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[nexus]

Hello everyone,

I am making a game for a comp on Newgrounds, but the game I am making is kinda simplistic. Simply put, it is a platformer with spinner saws, that if the player touches they die and start the level again. The levels are short and challenging so I think that works quite well.

What I really want to know is if the general player likes to see leaderboards in a game and if it actually does anything for the game.

I have experimented with a collectable system, where the player would just find these orange glowing things and it would accumulate score. Some times, I would get a higher score by attempting to grab the ones that were harder to get and would give me a bit of self accomplishment for getting them. Overall this got boring quickly and I scrapped it.

I then went on to add a timer to each level to get the time it took to do the level to 2 decimal places. I am playing around with this still.

But my mind is still unclear how I can give the player a sense of accomplishment and how they can feel like they are winning or can win.

[rek]

There was a thread that drifted into scoreboard discussion, and as I recall the conclusion was that yes, players like to see leaderboards – of their friends – so they know who – of their friends – they want to beat.

[Mono]

Hard and challenging games are not for everyone. People who really like these kinds of games do not always need that big of a carrot to challenge themselves. All they need is maybe a medal or achievement. Yes, the social aspect of it is very important, it's almost essential to the experience. There should be a way to prove that you did better at this game than everyone else. Developers who understands this will have their games played on Youtube.

The game you described sounds very much like Super Meat Boy which is the perfect place to look if you want to find out how to design a challenging game. What characterizes Super Meat Boy to me is mainly sharp controls that makes yourself the only one to blame if you fuck up. So as long as the gameplay is satisfying, failing won't be as harsh. Super Meat Boy has good flow because of it's level design and gradual increase of difficulty.

You should play a game like that and watch other people play it as well to see how they react.

[nexus]

Hard and challenging games are not for everyone. People who really like these kinds of games do not always need that big of a carrot to challenge themselves. All they need is maybe a medal or achievement. Yes, the social aspect of it is very important, it's almost essential to the experience. There should be a way to prove that you did better at this game than everyone else. Developers who understands this will have their games played on Youtube.

The game you described sounds very much like Super Meat Boy which is the perfect place to look if you want to find out how to design a challenging game. What characterizes Super Meat Boy to me is mainly sharp controls that makes yourself the only one to blame if you fuck up. So as long as the gameplay is satisfying, failing won't be as harsh. Super Meat Boy has good flow because of it's level design and gradual increase of difficulty.

You should play a game like that and watch other people play it as well to see how they react.

Thanks for the advice Mono. I have played SMB a few time and I guess the saw thing was inspired by it. Do you have any other games that are in the same challenge to rewarding ration as SMB, I'd love to find some but it seems pretty unique.

[Morroque]

I would wager if the game as a creative element to it that is generative and goes beyond having a simple "score" that leaderboards might become nearly essential. This way a leaderboard may also turn into an art gallery of player-based art.

One of my finished-but-not-quite-published games has this element. Here are some examples:

• A Crime's Undefined Regret by myself
• A King and his Servants by Darkblizer
• Chairman Mao Conquers the Fucking Moon by Chris JSF

[forwardresent]

Shmups, a genre where really the only reason for playing again is beating the high score. Check out Jamestown, or any Touhou game, they are pretty much designed to be difficult. They use scores and star systems, like medals depending on milestones in points and not using bombs or lives et cetera.

Unrelated, slightly, but the new Sniper Elite game is essentially all about scoring. Each kill is graded with points, I think I've replayed the Hitler level like 20 times now.

[alastair]

Shmups, a genre where really the only reason for playing again is beating the high score.

I think there is value in playing a game again because you thought it was fun to play, not just to get a higher number on a page somewhere.

[forwardresent]

That is true, I shouldn't have implied it's entirely the point.

There's a lot of fun in shmups, nice level designs, interestingly insane bullet patterns, usually amazing soundtracks.

But sadly, usually terrible stories.

[Mono]

Played some Happy Wheels. That is a game where you don't really mind failing because of the sweet gore. I think that is quite an achievement.

[xrabohrok]

Funny you ask, but the SpaceChem guys just released their postmortem and they arrive to a sentiment that I agree with.  That is:

1.Getting your name at the top of the leaderboards is a fantastic incentive for cheating.
2.For most players, the only thing a global leaderboard manages to tell you is that you suck (and not even by how much).

They sidestepped the idea by including stats on where you fall based on everyone else (in bar chart form). 

[laserfire]

There was a thread that drifted into scoreboard discussion, and as I recall the conclusion was that yes, players like to see leaderboards – of their friends – so they know who – of their friends – they want to beat.

A friend of mine and I used to email each other screenshots of our records on Canabalt

and it was kind of an inside joke/competition between us buddies.

What I'm saying is... I second the of their friends comment.

I would only care less if I saw thousands of people did better than I did on some level.

[eyeliner]

I don't care for leaderboards because I'm not competitive. A few of my friends were all over Facebook beating each others' scores. They tried to entice me to it, but I can't feel the urge to beat anyone at a game unless we compete directly, like in a racing game or fighting game.

[Raptor85]

I like leaderboards as it lets you compete with others for top score in otherwise single-player games, I find it fun seeing how well i do and trying again to see if i can't steal that top spot from the guy whos currently holding it :D

[BaronWilhelm]

My two comments on leaderboards are that:

#1 Knowing that I'm #98231737 is meaningless and actually somewhat discouraging

#2 SpaceChem used a leaderboard disguised as a histogram described here which I thought was a pretty cool idea

[Lynx]

Not only that, the histograms showed you INTERESTING information, since there were several displayed:

1. Number of reactors used
2. Number of elements used
3. How long your machine took to run

So this leads naturally to looking for better solutions because if you did a puzzle in 3 reactors, you might see that some people did it in 2, and start thinking about it again.  Or, if you find that your simulation took a lot more elements than other people did, you can think about that, and that can lead to optimization techniques that you can use to make future puzzles doable.

A simple leaderboard doesn't tell you how your performance compares to other people, or where you could improve.