The Bartle Test is a test that classifies gamers as a permutation of 4 different types of gamers: Hearts, who enjoy social interactions; Diamonds, who enjoy in-game wealth and power; Spades, who enjoy secrets and exploration; and Clubs, who enjoy killing and grieving. So, I've decided we need games that embrace and focus on these specific groups. So, here are mine:
Hearts: Two player tank game. One player steers and drives the tank, the other player aims and fire the cannon. Designed to be played at the same console.
Diamonds: ...
Spades: Metroidvania with no given instructions. The player will have to discover all the abilities given to them initially, and there are no descriptions given for anything in-game.
Clubs: ...
To be finished later.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Reward and Punishment
I used to play Maplestory a lot. I loved the visual style, and as a fan of action RPGs the game-play appealed to me, but the game's pacing was rather upsetting. There are many points in the game where you have nothing better to do than to grind for levels. Many of the quests that are offered do not properly reward you for the effort invested in them, and due to this I have come to a sort of realization.
The way games should work is that the player is rewarded according to how much effort they invest in a particular activity. The way games actually work is that the player is rewarded arbitrarily according to how the designer felt. I have seen many RPGs hand out ultimate weapons for merely chatting up random NPCs while simultaneously burdening them with the irksome task of slaying 1,000 monsters for a handful of potions.
Many games also seem to resist punishing players for failure or for obviously bad judgement. Many games also like to throw in the "you thought you were doing good, but no! You've done evil and now I'm going to punish you" events. Don't punish a player for having good intentions! If I want to save the old man from the raging inferno, I shouldn't be told I've just saved the world's most wanted rapist and then thrown in prison for helping him. But don't tell the player that everything will be alright when they get their heads handed to them when they start their game by wandering into the Dungeon Paved with the Corpses of Level 1 Adventures. If a player shows bad judgement, tell them!
Punish failure, reward success. It's not hard.
The way games should work is that the player is rewarded according to how much effort they invest in a particular activity. The way games actually work is that the player is rewarded arbitrarily according to how the designer felt. I have seen many RPGs hand out ultimate weapons for merely chatting up random NPCs while simultaneously burdening them with the irksome task of slaying 1,000 monsters for a handful of potions.
Many games also seem to resist punishing players for failure or for obviously bad judgement. Many games also like to throw in the "you thought you were doing good, but no! You've done evil and now I'm going to punish you" events. Don't punish a player for having good intentions! If I want to save the old man from the raging inferno, I shouldn't be told I've just saved the world's most wanted rapist and then thrown in prison for helping him. But don't tell the player that everything will be alright when they get their heads handed to them when they start their game by wandering into the Dungeon Paved with the Corpses of Level 1 Adventures. If a player shows bad judgement, tell them!
Punish failure, reward success. It's not hard.
Dungeon Crawl - Stone Soup
I am a big fan of Roguelikes. My favorite RL has got to be Dungeon Crawl - Stone Soup, although Castle of the Winds was my first. Crawl offers what most games fear to offer players: Limitless adventure. Like most RLs, Crawl features a random dungeon generator, which builds and populates dungeon levels as you visit them. A simple character creator offers thousands of different combinations, and because character growth is dependant on what actions you perform while playing (which is dependant on what you have in your inventory), the game prevents you from ever playing the same twice.
I've been playing for over a year now (I started around Thanksgiving of '07). The furthest I've ever been would be the Den (or whatever it's called, the one with all the rats and snakes). Crawl is not easy - the name suits the game's progression well. Normally, this would be a bad thing, but the nature of the game places the pacing solely on the player, so I can only blame myself.
Apparently, several of my classmates have become fans of this game behind my back. Strange how that tends to happen with games I enjoy...
I've been playing for over a year now (I started around Thanksgiving of '07). The furthest I've ever been would be the Den (or whatever it's called, the one with all the rats and snakes). Crawl is not easy - the name suits the game's progression well. Normally, this would be a bad thing, but the nature of the game places the pacing solely on the player, so I can only blame myself.
Apparently, several of my classmates have become fans of this game behind my back. Strange how that tends to happen with games I enjoy...
Time Twins
So, watching Adam play Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask last night made me remember an idea I had a few years back. In it, you have only 24 hours before a bomb goes off and destroys your world, so you must set off to find and defuse it. Only, it is impossible to do so on the first try. Each time the bomb goes off, you start over, but here is the twist:
Your past selves still exist, and set off to do what they did in your past lives.
Choke on my Groundhog, YOU BASTARD ROBOTS uses this idea in a top-down shooter setting. Each time you die, you start the level over, but your previous attempts continue to play out their doomed lives as if you didn't exist. I have fun trying to save them by destroying the source of their deaths, a sort of time-paradox vendetta. Time travel is awesome.
Your past selves still exist, and set off to do what they did in your past lives.
Choke on my Groundhog, YOU BASTARD ROBOTS uses this idea in a top-down shooter setting. Each time you die, you start the level over, but your previous attempts continue to play out their doomed lives as if you didn't exist. I have fun trying to save them by destroying the source of their deaths, a sort of time-paradox vendetta. Time travel is awesome.
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