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Awoo.

When the lack of foresight is fun and when it's bullshit


nintega137

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I know the title is confusing, but basically this is the gist. When playing a video game for the first time, there are many moments of course where we are genuinely surprised by something that happens in the level designs.

 

Sometimes it's part of the fun of the game and being surprised by that the first time and usually knowing your way around it after the fact, but other times it's complete bullshit for the same reason that no one would expect that on their first try. 

 

So my question is what makes the unpredictable moments in gaming level design work? I suppose something like this can apply quite heavily to the sonic series, which many claim often relies on level memorization, but there's several game series that have had this quality so I felt it was general enough to put it here. Your thoughts? 

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When an unpredictable event still provides sufficient timing and resources for a player to be able to get through it on their first time without relying on memorization, that's perfectly fine.

 

When it relies on memorizing every event and needing to know every bit of the layout, that's bullshit.

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It's a difficult thing to put into words, but basically I feel that the element of surprise should never be used to screw the player over.  Here's just a few examples-

 

Pleasant surprise: A meteorite lands in front of you, warning of you of the impending threat and new thing you have to dodge.

 

Unpleasant surprise: A meteorite lands right on top of you, so now you know you have to dodge meteorites.

 

Pleasant surprise: You see a red laser pointer, indicating the presence of snipers you have to avoid.

 

Unpleasant surprise: You walk into a field and get shot on sight, so now you know there are snipers to avoid.

 

Pleasant surprise: A bomb-shaped enemy has a fuse on that, upon depletion, causes the enemy to explode. (i.e. Starlight Zone from Sonic 1)

 

Unpleasant surprise: An enemy blows up in your fucking face, so now you know they do that.

 

-

 

There are exceptions to this rule (primarily if there is narrative purpose to it), but I feel that any sort of surprise change in mechanics or any unpredictable element in a game that is introduced by deliberately messing the player up or making use of mental trickery is inherently bad design.

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I'm going to scream because I wrote a big ol' essay on this topic that I know about because I'm studying game design in college, but Google Chrome failed me and sent me back a page when I pressed backspace EVEN THOUGH I WAS IN THE TEXTBOX. I will now use a quick and probably poorly vague explanation to help you.

 

An interesting and likable surprise is one that is fair, safe, believable, and non-distracting to the player. It has to be some kind of surprise that keeps the player immersed and likely helps build the world and make it even more immersive.

 

There. I did it. Just kill me now.

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I'm going to scream because I wrote a big ol' essay on this topic that I know about because I'm studying game design in college, but Google Chrome failed me and sent me back a page when I pressed backspace EVEN THOUGH I WAS IN THE TEXTBOX. I will now use a quick and probably poorly vague explanation to help you.

N8te's swift descent into madness resonates so deeply within the darkest crevices of my soul.  We're all living the human condition, but he's putting it in big, red letters.

 

And also, I'm disappointed because I actually kind of want to hear a long-winded version of it.

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N8te's swift descent into madness resonates so deeply within the darkest crevices of my soul.  We're all living the human condition, but he's putting it in big, red letters.

 

And also, I'm disappointed because I actually kind of want to hear a long-winded version of it.

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Some games basically factor player death into their level design.  That is, to them, if something comes out of nowhere and kills the player without them having the possibility of reacting to or escaping from it, that's fine because the player will know next time.  I dislike this, as it treats inevitable ignorance as an active flaw on the player's part, and depending on where the player respawns it presents redoing parts that you've already conquered as an acceptable way of extending game length; both of these strategies I regard as disingenuous.  As suggested above then sometimes cheap tricks can be considered thematically appropriate for a game, but I think a theme that quickly becomes annoying is not a very good one.  ...Related to this are scare tactics in horror games, which are hard to pull off effectively when scripted, because if the player dies and has to go through the same sequence again then it immediately ceases to be scary.

 

I suppose that, ultimately, you have to think very hard about what kind of reaction a surprise is going to elicit.  Good surprises are shocking or frightening or amusing or delightful; bad ones are or become boring or annoying.  I also feel like this could eventually just become another "death in video games" discussion in that what we're complaining about are surprises that set us back through no fault of our own.  It's having to redo something that should have been perfectly acceptable the first time that irritates.

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It's a difficult thing to put into words, but basically I feel that the element of surprise should never be used to screw the player over.  Here's just a few examples-

 

Pleasant surprise: A meteorite lands in front of you, warning of you of the impending threat and new thing you have to dodge.

 

Unpleasant surprise: A meteorite lands right on top of you, so now you know you have to dodge meteorites.

 

Pleasant surprise: You see a red laser pointer, indicating the presence of snipers you have to avoid.

 

Unpleasant surprise: You walk into a field and get shot on sight, so now you know there are snipers to avoid.

 

Pleasant surprise: A bomb-shaped enemy has a fuse on that, upon depletion, causes the enemy to explode. (i.e. Starlight Zone from Sonic 1)

 

Unpleasant surprise: An enemy blows up in your fucking face, so now you know they do that.

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I believe an example of an unpleasant surprise would be in Other M; that stupid lava fish somehow jumps with enough force to go through a metal conduit and instantly kill you if you don't sense move.

 

An example of a very pleasant surprise would be in Xenoblade Chronicles, when the game shows you that visions are not just used in the cutscenes; it's part of the gameplay.

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