For the Challenge, Part II

Difficulty can, of course, be affected through programming as well as or alongside design.  Mario was programmed with hard limits on his jump height and the levels were designed accordingly.  There are some games where programming and design are complementary, and the result for the player is beautiful, lively physics.  The design and the programming tend to be set in stone for games – especially the latter – and that’s a good thing!  You need consistent ground rules in order for your game to be considered as, well, a “game.”  But when some elements are static, like the programming, other elements are often demanded to be dynamic, like the difficulty.

The most classic example of what I mean by “dynamic difficulty” can be found in the presence of multiple difficulty settings/modes in a game.  Easy, medium, hard – or if you’re feeling creative, “Kid Mode,” “Impossible,” “I am Death Incarnate!”, and so on.  They’ve existed for a long time, often as adaptive measures to player testing of a “baseline” difficulty.  The idea is that difficulty can be more flexible by tweaking certain parts of the game one way or the other depending on this setting.  This is more prevalent in games designed around complex stats and numbers – less so in platformers like Mario where player “stats” are as simple as failure upon taking one or two hits.

The problem is these tweaks are usually just that: tweaks.  Developers can easily program things like player/enemy stats to scale with the difficulty setting, but when they take this approach, every other aspect of the design is still operating under “normal mode rules.”  If you design a final dungeon with an arduous gauntlet of tough enemies, then double their stats as a hard mode condition, it’s unlikely that the difficulty of the same dungeon will remain well-balanced and tested.  Instead, it’ll simply take the player at least twice as long to complete a segment that was already balanced for a completely different pace – or else it’ll be unintentionally and incredibly difficult relative to the player character’s capabilities.  I mean, I’m convinced that oftentimes developers don’t even bother to test alternate difficulty modes at all, but that’s a little harder to examine and prove.

All joking aside, sometimes it’s painfully obvious that a game’s multiple difficulty levels are implemented more as an algorithm than a series of design changes or even tweaks.  Look at Fallout 3 or Skyrim.  When you slide the difficulty up or down, the only alteration you see is how much damage you deal and take.  Enemy configurations and dungeon puzzles remain exactly the same throughout.  The same as what they were when balanced for a “medium” difficulty (Fallout: New Vegas at least gets credit for introducing a “hardcore” mode that actually adds extra features and overhauls the mechanics).

I find this to be a slightly lazy solution to the difficulty “problem.”  What it really does at its ugly core is change the pace of a game, rather than the difficulty; you take twice as many swings at enemies, have to spend twice as long dodging them, and probably die a lot more.  Essentially, longer and more numerous iterations.  Like other fake difficulty, what this comes down to is a waste of the player’s time rather than a test of their skill or tactics.  I could seriously come up with some kind of fancy axiom… “the amount of enjoyment derived from a video game is inversely proportionate to the amount of control the player has over its pacing.”

A smarter way of adapting difficulty higher or lower might be changing enemy AI to not fall for the same tricks: a prime example would be the fighting game genre, where CPU opponents of higher levels will imitate correspondingly more complex tactics and reflexes.  Take level 9 CPUs in Smash Bros. games, which can destroy beginner players in much the same way a more experienced human opponent would: through better coordination of offense and defense.  Sure, you do often spend more time playing against a high-level AI than a low-level one, but the pacing is ultimately dictated by the skill of the player rather than the amount of bullets the enemy can absorb before going down.  If you practice a little more at Smash Bros., you’ll eventually be able to conquer an advanced AI (or human player) faster and faster as you adapt to the level of play.  If you practice a little more at Fallout 3, that irradiated mutant animal is going to sponge the same damage at the same rate no matter how much you wish it would die quickly.

But even stat changes can make for a more interesting challenge if balanced thoughtfully.  Look at Critical Mode in Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix.  Sure, enemies are programmed to deal out more damage, and the player’s max HP and MP gains are cut in half, but at the same time the player does more base damage and starts out with more abilities and ability points.  This results in a real dynamic difficulty where ultimately the player can take their time with cautious play to offset increased risk, but also apply skill and knowledge of the mechanics to actually complete the game faster.  In other words, the game rewards a higher difficulty with a potentially more streamlined pace.

But you’d better believe it took more thought to implement Critical Mode in Final Mix than “Very Hard” mode in Fallout 3.  There simply isn’t a shortcut to well-designed difficulty.  It bears repeating: simply making gameplay take longer does not make it more (legitimately) difficulty.  The whole experience has to be fun for the player in exchange for (and in proportion to) the extra effort.  Even if that requires a little extra effort.

The Time is Right to Remake Super Metroid

Metroid.  It’s probably the actual best franchise Nintendo has created.  Solid gameplay based on exploration and item progression, a story timeline that actually makes sense and features a consistent protagonist and universe (lookin’ at you, Zelda), and some of the most memorable and atmospheric worlds ever navigated in games.  In particular, Super Metroid put the series on the map in the industry as helping define an entire genre.  Back in the day, Metroid was among the greats.

And Nintendo has no clue what to do with it right now.

Following a… mixed reception, at best, to 2009’s entry into the series, Other M, there hasn’t been much action for Metroid fans.  So imagine the shock and excitement when rumors of a new title to be announced came to fruition at this year’s E3.  And then imagine the shock and outrage when said title was confirmed to be a co-op multiplayer/sports spinoff featuring none of the aforementioned features that made the series special to start with: no exploration or open-world gameplay, generic space marine player characters and no main narrative, and a silly tone devoid of the series’ grand immersive tradition.  Actually, you don’t have to imagine the outrage.  The trailer for Metroid Prime: Federation Force on YouTube has a dislike rate of almost 90%.  With that kind of announcement as the first Metroid game in over five years (the first good one in almost a decade), it’s not hard to come away with the opinion that Nintendo is a tad removed from the place where they were when they first created Samus and her world.

But I’m not here to rant about how much Federation Force is a slap in the face to the series.  Right now I’m here to talk about how Super Metroid can still save it.  Or rather, a remake of Super could.

I should note that usually I don’t go in for remakes as opposed to new, original ideas.  I think they’re usually a little lazy as a way to put out an installment that doesn’t require the same conceptual, programming, or design efforts; or a stopgap measure to sate fans of a series between major releases.  But that brings me to my first point.  A remake of Super, at this point, would primarily be a return to form and a celebration of Metroid‘s roots.  Since it’s clear that there’s not much desire to come up with a new concept for it right now, returning to the concept put forth by what many consider to be the greatest in the series would go a long way toward convincing them that Nintendo still respects the elements that earned Super its recognition.  A gesture saying “now look guys, we remember this exists.  We loved it too!”

This gesture would not be lost on an audience who grew up and is still playing and making games under Super Metroid‘s influence.  Metroidvania is a fairly popular genre in the indie scene and it would be missing a massive opportunity not to capitalize on that, even from a business standpoint.  The genre alone would sell copies, never mind the association with a classic Nintendo name.

Besides, simply being a remake wouldn’t necessarily mean that it’s a complete recycling.  Given modern console capabilities, a successful capture of the aesthetic and tone of Super Metroid would be mind-blowing to witness.  Imagine exploring Zebes in full HD, even 3D, environments and the kind of graphical quality that could be brought to bear in portraying them.  Imagine Super’s amazing and varied soundtrack given a remaster across the board.  Heck, even imagine an updated control scheme that streamlines some of the clunkier bits of Super in terms of movement and HUD navigation.

The progression of the game would also be an easy roadmap to follow.  Super has one of the best such roadmaps that video gamers have ever been challenged to follow.  For an in-depth analysis of this as its own topic, I recommend reading “The Invisible Hand of Super Metroid,” but for this post, suffice it to say that every area, every item acquisition, and even every dead end is placed in such a way as to guide players subtly while still affording them the sense of exploring the game world.  Exploration is the defining trait of the Metroidvania genre, and one of the best examples of it could be lifted wholesale at a time when that genre is popular.

And of course, if Nintendo really wanted to go the extra mile, they could add new content: perhaps new game areas (think Chozodia from Zero Mission), unlockables (taking cues from Prime Trilogy’s bonuses), incentives to speedrun, extra game modes like a harder difficulty or item randomizer… all of these have solid precedents from both previous official entries and the fanbase.

A remake would be great, but I feel like an effective one would be done with a couple caveats in place.

First and most essential, the game mechanics themselves would have to be virtually untouched.  The reason Super has endured in the fans’ memories for so long and still maintains an active playerbase today is because of how versatile the physics and even the glitches have become, catering to all styles and paces of play.  The temptation to remove single-wall wall jumping or the Mockball to “balance” the game or tighten the programming would definitely force it to conform to a unified vision, but it would sacrifice all of the charm and longevity Super possesses – not to mention completely alienate the speedrunning portion of the fanbase, who would be among the first to buy it.  The touchstone to point to here is Ocarina of Time 3D, which retained most of the sequence break-enabling glitches while still touching everything else up.

Second, even though the graphics and sound would be well-served if brought to modern standards, the design sensibilities would have to be grounded in the spirit of discovery and player-determined experience, something that isn’t always as appealing to developers today looking to railroad and handhold players according to their own ideas.  That just doesn’t fly in Metroid like it might in a AAA cinematic release.  For the sake of the experience, keep the noob bridge and don’t show a “run button” popup over it.

And, for the love of all that is not Other M, it would have to be free of any attempt at fleshing out the story beyond the opening monologue and a very few sparse cutscenes.  The narrative of Super is simple, and that simplicity grants it power.

In short, the keys to success in a remake are updating the production values while not needing to update the gameplay, aesthetic, and narrative elements that have already proven timeless enough to warrant a revisit.  Not that any of this is likely to occur, given the sparseness among Metroid titles that’s been a plague since even the N64 era, and the (sadly accurate) perception at Nintendo that it’s simply not one of the more popular franchises they can offer.  Even so, just because the opportunity isn’t taken doesn’t mean it’s not there.  I doubt many complaints would arise from Metroid fans.

A New Coat O’ Paint

Just updated the look of the site.  It now features an actual attempt at looking okay!

Mario Maker Musings

Found a post on a forum I frequent bemoaning the presence of a full $60 price tag for the upcoming Super Mario Maker, a game that, funnily enough, involves designing one’s own Mario platforming levels.  At first I didn’t think such a complaint was well-founded.  I myself am really looking forward to trying it out; it looks to be a full-fledged editing tool that incorporates almost every potential element in the thirty-year history of the franchise.  There’s not really anything bad about that, is there?  Why gripe about the price?

But I admit, I thought about it a little more, and I can see how one might have (dry) bones to pick with whoever decided to slap the full price on the game.  Consider: what we’re going to be paying for with SMM is largely the ability to produce content of our own.  Don’t get me wrong, the editor looks fun and well-put together, the stuff of User-Generated Content legend; and there are still going to be pre-designed levels included in the game.  But I can’t help but agree at least a little bit with the sentiment that Nintendo is shirking design duty this time around.

I think it’s an easy but fatal mistake to assume that game development is basically just coding and animation, maybe some fitting audio to round it all out.  Even with all the aesthetics and technical underpinnings, there’s a very important component to actual interactivity, and that’s design.  Here, I’m not referring to the aesthetics of a game, like the character art or texture detail.  With games, design can mean something else: the deliberate arranging of all the aforementioned devices according to a certain vision.

Sometimes, especially in a modern context of deep narratives and painstakingly constructed 3D models, roles like playtesting, level layout, mechanical balance, and difficulty tuning seem like an afterthought.  It’s easier to excuse their absence now that we have the technology to wrap games up in prettier packaging.  Necessity is the mother of invention – or to put it in terminology more apt for games, constraints are the foundation of creativity.  When all you really had to sell your game was the design, you had to make doubly sure it worked.

Design, more than any other part of the process, is what determines the player’s assessment of “this is fun!”  Design is just as much a determinant of the game’s spirit as the narrative tone or the color scheme (just look at how much the identity of Super Meat Boy is driven by incredibly well-iterated platforming challenges).  Design marries Mr. Mechanic to Miss Aesthetic and serves you cake at the reception.

So when you put out a title like Super Mario Maker and charge as much for it as any game that does include design as a cornerstone, you’re implicitly attaching zero value to the process of tuning and assembling the artwork and code.  You’re explicitly handing your customer a wrench and some auto parts and saying “build your own car” before charging them the same price as if they had bought a brand new one from a dealer.

And there’s even a way in which the latter is a good thing.  For all the aspiring game developers who will be making their own in a few years, it’s hard to imagine a better way than Mario Maker to enter the world of game design (especially in the context of a genre that’s largely faded into obscurity as far as the mainstream is concerned).  And it’ll force a lot of people to think about the effort that goes into making a truly great game more than the sum of its parts.  Who knows – maybe it’ll cause more value to be ascribed to design rather than less because it can’t be taken for granted this time?

I’m not trying to say that Mario Maker is a bad idea, or even that it’s not necessarily worth the price of admission.  The point here is that it’s not really a game so much as an editing tool.  If you deceive yourself that you’re essentially just purchasing more of the same as an amusing diversion, then that’s when you’re truly missing out on one of the most important and essentially fun steps in any development cycle.

When Ya Got Options

I’ve been wanting to write about optional content in games for a while, but couldn’t quite formulate anything.  Having just finished 100%ing all three of the original Ratchet & Clank installments in their HD Collection, the ideas are a bit clearer in my head, which will hopefully carry over in writing.

Optional content is, ironically, one of the primary things I seem to seek when I’m looking to get into a new game.  It adds longevity to the experience, fleshes out game mechanics to a degree not seen in the “main” parts, and just all-around deepens a game.  Even in the most basic sense, optional content denotes that there’s more of the game there.  Of course, in a modern game industry that sees increasing genre flexibility and open world gameplay, what exactly constitutes “optional” as compared to any other content can get nebulous.  This is almost a whole post in and of itself, but the games I use as lenses through which to view my ideas here provide a fairly clear distinction, so I won’t get too far into it right now.

As it pertains to Ratchet & Clank, optional elements have always been around in the series, but the first two sequels enhanced their presence and offered more incentive to pursue them.  They expanded on the original by implementing rudimentary RPG elements like experience-based upgradeable health and weapons as well as escalating enemy stats to match.  De facto “level ups.”  Also added were “arena” levels for pure combat challenges, sprawling “wasteland” environments with collectible treasures to sell to NPCs, and even more sidepaths offering helpful secondary gadgets as a reward for completion.  All in all, these were pretty well-implemented.  The arenas were so much fun that they’ve since become a staple of every main game in the franchise, and the RPG elements have arguably seen even more emphasis with time.

All these things add to the game, it’s true, but what if the additions aren’t good?

“But wait a minute, you dirty hypocrite,” I hear a heckler saying.  “You just said they were well-implemented!”  Well, yes.  The optional content in R&C is, as a rule, much better-implemented compared to a lot of comparable stuff in other games.  However, whenever you create sidequests, and especially whenever you install a system of experience-based player progression, you run the risk of also introducing poorly-tuned time and XP curves.

Take the second R&C game, for example.  Each weapon can be leveled up to increase its damage output and give it extra effects.  However, the required experience for each one to do so is rather off-balance.  Where the Pulse Rifle mercifully upgrades in a very short time considering its small ammo capacity and limited usage, another weapon with comparable properties like the Synthenoid takes an obscene amount of time.  Worse, “revisits” to a planet cause every enemy to give a fraction of the experience they originally did, making repeat runs for level-grinding even more tedious.

A similar phenomenon can seen in the grind for Bolts, the in-game currency, of which a few million are needed to buy everything in the game.  But enemy bolt drops and bolt containers are also heavily reduced on level revisits.  This and the curtailed XP gain are both probably measures put in place to prevent farming, but the big design problem here is that the XP curves and in-game economy necessitate farming to achieve 100% completion.  In reducing its effectiveness, you don’t cause players not to do it, you just cause them to waste time doing it for longer.  All you have done is make full completion more tedious.

The third game was actually a little better about the amount of grinding needed to achieve 100%.  Even though there were twice as many upgrades for each weapon and even more escalation in their selling prices, XP and Bolt gain was faster, more standardized between weapons, and less nerfed during backtracks.  You needed to farm enemies for much less time to obtain and fully upgrade every weapon.  This became apparent during my recent playthrough, where the amount of time spent actually playing through all the content was longer, and the time spent farming was shorter.  My congratulations to Insomniac for realizing somewhat that artificially inflating the amount of time it takes to reach 100% is bad design, and not to be ungrateful, but there was still an awful lot of grinding.

Grinding in video games is essentially – that is, at its core – the repetition of a simple action to increase the player’s stats or provide additional in-game resources.  This should never be used as a way to add length to or substitute for challenge of the optional content of a game.  For me at least, it’s just a little too close to real-life work for a paycheck or a school assignment (they’re both known as a “grind” for a reason).  In fact, part of what makes grinding so undesirable in a game is that I’m trying to escape exactly that in real life.  Rewards in games should be earned, true, but it should always be fun rather than actual work.

“Chillax bro,” the heckler might retort, “it’s all optional stuff you’re talking about anyway.  It’s not like anyone is making you do it as part of the main game.”  Well, sure.  Optional content is by definition part of a game that will go unseen by many players.  Because so much less attention is paid to it by the player, purely practical prioritization in designing the game means that much less attention should be paid to it by the developers as well, including things like tuning and iterations.

However, my contention nonetheless is that, as part of a game, it still has to be fun.  I used the example of grinding to bring out my point because it’s just about the quintessential enemy of fun in my book, but make no mistake; the principle applies to poorly balanced difficulty, unpolished level design, and unstable programming just as much as it does to level grinding. The content’s status as optional should not mean that it’s equally optional for it to be enjoyable.  Make it engaging.  Build on concepts already established.

Design the game with the philosophy that “play” is the relevant verb.

By the Numbers

Let’s talk about the black sheep of the Kingdom Hearts franchise: Chain of Memories.  This one still sticks out like a sore thumb next to the other installments: it had sprite-based graphics, strange (but oddly charming) writing, and especially card combat.  The card combat part has proven quite polarizing among the fanbase, which is kind of understandable.  The first game, which was the only other one out when CoM was released, had quickly and easily accessible gameplay that didn’t run roughshod too much all over the wonderful aesthetics and sweeping crossover ambitions.

CoM is almost a direct antithesis, recycling the same worlds wholesale and slapping on excuse plots for those (leaving the freshest material for the non-Disney segments) while its gameplay mechanics demanded the player’s full attention.  Every action you take is determined by playing a card, and almost every card exists as part of a numbers-oriented system of “greater than, less than.”  If you play a 4, an enemy can play a 6 and “break” your card, for example (“0” cards have the distinction of breaking any card but also being broken by any card depending on when they’re played).  Your ability from the first game to Guard attacks directly is gone, and Dodge Roll is much less useful, so card breaks are an essential mechanic to self-defense.  For added fun, you can combine up to three cards (sacrificing the first card chosen for the rest of the battle) in a “sleight” for a special combo attack – as well as higher numeric strength, given that the three card values are added together for the attack.

To the player who enjoys more “pure” action games this probably sounds like torture, but it actually works very well, and here’s why in a word: visibility.  Most JRPGs, for all their reliance on numbers, tend to make those numbers highly opaque.  If you want an example, just look at the EV mechanic in Pokemon or the way character stats affect their offense/defense in Final Fantasy.  A complicated series of behind-the-scenes equations drives most of the character progression and leaves the player with just a vague sense that a higher STR stat means harder hits.

With CoM, all cards are on the table.  So to speak.  If you play a 7 and your enemy plays a 9, your card gets cancelled and you immediately know why.  If you want to access a certain sleight, the game tells you exactly which cards of what numeric values to combine to use it.  If you want to engineer your entire deck around a set of boss-annihilating DPS sleights, or only load cards with higher numbers than what you know enemies can play, that’s entirely doable.  To wit, the mechanics are conveyed well enough that you can master them early on by using strategy and basic arithmetic, rather than simply follow them with varying degrees of awareness throughout the game.

And the rules of the game are consistent for enemies too.  Mobs have access only to pre-determined card values, thankfully never 0s, that are also shown on screen – such that you can learn them after a couple battles and revise your deck to counter if you want.  Bosses have the same options as you in terms of playing 0s and sleights, but also the same weaknesses.  Their 0s and sleights can be broken, they can be attacked while reloading, and they still have finite cards in their deck to play before doing so.  If you take the time to optimize your deck, you can trivialize battles.  And no enemy in the game is exempt from all these rules.  It’s all-in-all more fun to learn the combat system here because it’s always expressed clearly.

A “what you see is what you get” approach serves RPGs better than you’d know from examining a lot of entries in the genre, since the defining trait of their gameplay is that it’s based on strategy rather than timing or execution.  How they tend to play out, though, is that having stats is the key to victory, not employing them.  The reason many of them can’t have clearer expressions of how their mechanics work is that it would reveal how little the battles are influenced by the player compared to Random Number Generators and the raw stats themselves.  The near-automatic battles in Final Fantasy XIII get a lot of flak for their nature and exclusion of the player from the whole process, but it’s really just more honest about the player’s level of intellectual involvement than other installments in the series.  These strange and large numbers floating above the characters’ heads don’t have to get in the way of the graphics and the narrative that way.  And that’s fine, if that’s the kind of game you want to make.

Just, if you want to make one where you claim player involvement is supposed to be central, then make sure you communicate the rules of your game fairly enough that they can be involved and have it matter.

“Let Me Guess… You’ve Got a Great Personality.”

Personality tests are something of an enthusiastic hobby of mine.  “Which Character of [fictional work] Are You?”  “What’s your type according to [system categorizing personalities]?”  I used to eat those things up with a voracity bordering on addiction.  They were fun and interesting for an analytic mind.  At least, I fancy myself as such.

Eventually, I began to get just a little disillusioned.  As I got older I found that most of the online quizzes for my favorite shows and games had about as much depth as a backyard creek.  That realization tends to inspire doubt as to whether these folks writing up the quizzes are qualified in any way to accurately lump you in with other characters or people.  Still, occasionally, a really well-written quiz would come along that put thought into its associations and had algorithms just a little more complicated than an elementary schooler could crack with some trial and error (“if you answered mostly ‘C’…”).

One day, though, I discovered the Barnum Effect.  Wow.  To think that any given personality test or system could be engineered to spit out results that people taking it wouldn’t even think to disagree with.  What a handy little trick, said I, but I’m wise to it now.  I put very little stock in online personality tests from then on.  Not that I had ever sworn and lived by them, mind, but knowing that they were all bunk sort of ruined the experience for me altogether.

Eventually I got over myself.  These days I like them for the sheer fun factor rather than any realistic fascination about the psychological implications.  I’d like to think I’ve found the balance between mindless cranial osmosis and painful overanalysis when I say that a good personality test may not rely on the science of the thing, but it can still be instructive and build self-awareness.

Personality tests are probably not usually accurate or specific as a rule, but what they can be is indicators of some truths via parallel.  Many of them have headlines like “Who Are You?”  When you compare yourself to characters in stories, when you identify with them or despise them, you’re often looking in a mirror.  Even if you blatantly disagree with the result of that online quiz, it can often be telling to think about why.  Sometimes what you don’t like in others drives this disagreement.  “I would never be like that, it’s horrifying.”  Or, sometimes what you don’t like in yourself is more to the point.  “I can’t be like that, it’s horrifying.”  But it’s not all through the mirror darkly.  Relating to your heroes feels good, right?  It’s also about knowing that even a soulless test on a computer can see that you have the qualities you take pride in, and affirm them.  “Barnum?  Sounds like a schmuck to me.  Look, this thing here says I’m Superman!”

But I think what these tests actually have the potential to make you ask yourself is “who have you been?” or “who can you be?”  Now, that sounded mighty existential and probably a tad pretentious.  What I mean is this: stories are different from life because they’re removed from time – the best ones we pile the awards onto with words like “timeless.”  As we see the characters in them grow, we don’t just travel across to their world.  We travel back – back in time to when we had the same struggles and got through them, somehow.  And we travel forward – forward to what we can know is true for these characters even as we doubt the outcome for ourselves.  A good character can inspire hope for your own future, or set off a warning.  But whichever direction we go, we’re removed from our own fixed position and through a top-down view of someone else’s timeline (actually, that reminds me a little of Facebook stalking, go figure), we hope for clues to our own.

This is literally the entire purpose of many stories in the history of human society.  “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is an ironic tragedy, sure, but first and foremost it’s seen as a lesson. Granted, “adult” stories and the characters in them tend to be written more subtle. but the principle abides.  Literature is classified in the “humanities” because humanity is what it reveals.  Who you are and aren’t, or who you wish you were or weren’t can be shown to you through characters.

Next time you’re about to dismiss the idea that you “are” a character, don’t do it on the basis that some cheesy Internet quiz says so.  Let yourself relate – or not.  And if you’re not that character, then who?

PS: I’m an ISFJ.  I’m happy to lump myself in with John Watson and Samwise Gamgee.