Wanda and the motherfucking Colossus

[Popcorn]

That spring puzzle was super-easy. But seriously, what invisible bridge?

[Green Gibbon!]

Y'know, it was at that part near where you had to alter the trajectory of some satellite dishes or something. There was this invisible bridge or something that would appear at the top of this big room. I was running circles in that stupid thing for a couple of hours.

[Dache]

... but all you had to do was grab Yorda and walk across to the other side.

[Popcorn]

Wait, yeah, I remember that. But aren't there idol statues there? Y'know, the things Yorda triggers?

[Green Gibbon!]

I'm not sure, it's been years since I played. All I know is there was this invisible bridge that I didn't know was there until I resorted to GameFAQs.

[Popcorn]

Man, you must really suck.

[Light Speed]

I hate invisible bridges of all kinds. There was one like that in StarFox Adventures (Yeah, I am the one person on the planet that enjoyed the game) that stumped me for a few hours. Apparently you have to just run and jump off this cliff, but you actually land on the bridge. How you were actually supposed to know that, I have no idea.

[chriscaffee]

A man of faith must leap from the lion's head.

[Brazillian Cara]

I liked that game, but the lack of "what to do after beating the last boss" is disapointing.

[Baba O'Reily]

I liked that game, but the lack of "what to do after beating the last boss" is disapointing.

Simple. Eat watermelons on a beach. It's touching. Kinda.

[Zeta]

You know what they say about a guy with big horns . . .

[Delphine]

Big helmet.

[CE]

Organic freedom is good, and the game might even have been superior with it, but at the same time, it isn't necessarily the end-all solution. Playing Ico is like solving a series of riddles. There's only one answer to each puzzle, but knowing that, the challenge becomes: "Hm, what do I do with what I've been given?" as opposed to, "Hm, let's see how I can wriggle around this." They're two distinctly different experiences, but neither can be definitively called superior to the other.

I disagree that the second can not be considered superior to the first; in my eyes organic freedom is so far superior that I'd rather have five organic solution puzzles to 50 single solution puzzles. It's why I like DROD better than ChuChu Rocket! -- the puzzles allow more freedom. Even with the freedom being relatively trivial in some cases, the differences allowed tend to cause a ripple effect where even though two solutions both use the same basic idea, the solutions look and feel drastically different.

The only puzzle in Ico that I remember really bothering me is this one part where I had to cross some invisible bridge or something. Which was stupid, how was I supposed to know that bridge was there? By and large, though, everything is so well-integrated it almost never feels like you're playing an old-fashioned puzzle game, even though that's ultimately what it boils down to.

I see that as a negative, not a positive. The presentation may be well integrated, but the set of objects you can interact with is arbitrarily static. In comparison, a game without an overarching atmosphere renders the objects you can interact with differently from the backdrops -- they tend to use less saturated colors and have higher detail textures and models. This makes the interactive parts of the world stand out. But in games like Ico you have to figure out through trial and error what is interactive and what just looks pretty.

As people have stated in this thread, there are multiple cases where the set of interactive objects is non-obvious. I thing I have a much higher sensitivity to this problem than most people because I don't care as much about the atmosphere beyond consistency. I don't think I'll ever be truly satisfied with a atmospheric puzzle game until the puzzles are not scripted *at all*, and each solution is the result of interplay between simple, consistent rules.

[Zeta]

I certainly agree that overcomplication in straight-forward puzzle games may make the game look good, but ultimately it slows down gameplay and makes the experience even more artificial than a more minamalist design.

I prefer a more barren-appearing videogame world in which you can interact with everything shown as opposed to a richly-detailed and designed world where you can only interact with .5 of the scenery - with the rest just being window dressing to distract you.

[CE]

Then you should download DROD. I've been using it in every example because it is my current favorite puzzle game. (A genre that should not be confused with Falling Blocks games like PuyoPuyo or Klax. Those are not real puzzle games!) They recently released version 1.6, which adds the ability to make your own levels.

http://www.drod.net

[Popcorn]

I see that as a negative, not a positive. The presentation may be well integrated, but the set of objects you can interact with is arbitrarily static. In comparison, a game without an overarching atmosphere renders the objects you can interact with differently from the backdrops -- they tend to use less saturated colors and have higher detail textures and models. This makes the interactive parts of the world stand out. But in games like Ico you have to figure out through trial and error what is interactive and what just looks pretty.

I completely disagree. In Ico, all the obvious interactive elements are, well, obvious: crates, switches, chains, ladders, weapons, Yorda. I've never felt I should be able to press Circle next to a wall and watch it do something; I don't think I ever found anything in the game that felt like it should've been interactive but isn't, or missed something I was supposed to pick up. If it makes sense that an object would be interactive in some way in real life, then you can interract with it in Ico: common sense is king (of course, Ico doesn't really have all that many interactive objects littering its environments anyway). The only exception to this is the destructable water tower thing I mentioned, which I'll admit is the game's single nonsensical flaw.

I don't think I'll ever be truly satisfied with a atmospheric puzzle game until the puzzles are not scripted *at all*, and each solution is the result of interplay between simple, consistent rules.

I'm not really getting your argument here. I like flexible, open-ended stuff too, but I think there's a place for linearity as well; I don't mind being led down a path by a developer at all, as long as it's a pretty one-- in fact, I love it. What bothers you about it?

[CE]

I'm not really getting your argument here. I like flexible, open-ended stuff too, but I think there's a place for linearity as well; I don't mind being led down a path by a developer at all, as long as it's a pretty one-- in fact, I love it. What bothers you about it?

I like to make a distinction between linearity, which implies there is exactly one way to solve any particular problem, and direction, which provides a set of problems to solve, but tries to not limit the different solutions too much. It sounds to me like you are talking about a game having direction (which I feel is very important), and not about it being linear.

When designing a linear game, you are implicitly making the assumption that you can think of everything a game player would find interesting. This assumption is completely bizarre as there are so many different people with so many different tastes playing video games. There are going to be things that designed into the game that end up completely overlooked, but had the potential to be fun. By making the gameplay evolve out from simple rules, you end up with

As an aside, I'd like to restate your final sentance in my own words. I feel this will help illuminate the differences between your point of view and my own.
"I don't mind being suggested a path by a developer, as long as that path is an interesting one."

[Popcorn]

I like to make a distinction between linearity, which implies there is exactly one way to solve any particular problem, and direction, which provides a set of problems to solve, but tries to not limit the different solutions too much. It sounds to me like you are talking about a game having direction (which I feel is very important), and not about it being linear.

Why do you think that? There's one way to solve any problem in Ico, and because of that it's linear. It meets your specification exactly.

When designing a linear game, you are implicitly making the assumption that you can think of everything a game player would find interesting. This assumption is completely bizarre as there are so many different people with so many different tastes playing video games. There are going to be things that designed into the game that end up completely overlooked, but had the potential to be fun.

This is an imaginative but bewildering argument. So you're saying that every game developed should have as many possible things to do in it, in as many different ways, as possible-- in order to please as many different people as possible? That's hardly a particularly achievable blueprint... and, actually, I'd say it'd make a pretty bland game. What are you asking for here? A minigame compilation? Because, taken to its extreme, that's essentially what you'd end up with-- a thousand different rule systems for a thousand different means to thousands of different aims.

Are you really saying that by introducing two different methods of hitting a switch in Ico, you'd please a larger crowd? What if you had three or four different solutions instead? You say that 'when designing a linear game, you are implicitly making the assumption that you can think of everything a game player would find interesting'. Well, of course the designers are (or should be) making an effort to produce the most enjoyable product possible; but there's always going to be differing tastes out there, aren't there?

[Green Gibbon!]

When designing a linear game, you are implicitly making the assumption that you can think of everything a game player would find interesting.

I don't think that's true. You're designing the game according to your unique vision. If you allow the player too much freedom, you stand the risk of diluting the experience you're trying to achieve.

There have to be borders. As long as you're dealing with digital creations, there is always a limit. The puzzle may have 2 solutions or 50 solutions, but there's always going to be X number of ways to progress. In a game like Chu-chu Rocket specifically, having too many solutions would be a lazy way out, it would simply make the game too easy. By having only one solution for each scenario, the creator is saying: "See if you can think like me." The challenge becomes to crack the code. It's like a battle of minds.

You cannot classify this form of challenge as inferior to something more organic, say a realtime strategy game. Of course in Warcraft there are any number of strategies you can use to approach any given scenario, and that's great, but it is a completely different experience than a puzzle game, which, as I said before, is about solving riddles or cracking codes. They're simply two different ways to play, and of course we all have our preference, but neither is superior to the other.

Carrying this point forward, the idea of linearity is not inherently bad. Indeed, if you're trying to incorporate any kind of narrative or environment, some degree of linearity is unavoidable. If you don't have linearity, you don't have a videogame. You may have a card game or a board game, which can certainly be fun and allow for a high degree of personalization, but you also remove the potential for aesthetics and the element of creation. Art is linear.

[CE]

I must state upfront one assumption that I am making which may not be apparent. The fundamental difference in the video game from other forms of media is that the video game is interactive. Therefore, a better video game will be more "video game like" if it is more interactive. Since interactivity is about making choices in response to other's choices (whether the choices are from a computer or a person I view as irrelevant), more choices = more interactivity = better video game.

I don't think that's true. You're designing the game according to your unique vision. If you allow the player too much freedom, you stand the risk of diluting the experience you're trying to achieve.

Why must the experience be self contained? Why can't the experience be something that is created by both you and the game player?

There have to be borders. As long as you're dealing with digital creations, there is always a limit. The puzzle may have 2 solutions or 50 solutions, but there's always going to be X number of ways to progress. In a game like Chu-chu Rocket specifically, having too many solutions would be a lazy way out, it would simply make the game too easy.

Or make the game too difficult to make. Designing a really good puzzle with one solution requires a significant amount of work. Now if you have to account for three different solutions, make sure they're all fun, and make sure that you haven't generated any trivial solutions that remove the fun, you're going to be talking weeks to design one puzzle. However, I believe that game players as a whole would prefer smaller, but more interactive games than the "1000 hours of game time" games that are so prevelant in RPGs.

What I feel is really holding this style of "game" back is the desire for a story. Interactive story technology is still severly lacking in the ability to allow meaningful player interaction. There's usually only two to three different paths to the end which is hardly interactive at all! My solution to this problem is ditch the story.

You cannot classify this form of challenge as inferior to something more organic, say a realtime strategy game. Of course in Warcraft there are any number of strategies you can use to approach any given scenario, and that's great, but it is a completely different experience than a puzzle game, which, as I said before, is about solving riddles or cracking codes. They're simply two different ways to play, and of course we all have our preference, but neither is superior to the other.

Puzzle games are fundamentally about solving problems. In games they tend to be along the lines of "get to the next room" or "open this door". In real life, there is never only one solution to a problem. To get to the next room you could walk through the current room, you could climb out a window and enter the next room from the out side, you could hire a bulldozer to demolish the house you are in, thus destroying any obstacles that were in your way, to name a few things off the top of my head.

Carrying this point forward, the idea of linearity is not inherently bad. Indeed, if you're trying to incorporate any kind of narrative or environment, some degree of linearity is unavoidable. If you don't have linearity, you don't have a videogame. You may have a card game or a board game, which can certainly be fun and allow for a high degree of personalization, but you also remove the potential for aesthetics and the element of creation. Art is linear.

So you believe that all the following games are not video games, but card games or board games since they have no real narative? If not then what is the fundamental distinction that makes them not video games?
Magic Online
Kung Fu Chess
ChuChu Rocket!
Deadly Rooms of Death
Marble Madness
Smash Brothers
Bangai O
Dance Dance Revolution

[Zeta]

This is an imaginative but bewildering argument. So you're saying that every game developed should have as many possible things to do in it, in as many different ways, as possible-- in order to please as many different people as possible? That's hardly a particularly achievable blueprint... and, actually, I'd say it'd make a pretty bland game. What are you asking for here? A minigame compilation? Because, taken to its extreme, that's essentially what you'd end up with-- a thousand different rule systems for a thousand different means to thousands of different aims.

Dude - the Sims fits your description of a totally non-linear game perfectly. And it's not a minigame compilation. You can do things in as many ways as you can imagine. I would wager that's why it's one of, if not the, most popular videogames of all time. It's totally unlinear and you can basically do anything in it.

What I feel is really holding this style of "game" back is the desire for a story. Interactive story technology is still severly lacking in the ability to allow meaningful player interaction. There's usually only two to three different paths to the end which is hardly interactive at all! My solution to this problem is ditch the story.

That's a conclusion that too many gamers make. You need a story in ALL games. Because the story influences so many things: settings, art, goals. Without a story, you don't really have a template to build on. Players will feel directionless and apathy. If you take away a story from an RPG, all you have left is an MMORPG without other players - and as Fable has recently proven - that's a recipie for disaster.

Even a game like the Sims is build around stories - the players make them up as they go along, but a chain of events that tells a tale is ultimately what gameplaying is all about. How personal the story becomes is up to a combination of the game designer and the player - but it still must exist - even if it's the most simplistic thing.

It feels impersonal if there's no story.

The exception to this, is of course - multiplayer games. Because the interaction between the players makes up for a story by providing motivation.

So you believe that all the following games are not video games, but card games or board games since they have no real narative? If not then what is the fundamental distinction that makes them not video games?
Magic Online
Kung Fu Chess
ChuChu Rocket!
Deadly Rooms of Death
Marble Madness
Smash Brothers
Bangai O
Dance Dance Revolution

Most of those are not true "interactive" type videogames. They have no story because they're geared toward multiplayer - where the focus is on interaction between two humans sharing the experience rather than between the player and a synthetic world.

[Popcorn]

must state upfront one assumption that I am making which may not be apparent. The fundamental difference in the video game from other forms of media is that the video game is interactive. Therefore, a better video game will be more "video game like" if it is more interactive. Since interactivity is about making choices in response to other's choices (whether the choices are from a computer or a person I view as irrelevant), more choices = more interactivity = better video game.

A 'game' is where you try and meet a specific challenge within a context (the necessary limitations Gibs mentions). This is the only defining factor. You don't give any reason as to why 'more interactivity' would necessarily improve the experience.

Why must the experience be self contained? Why can't the experience be something that is created by both you and the game player?

Because the player only gets to ride the rollercoaster, not design it. At the end of the day, a game is something that is designed by someone with an idea in their heads-- you can't change this, unfortunately, short of having an idea yourself.

What I feel is really holding this style of "game" back is the desire for a story. Interactive story technology is still severly lacking in the ability to allow meaningful player interaction. There's usually only two to three different paths to the end which is hardly interactive at all! My solution to this problem is ditch the story.

This I will agree with to some degree. I've spent a lot of time discussing this with Dache recently, actually... I've decided that story definitely has a place in games, but it's most enjoyable if it's the player's story and not Tidus'.

Puzzle games are fundamentally about solving problems. In games they tend to be along the lines of "get to the next room" or "open this door". In real life, there is never only one solution to a problem. To get to the next room you could walk through the current room, you could climb out a window and enter the next room from the out side, you could hire a bulldozer to demolish the house you are in, thus destroying any obstacles that were in your way, to name a few things off the top of my head.

I fail to see any relevance to anything here at all. The point of any game is to fulfil certain tasks within certain limitations-- you need the limits, as I think GG! explained pretty well, or else it's not any bloody fun, is it. What are you asking for here, Real Life Simulator?

So you believe that all the following games are not video games, but card games or board games since they have no real narative?

I believe he was demonstrating that games need to have linearity by definition, not that they need to have narratives.

Dude - the Sims fits your description of a totally non-linear game perfectly. And it's not a minigame compilation. You can do things in as many ways as you can imagine. I would wager that's why it's one of, if not the, most popular videogames of all time. It's totally unlinear and you can basically do anything in it.

No you can't.

[Green Gibbon!]

Well, the extent to which narrative plays a part in a videogame can vary wildly, but it's far more important in a single-player environment, as Zeta pointed out. Games like DDR are so popular with the masses because they lack this dynamic. I'm not saying that DDR isn't fun or that it isn't relevant (although, in reality, I don't like it), but yes, it is fundamentally different from, say, Final Fantasy, or Sonic, or even Bangai-O. It could almost qualify as more of a sport than a videogame.

Games are interactive, but not just for the sake of being interactive. If that were the case, there'd be no difference whatsoever between a videogame and the physical games (chess, baseball, rock-paper-scissors, etc) that humankind has been playing for centuries. Games are an interactive medium. They're like paintings or movies, except that you have control - whatever extent of control - over the outcome or the flow of events. Mario's not going to jump onto that platform until you command him to do so, but you will eventually have to jump onto that platform. Alex isn't going to get the dragon armor until you defeat that monster guarding the chest, and how you defeat that monster is up to you, but you will have to beat him to progress. You make things happen at your own pace and sometimes with a number of possible results, but you are still in the hands of somebody else's vision. What they decide to let you do or not do in their creation is a matter of artistic judgment that should ideally result in the best experience. Of course, sometimes they are completely off the mark, but the point is that more freedom is not invariably the best solution.

[CE]

This is the last post I'm posting to this thread today. I have other things to do then check this thread every hour. ;)

That's a conclusion that too many gamers make. You need a story in ALL games. Because the story influences so many things: settings, art, goals. Without a story, you don't really have a template to build on. Players will feel directionless and apathy. If you take away a story from an RPG, all you have left is an MMORPG without other players - and as Fable has recently proven - that's a recipie for disaster.

<snip>

The exception to this, is of course - multiplayer games. Because the interaction between the players makes up for a story by providing motivation.

You do not need a story. What's the story for Tetris or Klax? Did you really play Bangai O or hell, Sonic Heroes, for the story? The only recent game I can think of that I played for the story was Shenmue, and that was only bearable because I could go to the You Arcade and play Hang On for fun. A player does need a goal, but there is no reason it can't be user defined.

This is where the direction I mentioned comes into play. The direction is a developer encouraged goal, like the wanted rating in GTA3. You do not have to attempt to get all five stars, but since your rating is always RIGHT THERE IN YOUR FACE, most people do try to get five stars. Because Rockstar knew people would try to get up to a five star rating, they were able to make that path more enjoyable with it getting progessively more difficult, as tougher police come after you. Most GTA3 clones (including Vice City) don't seem to appreciate the fact that what made GTA3 so enjoyable was its non-linearity.

So you believe that all the following games are not video games, but card games or board games since they have no real narative? If not then what is the fundamental distinction that makes them not video games?
Magic Online
Kung Fu Chess
ChuChu Rocket!
Deadly Rooms of Death
Marble Madness
Smash Brothers
Bangai O
Dance Dance Revolution

Most of those are not true "interactive" type videogames. They have no story because they're geared toward multiplayer - where the focus is on interaction between two humans sharing the experience rather than between the player and a synthetic world.

Some of the games, yes, but others are distinctly single player. Specifically, Marble Madness, Bangai O, and DROD do not involve competition except with one's self. I believe that games can have a pure sport-like enjoyment where the goal is to become better at the game, not to become immersed in the world. That is what I'd like to see encouraged in recent games.

As a trivial example of something that could be added in that direction, the next Sonic game should not just give an overall rating, but rate the player on a number of different styles of play such as Speed, Damage, and Style. But unlike Viewtiful Joe, it should be impossible to get a perfect in each rating; just like in real life, to get a perfect Speed rating, you should have to perform sub par in Damage and Style. If you want to tie unlockables to this, you can do so, though I'd greatly prefer saving and uploading playthroughs.

[Popcorn]

Yeah, whatever, but why is a lack of total non-linearity bad?