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I was reading through the comments on the frontpage for Emerald City Confidential, and there was a lot I felt like adding to the conversation, but there were already over 30 comments and I knew that above a certain range the conversation was just going to stop. So I'm opening up the dialogue here.

Quickie recap: Derek, Fearless Leader (and that is not sarcasm), critiqued ECC for it's "casualitis;" the ways that some of the edges may have been smoothed for the casual crowd were frustrating, and the game held the player's hand more than he could enjoy. Both The Ivy and The Gilbert (lord love definite articles) responded, talking about the experience of working in a market that a lot of people unfamiliar with adventure gaming are accessing, and we gamers that are used to playing take for granted how much information we've absorbed, and how daunting such a game can be for the uninitiated.

This has gotten me thinking about the wider picture, about the tricky the old "are games artistic commerce or commercial art?" debate. But I'll try to sound less pompous than that.

I played the ECC demo, and I was bothered by the hand-holding. I was interested in the story itself, and I appreciated the quality of the art and voice acting. But I was bothered that at no point did I have to think for myself in that first free hour; the game told me everything I had to do. And it makes me more reluctant to buy the $20 full version; I think it will be hard to enjoy. I'm not trying to criticize anyone, I fully understand the reasons for making these choices and respect the logic. And ECC is getting scapegoated unfairly, this is true (and in fact, far worse) for many other games in the casual market.

What I'm getting at: in appealing more to the casual market, casual games can alienate the, for lack of a better term, "hardcore" community. And maybe this is arrogant, but I think the nature of being a casual gamer is to find something fun, rather than something meaningful, while the "hardcore" (I hate that term) gamer is likely to look for something deeper. Seems to be alienating the people who are most likely to truly love the game.

So here are some questions: what's an elegant way to make games accessible for an inexperienced gamer without making it frustrating for an experienced one? How much is an independent game worth, seeing as most don't cost anything to make (save time and other intangible resources)? And for those who have released games commercially, where have you drawn the line between your dream game and the game that will earn you a living?

There's a fundamental question here as well, that's harder to answer; I don't have an answer to it, so I'm kicking it out there: making indie games for a living is a dream job, and I for one would love to have it. Maybe Jonathan Blow has far too much integrity to expect from people, but I'm going to paraphrase him anyway: making your living off of games is a luxury. You can work a job and make your game in your free time. And many people make games just for the love of it and release them for free. So when a person makes even a few concessions to make a game appeal to a wider audience, and charges a small amount for the game, the typical gamer may wonder, "should I pay money for a game with frustrating concessions when I could play a free game with no concessions? Is supporting someone's dream job worth it?"

I don't have answers to these questions yet, but as I get ready to start my new game, which is going to be a labor of love, I know I'm going to make some decisions come release time.

Thoughts? Kicking it over to you.

(oh, and Dave, if you ever read this, I love you dearly, and I'm ready to settle down)

This is simple. Come up with an extremely unique mechanic, and spend the first 10th of the game explaining it (through tutorial or introductory levels), and the rest of the game expanding upon concepts learned in the first part.

For an experienced gamer, it's a unique experience so they can gain enjoyment out of figuring out something new.
For an inexperienced gamer, it's the same thing (however they feel this way about most games anyway).

It's nearly the same experience for both if the concept is new enough and not derivative off of common genres or at least not requiring prior knowledge of those genres.

Isn't the easiest way to add a difficulty slider at the start?  Recent Telltale games allow you to select how much hinting you want from the game.  The IF game Blue Lacunae lets you choose between more and fewer puzzles.

Yeah, if I'd been able to turn off the chapter titles in ECC they would have bothered me a lot less... also if I could have turned off the dialogue text and just had the audio. But as for innovative mechanics, well... not every game is mechanic-based. ECC is an adventure game. It's really the only genre that could contain the story. Adventures don't hinge on new mechanics, but rather on their stories.

I'd disagree on the classification of hardcore and casual. Usually, hardcore gamers just like popular violent games like Halo, Fallout, or Bioshock. The more complex the mechanics, the better, but God help you if it's a JRPG. Meanwhile, casual games are stereotyped as extremely dumbed-down cutesy titles like Bejeweled or Cooking Mama.

I think that is way wrong. What's deep or meaningful about Halo? Most 'hardcore' games don't say anything more about the human condition than your average casual game, and the ones that try are usually written by people without the necessary social or emotional literacy to say anything remotely relevant.

As for the questions about appealing to casual and hardcore gamers, I don't think it's the right question if you're talking about 'labour of love' type stuff. It's a marketing question. It's a question about making a product which will sell more copies. If you want to optimize the number of people who are going to play your game, you are being a salesman, not an artist.

If that's what you want to do, that's fine. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a job, precisely. It's kind of a requirement in our society, obviously. But I don't think it does to get the two things confused.