Is 'Safe' Gaming The Best Kind Of Gaming? 126
An anonymous reader writes "James Portnow has written up an in-depth article about 'risk in game design'. He discusses the concept of the safe game, 'any game where given X hours (with minor variance for skill) any player will beat the game and get the prize.' Do you prefer your games tricky and studded with failure points, or does smooth and easy win the race?"
How about both? (Score:5, Interesting)
Difficulty levels. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, consider a game like, say, one of the Final Fantasies. Those are challenging, but you can generally beat one, given enough hours. This is good, because you don't want to pay $50 for a game and not get to see the end of the story. But, being able to see the end does not imply getting all the Legendary Weapons, and damnit, we deserved ours. I say "we", because my roommate and I traded off playing the Chocobo Training (for Tidus' weapon) -- even tossing the controller halfway through, as we were each better at different parts of it.
Or Halo, maybe the best example. Legendary is about as hard as you can make it and still have it be possible. Easy is a bit like "I Can Win" -- if you're trying at all, you'll beat it easily.
I can enjoy a game like, say, Half-Life 2 -- hard was too easy, but it was still fun. But nothing gives a game replayability like a decent set of difficulty levels. And if your game is, say, Enter The Matrix, you NEED as much replayability as you can get -- DAMN that game was short.
I can also enjoy a game that is hard, but not impossible. The Jak games were like this for me, especially Jak II. Often, required missions were ridiculously hard, requiring 10 or 20 tries to get it right. But it was possible, and the plot, animation, and humor makes it all worth it, no matter how short the cinematic.
So, in short, you are permitted to make it hard, provided you either provide a way around it (by making it an optional sidequest, or by allowing an easier difficulty level), or make it worth it. Difficulty levels are really the answer you are looking for -- the casual gamer won't buy Midnight Club 2 or Jak 2, the hardcore gamer won't buy Half-Life 2, but they'll both be happy with Halo 2 for quite a long time.
Oh, and crappy, old, still hard arcade versions of this game are to be unlockable secrets (PoP: Sands of Time had PoP 1), NOT requirements for beating the game! (Donkey Kong 64 required you to beat the original Donkey Kong!)
Casual, but not looking for a free ride. (Score:4, Interesting)
a) allows you to at least play even if you aren't that skilled
b) has rewards for people who have/improve skills
c) games without "real" endings. Even if there is some kind of ending (like the end of a particular round), I want a game with replayability.
I enjoy real time and turn based strategy games, mmorpgs... right now I'm playing a lot of Puzzle Pirates, which I think is a good example. I really don't care for shooters (I'm just not wired that way, I guess), nor do I care for single player "rpg" titles, most of the time.
Re:Beat the game? (Score:2, Interesting)
I tend to see any game I don't want to uninstall in the first 15 min to be a good game. If it make me want to launch it again in the same week, it is a very good game.
Of course, I DL demos whenever I can before considering buying the game, and I don't even try to finish at least 3/4 of them.
Re:Beat the game? (Score:2, Interesting)
On the whole, if a game can be "finished," I'm not interested in it at all. Give me open ended, skill based games with infinate replaybility every time.
If I could "finish" playing the flute, why would I even start?
KFG
Re:Beat the game? (Score:3, Interesting)
I would have to argue that this applies to games, too. There is more than one game. There's even more than one type of game. Heck, I can even invent my own!
Even in scripted games, there's almost always more to do. Beat the game faster, get a higher score, die fewer times, etc. Many of them have goals built into them where you have to find hidden things or do certain things in a specified timeframe and you almost certainly won't get them all on the first playthrough of the game.
Perhaps you just happen to prefer the type of games that lend themselves to being open ended anyway, that's cool. Your reply gives me the impression that you dislike non open ended games due to a skewed view of them, though. I'm assuming you also read books and watch movies and they suffer from the complaints you have about games far more than the games usually do... hell, if you go to the theater it's even starting to cost damned near as much as a game or even more if you buy older or used games, which throws out the money argument.
Personally, I prefer a game that ends eventually. It gives me a point where I can say "that was a cool story" or "that game was pretty fun, I bet I can beat it again faster and get super weapon x" or even just "alright, it's done. Now I can move onto a new game and see what story and/or challenges await me there" without feeling like I've still got stuff to do in the current game.
I have a better idea (Score:3, Interesting)
A free ranging sandbox game with one main quest, or even several, most of which would have 3-4 different ways to solve it. With a setup like Oblivion, that gives you countless different ways to stat-up.
I would also liberalize the game.
a) you can infinitely jack up the stats of your weapons/armor, and your own skills and attributes, if you have the funds / magical items / ingredients to make it happen
b) the enemy has a high chance of stat'ing up right along with you and a high chance of packing equally jacked up armor and weapons. everything from hapless rats to some guy in enchanted daedric armor, reflect damage/magicka enchantments and all that. oops. time to pick a new tactic for taking him down! enemies can stat up even higher than you, too, so if you're resting on your laurels you can actually fall behind. the game can also spawn random people far stronger than you. I like that idea actually, it makes things more challenging.
c) other NPC's should be able to come up to you and ask for training. Or it should be an option in your dialog - as in, when you talk to someone and they happen to want training, the dialog will come up. you train them, get paid, and get 1/10 or 1/100 progress toward a raise in the relevant skill level. there should be quests to make you capable of training, and then the higher level trainer you are, the more stat progress you get from training someone. Imagine the time you'd sink in the game trying to be a trainer for ALL skills. then that NPC trains another NPC who might come back and be your enemy.
d) repeat c) for selling stuff. Why not go on a quest to buy a physical store and stock it and sell stuff? corrupt cops come by and shake you down and then you have more quests to put them down.
e) romance. yeah, romance. what's wrong with romance? you can kill people, why not have romance? at least then you can actually care about a character rather than just use 'em for stats or whatever.
f) keep the arena combat. please. all games need some kind of arena. kudos to Oblivion for introducing neverending arena combat with monsters and stuff. next time, though, bring us some daedra to play with. 2 dremora and one storm giant. major coolness!
g) tons of side quests. tons and tons.
h) take a page from Morrowind: you can join one faction but not its obviously opposed faction
i) random super bad NPC's come in town and kill random (non plot related) NPC's, get a bounty, and you can collect on it. of course, someone else is also trying to collect, too.