Video game DESIGN commentary

[rusty_shackleford]

For stuff specifically regarding video game design that you want to post but don't want to make a thread for

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There's this really weird idea in game design that kids are bad at video games, but if your target audience isn't a toddler I guarantee they are better than adults because they will sit there repeatedly failing until they learn how to do it. I've watched my nephew play the same level in games for hours on end until he got it right. I have a sega genesis retroconsole for him at my house and he loves all those old sega platformers.

[WhiteShark]

If he had to sit there playing the same level for hours to get it right, then he is bad at video games, just as children usually are, owing to their lack of experience. The point isn't that they are good at games, but that they are willing to learn. Aside from that nitpick, though, I agree with the point I assume you're making, which is that developers shouldn't dumb down their games for kids.

[rusty_shackleford]

If he had to sit there playing the same level for hours to get it right, then he is bad at video games, just as children usually are, owing to their lack of experience. The point isn't that they are good at games, but that they are willing to learn. Aside from that nitpick, though, I agree with the point I assume you're making, which is that developers shouldn't dumb down their games for kids.

call my nephew bad at video games again and I will drive to your house and break your kneecaps

[rusty_shackleford]

As a more general comment: I feel like games don't really include many secrets anymore, when I was playing expedition 33 I kept trying to get to areas that looked like they should have secrets but just had nothing there when I got to it. The areas with rewards were all telegraphed pretty hard.

[Tweed]

If he had to sit there playing the same level for hours to get it right, then he is bad at video games, just as children usually are, owing to their lack of experience. The point isn't that they are good at games, but that they are willing to learn. Aside from that nitpick, though, I agree with the point I assume you're making, which is that developers shouldn't dumb down their games for kids.

call my nephew bad at video games again and I will drive to your house and break your kneecaps

Okay, maddy baddy.

[Tweed]

I didn't have this problem. I was the kid my friends passed the controller to when the game got too hard.

[rusty_shackleford]

I didn't have this problem. I was the kid my friends passed the controller to when the game got too hard.

They were called paddles when you were a kid, gramps.

[Tweed]

I didn't have this problem. I was the kid my friends passed the controller to when the game got too hard.

They were called paddles when you were a kid, gramps.

I'm not THAT old.

[Tweed]

I'm tired of notefaggotry in modern games that try to be retro. Notetaking was a product of limited memory, bringing it back does not add any special quality to the game it just makes things more tedious. What's next? Going to make me print out a paragraph book and read by the numbers?

[Tangerine]

There's this really weird idea in game design that kids are bad at video games, but if your target audience isn't a toddler I guarantee they are better than adults because they will sit there repeatedly failing until they learn how to do it.

There's also this idea kids only like super cartoony aesthetics and child characters. It's like devs memory-wiped their childhoods and forgot only weird kids wanted to be the sidekicks like Robin or the kids in Transformers; most kids would rather be Batman or Optimus Prime.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm tired of notefaggotry in modern games that try to be retro

I don't know what this is

[rusty_shackleford]

There's this really weird idea in game design that kids are bad at video games, but if your target audience isn't a toddler I guarantee they are better than adults because they will sit there repeatedly failing until they learn how to do it.

There's also this idea kids only like super cartoony aesthetics and child characters. It's like devs memory-wiped their childhoods and forgot only weird kids wanted to be the sidekicks like Robin or the kids in Transformers; most kids would rather be Batman or Optimus Prime.

The "weird kids" are now the ones calling the shots

Evergreen

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'm tired of notefaggotry in modern games that try to be retro. Notetaking was a product of limited memory, bringing it back does not add any special quality to the game it just makes things more tedious. What's next? Going to make me print out a paragraph book and read by the numbers?

I think it could work in a game where you can't alt+tab out to look up a wiki. Ie, a game in which the culprit in a detective quest is randomized and it is possible to pick the wrong suspect and the real one escapes, so you actually do have to pay attention. But for regular games if I get stuck I am just going to take a screenshot and then browse through my screenshots to reread earlier info or go to a wiki.

[Tweed]

I'm tired of notefaggotry in modern games that try to be retro

I don't know what this is

Modern games that throw loads of information at you and expect you to jot it all down on paper instead of keeping it in your journal or letting you review conversations while touting it as a feature.

[Tangerine]

I'm tired of notefaggotry in modern games that try to be retro. Notetaking was a product of limited memory, bringing it back does not add any special quality to the game it just makes things more tedious. What's next? Going to make me print out a paragraph book and read by the numbers?

I think it could work in a game where you can't alt+tab out to look up a wiki. Ie, a game in which the culprit in a detective quest is randomized and it is possible to pick the wrong suspect and the real one escapes, so you actually do have to pay attention. But for regular games if I get stuck I am just going to take a screenshot and then browse through my screenshots to reread earlier info or go to a wiki.

I like how Shadows of Doubt handled detective work. Any piece of information that came up in a conversation could be pinned to your corkboard and you could make connections with yarn between different pieces of information to solve the case. And if a piece of information was directly tied to a person, then that was added to that person's file rather than being a separate scrap of info.

[rusty_shackleford]

Not enough things in RPGs are tied to your character.


Arcanum characters with low intelligence would have 'dumb' journal entries. Which, as far as I know, was a really liked feature. Don't think any other game copied that. Example of something minor that directly relates to your character and makes the game feel like a unique experience.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Not enough things in RPGs are tied to your character.


Arcanum characters with low intelligence would have 'dumb' journal entries. Which, as far as I know, was a really liked feature. Don't think any other game copied that. Example of something minor that directly relates to your character and makes the game feel like a unique experience.

In Zwei 1, you played as a brother-sister duo of protagonists. All of the NPC dialogues and object descriptions changed depending on which character you were controlling since they had different relationships with the NPCs, different desires and thought different things when looking at a chair or a bowl of soup, etc. So there was twice as much text for much of the game outside of the cutscene scripts and UI interfaces.

[Tweed]

Not enough things in RPGs are tied to your character.


Arcanum characters with low intelligence would have 'dumb' journal entries. Which, as far as I know, was a really liked feature. Don't think any other game copied that. Example of something minor that directly relates to your character and makes the game feel like a unique experience.

Developers and writers are too ******* lazy to want to make an entirely second set of dialogue trees and journal entries for dumb characters.

[Tweed]

I have an intense dislike for abilities that you go through painstaking quests or ordeals to get and their only function is to progress the plot and then they're never used again.

[Statesman]

As a more general comment: I feel like games don't really include many secrets anymore, when I was playing expedition 33 I kept trying to get to areas that looked like they should have secrets but just had nothing there when I got to it. The areas with rewards were all telegraphed pretty hard.

I can't decide to blame the increased access to information post-Internet (guides/walkthroughs), normalizing crunch time (no fun allowed) or just the reduction of non-profit driven game development (leave it for DLC/sequel/micro-transactions).

[rusty_shackleford]

As a more general comment: I feel like games don't really include many secrets anymore, when I was playing expedition 33 I kept trying to get to areas that looked like they should have secrets but just had nothing there when I got to it. The areas with rewards were all telegraphed pretty hard.

I can't decide to blame the increased access to information post-Internet (guides/walkthroughs), normalizing crunch time (no fun allowed) or just the reduction of non-profit driven game development (leave it for DLC/sequel/micro-transactions).

I think it may be that the people designing the games just didn't play games with a lot of secrets.

[Tweed]

As a more general comment: I feel like games don't really include many secrets anymore, when I was playing expedition 33 I kept trying to get to areas that looked like they should have secrets but just had nothing there when I got to it. The areas with rewards were all telegraphed pretty hard.

I can't decide to blame the increased access to information post-Internet (guides/walkthroughs), normalizing crunch time (no fun allowed) or just the reduction of non-profit driven game development (leave it for DLC/sequel/micro-transactions).

I think it may be that the people designing the games just didn't play games with a lot of secrets.

If the player can miss something then that's bad.

Blood didn't just have secrets, it had super secrets. Stuff that was ridiculously hard to get to, that only a nutcase would bother trying on the assumption that the devs hid something.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm not sure anything has turned me away from a game more than the opening being an overly intrusive tutorial, loredump, etc., Just get on with it!

[Cipher]

For stuff specifically regarding video game design that you want to post but don't want to make a thread for

---

There's this really weird idea in game design that kids are bad at video games, but if your target audience isn't a toddler I guarantee they are better than adults because they will sit there repeatedly failing until they learn how to do it. I've watched my nephew play the same level in games for hours on end until he got it right. I have a sega genesis retroconsole for him at my house and he loves all those old sega platformers.

The NES, who had some of the hardest games today, was considered a "toy" and it was displayed in toy shelves in retail stores. There was no concept of a "video game console", so the target audience was children. Those games were hard because they followed the Arcade philosophy, which means you have to make it hard so people spend their coins in the machine. That wasn't really needed in the NES era, but the design elements were ported over.

Somehow, kids figured it out. Stuff like Ghost n Goblins and ******* Battletoads, kids found ways to beat the games. Due to having virtually unlimited time, plastic mind to learn the patterns and develop the muscle memory and twitch reflexes to succeed.

Making a game that is devoid of all challenge in the altar of "muh kids" is the same as doing lame *** cartoons for the same reason. We grew up with Batman: The Animated Series and Contra on the NES. Sure, there's a time and a place for very kid friendly stuff, like Barney or Sesame Street, but that's for toddlers. In that same vein, baby games have a place but they should be a fringe niche market.

Mario 1 is actually hard for a platformer. We only think its easy because we have played it over and over again and/or played its derivatives to develop skills transferable to Mario 1. Golden Age Pixar had the right philosophy: Make it for All Family, not just "for kids".

Videogames should follow the same approach. Cuphead is "all ages" but is most definitely not a toddler game as it has a very rewarding challenge curve. Most games should be like that with the ultra violent Mature only stuff reserved for the old grognards that have grown up with videogames and now have created a market for "adult only" games. Everything else should be leaning more into the "All Ages" side.

[Cipher]

As a more general comment: I feel like games don't really include many secrets anymore, when I was playing expedition 33 I kept trying to get to areas that looked like they should have secrets but just had nothing there when I got to it. The areas with rewards were all telegraphed pretty hard.

I can't decide to blame the increased access to information post-Internet (guides/walkthroughs), normalizing crunch time (no fun allowed) or just the reduction of non-profit driven game development (leave it for DLC/sequel/micro-transactions).

I think you don't have to decide, as all of the above apply. Games are more of a product for profit than a product made with passion to make money. Sure, even when they were considered "toys" they were made for profit, but stuff like being FUN was very important. Those secrets and easter eggs were done out of passion and love. Now, there's less incentive because most folks only play around the first 10 hours or so, depending on how much they follow their Youtube personality of choice playing the game. Then, everything will be spoiled and then the hype cycle demands that "variety" streamers hop into the next train.

Adding to your list, we have ****** and woketards munching budget with meaningless positions that contribute nothing so the actual people developing the games are shackled into a dark corner of a gulag with no joy, crunched to finish the product and making sure they add all the ******** their DEI consultor demanded had to be included.

Finally, a team of 20 or 50 people communicate a lot and can make design decisions in tandem. A team of 200 will rarely know what the team next door is doing 85% of their entire time working on the same game.