Game Design Backlash?

[ix-ir]

There are well designed games selling well, from a design POV I think it's hard to beat Portal and Braid for inventing unique mechanics, making them work and then taking the player through variations.

The reasons that Braid and Portal are good are exactly the same ones that make my other two examples bad - most games are basically systems of pattern recognition.
"It has even got to a point where you often know not to touch a mounted turret because it will result in spawning waves of bad guys for you to shoot."

Serious Sam was one of the worst offenders for this where taking trivial-looking items might set off huge hordes. This was fighting against enjoyment of the game because items are supposed to be rewards rather than tiresome. Only major items where the design language more or less tells you what will happen when you take the item does this trick work. Doom 3's spawning monsters behind you also falls into the uber cheap failure category as there's no rhyme or reason to it.

[wattro]

well serious sam intended to do what they did. i actually quite liked the game for that reason. anything less wouldn't have been very serious.

[monaster]

Agree with wattro. Serious Sam was great fun indeed (although we already know that kind of computer game hero posting unnecessary one-liners whenever possible ), and fucking around with the serious Editor for a while gave you the ability to either hide the spawn points in a way that it won't be THAT obvious how the trigger/spawn-system works OR you became adept at setting loads of triggers and spawn points so that noone will ever realise any pattern behind your home-brew maps, simply because they're attacked the whole time and are ought to go on a rampage. That's simply what Serious Sam is made off and made for, especially SSSE.

[dichtfux]

I found Serious Sam very boring. I could hardly motivate myself to play the coop mode with a friend who asked me to play it with him -- and that was while I was both drunk and at a LAN party.

[fKd]

im of the opinion that fps's are made for the main stream casual gamer these days, auto health regen, low damage guns etc have removed a lot of the fun... ahh the duke/doom days, low on health and being extra jumpy while hearing the raAAA of a triggered trap, or shooting someone in the face the first time with the double barreled shotgun and hearing that funny scream the doom marine lets out as he turns to sludge on a 14.4k modem.. lol so many good memories.. before games became to big a business and developers were more worried about share holders than making something new or fun... all these tech jumps have removed the soul somehow... god its been a long time since i really got into a game... i mean for christ sake im still playing ra3 and zdoom while making maps for engines which came out in 99 (ut and q3) even tho i have a really powerful computer.. i cant put my finger on it... the soul of a good game... hmmmm sorry its 1:30 and i'm ranting

[obsidian]

im of the opinion that fps's are made for the main stream casual gamer these days, auto health regen, low damage guns etc have removed a lot of the fun...

A lot of games have been designed for the console and then ported to PC, making them really sub-par (from the PC gamer's point of view). That's why you have all these games with regenerating health, casual gaming that promotes the "duck-and-cover" tactic used in these games rather than the more aggressive Doom/Quake action. Not all games are like that, just a lot of them since there is a lot of console porting these days.

ahh the duke/doom days, low on health and being extra jumpy while hearing the raAAA of a triggered trap, or shooting someone in the face the first time with the double barreled shotgun and hearing that funny scream the doom marine lets out as he turns to sludge on a 14.4k modem.. lol so many good memories..

Rosy-eyed goggles. I have good memories as well, but the original Doom type game play is awfully simple and don't forget all the monster closets which made the game that everyone seems to hate today. Standards have changed, a perfect Doom remake with better graphics would seem pretty bad by today's standards.

before games became to big a business and developers were more worried about share holders than making something new or fun... all these tech jumps have removed the soul somehow... god its been a long time since i really got into a game...

Publishers and distribution and sales companies might be worried about share holders, but I think it's a big mistake to think that game developers aren't aiming to make something new or fun. Most game developers ARE gamers to begin with. There are quite a few professional game developers who are Q3W regulars. I've played games with game developers. But making a triple A title a hit is hard work and often a hit and miss game of chance.

Doom 3 monster closets are something taken directly from the original game and while they are what the original game is known for, gamers rejected it in the remake. How were the game developers supposed to know that's not what people wanted? As part of the modding community, you know that you want to make a level that is fun, you know that it takes a significant amount of work to make the map, and you know how it's a challenge to get anyone (besides other mappers) to actually play your map, since gamers seem to gravitate to the same old handful of maps while complaining that there are no new maps to play. Sort of a weird paradox, but everyone complains about the lack of innovation and often when it comes, people complain that it's too different or too much of the same or something else to complain about. Dunno, but I'm starting to think that gamers these days are spoiled and and inheritly difficult to please.

i mean for christ sake im still playing ra3 and zdoom while making maps for engines which came out in 99 (ut and q3) even tho i have a really powerful computer.. i cant put my finger on it... the soul of a good game... hmmmm sorry its 1:30 and i'm ranting

Old games are still fun, but that's not to say that there haven't been any good new games. I'm enjoying ETQW and can't seem to stop playing it, I've hit over 600 hours and the highest rank possible and play often with members of the Q3W clan.

[ix-ir]

Rosy-eyed goggles.

I'm not sure I agree, I still play Doom single player from time to time as well as Quake 1 and play Quake 3 for most of my multiplayer. It's not rose-coloured goggles if you still play the games and have given more modern titles a shot. For strat games I play Starcraft and Master of Orion 2, again old games, I've played Warcraft 3 extensively but it's shallow, I've been near top of the ladder for Dawn of War but it's a shit design, I've got the latest Civilisation and Total War and plenty of other recent games but tend never to return to them after the first play through, they're not as good as the older games.

[wattro]

agree that gamers are perhaps coddled to too much... "hey i died, don't punish me". this removes the challenge from a significant number of games. i'd write more here, but i don't want to write 32 paragraphs.

most games target a metacritic of 80+ and a good publishing deal. FPS games always sell, even if they are shit (army of two, anyone?).

one of the things that really stood out with Doom was the potential for monsters to turn on each other. that was really cool.

[Silicone_Milk]

Rosy-eyed goggles. I have good memories as well, but the original Doom type game play is awfully simple and don't forget all the monster closets which made the game that everyone seems to hate today. Standards have changed, a perfect Doom remake with better graphics would seem pretty bad by today's standards.

Doom 3 monster closets are something taken directly from the original game and while they are what the original game is known for, gamers rejected it in the remake. How were the game developers supposed to know that's not what people wanted? As part of the modding community, you know that you want to make a level that is fun, you know that it takes a significant amount of work to make the map, and you know how it's a challenge to get anyone (besides other mappers) to actually play your map, since gamers seem to gravitate to the same old handful of maps while complaining that there are no new maps to play. Sort of a weird paradox, but everyone complains about the lack of innovation and often when it comes, people complain that it's too different or too much of the same or something else to complain about. Dunno, but I'm starting to think that gamers these days are spoiled and and inheritly difficult to please.

Old games are still fun, but that's not to say that there haven't been any good new games. I'm enjoying ETQW and can't seem to stop playing it, I've hit over 600 hours and the highest rank possible and play often with members of the Q3W clan.

Those are some interesting points. I think that part of the feeling or "soul" (as somebody put it) of the game came from its graphics as well as its gameplay and audio. A perfect Doom 1 remake with the latest "next-gen" graphics just wouldn't feel like the Doom I know and love.

I've been thinking hard about what it is about certain games that make them so enjoyable and I've been having a difficult time pinning it down. So far I've come to the conclusion that it's not just gameplay and it's not just graphics. A good game demonstrates an excellent harmony between gameplay, graphics, audio, and storyline (if there is one). I think that a lot of games today don't feel like something that could be a classic because it lacks this harmony. They are, as you say, console ports. When ported from their native platform the games lose a certain amount of synergy and become "just another game".

I had a hard time getting in to ETQW during beta. I thought I'd instantly dig it because I loved ET: RTCW so much but it seemed like ETQW had a higher ratio of jackasses planting C4s on your tank because they wanted to drive.

[ix-ir]

Not to pour cold water on this thread, the discussion is interesting, but this is not the route to take if you actually want to create something. Get to work if you do.

[Silicone_Milk]

I've got a notebook filled with scribbles on various ideas but that's it.

I've been too busy to actually get anything done.

[MKJ]

Silicone, you must have played a different Duke3D than me. Its horrible level design made me wander around a map for hours, completely dried up purely cause I had no idea I shouldve dropped a pipebomb near those tiny cracks in the wall.

how i loathed that game

[Silicone_Milk]

Silicone, you must have played a different Duke3D than me. Its horrible level design made me wander around a map for hours, completely dried up purely cause I had no idea I shouldve dropped a pipebomb near those tiny cracks in the wall.

how i loathed that game

Really? The levels usually pushed you in the direction you needed to go since the engine was kind of limited in terms of making something super expansive that one could get lost in.

The only level that threw me off and had me confused was the prison level with the switches you had to throw to open the doors in a certain order to get to a submarine.


I dont know about other people but I never had an issue with the cracks. That was probably due to the accidental shooting of the movie screen with the RPG in the first level. It made me go "hmm.. maybe other cracks blow up". But I suppose you're right. It could be more obvious....

[monaster]

I can't remember having any problems with the level structure, neither with the to-be-blown-up cracks in the walls. After some time I even got lost in a few levels because I did only search for these cracks to get another secret. The only level where there were problems finding the normal route was the one with the valley style and the shield that said: "St. Andreas Fault" or something like that. After 2 hours of constant reloading and flying around with a cheated jetpack (to be able to check every single brush) I found out that it was only a bug which prevented one of the stone wall to break down ; THAT was the reason why I couldn't proceed, has anyone else ever experienced that bug?