next »

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah i think it's a matter of what you aspire to with games too. if you're a mathematician or a theorist and want perfect mechanical rational systems that feel artificially correct, you'll want to make games like portal. if you value idiosyncrasy and personality more, and "the human appeal", and interest value, and strangeness and weirdness, and wonder and surprise, and want to make games for regular people rather than for game designers or nerds, you'll want to make games like smb. basically i think portal feels too left-brain, and i prefer right-brain games

or another way to put it is that so-called perfect game design only appeals to machines rather than humans, because humans are imperfect and have no use for perfect games, they just want games with cool things in them

mario eating a mushroom and growing big and once you're big you can break blocks = cool
portals which allow you make spatial connections between two points and you have to use that to solve puzzles = nerdy

[gimymblert]

I'm not sure about portal, i think it's the best example of how a procedure actually foster some creativity. No, the real problem is that portal is a puzzle game, there is no place for a lot of improvisation, i heard the 2nd is worst in that regard. Mario is more open ended and layered when it came to design, you can either pass a screen as small or big or with a flower or with a turtle shell bouncing everywhere, etc... each screen is a small playground instead of a "challenge", puzzle mentality give us series of puzzle to overcame instead of place to play in.

It's a problem with modern game designer and player imo, they only see game as challenge, in result those who are fed up try to remove it and other overemphasize it. Challenge, difficulty and hard mentality is the real problem, not as something to remove, but something with too much focus that overshadow everything else.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that's a good way of putting it, but it has some challenge too; so i'd say that super mario bros is both a challenge and a playground, whereas portal is *just* challenge (and puzzle)

you can sort of "play" with the portals, but that's not encouraged when it easily could have been, instead of encouraging the player to play with the portals, it encourages the player to use the portals to solve a series of puzzles

i agree that modern game designers (and some "gamers") tend to see games as pure challenge rather than as places to play. i think it's important to have things in a level that are just for playing around with, not just a part of the level's puzzle or challenge. the level should be the player's *friend*, not the player's enemy

with portal i felt that the levels were my enemy, things to overcome and conquer and beat, i was confrontational with my surroundings and scared of it, there was danger everywhere, whereas with smb the levels are my friends, things to play with, even though there were dangerous parts they weren't dominated by dangerous parts

[gimymblert]

I didn't exclude challenge from mario

Another series that emphasis that, classic sonic (playground) vs modern sonic (challenge)

edit:
BTW in teh case of portal they provide the correct context of it, the environment is really the enemy and you are a rat that try to get out the maze. Actually portal is the best at what it does. But we lost the playground mentality, even mario game or zelda game are challenge driven now, i could not stand mario galaxy for that (neatly organize in planet of challenge called planetoid) after player mario 64 (a playground almost by heart from the very beginning were you land in the castle garden, also the cake was a lie in that mario).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

there are modern sonic games? i don't follow game news so i didn't even know that they still made sonic games. what system are they for

[DavidCaruso]

Modern Sonic is...a challenge? Sonic 1 is harder than any modern Sonic game, and it's not exactly a very hard game lol.

Also I wouldn't classify Mario as a playground or encouraging you to play, given how there's constantly a timer ticking down and sometimes forcing you to rush. I don't even see how you'd play with levels like SMB1's, except with player-defined goals like speedrunning or collecting as many coins as you can or using as few jumps as possible or something (which you can also do with Portal).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

it's funny that you're defining "playing" in terms of inventing new challenges (collecting coins, speedrunning, etc.) -- it's like you literally don't know what playing means anymore, due to challenge hypnotism

also a game doesn't have to be *hard* to emphasize challenge. there are a lot of easy games that emphasize challenge rather than play. zelda1 was pretty hard too (maybe the hardest zelda game) but it also emphasized playgrounds more than most of the other zelda games (although zelda3 had a lot of playground elements as well so it's a bit of a tie there); if a game is too easy it detracts from the play too (give mario infinite lives and allow him to jump any height or fly at will and never die and it'd take away the play element)

[DavidCaruso]

...challenge hypnotism? LOL

No but really, I know what playing around in a videogame world means dude. I just have no clue how you'd play around in levels like SMB1's, which are small, linear, without backtracking, timed, and generally encouraging a forward progression constantly.

[gimymblert]

Paul eres put it perfectly, there is a lot of experimentation and adaptation in classic sonic, modern sonic is about passing challenge 101 in the correct and unique way (generally pressing the right button to not die).

...challenge hypnotism? LOL

No but really, I know what playing around in a videogame world means dude. I just have no clue how you'd play around in levels like SMB1's, which are small, linear, without backtracking, timed, and generally encouraging a forward progression constantly.

Simply because there is so many way to pass a "challenge" point depending on your playstyle and skills + condition and environment.

edit:
In smb1 it's very subtle, you can either jump onto some block and avoid the enemy that goes under but miss the ? block with reward and power up, or you may be big and break the block to handle enemy or try to go under the block but the low ceiling make it risk as the enemy is a turtle, if you don't pace correctly the jump you may also have to deal with a dangerous bouncing shell but maybe it was your goal because you want to kill those gomba under the 1 wide small passage, or you need the shell to bounce higher up and reach that platform.

That's much more to hold right to win.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

...challenge hypnotism? LOL

No but really, I know what playing around in a videogame world means dude. I just have no clue how you'd play around in levels like SMB1's, which are small, linear, without backtracking, timed, and generally encouraging a forward progression constantly.

i guess i'm just not sure how you think those detract from play, except that i guess some people might feel stressed by a timer rather than playful, but the timer is actually really long (i don't think i've ever run out of time in smb1, except in a specific level which was specifically designed as a time challenge, i forget which level that was though, maybe 8-3 or something)

but here's an example of how smb1 encourages play: you can hit blocks and look for coins, and hit a block over and over again for more and more coins. in terms of "challenge" they could have just given you all 10 coins for hitting it once (10 coin piece?) but it's more fun to hit it 10 times with your head, that block is designed for play rather than challenge

also it's not strictly correct that it's linear. there are warp zones and vine areas etc., and the levels are actually really huge by standards of the time (they still feel huge to me even though most games have much larger levels today, because i was used to single screen levels back then so the break into multi-screen scrolling levels was a huge difference)

[DavidCaruso]

Simply because there is so many way to pass a "challenge" point depending on your playstyle and skills + condition and environment.

So what you mean by "playing around vs. challenge" is just nonlinearity and/or giving players multiple options and freedom to experiment in the game's scenarios? (Actually if I'm experimenting around with multiple ways to pass a given section of a game, won't I be doing that for the sake of getting past that challenge?)

I think of playing around in game worlds as more just screwing around to see what the game lets me do, unrelated to the main goal of beating the game or whatever, which seems kind of contradictory to SMB1 since the entire core ruleset is basically laid bare before you.

but here's an example of how smb1 encourages play: you can hit blocks and look for coins, and hit a block over and over again for more and more coins. in terms of "challenge" they could have just given you all 10 coins for hitting it once (10 coin piece?) but it's more fun to hit it 10 times with your head, that block is designed for play rather than challenge

I think I kind of see, but with more complex games doesn't it get kind of vague what's intended more for play than challenge? (Plus this example contributes a little bit to challenge as well -- if I'm doing a run of SMB1 where I try and get as many coins as I can, hitting a block 10 times takes longer than just hitting it once, and there's the timer.)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm not sure what you mean by more complex games -- smb1 is about as complex as any game out there in terms of the "possibility space" (all possible states of the game world) -- if you mean games with more elements (a greater number of types of enemies or types of weapons etc.) that isn't necessarily more complex because in practice a lot of those things work the same way (for instance, think of a final fantasy game: lots of enemies, but a lot of them act the same and differ in only their stats and what spells/abilities they have access to)

but yes it's probably hard to tell whether an individual element was intended for play or challenge or what ratio of those two, but it isn't important to identify that for each individual element, it's only important to get the overall feel of a game to tell whether or not it was designed more for challenge or whether it incorporates play into its challenge, portal is kind of an extreme in that it has very few playful elements (that's also why it's so short, there's nothing *else* to do besides solve the puzzles, and most of the puzzles can only be solved in basically a single intended way, although some people have found unintentional alternative and usually very tricky solutions)

basically i think portal feels like a test in school, like a series of questions on a quiz, and smb1 doesn't have that feeling, and i don't think the feeling portal gives (that it's testing the player by giving them a series of problems to solve) is conductive to a fun game, except perhaps for those people who enjoy tests. but there's more to challenging someone than giving them series of carefully defined and precise challenges

instead of a test, smb1 feels more like a hike through the woods: challenging, but pleasurably so, not challenge for the sake of challenge (like running on a timed track and trying to beat your old record would be), and you never know what you'll find as you hike through the woods, there's the opportunity for new discoveries

another way to compare it is: imagine you are exercising. you can either exercise "at will" and do a bunch of exercises that you feel would be fun to do, or exercise according to a precise scientific program designed for maximum health (or maximum muscle gain, or maximum calorie burning). which sounds more fun? both may be equally challenging, the former may even be *more* challenging some of the time, but the former is also more fun

[DavidCaruso]

Regarding complexity, size of possibility space probably works for this situation, e.g. Shenmue (to name one example) has a much larger possibility space than SMB1 with many more states for the characters and the game world to be in, and it's also a game which I feel I can play around in more than SMB1 due to the greater amount of freedom and number of actions I have (as well as the openness of the game world).

I don't really like Portal (first or second) that much either, but I think those criticisms can be applied to many puzzle games (and even many adventure games or a few strategy games), can't they? I mean, Sokoban, Braid, and the Phoenix Wright series also have strictly defined solutions to most puzzles. The entire genre is basically built on "challenge" as opposed to "play."

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i haven't played shen mue yet; it's possible it's more playful than smb1. i wasn't saying that smb1 was the most playful game ever or anything (i think zelda1 far exceeds it for instance), just that at least it values playful elements and has them occasionally (like the coin block thing) rather than focusing only on challenge like a lot of games do and did

even back then a lot of platformers focused entirely on challenge rather than play -- the first castlevania game is an example, it has relatively few playful elements and almost no secrets besides the hidden meat in blocks (its token nod to playfulness) -- cv1 is still a great game, but it's not a game i would play through too many times, since it's not much of a playground. ninja gaiden is similar to cv1. cv3 was more playful because of the variety of characters you could have and the multiple paths through the game

(side note: a keystone of playfulness is "secrets" -- portal doesn't have too many secrets, even though it has an entire area at the end which is meant to feel secret but is actually mandatory)

i think there can be puzzle games with playful elements, even if those particular ones don't have too many of them. braid has a few though; just playing around with the time distortion is fun, and it allows you to skip puzzles and solve them in various orders rather than restricting you to a set sequence the way portal does. each of the puzzles only does have one solution though, yes. so i think it'd be a middle ground between portal and smb1 in terms of playfulness

but as for playful puzzle games in general, there are a lot of them that allow many alternative solutions, like puzzle bobble and dr. mario and minesweeper and the DROD series and spacechem and lemmings and king arthur's world and armadillo run and fantastic contraption and the incredible machine and world of goo -- some of those games are extremely playful

[gimymblert]

You must be kidding about shenmue right? Shenmue is stiff compare to mario. It breadth sure but no much depth.

But the problem is not puzzle game, it's the design mentality had shift and erase most playful tropes from gaming. Instead of coexisting, challenge is beating the shit out of the player.

[Headless Man]

Regarding complexity, size of possibility space probably works for this situation, e.g. Shenmue (to name one example) has a much larger possibility space than SMB1 with many more states for the characters and the game world to be in, and it's also a game which I feel I can play around in more than SMB1 due to the greater amount of freedom and number of actions I have (as well as the openness of the game world).

Complexity isn't the same as 'lots of shit you can do'.  There are lots of (trivially) interactive elements in Shenmue but they don't interact with each other in any way.  It's like saying Mavid Beacon Teaches Typing is more complex than Street Fighter II because Street Fighter II only has six buttons.  Shenmue is not a game, it is an activity you give to children when they are bored on a rainy day - like colouring books or putting paper mache on balloons.

[XRA]

I enjoyed Portal but I don't really consider it a puzzle game, like Gimmy TILBERT said, it IS the best at what it does.

I'd go back to a game like Portal if it weren't so linear and precise, calculated in its design, if it was a dense sprawling environment that encouraged the Player to experiment and learn tricks of getting around with portals, that would be great... hell, even a procedural generated environment would work in a game like Portal.

[rivon]

You don't like Portal? Go play your SMB... As simple as that.

[tesselode]

I don't think anyone has gone into detail about this, but you don't need a certain number of levels to get the story to work. The story will most likely be separated from the puzzles, so as long as people can remember the story between levels, it should be fine.

[Sankar]

I Love Valve-Software, I must say. I believe their love and support for the Modding Community has changed the way games are developed today. And on top of that, the fact that Gabe usually reply to e-mails the public has sent is great.

The problem of Valve has arrived when they used "multiplayer" mentality to develop single-player Games. In Online games you can pretty much go on with the flow of playtesting, because the "human" element, the improvisation, will obviously come from the fact that humans will be playing against humans.

But when you have this same "Nothing is Sacred" approach to single-player, you risk ending up with dull games. Because the game take you comfortably to the puzzle, it shows you where you should go, and its up to you to just define what you should do. It's a test in the "school" sense, meaning, the paper is in front of you, anything else you do other than writing on it, will disqualify you.
In other words, Portal and Portal 2 are crafted with lots of playtesting input, but after a while, all that "polishing" turn the game plastic, crafted to only make the player feel frustrated here and there.

Blizzard is great at polishing its titles too, but they have some things they don't change, no matter how many people cry about it. Diablo III is a great example of this, in its first versions, it used the same graphical "darkness" of Diablo II, and they decided to go for a more colorful palette. People whine about it everyday, but they hold their grounds.

Nintendo is probably the best at holding her ground,
Can you imagine a Company like Valve developing Zelda: Wind Waker? Every kid I know (me included) bitched about the cartoony graphics (after we watched that tech demo of adult-link vs Ganon), but Nintendo took the risk and Ironically, many friends of mine like this game more than Twilight Princess, and TP was basically the game we all wanted, when we watched that Tech-Demo.


Portal isn't a bad game, it's just a In-Between game, its the kind of game you play while you wait for more solid titles to be released. Its a short, somewhat fun game, with a interesting storyline. You play a little, have fun with the meme's it has generated, but some time later you can't really recall many of it.