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[Brentai]

Limit yourself to 0 continues and the base amount of lives.

Yeah, er, a lot of games are harder if you remove the ability to continue.  I'm not sure what you're trying to prove there.

Contra is an interesting case study here.  The game itself is not really that hard, but it gives you an unreasonably thin margin of error.  Most people can blow right the hell through it with the 30 lives code, which if you parse as "3 lives with 10 hit points each" means you get about as much life as you do in Castlevania or Megaman.

Had Contra actually had a proper balance like that it probably wouldn't have been so fondly remembered as a tough-ass game for tough-ass players.  So it's hard to argue that this shitty design flaw wasn't actually the best route to take.  If every game tried to do that, though, I'm sure the medium would get marginalized right out of existence.

tl;dr uhhhh some games are hard and others aren't even though those games are not actually that hard but have shitty balances?  Fuck it, let's go play some Halo.

[James Edward Smith]

Jason Blow was sort of talking about this a while ago at some gamedev conference. He was talking about the obvious necessity of making games more accessable. Allowing more people to enjoy a game is always a good thing. But he was talking about how for a game to feel meaningful and therefore feel enjoyable to play, you need to feel like your actions matter. Up until now, the primary way of achieving this has always been "challenge". If you do the right actions, at the right time, up to a certain standard, then you "beat" something and can progress. Otherwise, if you don't measure up then you have to try again until you do. This accomplishes the goal of making the player's actions seem to matter, but it has a problem of accessiblity.

If the game is too hard, most people won't get to play it all and experience it or enjoy it. However, if it is too easy, then it loses meaning for those who can beat it too easily.

He brought up how currently, developers have tried to mitigate this by basically using high production value scene of epic nature to disguise low difficultly level. The example was basically God of War. God of War is a very easy game in comparison to say, any of the old Megaman games, but the easy tasks you carry out in it LOOK really impressive and hardcore. the problem is, this starts to become boring the easier and easier you make the game and there will still be some people who can't beat everything in the game anyway. So, it's not really a good solution, it's more of just a bandaid than anything.

So his real suggestion was a move towards games where rewards/consequences to you actions were more realistic. Basically, if I fight some "boss" and I die, then I'm dead. If I fight some boss and I kill him, he's dead. But if I fight some boss and I run away after he beats me up a bit, the game still progress, just in a way that makes sense for that happening. My progress is not halted, just altered.

[Bongo Bill]

I like hard games, so it's good that I'm so bad at them.

However, people do have certain natural limits of their talents or strategic awareness. There is something to be said for trying to push those limits back. A game that makes you conscious of your own improvement is a really good feeling. That's a pretty difficult thing to pull off, though, and sometimes even if a game is goodhard you just don't want to put up with it to see the next fancy thing.

Sometimes a game is fun to play, sometimes fun to win, sometimes to gradually get better, but a player's not always going to be receptive to all three kinds of fun. A game that can make effective concessions to that reality, and not try to force the player into a certain ludological enjoyment paradigm* is going to be more accessible.

*I am sorry; I just made up the most bullshit-sounding phrase to fit there that I could think of.

[Alex]

So his real suggestion was a move towards games where rewards/consequences to you actions were more realistic. Basically, if I fight some "boss" and I die, then I'm dead. If I fight some boss and I kill him, he's dead. But if I fight some boss and I run away after he beats me up a bit, the game still progress, just in a way that makes sense for that happening. My progress is not halted, just altered.

It's a great idea, but relies on the devs considering a whole lot of different contigencies that their deadlines and budgets may not allow.  I think of this as being more of an unfortunate side-effect is being constrained to a digital medium more than anything too.

[Norondor]

The lesson once again is "shut up already, Jim Butts"

[Brentai]

It's a great idea, but relies on the devs considering a whole lot of different contigencies that their deadlines and budgets may not allow.  I think of this as being more of an unfortunate side-effect is being constrained to a digital medium more than anything too.

This is more or less the main reason why nobody has ever attempted to fully realize the Plot Tree.  Even half-hearted attempts tend to end in a budget clusterfuck.

[Classic]

I'm not entirely sure what counts for a half-hearted attempt. Any spring to mind?

[Mongrel]

This whole thing actually reminds me of a type of game I'm much more familiar with: The Collectible Card Game.

Now leaving aside the crackhead/ocd moneymaking scheme of collectibility, a fundamental part of a CCG's appeal as a game is rooted in the basic concept.

Put simply, the designers make a large number of 'tools' (i.e. cards). Some are good, some are bad, others are so-so, and others still are situationally good or bad. The point is they do not dictate a linear structure, they provide the player base with the tools to play the game in the way they 'want' to play. If someone wants to build an off-the-wall deck with a bizarre win condition, then that's up to them. If someone else wants to load up their deck with "cool shit" or just wants to go for the throat as quickly as possible, those are also valid strategies. In the end, the developer gives you a goal (or a series of goals) and provides a large number of tools to overcome those challenges, without railroading you.

The developer's role in this game model is to ensure that no individual piece is broken or fundamentally out of whack when combined with anything else. They also must ensure that the game styles are relatively balanced, though they need not be perfectly balanced. If my off the wall deck wants to employ some crazy risky stuff, then I'm going to get blown out sometimes. That's the risk you take for playing the deck. It's part of the challenge and part of the fun. But because you activly select the tools you use froma wide variety of interchangeable parts, the deck feels like "your" creation, so there's a more personal investment than say, the RPG where you blindly auto-upgrade to the next level weapon, or read GameFaqs to find out what the most busted equipment combination is.

I think that porting some of this thinking over to video games would inject a bit of life into what has become a fairly stale creative environment these days.

[Zaratustra]

What he wants is something like casual games, which give a sense of accomplishment without being a challenge.

[Detonator]

It's a great idea, but relies on the devs considering a whole lot of different contigencies that their deadlines and budgets may not allow.  I think of this as being more of an unfortunate side-effect is being constrained to a digital medium more than anything too.

This is more or less the main reason why nobody has ever attempted to fully realize the Plot Tree.  Even half-hearted attempts tend to end in a budget clusterfuck.

I thought Way of the Samurai was pretty cool, but then again I only watched people play it.  I wouldn't expect any other game to do it that way, but if it were part of the game's design it can come out really cool.

[François]

I think that porting some of this thinking over to video games would inject a bit of life into what has become a fairly stale creative environment these days.

Haha, this makes me think of Spectromancer. It's basically a card game with some interesting mechanics, but I realized it was completely bullshit when I finally understood that no, you don't get to build your deck. The computer randomly makes your deck from all the cards you have every time you play.

The kicker? The game was designed by Richard Garfield. The dude has no idea what you are talking about, IM.

[Catloaf]

What he wants is something like casual games, which give a sense of accomplishment without being a challenge.

Casual games give a sense of accomplishment?  Since when?  Sure things like Burn the rope are fun for a moment, but there's no sense of accomplishment.

Unless you get onto the top scoreboard or something.

Which makes me think that there must be some improvement made so that leaderboads might be something other than depression inducing lists.  Like cut them into sections with regions and knock the top people over to the ungodly skilled section that only people of a certain skill level or higher can even see.

[Niku]

Casual games give a sense of accomplishment?  Since when? 

you clearly haven't been paying attention to the kongregate blood feud

...

CAIT'S AT 4896.  THAT FIEND IS TRYING TO CATCH UP AGAIN.  TO THE TOWER DEFENSE CLONE MOBILE

[PhoenixUltima]

Burn the Rope is more of a parody than an actual game.

Anyway, casuals can give a sense of accomplishment as you get better and better at them. "I lasted 2 minutes longer this time!" or "I got 10 more combos than before!" and such. The key is giving the player some metric by which they can measure their growth. In harder games, simply beating a boss or a long stretch of enemies counts. In RPGs it's getting XP and money and AP or whatever other cockamamie points they've decided to have you collect. And so on.

[Mongrel]

I think that porting some of this thinking over to video games would inject a bit of life into what has become a fairly stale creative environment these days.

Haha, this makes me think of Spectromancer. It's basically a card game with some interesting mechanics, but I realized it was completely bullshit when I finally understood that no, you don't get to build your deck. The computer randomly makes your deck from all the cards you have every time you play.

The kicker? The game was designed by Richard Garfield. The dude has no idea what you are talking about, IM.

Well, I wasn't thinking of "Digital CCGs", because those usually turn out to be excruciatingly stupid. Though I had a chuckle at the tale of Richard Garfield.

I think the 'let the player find their own way' is the real (unconsious) goal of the recent spate of "sandbox" games. The problem is that for the most part the rails are still there, they just offer you more of them.

I mean, my theory makes completionists cry, because it involves opening things up so that you can never "get everything". It's not just a case of adding different weaponsets for your linear RPG, it's much closer to what Geo is talking about where a game can react to your choices in a much more realistic way.

The problem is coding that shit. Right now the only way to provide extra paths is to basically code everything rail by rail. If you want a character to interact with the player, you can't really code a 'personality', you have to write a dialogue tree. If you want someone to improvise weapons or interact with an environment, you have to specifically decide what items are usable and how, and then code every line. So, something like GTA4, which is SUPPOSED to present you with a 'true' sandbox, is in fact just like a plain old RPG, only there's a gigantic bloated pile of fluffy bits whose sole purpose is to disguise that fact and drive completionists insane.

[James Edward Smith]

It's a great idea, but relies on the devs considering a whole lot of different contigencies that their deadlines and budgets may not allow.  I think of this as being more of an unfortunate side-effect is being constrained to a digital medium more than anything too.

...

The developer's role in this game model is to ensure that no individual piece is broken or fundamentally out of whack when combined with anything else.

...

Basically, Blow's whole big idea is that making games that have a "plot" is dumb because it leads to this essential limitation. You can't let the game truely reflect the player's actions because coding results for everything that so that it leads to some sort of predetermined end is too time consuming to be worth it.

The other problem is players. You can never make a linear, story driven game and have it be taken seriously as a work of art because the player is in it. If some princess dies and it's the players sister, you can't stop the player from walking around and humping the legs of the palace guards at the funeral or jumping on the coffin, it seems weak as a narrative as a result.

The other problem is, the effect that development time restrictions have on consistency between the game's primatives and its narrative. The big example was Grand Theft Auto 4's relationships mechanic where you can have relationships with different girls in the game and each one gave you some sort of bonus for having them as your main squeeze. One got the hispanics off your butt, one stole medical supplies for you or something, that sort of thing. There's an in game primative linked to the chicks, so there's a real reason as a player in that system to appreciate them, there's meaning. But then the game throws in this girl that your character is supposed to love, she's the girl you really want to be with apparently only... you don't. She gives no tangeble bonus or help so grinding relationship with her is in the end meaningless and annoying. You as a player hilariously probably grow to hate her and yet your avatar weeps when she is killed in the story. It's a total disconnect and so the event is meaningless. (For a slightly better take on the same sort of premise that actually sort of works, think back to when party healing Aerith dies.)

So the his idea is that treating games like movies or books and having a linear story with rail road progression (even if the rails have n number of forks) is a dumb idea because you'll never have the time to make enough forks and it cheapens the medium. It makes video games an interactive immitator of other accepted media and doesn't allow it to play to its real strengths. What he suggests instead is that devs do what games are much better at, creating simulated realities where a player can play and do as they please within whatever the unique limitations of said game happen to be. Don't be Metal Gear 4 and force a movie down their throats, be Dwarf Fortress and let the stories and morals and lessons come naturally from the primatives in the game.

[Mongrel]

LOL Simulcast. Check out my post just above yours. 

[Alex]

I think this idea will probably have to wait until the advent of virtual reality.  Along with technology to convert thoughts into digital matter since it really sounds like Blow wants the freedom and experiences of tabletops (which come from the group of players more often than not) combined with the playability of a videogame.

But this is really just my interpretation of it.

[Mongrel]

Well, the reason I posted about CCGs is to point out that there already exists a primitive system for giving a game player relative 'freedom'. I mean that's not even digital - you can already have expotentially more 'moving parts' just by converting to a vidja game.

The main thing to be aware of is that CCGs are pvp only, for the most part. On the other hand, they usually have a fixed goal (i.e. Magic the Gathering's assorted win conditions, with a strong 'main' or 'regular' win condition of "get your opponent's life to 0", so there's no reason you couldn't have fixed win conditions in a game.

[Doom]

(For a slightly better take on the same sort of premise that actually sort of works, think back to when party healing Aerith dies.)

Except that several FF players did not use Aerith because Cure Materia + All Junction replaced anything "unique" she could do so that when she dies, we're left wondering why we're supposed to care.