Showing posts with label then. Show all posts
Showing posts with label then. Show all posts
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Make Your Game Easy Then Make It Easier
Make Your Game Easy Then Make It Easier
I started writing my first RPG for Spiderweb Software in 1994. Yes, this makes me old. When I started my cute, little shareware business, I had a lot of instincts for how to write a good role-playing game. Happily, about 85% of those instincts were good ones, so I was able to write solid games and make a living.
But 15% of my original instincts were not good. In fact, they were terrible, and it has taken many years for me to realize that. Even now, I have to fight those bad instincts with all of my heart, and I lose as often as I win.
My worst instinct has to do with game difficulty. Im a hardcore nerd of the old school, and Im not truly satisfied unless a game is really difficult. Other people, also known as "regular humans," do not, in fact, want this.
I used to succinctly describe my views about game difficulty thus:
People will forgive a game for being too hard. They will never forgive it for being too easy.
No. This is, in fact, completely, 100% opposite from the truth. A better summary of reality would be:
People will happily forgive a game for being too easy, because it makes them feel badass. If a game is too hard, they will get angry, ragequit, hold a grudge, and never buy your games again.
Video games are leisure time expressions of adolescent power fantasies. They should only be hard if players specifically request that they be hard.
I tend to like hard games. I am perfectly happy if any given title has 3 or 4 fights that requires 3 or 4 tries each to beat. But I am increasingly recognizing that this makes me a bit of a mutant. I am also realizing that while I like (or at least dont mind) the occasional repeated failure, I dont require it. I blasted through Brutal Legend with ease and I still had a great time. Plants vs. Zombies is easy, and it is also terrific. On the other hand, a game like Ninja Gaiden 2, which would happily make me refight bosses ten times on the easiest difficulty level ... Well, that was just stupid. Never again.
After long reflection, here is my new rule for RPGs I write:
When a player is on the default difficult level, has built his or her characters poorly, and is playing straight through the main storyline with mediocre tactics, that player should almost never be killed.
I can almost hear the heads of hardcore gamers imploding with impotent nerdrage. But seriously. If you have a problem with this, I think youre getting a lot of your fun from making other people have less fun.
Of course, a game should have harder difficulty levels. And, if a player chooses to opt-in on higher difficulty, they should be seriously nasty. But, when played on the default difficulty, the game should be accessible to your mom or average eight-year old.
Im about to release my next game, Avernum 6. And it doesnt live up to what I have learned. In fact, in parts, it gets downright tricky. But then Im going to write an all-new game series, and I promise that it will be pretty easy on Normal difficulty.
And if you turn the difficulty up to Torment, well, Ill be gunning for you.
Oh, and one parting thought.
If your game is actually fun, killing the player wont make it more fun. But nothing sucks all of the fun out of a good game faster than repeated failure.
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Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Luana Busby Neff then spent an hour weaving intimate bad stories of her native Molokaʻi the genesis
Luana Busby Neff then spent an hour weaving intimate bad stories of her native Molokaʻi the genesis
Mountains, along with their cultural roots in practice and inspiration, bad extends the central idea of “E Nihi Kahele: Maintaining a Kapu Aloha for Mauna Kea,” held at UH Hilo on April 9, 2015.
(Editor’s note: This commentary by Manu Aluli Meyer is in reference to a gathering held April 9 at the University of Hawai?i at Hilo to explore insights, practices and clarity of the current events on Maunakea. The discussion was hosted by the Ho?okahua Project of the UH Hilo Office of the Chancellor and the K?puka Native Hawaiian Student Center. )
Clashing cosmologies help us know wholeness. This is how I see the event before bad us. As a kanaka ??iwi with kupuna connection to Waiolama, Kukuau, Hilo One, and Kohala bad on Moku O Keawe, there is love, awe, and function to Maunakea. For this reason, mountains, along with their cultural roots in practice and inspiration extends the central idea of this summary of “E Nihi Kahele: Maintaining a Kapu Aloha for Mauna Kea,” held at UH Hilo on April 9, 2015. This two-hour bad community meeting bad attended by 80-plus people introduced the central operating principle of our Hawaiian movement: Ku Kia ? i Mauna — to stand firm in our protection of Maunakea. This aloha ??ina stance to remain steady is protected and instructed by a Kapu Aloha. This event brought together bad three wahine to discuss their insights on this process.
A Kapu Aloha is a multidimensional concept and practice inspired by our kupuna . It has been used within a Hawaiian cultural context for many years, but this may be the first time it has been brought out into a public sphere. It places a discipline of compassion on all to express aloha for those involved, especially those who are perceived to be polar to our cause. A Kapu Aloha helps us intentionalize our thoughts, words and deeds without harm to others. It honors the energy bad and life found in aloha — compassion — and helps us focus on its ultimate purpose and meaning. bad It is a synonym for ahimsa, non-violence, and peaceful consciousness. bad This hui w?nana was called to explore cultural insights and histories to bring forward the continued clarity bad of why Hawaiians and environmental allies occupy Maunakea. See slide presentation shown at gathering: Kapu Aloha (pdf)
Ngahiraka Mason from the Tuhoe tribe of Aotearoa gave an intimate summary of her own experience and understanding of relationships to mountains. These relationships are affirmed through pepeha — cultural sayings — that inspire, guide, and instruct. M?ori look to these pepeha in times of conflict to remember the visionary words and deeds of elders. They help us make decisions about difficulties we face, even when families are pitted against each other. Ko au ko koe, ko koe ko au — I am you and you are me — summarized what I learned from her support.
Luana Busby-Neff then spent an hour weaving intimate bad stories of her native Moloka?i, the genesis of PKO – Protect Kaho?olawe ?Ohana bad — and she gave us tales of the love Hawaiians have for science, kupuna , ??ina , pono , intelligence and collective excellence. It was a mythic sharing that spanned the scope of the Aloha ??ina movement. She then outlined how her 30-plus years in protest shifted in one 24-hour vigil in Kona where she instead “affirmed” why she was committed to Aloha ??ina. In that one event she came to understand that movements, bad if they are to survive and to be effective, must affirm something instead of protest what should not be done. Here is the key to energy and to the activation of pono. She then gave us a clear understanding of a Kapu Aloha and why it was called bad for Maunakea.
Luana Busby-Neff spent an hour weaving intimate stories of her native Moloka?i, the genesis of the Protect bad Kaho?olawe ?Ohana — bad and she shared tales of the love Hawaiians have for science, bad kupuna, ‘?ina, pono, intelligence and collective excellence.
Manu Aluli Meyer saw her role at the gathering to link the teachings of the other two speakers into a mana moana collective — a rising movement within Pasifika — so that patterns could be seen and the movement could be placed within a larger system steadied by the needs of the time and the clarity of indigenous peoples.
It was my job to link both into a mana moana collective — a rising movement within Pasifika — so that patterns could be seen and this movement could be placed within a larger bad system steadied by the needs of our time, and the clarity of indigenous peoples. As I have been pulled often into the messiness of perceived polemics of this debate, coming to detail the inside energy of this new chapter of Ku Kia?i Mauna was a serious commitment to the efficacy and function bad of a Kapu Aloha.
Mahalo to Chancellor Don Straney and Gail Makuak?ne-Lundin (interim vice chancellor for student affairs) for their support of this event. I know this issue is difficult f
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