a similar crash on exit related to the default font used by sf::Text. Explicitly providing a font may solve your crash.

Another common-ish error could be coming from your global objects. The OpenGL context is created along with your sf::RenderWindow. But if one of your globals ends up creating a sf::Texture before your window, then it may cause some problems as the texture depends on the OpenGL context.

I always liked this idea, my favourite episode of the simpsons follows a similar structure. And provides some interesting material for this kind of scenario.

Looking at it through a story-biased lens:

I think the best way to do this kind of thing is to take as much advantage of it as possible. Players should be rewarded for participating in the different views, they should see and experience things unique to their character.

But they should also find things that are not explained from their play through. Thus adding an additional reward for players who are playing a second or third character as they find story clues that only make sense because of their earlier playthroughs. This could even involve events where the player has to contend with the after effects of actions taken by one of the other playable characters(but they wouldn't know that one of the other characters had caused them, unless they had already finished one of the other playthroughs).

And now to reverse everything I've said, A single playthrough should still feel like a whole complete story. So it should have a sense of accomplishment and should leave the player feeling like they resolved whatever story based threats were revealed to their character. Otherwise, while playing all three characters would be rewarding, playing only one would be disorienting and present an story that feels incoherent.