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[oahda]

No thread like this?

Any things you commonly see in game design that everyone uses but you think makes no sense or that you're tired of? Do provide counterexamples of games that did this right, if you have any, or just how you'd personally solve it.

Me: idle animations where the character bobs up and down in a way nobody would IRL which just looks bizarre if you become conscious about it — and it's in EVERY game pretty much. Super Mario 64 did this much better. He just stops, looking side to side and various other things. Nothing that looks weird or unnatural. I suppose the bobbing is also more common in 2D games.

And I guess I might as well repeat the fact that I'm tired of combat in general. Game too easy or short? Too lazy to do something interesting? Throw a filler battle in there!

[battlerager]

Good thread.

Doors that can't be interacted with that look just like other doors that can be.
Fences that look as high as the one you just used the "climb over" command on but present an insurmountable obstacle.
Vegetation that looks manageable but can't be brushed aside.



Basically, a combination of the "dress up the borders of the level architecture" that happened with a push for "realism" clashing with the needs to force the player down a specific path and limit the area.

[Zorg]

Spikes. (And circular saws.)

It looks like no Jump'n'Run level is complete without those.

To be constructive: I like when spikes are replaced with something that fits to your characters, for example water if your are controlling a cat.

[JWK5]

"Invisible walls", and even worse, dying as a direct result of colliding with said invisible walls.

"Kill zones", where in a game when you go past a certain point a timer starts ticking or something and if you don't go back to "safe terrain" (i.e. where the level designers want you) you get insta-killed. Borderlands 2 did this but managed to at least make it somewhat interesting, you can actually see gun towers in the levels and when you cross into the "kill zone" an alarm trips. If you stay out in the kill zone you can actually see the gun tower take aim and blast you. It is still very much an obnoxious "kill zone" but at least they gave it some actual in-game context which makes it less arbitrary and jarring.

Obsoletism. I hate how so many games give you stuff that is functionally the same just slightly better than what you last had. I prefer getting something that functions differently so that I can build up a nice selection of tools rather than constantly having to cycle obsolete crap out of my inventory. "Oh shit, the new iSword 6.1 just came out! I might as well sell this shitty old iSword 6.0, the 6.1 has a pommel that is a centimeter larger!"

[Canned Turkey]

Obsoletism. I hate how so many games give you stuff that is functionally the same just slightly better than what you last had. I prefer getting something that functions differently so that I can build up a nice selection of tools rather than constantly having to cycle obsolete crap out of my inventory. "Oh shit, the new iSword 6.1 just came out! I might as well sell this shitty old iSword 6.0, the 6.1 has a pommel that is a centimeter larger!"

This is why I stopped playing skyrim.

[Schoq]

Me: idle animations where the character bobs up and down in a way nobody would IRL which just looks bizarre if you become conscious about it — and it's in EVERY game pretty much.

This (I call it idle dancing) and screenshake abuse. Shake the screen when you want things to feel OUT OF CONTROL and also when you don't particularly need to see what happens. Not randomly at any game action because it's "immersive" and a blog post shared on twitter using the word "juiciness" said it's the key to indie success

[oahda]

Eh, I like screenshake. Can't stand shoulder camera or whatever to call it tho. I've actually only seen it once, in a remake of Kakariko Village from OoT in Unreal, but this I suppose that this is a thing in, like, CoD and stuff? Camera trying to bob along the characters shoulders or something? Ridiculous and nauseating IMO.

[ThemsAllTook]

Anything that significantly obscures the player's view (like darkness, poorly placed foreground elements, bad camera angles, etc.), when sight is the only viable sense to use for navigation. Once game peripherals come into existence for more senses than just vision and hearing, blundering around in the dark might become acceptable, but it's really really not right now.

More generally, giving inadequate feedback for player actions in any part of the game.

[s0]

invisible walls are the worst

screenshake is fundamentally ok and a good way to make actions feel weightier. in a lot of 3D games it's almost needed. however, this leads some inexperienced devs to think that more screenshake = more better and overdo it. tho tbh this is more a problem i see in tig devlogs and the like, not so much in actual released games (that i've played at least). even vlambeer, who are notorious for screenshake, uses it well imo,

[7Soul]

"Please refer to our wiki for basic information on how to play the game"

[s0]

"Please refer to our wiki for basic information on how to play the game"

...is preferable to unskippable tutorials imo

of course an easy to use ingame manual is the ultimate for more complex games

speaking of which: it's really really annoying when a tutorial tries to "test what you've learned" like some highschool teacher and doesn't let you progress otherwise. especially when it forces you to play in ways you never would during the normal game. examples would be jet set radio or driver.

[oahda]

Conclusion: make skippable tutorials.

I personally have this sort of feeling that it's "bad design" if it's hard to explain the fundamentals, but then I realise I like card games like canasta and MTG and those need a fair amount of explanation before you can start playing, and part of the fun is mastering all of the concepts... Dunno if I view video games differently. But it kind of feels inelegant if there is too much tutorial text.

[s0]

i think the difference is that videogames make it really easy to learn through experimentation. in a physical game, you have to know the rules inside and out in order to play. a videogame enforces the rules for you and you have to deliberately cheat in order to break them. which is why a videogame trying to teach you can feel intrusive, because it's not strictly necessary, even if it might be beneficial.

[oahda]

Yeah, I guess that's it.

[Alevice]

Great thread

I perosnally like segregated tutorial sections, ala Deus Ex and Half-Life. As long as its actually insightful of course, CK2 tut, I am looking at you.

The idling can get ridiculous. Starcraft 2 portraits have the characters move all over the place on their fucking stand animation. WHen you put more than one portrait at the time and havee only one of them talk at the same time, all ov them still move and move they make me thinking they are gordon freeman on hl2

[s0]

Oh yeah, i forgot one thing: Bloody screen (aka grape jelly) or color desaturation or any other kind of screen spanning effect used as a health indicator. I can't think of a single game where this isn't annoying/distracting/ridiculous. Even worse when games without regen health do it.

[oahda]

In general anything that seems to indicate a camera in an FP game is weird to me, because it's not exactly like that rain or blood or whatever is literally running down the surface of the characters eyeballs, right? Perhaps they're all wearing extremely big monoglasses, or helmets...

Now that I think about it, tho, it'd be cool to make a game where it's ACTUALLY supposed to be viewed through a camera, Cloverfield-style...

[Schoq]

instead of getting rid of lensflares and BLOODY SCREEN (so real) you should just make your character a visor wearing robot

[oahda]

Was just about to mention that I, quite hypocritically, sort of like or at least don't dislike lens flares and stuff going dark when the game's camera is facing a bright light. I guess movies influenced me there. And I don't like rain on the lens in movies either. So it's just a mix of personal preferences more than anything consistent I guess.

[Torchkas]

Excessive particle use/screen-shake/hit-pausing to make up for bad controls and physics.
Background decoration that makes it hard to tell if this pit with nice flowers along the walls really doesn't have something down there.
Mechanic gets introduced, used a couple of times without really combining with previous mechanics, then gets thrown out of the window.
Progression of difficulty gets dictated by amount of HP an enemy deals rather than increasingly complicated patterns.
Metroidvanias that rely entirely on upgrades to progress rather than knowledge of mechanics or passages.
Game pauses during fade-outs (not really design but it really irks me).