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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aip2aIt0ROM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aip2aIt0ROM)

What did you learn?
I learn that Egoraptor make awesome videos.
Oh yeah, about game design... Well post first and then I'll start making TL:DR post responding your comments.

This is a topic that interests me but the parameters of discourse are unclear to me.

I will try to get things going by saying I loved the video. I learned by watching him play that those large black rectangles in the knight fights before Death were background objects and did not have collision :|. I don't think I ever realized that, I remember trying to make my way in between them so I had the leverage to jump up. They just look solid, bad palette choice there.

He loses points for implying that SotN is junk food compared to the original. Backtracking? I can't think of a single Castlevania where I had to backtrack more than the first one due to having to restart dozens of times  >:(. And plenty of deaths came from being hit by a small flying enemy and knocked back into a hole. Yeah, you could make the argument that something like that is your fault for not thinking before you jump, but I felt like the punishment (bats & medusa heads becoming instant kills) was too great. In my opinion, SotN is the pinnacle of the series. The older Castlevanias were more frustrating than fun, and that includes 1 & 2. I will agree that 1 seems better designed than 2.

learn2play  :shrug2:

I like both the old and the new Castlevanias for different reasons. I see them as separate series, basically.

We've actually talked about this before as part of the "compare games to each other thread." But yeah, I basically concur with Sinclair.

Hey, I beat the first one ;D

Just didn't enjoy it much. Second one, never beat -- and after seeing that you have to go somewhere and duck in a corner to "hit your head on a wall", it's no wonder :/.

Actually, I did this thread more because I wanted to share the video.

No, I mean we talked SPECIFICALLY about this video.

Then maybe it would have been better to post it in the "Fight Thread Pollution" thread in General?

Meh whatever, I see no reason to lock this or anything. Carry on.

yeah naw go ahead i was just pointing it out haha

Sorry, I din't seek in Fight Tread Pollution because I was too lazy to check on like 394 pages to see if It was posted before.

Actually, since we're talking about the video, we could talk about the arguments of the video.

I'll start, also to reply this:


Yes, NES games has their problems with colisions like Jumping over the Pirañas plants in the first super mario bross, it's more a technological stuff in the console (I think).

Now with the video...
At 13:20 He talks the new castlevania seems to use the same stuff he complains.
- Lot of runing around (When you don't have a clue where to go).
- Level up (you lose your time when level grinding).
- You need an item to unlock a part of the game.

I easily can see these are the same flaws he complains in Castlevania II (I agree in some of those points).
At 13:48 He explain why new games are good...
"Because they make game choises that complement all that boriness" Egoraptor
- It feels good to level up because of the sound and graphics.
- It feels cool to hit enemies because of the cool sparks and sound.
- Moving around is fast and fun.
- You get a lot of power-ups to change how the game plays a little bit.
- You get small rewards all the time.
- It's very fast pace that changed the slow first game and choppy platforming.

Now the MEAT of the thread:
He makes us the following question:
Are you getting anything else than what'd you getting from playing Simon Quest?

Egoraptor said Castlevania II was junk food and you were getting more junk food in new games.

Remember 04:50?
He says what's the diference between A and B?
Answer FOUR HOURS.
I can easily see that A is more boring than B, why?, because It make you believe you're archieving something, something that actually no require skill, just time, like making you're homework where you copy paste the entire wikipedia.
05:15 I can easily see why the hate.
Castlevania 1 give you a real CHALLENGE for wasting your time (aka playing the game).
Though battle are exciting, yeah, they do (Even Bowser in 8-4 is though that makes you shit bricks in the first mario).
05:35 Castlevania II dumbed down the dificulty.
Yeah, that's a complain I also get when playing new games, I played Ninja Gaiden in 360 in Hard and didn't seem harder than the NES games (Actually I think NES is harder).
I think you also complain about this shit in some new game (dumbed down dificulty).


Why Junk Food the new games?
Remember the chapter in South Park where they made fun of WOW where there is this antisocial and harcore fat gamer that kill everyone in the game?
Remember what Karman has to do... Fucking Level grinding the lowest enemies that gave like 2 exp to level up like 500 levels?
Remember how they became of that? (Fat, with acne and ugly)
Now you understand why the "Junk Food" epithet?

Now, with Castlevania SOTN...
Oh, I fucking love Castlevania SOTN!  >:D >:D >:D
But I think a huge complain that has become evident with the years is that the game is very easy, It's only hard because a monster make you 100 damage in the inverse castle, not because they have a really challenging pattern (I can only thing of the fucking flea-man, remember the flea-man with the axe and the armor?).
Actually I love that game, well... because of the fucking great maps, the fucking huge maps and many quantity of maps and... exploring the maps, It's so great when you discover you have to explore all the castle again, and... yeah, because when exploring the new maps you get new items, monsters, weapons, familiars, spells to actually explore them (the items and stuff) and collect them.
What happens when there is nothing else to explore, like when you get the fucking Duplicator? (When I get that item, I erase my old saving and start a new game).
Why It's so cool even today, It's because of the "exploring" the castle.

Why Junk Food? (even the better castlevania in my opinion and many other fans)
Because It needs Time instead of SKILL.
In Castlevania SOTN the entire appeal of the game is to spend time (leveling up is also wasting time check 04:33 in the video), but exploring is a good way to waste your time.

Why the game so hard?
Well, the video show it...
08:18
Because the game was though out to be challenging.
00:58
He says: The idea was most kids Can't applied through it.
correct me if I undestood wrong (the Can't part).
01:08
Castlevania enemy placement were made so you stop and think for a second.
12:50
This is the reason why the game is hard.
Avoiding the medusa heads.

I also share this complain:
12:33
The problem was that the game was too dificult, so they give avatar strengh, leveling the player avatar while still mantaining the dificulty through it out.
I like how He put it:
It wasn't hard in the traditional sense, it was only imaginary hard because enemy took more hits and killing enemies wasn't a real challenge, it just take it longer.
I see this in modern games and their dificulty option (legendary in Halo anyone?).
12:50
What It's truly hard was avoiding the medusa heads while you fight.
12:57
See, he took more hits but you weren't standing in their weel, SURVIVING their constant ougslaugh of SHIT and EVERY CONSTANT HIT TOOK CONSTANT IMPLICATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES OF YOU as a player
YES, I would love to play a game like that, Oh shit! It remember me why I play KOF in a semi-profesional way in my town (still being an amateur).

14:03
You Feel that you're really legimate beating a hard boss through a battle after level grinding and getting the best sword?
I think that resumes the entire video.
Particulary, I do not (That's why I don't feel like finishing an RPG ultimately).

14:23
He compare Junk Food to High Deserve, but like I told you Junk Food means wasting your time:
How much time you spend in the last game you played without dieing or losing your first life, not because the stupid dificulty (bad design) of an overpowered boss, but because of your own mistakes?
Junk food, I also called it (Now, after watching his video) is because they don't need skills to get through it, but TIME.
Remember any MMORPG where you can't play with your friends because the only reason is not the player's skill and game's dificulty but more the diference of levels?.
TRUE SATISFACTION! is what he seeks in the video:
Like beating a better player in a Versus game, or finishing Cave story.

I easily see the Junk Food aproach in new games where you have to collect all the weapons or trophies and Downloable content as a way to make it longer the game's life.

I think a good way to use this thread will be discussing about Junk Food in videogames.

"Yes, NES games has their problems with colisions like Jumping over the Pirañas plants in the first super mario bross, it's more a technological stuff in the console (I think)."

In this case, what I was talking about was aesthetic, not technical. There was some background art that popped out, making it look like collision when it wasn't.

I didn't feel like SotN was a "Grind" game, I felt like it was a game that happened to have character levels. They balanced it well imo. The reason I differentiate this from a "grind" game is because fighting the same enemies over and over again was never necessary, and if you were outclassed you had a large, interestingly-designed castle to explore while you leveled up. Contrast this to old school menu-based RPGs that really felt like grinding because you're just hitting attack over and over again and had little of interest other than the current dungeon to do so in, or modern MMOs where you're just pointing and clicking to gain XP. Those games definitely feel more grindy to me. Of course, an interesting question then is: would SotN be better without the leveling? I think it would have been at least as good, as it was more the gothic-styled Metroid-inspired layout that I enjoyed. But I definitely don't think that having character levels did much to hurt it.

Simon's Quest, though, just felt clumsy :/

And to a large extent, so did the first Castlevania. No air control in a platforming game with tons of insta-kill holes and infinitely spawning flying enemies that come at you while you're jumping over those holes, enormous knockback on the protagonist, hideously frustrating stairs with enemy combat near the top/bottom... I felt like the challenge in the first Castlevania was actually less sincere than in SotN, emergent from poor mechanics design (and that goes for 2, 3, Super Castlevania, etc). Now with that said, the enemy placement and level flow were often harmonious with this design, which is deserving of credit.

You could have just reposted it.  ;)

BTW, in case you didn't catch that: The "fight thread pollution" thread is for posts that aren't worth a new thread but don't fit an existing one.

Sorry, my mistake.

I also didn't think SOTN was a grinding game, the combat system is good enough so you can avoid enemies and kill them even if you're low on level, but I didn't feel them to be particulary challenging or interesting (aka easy game). Maybe It's not a grinding game, but still has the problem of grinding games where you have a huge level and then kill all the enemies with 1 hit, making extremely powerfull shit that make even the bosses die in just seconds.
I don't think the "RPG" part in Castlevania SOTN was so really important.
Ok, It felt awesome to get to 1000 HP, but like in the video, leveling up doesn't really matter because enemies will stay the same if you're in level 1 or 99.
About the old RPG level grinding, I remember in FF5 the fucking little canyons that you must kill to enter the flying city, they're stupidly hard and make you level grind.
I still remember this as hard without a good high level.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtsV-ABQQD8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtsV-ABQQD8)

About the first Castlevania, yes, maybe those are flaws, but I think it's more because It was the tecnology back then and there wasn't great examples of platforming action yet, and NES games feel shorter than newer games.
But newer games doesn't make you care about your actions and seem to forgive your constant mistakes (aka It doesn't give you a real Challenge). I think that's a good point we can extract from the video to discuss here.

One thing about SotN was that you did not need to grind at all. Though the game featured a system for leveling up, it was not like an RPG where you were expected to get hit and exceptionally low levels spelled certain doom. Every attack could be dodged, blocked, or deflected with items readily available to you at the time, and therefore there was never a need to backtrack and grind. Your typical player who explores every inch of the castle and kills the majority of the foes he encounters would level up sufficiently to keep the difficulty just a little below that of older Castlevania games. The purpose of the grind was to allow players a chance to mediate a difficult part of the game by spending some extra time killing monsters. Poor play resulted in an easier game to balance things out.

Castlevania 2, by contrast, mandated the grind. You absolutely had to collect enough hearts to but the crystal, to get the stakes, to buy the holy water. That was junk food to me.

I also think it's important to note that a major element of modern games is the elimination of instant death. In Castlevania 1, getting hit by a medusa very frequently killed the player instantly. Why is this one obstacle infinitely more dangerous to the player than everything else? In SotN, the only way you could die instantly is if you skipped a multitude of battles and fought an advanced boss at a low level, something that was extremely unlikely to happen unless the player specifically engineered the situation. Replacing instant-death situations with damaging situations (such as falling on spikes) gives the player an opportunity to recover from a single error.

SotN also gave the player a lot more control. Alucard could backdodge, change direction in midair, double jump and fly. The result is that the player had more points at which he could alter his destiny and result in not getting hit. A player could adjust three or four times during the course of a jump to deal with various obstacles that were approaching. In Castlevania 1, once you hit A to jump you were committed - unless your position allowed a whip strike to save you, you were stuck with the trajectory you picked until you hit the ground again.

Post SotN games (such as Order of Ecclesia) go even further by offering the player special challenge modes to complete, such as beating a game at level 1. This gives exceptional players the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the game without punishing low-skilled players by denying them the opportunity to progress and learn the game world and mechanics before committing to more difficult goals.

I do agree that there are a number of modern games that contain 'junk food' in the form of tedious grind elements but Symphony of the Night is not one of them. It was a pretty lean game that was made easier by giving the player more control, and eliminating instant-death obstacles so the player had more leeway for making small mistakes. These were strictly improvements in my opinion.

Yeah, agree with first two paragraphs, SoTN depends on the skill of the player more than leveling up.

I think the elimination of instant death "dumbed down" a game, It could be used to make the player feel fear about a monster or helpless in some way, but It's not something that "brokes" a game, it's just that deleting it lessen the feeling of danger when playing a game.
For some players feeling to be in danger is exciting and forces then to be more carefull. In SoTN there's a point in the game where you MUST work to get killed by the monsters.
Certainly insta-death is not good if it becomes something common, but in certain circunstances, like falling into spikes or because an extremely powerfull but slow enemy spell make the game more "spicy".
But! I also agree with the video in that without the feeling of danger and risk, without carefully think a situation plan in few seconds, there's no feeling of acomplishing something of real value, and therefore junk food (just a dumbed down challenge).
The same could be said about Perma-death, there are arguments pro and againts it.

I see in the video Castlevania 1 was hard because of enemy placement in the stairs when going up, the medusa head and killing an enemy in your back. I only see the medusa head as something really challenging (aka HARD).

I wonder if the game with level 1 mode it's really more hard (more intelligent enemy patterns) or it's hard because if you get 1 hit you die.

Search field ???

i'm still upset that egoraptor quit jforce games! (he was their artist for a time)

but the video was okay. everyone's opinions on these games differ -- for instance, i think castlevania 2 was better than castlevania 1 and better than SoTN, and my favorite castlevania is super castlevania 4. he didn't touch on the feeling of exploring a world that nonlinearity gives you, or how it's sometimes a good thing to have to figure things out yourself based on obscure clues rather than look it up

i feel as if he would have beaten castlevania 2 without gamefaqs, the way i did it and the way kids had to do it back then, he'd like it more. but modern generations are lazy and want to win win win without having to really try -- it seems that difficulty is fashionable if it means dying and trying over and over, but not fashionable if it's figuring out what to do by using your imagination and/or by trial and error / trying everything until you discover the way to proceed

that said a lot of the points in the video i do agree with, i just think he doesn't show all sides of what's going on with those games, instead favoring the side that supports what he thinks of those games

@Rinku: I think secrets and obscure clues in games worked better before the days of the interweb. Back then, those kinds of things were almost like a metagame mechanic. If you were seriously stuck in a game, you'd ask other people who were already further along than you or try to track down magazines with walkthroughs etc.

These days, that sort of information is too easy to come by via Gamefaqs and other sites, so secrets in games have lost a lot of their original intrigue.

That's why indie do procedural, the ultimate answer to gamefaqs!

If the ducking against a wall to hit your head on the wall example is common in Castlevania 2, it seems difficult from poor localization more than clever puzzles.

:lol:

There isn't mandatory grinding in SotN, but if you get lost a couple of times like I did, you can find yourself stupidly overlevelled making the game real easy.  Also, there are some rare drops that are very overpowered so if you get lucky or decide to grind, you can break the game.

Well, apparently the Japanese dialogue was just as vague!

I think with SoTN, it just rewarded exploration a lot, and way too much in regards to difficulty, but I never felt that was a problem because I thought the enemy placement was more to embellish the texture of you going through the environment, than being true obstacles, save for some cases.

 :lol: Remind me of Uboa in Yume nikki, even with the gamefaq is still a secret.



I also felt that way, but sometimes the game rewarded Grinding because at the end you're so overpowered, and the game feel like Cheap.
I feel that SoTN is dumbed down compared to the first Castlevania, mainly because the first has it's flaws in the design that make it frustrating, but It just that in SoTN there are ways to kill the bosses with overpowered shit that it's real cheap.
Remember when you get the rod shield that creates spells (powers) of each shield, I remember one shield that creates something like two swords that run over the screen, that shit was too overpowered.

Now that I remember, why the monsters or some of them cannot be designed to fight us in some "fancy" patterns, I remember the clone of alucard, that boss was entertaining a lot, and It was just a finite state machine AI. They could design other humanoid monsters that way.

Yup. If done right (Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft, most good roguelikes), generated levels can bring back some of that old mystery.

people should use the suffix osis rather than itis

Castlevania 2 made me angry.



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hello my sequel is inflamed. also im yelling about a game from the 80s because im an enormous mutant toddler with an underdeveloped sense of self awareness and shame

I remember renting Castlevania 2 a long time ago, and I remember being stuck at one screen for a long time and being really confused. I was like 8 at the time. Because of that I never played the original Castlevania back then, because I didn't remember whether I had been stuck in the first or second game and didn't want to waste my money on walking around one screen and being stuck again. Later I played Castlevania 3 though and that game (along with Abadox, the first game I ever played...) is my best memory of the 8-bit era, and is still my favorite NES game.

The introduction thread is here (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45.4605) if you want to share more about yourself.  ;)

Actually he did comment on the exploration aspect. He just pointed out that it actually detracted from some of the play mechanics that made the first game great. He also pointed out that the appeal of nonlinearity and exploration were better implemented in later Castlevania games by adjusting the gameplay to be more conducive to exploring and traversing the levels. (without compromising the appeal of the combat)

And let's face it, the obscure clues from Castlevania 2 weren't intentional. They were a casualty of poor 80s localization. Had the game been ported over in this day and age, it is much more likely that the clues would have made more sense. (with proper quality assurance testing)

In its own time, Castlevania 2 was fairly groundbreaking. But it was still a flawed experiment, despite being a harbinger of where the series would eventually end up.

someone mentioned that they were just as obscure in the japanese version -- when i talk of castlevania 2, i don't mean any one particular translation. the *only* clue you really need a guide for is the whirlwind kneeling thing (i heard about that one from a friend, whereas i figured all the rest out myself)

and he did go into how the newer cv games are better yes, but he still said they weren't as good as the original because they were like chips, things you munch on, instead of a fine desert, which doesn't make sense to me because that's devaluing nonlinear exploration as being inherently less refined and more mundane than linearity

horrible

Well, when you think about it, that is actually a really valid point. When you shift over to non-linear design, you do sacrifice quite a bit in being able to predict what the player is going to do. With a purely linear experience, the designer can carefully craft every aspect of the scenario that the player encounters. When you give the player more freedom, you also have to sacrifice how much control the designer has over the player's experience.

This has always been an issue with non-linear design. Non-linear games often have the potential to be much longer than linear games. But they are often more bland, as the developer doesn't have the resources to devote as much attention to every aspect of the huge world they are constructing.

A valid modern comparison would be between a sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto and a linear game like Call of Duty. The single player for Call of Duty is much shorter than Grand Theft Auto. But it often feels more invigorating, specifically because it is linear, and more attention can be lavished on the design of each encounter. With a sandbox game like GTA, you are setting up a basic scenario, and then just letting things play out with little to no control. This can lead to some emergent gameplay scenarios. But it also leads to repetition.

i don't like the implication that i did not think about it -- of course i thought about it; long before this video was made. you're saying very basic game design stuff here, we aren't in grade school

i don't really see your point though. just because things can't be placed as precisely doesn't mean that that lost value of placing them as precisely is can't be worth the value gained in exploration and so on. in other words, of course there are pros and cons of doing things both ways, but he's saying that the pros of one way are worth more than the pros of the other way, and that the cons of one way are not as important as the cons of the other way, and that's just an issue of his idiosyncratic history of reactions and emotions towards particular styles or genres of game

so as i mentioned in my first post in this thread, many of his points are true, but his evaluations were inapt, since it disvalued one type of player in favor of another type of player, by saying that one literally has better taste, even using a food analogy, and i find that (no pun intended) distasteful

I'm also not sure why non-linear games would have to feature a "huge world", or why you're even equating non-linearity with open-world gameplay for that matter.

Oh come now. This is egoraptor, the master of exaggeration. You might as well be offended at a dog using a fire hydrant as a makeshift urinal. The sky is blue, the Pope is Catholic, and egoraptor blows things out of proportion.

On a personal note, I'm very fond of open-world, sandbox, and exploration-based games. I actually own all of the Metroid-Vania styled Castlevania games, and have played through most of them. (never beaten Order of Ecclesia, that game gets wicked hard) I'm not insulted by egoraptor's analogy, because I LIKE CHIPS. And I don't think there is anything wrong with the occasional chip binge. It is actually quite rare for me to play any game to completion. But whenever a fresh exploration-action game comes out, I usually play it all the way through. I like the pairing of solid action-based 2D combat mechanics with very Japanese-RPG-esque level grinding and weapon collection. Most of these games feature considerably more grinding, often in a fairly transparent attempt to extend game length. I don't mind. They are still quite entertaining, and even with their padding they are considerably shorter than a lot of actual JRPGs.

There is a direct correlation between open-world games and non-linearity. It is not always a direct relationship, but the one usually leads to the other. In theory, you can optimal-path any game that features freedom of movement. The truth is that most developers have never really managed to achieve a truly "non-linear" game. There is always a linear storyline or path that the player is expected to return to. The only real example of a truly non-linear game is one in which there is truly no pre-designed story. Off the top of my head, I would point to MineCraft, and possibly Animal Crossing. These are games that have no story, and ultimately, no real point. The objectives of the experience are largely left up to the player themselves.

I might be wrong about this, but isn't a game that features branching paths, like Castlevania III (while we're on the subject) or Mass Effect, also non-linear? And what about games that let you do things in a number of different orders (Fallout 1&2, Super Mario 64)

I dunno, maybe my definition is too broad.

Oddly enough, one of the first and best examples of non-linear game design was the original Legend of Zelda. The rules for the game were established, and the expected order of completing the game was obvious. But the expected order was only ever enforced mechanically, and then in only the loosest sense. A player who knew what they were doing could waltz right up to the entrance of the 9th dungeon inside of five minutes of starting the game.

A fairly solid modern example that I would point to would be Batman: Arkham Asylum. This title has a very clear main story path that it encourages you to follow. But it doesn't close you off from exploring the world it creates, and offers plenty of hidden secrets to find off the beaten path. It guides you without openly brow-beating you into line. A decent compromise between the two methodologies. It is also worth noting that part of its success was based on the fact that it kept its world much smaller than most. (so it was able to devote more attention to each aspect of its setting)

@Sinclair: Sounds like a fine definition to me. Linearity in game design is a gray scale after all.


With a purely linear experience, the designer has produced a movie.

***

Just want to say, in case I didn't before, that I think SotN also has better level/scenario design than the NES Castlevanias. So while non-linearity might make things harder by being more demanding (just like it's harder to make a movie than to take a picture), it's also liberating and kind of the point of our medium. I think that's why I like SotN and its descendants so much, they seem to celebrate this instead of hiding from it like so many modern games.

I think that might be a dangerous attitude to assume. Is the point of interactive software providing the player with the maximum amount of freedom and choice? At the end of the day, the player is restricted by the rules that the developer defines, and is in a space/world that the developer has created. Liberating the player by allowing them more choice and licence is one approach, certainly. But I don't necessarily think it is the best approach, or some ultimate goal for game developers to aspire to. I certainly don't consider it to the "point" of this medium.

Providing unlimited choice and freedom to the player is the same as attempting to make games emulate reality. I believe the brief history of interactive entertainment has shown this to be a lost cause. Games are not reality, and never will be. Offering up a more "life-like" experience is well and good, so long as you remember that it is within the rules defined by the game.

I believe you extrapolated my sentiment to an extreme I did not intend. For what it's worth, I agree with what you said. It is a matter of balance, otherwise I could just release a compiler for a turing-complete language that gives players "true freedom" and no game need be made ever again.

Too far on the other end, however, and you end up with a game that feels more like a themepark ride than a quest. There's room for both -- I enjoyed Modern Warfare as well as Oblivion. And if you're going to go the latter route, you should make sure you have enough resources to do it right.

Or the resource could be crack into so the player can add more stuff. Like a bag of chips you can then refill with more chips you made from the sliced potatoes you grew in your yard/lamp garden/rooftop. The new chips could be sprinkled with ketchup powder and a hint of sweet pepper making them different from the store bought variety to give them a new flavor others will love or hate given their taste.

AKA modding.

Which is certainly a holy grail, it seems, when it comes to sandboxy games. Look at what the modding community has added to Minecraft, for instance.

------

I think egoraptor made a good point in his commentary. I didn't get the impression he was bashing non-linear games, I got the impression he was criticizing the idea of implementing mechanics just to make it take you longer to finish the game. Particularly with his point about how companies had to try to make their game seem like a legitimate sale, etc.(I feel like this artificial lengthening is sooo true still today in many games)

And his second argument seemed to be how the second game lost the perks of the first due to the artificial lengthening. For instance, his point how the increased backtracking led to a necessity to lower the difficulty, which made the fighting less engaging and challenging, where the challenge of the first game was a great aspect. Also mudding up the challenge aspect was the new necessity to grind for hearts to advance the game. To make grinding more bearable the difficulty was lowered.

Again, that's just what I got out of it. I've never played either of these games, but now I really feel like I want to.

Don't make me so hungry this close to bedtime  :lol:

How has "Vampire Killer" not been involved in this discussion yet? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_Killer) It does, arguably, contain the best of both worlds, albeit being considerably less polished. In fact, it EXACTLY takes the nonlinear exploration aspect of CV2 and merges it - DIRECTLY - with the deliberate level design of the original. Providing absolute proof that the two can coexist.

Awesome video. His observations about how enemy placement was done in Castlevania 1 really made me think about the way I do level design, and inspired me to put a lot more effort into it. I'd never really thought that deeply about it, and my game levels have been somewhat mediocre as a result.

I'd only played the first few minutes of Castlevania, but after watching this, I gave it a more serious try. What a great game! Haven't gotten all the way through yet, but I can really see what he's talking about.

Well, you said "interactive" software, so the name implies the "ultimate" point should be interaction between one or more humans through a machine (some kind of D&D analogy).
Unlimited choice and freedom is posible to make even if there's little resources and rules. A good example could be Chess.
Unlimited choice and freedom is not a lost cause, the problem is that companies seem to put more and more "detail" and more stuff until you get the "reality" emulation that you complain about.
There a lot of games that give ultimate freedom, between them are:
- Goldeneye 007 (In a versus match)
- Street Fighter IV.
- A soccer game (FIFA) or Madden.
- Age of Empire II.
- Spelunky.

Like Jakman4242 likes to put (I thank him because I didn't realize that), the problem is that companies seem to "artificially" (In his words) enlarge the duration of the game.
Many times they broke the original formula trying something new in the sequel.

I think linear and non-linear can coexist, what about...
- Non-linear path but a linear story (Castlevania SOTN).
Other examples might also come.
What egoraptor seem to complain is that a linear development could be more well remembered that a non-linear aproach that confuses.
We have to remember that a linear and non-linear aproach depends on the game purpose and design, all games being non-linear is as bad than all games being linear.

to me the main categories of linearity are this:

linear - completely linear games where no alteration is possible (cv1)

nonlinear1 - games where stages are in a specific order, but you can sometimes 'jump ahead' with warp zones (smb1)

nonlinear2 - games where stages branch but still flow in a certain direction, like a tree (starfox, cv3)

nonlinear3 - games where you can move in any direction and backtrack at your leisure but which have specific goals that must be accomplished in order (cv2, zelda3, super metroid)

nonlinear4 - games where you can move in any direction and backtrack at your leisure and have goals which can be accomplished in varying orders (zelda1)

nonlinear5 - games where you can move in any direction and backtrack at your leisure and which have multiple ending conditions that you can do to end the game from rather than a specific one (i can't think of any such examples offhand but i'm sure they exist; the game i'm working on now is one such game)

this doesn't cover everything -- i'm not sure where the mega man games would fall in that system, because they have linear stages in which you can't backtrack, but you can choose the order of the stages, so other possibilities exist -- but it probably covers most games

For my own design purpose i say that linear design is when you go A (start) to B(end). Metroid therefore is linear while minecraft is not.

Linear game tend to be goal oriented and space is made of obstacle, non linear game tend to be management oriented and space is opportunities.

A linear game can be made of non linear space (of course they can be combine together):

Linear space is when space can only be traverse in a particular order.

Branching space is when space can only be traverse in a particular order but more than one option after chokepoint are possible, some space are left out on one traversal.

"Collectible" space are space that can be choose in any order but add up as a progression.

Folded space is when a space can be traverse multiple time (hub for exemple) but still are functionally in a string like progression.

Non linear game space is always the network, open field is just a special kind of hi density network.

It's just me, but it's really useful when i plan production cost and gameplay pacing as each kind of space affect navigation.

Note: see this more as design pattern, a linear game can have a management challenge which the local space will be a network. They are not exclusive to each other, but picking one to describe a game is hinting the general structure aesthetics.

edit: if someone have a better name for "collectible space"!

I really hate that Konami never released this or Maze of Galious to the US due to the MSX never being released here.

It leads people to think OMG WHAT HAVE THEY DONE? HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO CASTLEVANIA? when this style of gameplay was around longer than SOTN.

The NES version was the scaled down version of Castlevania 1. If you played La-Mulana, you are probably familiar with Xelpud's rants about the NES dumbing down games. That's the case here.  Both games were in development at the same time. The NES got a strictly level based version of the game, MSX got an open ended one about a month later.

Also nobody ever seems to realize that the leveling system in SOTN is directly from Maze of Galious (except in SOTN it increases your defense rather than health). It's not some amazing new invention Konami added in and it's not vital to play the game. It just gives you a slight edge in case you need it.

i also felt that it was being too unfair to cv2's level design -- enemies are not just 'randomly placed' the way it's described in the video. they aren't as deliberately placed as in cv1, but their placements do have meaning, they were still placed there by hand, in positions designed to be obstacles to the player. it does feel more rushed than cv1 was however -- some bosses were entirely missing, some palaces empty of enemies, so perhaps the main reason for cv2's flaws isn't that it's non-linear, but that it was a rush job

I would think that MegaMan games (along with breakable Super Metroid, for that matter) would fit more in your category 4. Now the original Metroid, or Zero Mission might be more of a "3," but the reason why SuperMet is the hands-down fan-favorite is that it IS completely breakable, it's just not obvious about it or how to do it. There's also a few instances (like your first opportunity to score Super Missiles!) that can be totally and irreversibly blown... so there's some degree of consequence without it having to kill you or damage you, it just sets you back a bit. (And yeah, there's some that will kill you.) MegaMans 7 & 8, along with the GB titles, that's more like #3s, too.

Goal-oriented != linear gameplay. Play any 2D Sonic The Hedgehog game more than 3 times, and you'll see what I'm talking about. The key to making some games work with non-linear structure is to make sure the levels still have some degree of perpetual flow about them, like moving to the right or the top. (Even Zelda 1's dungeons all shared this "bottom to top" flow, and Zelda 2's palaces shared the left-to-right).

If it has a start and then a end, then it's structurally linear, no matter or convoluted the path might be or how the player plays. It matter on functional design (meaning of space).