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[Breadcultist]

@WarHampster
No, I don't. As games improve and further complexify, they branch off into more distinct subgenres. They could improve forever. But human intellect and skill might not improve enough to catch up with them.

I'm reminded of something Icy said about about all 2D action genres other than shooting and fighting, that they've pretty much run their course already.

@Miroslav Malesevic
I thought you were joking. Are you telling me that Flower is in the same genre as Myst, Sam and Max, Phoenix Wright, etc.!?

And Knytt too? Knytt is so obviously a platform game! What puzzles does Knytt have? I mentioned the whole maze-structure of the world... anything else?

"You can easily tell which category game falls in by observing what people like about it. That's all that matters, in my opinion."
Hm. What about people that don't like it?

"That's how people came up with established genres in the first place. It's not like we knew about these genres long before we made first games."
Right. People came up with the games, then grouped them together. People also took someone's game then added to it. We can look at these groups and describe them to decide if new games fit into them.

I'd call Katamari is a very quirky platformer. The challenge that comes between you and the collecting task are the obstacles of the environment. Then you can collect those obstacles...

[Gimym TILBERT]

I can clearly see a divide along the Paida-Ludus rift of game design.

Artfags like me obviously think that Ludus (and vertigo, alea + especially agon) is a solved problem and moved on Paida + mimicry which is what Art game are and strive for (hence weaker ludus).

You cannot improve Ludus anymore, you can only improve paida which is largely explore. That's why I'm not on the side of Icy, Ashford, bread and friend

[Breadcultist]

if you're going to say there isn't room for both smb3 and knytt, fuck you.

Nah, there's always room for shit games!

@Eric
"current perfect game for each genre and every game needs to strive for that high water mark, encompassing all beneficial elements of games before it, if that is achieved, it becomes the new high water mark. A game that doesn't strive for that greatness is a wasted chance."
Perfect, no. But each genre has its current tippety-top, yeah. No, it's not mandatory to incorporate the system of those games entirely in order to progress, so each great game is a superset of the last one... That's not necessary. Other decisions can be made that lead to greater complexity and depth. E.g. Yoshi's Island didn't need curved floors to surpass Sonic.

And striving for greatness itself is not mandatory. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be encouraged.

@Timmy
"You cannot improve Ludus anymore"
Oh man, really? Does ludus=rules? You don't think there are any more future mechanical innovations? Or that further ones will be tiny and inconsequential? For ALL the genres?

So, paida. This means playing around without rules? What has this got to do with videogames?

[mirosurabu]

Oh, no, I wasn't joking. I do really think Flower is adventure game.

Of course, it differs in many aspects from Myst and Phoenix Wright, but so do Myst and Phoenix Wright differ from each other in many aspects. The key difference is that Flower rewards curiosity and Phoenix Wright rewards plot awareness and thinking out of the box.

But, that's because "adventure category" is so broad and it can include RPG and FPS genres too. Myst and Phoenix Wright have a puzzle component, so they can be either puzzle or adventure or puzzle adventure. With Flower being an unusual game it's hard to place it in a specific cateogy, so I leave it in the broad category that is "adventure". I can call it "exploration adventure" though, but that's not a popular term.

As for Knytt, it's platform adventure, if we want to be specific. It doesn't have real puzzles, but that doesn't make it less of an adventure in my book.

Hm. What about people that don't like it?

They are fine and I don't think they really matter in this case.

You should look at people who really love it and understand why they love it. If they loved it because "flying in this game kicks ass, it's so realistic and amazing!" then you could say the game is "flight simulator" and apply that standard.

There are people who don't like games at all, so what about them? Imagine Tale of Tales reviewing Bayonetta.

[Breadcultist]

Okay, you're using 'adventure' as a broad category rather than a genre? That normally would exclude FPSes.

You reject puzzles as a necessary part of this category.

What is the nature of this category? I won't ask for a precise definition. But there's gotta be some positive shared characteristics, trends, tendencies. What is the sameness between Myst, Phoenix Wright and Flower? (And the basis for their comparison?)

As for people who don't like games at all, to hell with 'em.

I think people who most love, say, platformers will be best able to identify platformers when they see them. Even if they don't like them specifically.

[Gimym TILBERT]

@Bread

I agree with miro, flower have lock and key + exploration + narrative arc = clearly adventure game with dot eating accent this is more credible than flying simulation from a design mechanics perspective but flight simulation work too in a dressing up perspective.

Ludus is solved because all mechanics are cook up with the same basic element: risk reward, feedback loop, etc... Any new mechanics would be a simple dosage of just that, I can look at rules and understand why they are great.

On the other side icy talk about things like "cannot play a ugly character", or praise kinetic quality of play... this isn't bound by rules. When he talk about role playing as a category this is not bound by rules too.

Paida does not mean no rules, it's about no set rules, it's about improvisational play, it's about pure coolness of playing. Icy talk about that a lot too, of course they are support by ludus too, that's called emergent gameplay. Taunt is an exemple of paida gameplay that does not change the rules but impact the experience, this is important too and icy praise that. Art games actually explore that part of gaming devoid of noise to find how they could improve them, they still fit icy definition of progress.

If game where not about paida they would have been pure mathematical problem and no amount of coolness and uber design would have change it. If it was not important Icy would not have blame the design of the main character of Braid.

Also it's hard to argue yoshi island is better than sonic when all yoshi island add is more clutter while sonic is not just about curve tile but keeping momentum through trajectories calculation which is infinitely more deep that any yoshi mechanics.

[Breadcultist]

I won't contest your analysis of Flower.

I'm not sure what you mean, saying ludus is a solved problem?

The concepts risk and reward aren't basic elements, as I understand them, they're high level abstractions used to analyse and design. Basic elements or mechanics are: run, jump, teleport, rewind time, enemies can throw rocks at you, avoid yellow snow for high score, etc. This is where designers can still make more progress, more complexity, more depth.

A designer improve the 'feeling of coolness' for the player by tweaking the rules, right? (But also the theme.)

Paida seems a strange concept. Not sure how useful it'll be for me. Can you define it? Vague definitions are okay too... maybe...

Also, ludus? If you just mean rules, you could say rules. But You mean something a bit different, right?

Yoshi's Island is about precision hopping. And tussling with the interesting wildlife. There's a bit of inertial rollin' too. You see its dozens of unique gadgets as clutter... what a shame!

ETA: did some wikisurfing, seems the ludus and paidia are labels for particular types of the activity that is playing, and they're two ends of a scale. They're rather unwieldy words, aren't they? They're not easily transformable into verbs. One reason I'm inclined to avoid them...

[Nate Kling]

There are people who don't like games at all, so what about them? Imagine Tale of Tales reviewing Bayonetta.

funny you should say that.
http://notgames.org/blog/2010/04/27/bayonetta-and-the-vatican/

[Gimym TILBERT]

They are clutter because they are variation instead of depth. They do not add more autonomy or choice.

You see I make game, I can safely say that things like jumping and other verbs are not clearly the meat of mechanics. A game is a a series of choice whether forced, free or conflicting. If you have a jump verb in a flat surface and it has no purpose it does not improve the game in a mechanistic point of view (ludus). It is only there for coolness (paida).

The building block of game is choice, choice are made meaningful through risk reward that set the stake, that's the quality of the stake and the kinectic sense of game that make good game. There is nothing vague here, it's pretty safe and clear.

Verbs is a mean to convey the choice, actually verbs is less relevant,as you can plot mechanics with any verbs, that's why game from vastly different genre can share identical mechanics across differing verbs or theme. It does not matter if you are jumping or thrusting forward momentary, it's all smoke and mirror. That smoke and mirror namely is paida from a design perspective, they do not parcipate to the rules. I can create a new jump mechanic simply by importing concept from a different game entirely. For exemple I'm making a platformer and I use mechanics from matching game to have a unique matching jump, clearly jumping is not the focus. Rewind time is conceptually the same thing are undo but they are looking vastly differently.

But that's you who set the standard of mechanics as important for game and yet where arguing along the art game perspective all along, you may need to clarify your standard.

[Gimym TILBERT]

Regarding sonic vs yoshi.

Yoshi is very local, level could have been random it would not change how you approach them. Most power up are equally local, they are define by local challenge, you switch one mechanics for another instead of adding them together.

Sonic ask you to keep momentum on an uneven terrain to reach some place, you need to plan several move ahead (to think globally), power up modify your ability to navigate level hence your capacity to plan and reach new place. Sonic is then a tighter game than yoshi.

Super mario bros 1 and 3 are equally global, that's why there is still speedrun of those 3 games and very little of yoshi island. From your standard Yoshi island would have been a regression, every novelty include are just toys and no progress that obviously didn't carry on later iteration (except eggs aiming and ground pounding), yoshi island is clearly an art game.

[salade]

Yoshi's Island is about precision hopping. And tussling with the interesting wildlife. There's a bit of inertial rollin' too. You see its dozens of unique gadgets as clutter... what a shame!

Well it's a "shame" that you see the elegant minimalism of Knytt as a lack of content. Almost everything you have brought to our conversation can be debunked by the fact that there is no way to prove that because someone prefers one game to another game that it is "better". Perhaps you would rather play it, but everyones feels differently from you, feels differently from Icycalm, and fells differently from anyone else on earth. I don't like to play RTS games, however I do not think that RTS players have bad taste. They just have different preferences then I do. Believing that the only good games are the ones I like would be pretentious, something that independent game developers have oddly become associated with.

[Paul Eres]

I'd call Katamari is a very quirky platformer. The challenge that comes between you and the collecting task are the obstacles of the environment. Then you can collect those obstacles...

but what are the platforms? according to icycalm platformers involve jumping from platform to platform with skill, and there's no platforms or jumping in katamari, just rolling on the ground. or were you joking?

anyway i agree with eric that genres aren't a very sophisticated topic of discussion when it comes to games, because people organize genres in different ways. the only reason we got into the genre topic is because it came up in the context of art games, and whether or not they were a genre.

basically there are two schools of thought on genre: one school is that genres are *mutually exclusive*, which seems to be breadcultist's view. another (my view) is that genres are not mutually exclusive: something can simultaneously be a rpg and a platformer, or a flight sim and a shmup, or a platformer and an art game, or a rpg and an adventure game, or an action game and a rpg, and many other combinations.

in that view, knytt is both a platformer and an art game (in particular of the exploration game sort), metal gear solid is both a third-person shooter and a stealth game, and guardian legend is a shmup, a top-down shooter, and a rpg, all in one.

a game can also have elements of a genre while not fully being within that genre, such as spelunky be a platformer with roguelike elements, or symphony of the night being a metroidvania with jrpg elements.

i think the use of genres as non-mutually exclusive is more useful, because it allows more precise description of games than either not using genres in describing games at all or using genres as mutually exclusive.

it's interesting that a big portion of most of icycalm's reviews of indie games (such as braid or spelunky or flower) consist of describing the game as not being a good example of its genre, or not really being from the genre it claims to be from, but being from some other genre. apparently he's a very genre-centric person, genre makes up a core part of his thought process. but is it really an argument against a game to say that it doesn't really fit in the genre it claims to be in, or that other games in that genre were better than it? from the player's perspective, that's irrelevant; players are not game designers or game critics and don't care much about theoretical constructs like genre when judging a game. players don't go and say 'sonic and knuckles is bad because it isn't as good as the best of the best platformers, which is yoshi's island', players go 'sonic and knuckles is bad because i keep running into spikes that i couldn't see ahead of time because i run so fast'.

[Breadcultist]

Sorry Timmy, I'm struggling to understand you, and it'll only get worse if we carry on talking. Would it be worthwhile? I dunno.

You call jumping a verb. This ain't a good sign

I'm just going to reply to the Yoshi vs Sonic vs Mario part.

Yoshi's Island is stuffed with mere toys? Hm maybe. Perhaps their value is  just the (temporary) novelty. And it hasn't stood the test of repeated, competitive play, as evidenced by lack of speed runs. Okay, I don't contest this. But repeated play isn't the only basis to judge. Being a great first-time experience is nice too. It's a single player platformer, after all. Are the levels well designed? I think there are some devilish mazes in there. Lots of nice secret bits. But I won't ever go back and get 100% of all the silly tokens...

lol, art game. Sure, it looks like a crayon drawing!

@Salade
"no way to prove that because someone prefers one game to another game that it is "better""
There's no need to prove that. It is what the word 'better' means. You've failed to understand what I've been saying here!

@Paul
3D Platformer: type of 3rd person action game where the challenge mainly comes from negotiating the environment, as opposed to the enemies. Jumping from platform to platform is just one kind of that sort of thing. I'm not using the definition you've taken from Icy's Spelunky review. That one's too narrow. Also note that 3D platformer is a very different genre from 2D platformer.

"one school is that genres are *mutually exclusive*, which seems to be breadcultist's view"
Eh... sorta. Genres are groups of games. We define them. We could define overlapping groups. Depends what we want to use them for. I mean to use them to distinguish different kinds of games. So I can compare ones that are close together. So I avoid using the overlapping genres (like survival horror).

metal gear solid - when it came out, it was pretty unique. You could compare it to the older 2D prequels... But you might as well place it in with other 3D action games. Some of them involving more shooting than others. But now we have lots of specific stealth games, it makes sense to group and compare them.

"but is it really an argument against a game to say that it doesn't really fit in the genre it claims to be in, or that other games in that genre were better than it?"
It's a basis for comparison. We have to compare Braid and Knytt and Metal Gear Solid to something, right? If you're writing a review, that is.

"players are not game designers or game critics and don't care much about theoretical constructs like genre when judging a game"
Depends what players you're talking about. Expert or enthusiast players are going to know what genres they like. Critics and designers are players! Icy's criticism is not for casuals.

I'm going by the theory the genres aren't an unnecessary arbitrary imposition that gets in the way of criticism. But are actually natural ways the mind categorises things... or something. Time to sleep!

[Gimym TILBERT]

Well calling jumping a verbs is basic game design education, if you invoke mechanics as a standard you should at least know the basic of game mechanics aint it?

That's why I think Icycalm and your rhetoric fail, they only scratch the surface of things. Generally critics know at least the language of their art. If you claim to have a deep analytical and understanding of game that people would study century after everyone forget spelunking that is.

I Say it was an art game half as a joke, but it's hard to see what icycalm and you have as argument beyond superficial rationalization of taste. That's were you just fail, you were arguing within standard and even there your point of view does not hold much water since you resort in using argument that you condemn artfags for. "Wow" is also not an argument.

You made no answering argument about Yoshi and I never said that Yoshi was bad, I just merely offer a perspective that fit standard you set.

[Paul Eres]

i agree with breadcultist that genres aren't 'arbitrary' in the sense of random, different people would probably organize games roughly into genres even if they never heard of genres. i just meant that there are multiple systematic and self-consistent ways of defining a genre. for instance, cliffyb (who icycalm admires) defines genre as camera angle: if a camera is to the side, it's a "sidescroller", if it's above, it's a "top-down" game, if it's behind the player's eyes, it's a "first person" game, if it's behind their shoulder, it's a "third person" game. and so on, it's totally self-consistent and systematic to organize games and genres by camera angle rather than by mechanics. it may not be as *useful*, but it's a valid way to organize genres nonetheless.