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[hmm]

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone has some good example of 'Mystery' in games?

By Mystery, I am not referring to mysterious stories. I'm more interested in there being an element of secrecy in the actual gameplay. Games with secret levels/rooms, games that require the player to explore the mechanics and show some curiosity.

Curiosity is a very powerful motivator (look at the popularity of mystery novels), and I think this could be leveraged more. I'm all for ease of use, but the feeling of discovery is powerful when you're figuring out how to do something by yourself.

[ThemsAllTook]

There was a fantastic talk by Jim Crawford (Frog Fractions) about this at GDC this year. Looks like it's not one of the free ones on the GDC vault, unfortunately... Frog Fractions itself is a great example.

[Giaddon]

The Void.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/37000/

Character lie to you about how the game works, plus you have no real idea of how the game works.

Assassin's Creed Multiplayer

Each player has a specific target to assassinate that the other players don't know.

[s0]

there's a lot of that in the RPG and roguelike genres as well as in pre-super metroid "metroidvanias"

La Mulana: obscure puzzles, tons of secrets, great sense of "stumbling in the dark" w/r/t exploration. Same goes for the game's "spiritual predecessor" Maze of Galious.

Demon's Souls/Dark Souls: Several "secret" mechanics and a ton of secret content (Demon's Souls has some levels where half the content is "secret")

Nethack: Secret mechanics mainly concerning item interactions. Guides for this game are considered "spoilers" by the fans.

Wizardry: Very few hints on how to solve puzzles, the early games in the series didn't show equipment stats (you were supposed to pick your gear according to "roleplaying" considerations rather than minmaxing) and had no in-game map function despite the mazelike dungeon layouts. the games also leaves you in the dark as to what the skills do. some of them turned out to be completely useless haha

[hmm]

There was a fantastic talk by Jim Crawford (Frog Fractions) about this at GDC this year. Looks like it's not one of the free ones on the GDC vault, unfortunately... Frog Fractions itself is a great example.

Awesome. I'll check the talk out, the description sounds exactly what I'm on about.

Thanks for the list of games. Dark/Demon's Souls were on my list already. Even in the age of internet spoilers there's a lot of mystery to those games, and its such a struggle the payoff for discovering new things is really gratifying.

Really want to check out Void. Looks, interesting...

[Graham-]

I'm going to say something basic.

First:
 1. Game has a hard challenge.
 2. I don't know how to beat it.
 3. I have some idea of what to try.

And:
 4. Game has content after that challenge.
 5. I don't know what it is.
 6. I have some idea of what it might be.

Then:
 7. I ponder various possibilities while living my life.

[ThemsAllTook]

Looks like the talk I mentioned didn't actually get recorded for the GDC vault, but Jim just posted it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/475057068/frog-fractions-2/posts/802609

[hmm]

Great, thanks!

[jiitype]

Older games were really good at being mysterious. Going through a wall in a racing game or finding a secret area... as a kid games felt more mysterious and spooky.

I remember when me and my brother were playing Crash 2 and accidentally fell in to a pit, but instead of death there was a bonus stage. That was hype.

[Graham-]

Metroidvanias do the tease thing. They show you an area, and hint at how you might get there. Later on you get an item or insight, then wonder if it might help you go where you couldn't before.

[MAVW]

Qasir Al Wasat is very mysterious in itself, the art style and the setting helps a lot too..
Also, when you have that glimpse of and area on the other side of a wall, or a void space you can reach and it leaves to the imagination to wonder whether or not it was intentional..

[valrus]

I was musing on this same topic recently, not just things that are mysterious but this sort of "mechanical" mystery.  We could categorize mysteries on a continuum from "related to core gameplay" to "unrelated to core gameplay":

• 1. Gameplay that is itself mysterious (Starseed Pilgrim), or aspects of the mechanics are mysterious (the hidden stats in Pokemon games).
• 2. Mysteries that are found by core gameplay, even if the player never finds them.  Many of the mysteries of Star Control II were this kind.  You didn't necessarily have to do much thinking outside the box -- just searching around -- but you had the feeling that there were deeper secrets out there for you to find.  The similar game "Nomad" or "Project Nomad" was similar.
• 3. Mysteries that require the use of core gameplay in difficult, clever, novel, or unlikely ways.  Either using your skills to get somewhere difficult or hidden (Mario secret levels, Metroidvania secrets), or that arise from interesting or rare combinations of existing gameplay elements (the special levels in Spelunky).
• 4. Mysteries that rely on exploits or glitches, or that you can only get to once you get an ability that breaks ordinary gameplay. Most of Chrono Trigger's alternate endings become available only once you've New Game+ed enough to become game-breakingly powerful. Anodyne gives you an endgame power-up that lets you break the world and find the glitchy margins.
• 5. Mysteries that don't make use of the core gameplay at all, that are like a separate game alongside the core game.  Like figuring out a language: deciphering the languages of Fez, figuring out what the Orz are talking about in Star Control II.

Anyone have any examples of mysteries that require you to do something outside of the game entirely, or in a metagame?

[s0]

Anyone have any examples of mysteries that require you to do something outside of the game entirely, or in a metagame?

psycho mantis boss fight in metal gear solid is the classic example

[baconman]

Aquaria and La Mulana have these too, but I don't want to spoil too much.

[PeteDevlin]

I was musing on this same topic recently, not just things that are mysterious but this sort of "mechanical" mystery.  We could categorize mysteries on a continuum from "related to core gameplay" to "unrelated to core gameplay":

• 1. Gameplay that is itself mysterious (Starseed Pilgrim), or aspects of the mechanics are mysterious (the hidden stats in Pokemon games).
• 2. Mysteries that are found by core gameplay, even if the player never finds them.  Many of the mysteries of Star Control II were this kind.  You didn't necessarily have to do much thinking outside the box -- just searching around -- but you had the feeling that there were deeper secrets out there for you to find.  The similar game "Nomad" or "Project Nomad" was similar.
• 3. Mysteries that require the use of core gameplay in difficult, clever, novel, or unlikely ways.  Either using your skills to get somewhere difficult or hidden (Mario secret levels, Metroidvania secrets), or that arise from interesting or rare combinations of existing gameplay elements (the special levels in Spelunky).
• 4. Mysteries that rely on exploits or glitches, or that you can only get to once you get an ability that breaks ordinary gameplay. Most of Chrono Trigger's alternate endings become available only once you've New Game+ed enough to become game-breakingly powerful. Anodyne gives you an endgame power-up that lets you break the world and find the glitchy margins.
• 5. Mysteries that don't make use of the core gameplay at all, that are like a separate game alongside the core game.  Like figuring out a language: deciphering the languages of Fez, figuring out what the Orz are talking about in Star Control II.

Anyone have any examples of mysteries that require you to do something outside of the game entirely, or in a metagame?

Good work there, lovely bit of thinking.

[Razz]

I feel like the painting mechanic of Super Mario 64 is kind of genius. It encourages the player to check every inch of the world, because there might be a hidden painting somewhere. An air of mystery surrounds pretty much every wall in the game. This is enforced by hiding the entrance to Shifting Sand Land in a random wall, or having a hidden painting inside of a level (Tall Tall Mountain), or having walls you can only walk through with a certain powerup, among other things.

[s0]

yup that's pretty spot on. there were a lot of speculation about hidden levels and etc when the game came out iirc. i think the courtyard is a nice "mystery moment" in sm64 as well.

i think the greatest videogame mystery of my childhood were the glitches in pokemon red/blue tho. the famous missingno glitch was first and spawned a metric shitton of ridiculous schoolyard rumors. and from there it spiralled into people finding tons of new glitches/"cheats"/"secrets" or just making up fake ones. that was pretty great looking back on it.

[valrus]

Ahh, yeah, the playground grapevine.  I can still remember kids talking about Samus Aran being a girl.

There's another question about mystery that's been on my mind.  One of the reasons we all knew these classic mysteries is because there just weren't as many games.  We tended to put a lot of time into those we had, and our friends would mostly have the same games.  Nowadays we can't assume this, and it becomes more important (I think) to hint that your game has mysteries at all.

How can we communicate to the player that our games are deeper than they appear?  Obviously, showing them an unreachable power-up will get the mental juices running, but how else do games communicate their mysteries?

[Graham-]

bread crumbs. the pigeon does a little dance, you give a pellet. then pellets come only for big dances, and bigger, and bigger.

make 10% of your secrets obvious, and 10% almost obvious, and 10% slightly less obvious than that, and 10% slightly less obvious than slightly less obvious. and on we go.

[s0]

How can we communicate to the player that our games are deeper than they appear?  Obviously, showing them an unreachable power-up will get the mental juices running, but how else do games communicate their mysteries?

one good way to do this is to put things that seem slightly odd or out of place into your game (has to be done carefully and with a certain degree of subtlety ofc).

to go back to my previous example, the courtyard in super mario 64 seems strange because it's a totally empty and seemingly "pointless" area initially. this particular approach banks on a sort of "metagame" knowledge, i.e. you know you're playing a videogame and the developers wouldn't just design an empty area for no reason.

another example: frog fractions starts out as a pretty normal flash game that claims to be "educational". but you notice pretty soon that the game doesn't actually teach fractions and the some of the upgrades you're buying are kinda strange. also why the hell am i collecting "zorkmids"? (i know its a nethack reference but still)

EDIT: other games can just rely on their own popularity for people to discover the more obscure secrets. if a game is popular enough, someone is bound to eventually stumble across the secret. obv designing for this only makes sense if you *know* your game is going to be popular (e.g. it's an installment in a popular franchise). ex: GTA san andreas with stuff like the "ghost car".