The Short Memory of Game Design 123
Gamasutra has another piece in Ernest Adams' ongoing series Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! This week he looks at the terrible long-term memory the game industry suffers from. Because of fast turnover within company ranks, games released by a single studio can consistently make the same bad design decisions over and over again. From the article: "Which is worse: A game that introduces its features sparsely but regularly, or one that gives them all to you at once and then never gives you another one? I would much rather play the former. Obviously this will vary somewhat by genre, but offering up a new twist every now and then will certainly help to keep the player's interest. Too many games turn into a boring grind in the last third or so, and the player has to slog through it if he wants to see the ending. We didn't get into this business to make boring grinds."
On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
On a related note, this is also why I can't stand most MMORPGs. Too much time wasted grinding. I don't want to kill monster x for 5 hours so I can level up so that I can use weapon/ability z, and then start killing monster y for 6 hours so I can level up and.... you get the idea.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Interesting)
Again, this goes back to the whole "What Suit Are You?" style of RPG gameplay. Some people are completists, some people like community, some people just like the theatricality and fun of playing a game, and some people are stat freaks, and most people are shades of all 4. MMORPGs needs to acclimate for that better - want to be a completist? you have to grind more. A stats freak? We'll boost you up, but it'll cost you. In it for the community? Level up faster if you're playing with a friend. And these are just ideas off the top of my head, but they strike at the heart of what's dumb about grinding: it's not for everyone.
The parent poster complains about 6 hour grinds - if there were 2 hour grinds (in the midst of a fun sidequest, or with a clear "save this countryside" campaign behind it), nobody would complain. So what's the difference between 2 hours and 6 hours? The very arbitrary nature of these kinds of numbers prove that the problem is not the time, but the very concept itself, and the fact that no game designer seems to want to cater towards allowing more flexible leveling and participating options for gamers (and yes, non-gamers) into their world.
That's a pity, and I hope that in the next 5-10 years, some more adventurous game companies figure out that with episodic content, different methods of entry for newer players, different schemes of success and advancement, and a better sense of handicapping, they could easily hook 5, 10, or 20 times the number of players they do now.
(I say all this as a huge fan of single-player RPGs (Final Fantasy in particular) who couldn't stand the grinding of Diablo II or EverQuest and never tried to get back on the bandwagon.)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:1)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have another idea slightly in the same line. I'm thinking why no using a automatic anti-grind system. Give quota for player. Let say for the first 2 hours you play you get 100% XP, after you only get 80%. After 2 more hours of game you get 60%,
That seems harsh for the hardcore player, but hardcore player can still create multiple characters ( let's face it, a real hardcore player has already mutliple high level characters
Well ok, not perfect. And that doesn't solve another problem of casual player. As in real life, you don't see your friends every day and sometimes you are busy for a period and don't see them at all. After when you meet again, it is very difficult to do a game again with them since they basically are too advanced ( or they restarted a new character that is far behind )
I'm currently playing GuildWars with some friends. Unfortunatly I could not play as often for 2 weeks, and therefore the number of level between them and me is significant enough that we cannot play together anymore
Re: catchup system (Score:4, Informative)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also theres no reason you can't hang with them if they come and run you to the area, you may not be able to do much but leech exp, but with hexs and disruption skills you can still be some use.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:1)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:1)
Otherwise I agree with you, GW was not the best example and could even be a counter example.
If you want to know, technically in GW, I just arrived in North Shiverpeak.
They played several days more than me and are currently in the jungle, they are level 20 with Drognar armo
Re:On the other hand... (Score:3, Informative)
Most games would have a great benefit from an experience-boosting effect for more casual gamers. Something along the lines of 5% per offline-day for 1 hour per offline-day (to a max of 5 offline-days - 25% bonus for 5 hours). Some people would think it is unfair, but the advantage is that "casuals" could try to keep up the pace with the "addicts
Re:On the other hand... (Score:3, Funny)
Meh. Nobody would notice the difference.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:2)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:1)
One of the most anoying things about the PVP system in WOW is that it doesn't really matter how skilled you are, the people with the uber raiding guilds will win because they have the best gear unless they are complete idiots.
Metroid and Zelda did this right (Score:5, Insightful)
So getting the balance right is why games like those two have become greats: they keep the game interesting and fresh all the way through, while still not invalidating what made them fun at the beginning. I'm sure there's other examples of this around, but there are few that have historically done it as well as these franchises have.
Thinking about it, Mega Man might be an argument for EITHER side, but I think it's worth mentioning as something else that can go either way depending on your perspective (and I'm referring to classic Mega Man, not whatever's been done lately that radically changes things).
(and if others have good examples of doing it right, that'd be great to mention too)
Re:Metroid and Zelda did this right (Score:2, Interesting)
As for Zelda.... Wind Waker didn't do quite as
Tell me about it (Score:2, Insightful)
One game that suprised me time after time was Advance Wars (1, 2, and DS), each time introducing new and unique strategy elements and tactics, improved AI, improved graphics, and yet retaining it's core gameplay and character.
Even GTA dos this well, despite my other crit
There has to be a balance, though.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There has to be a balance, though.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The converse is also true though. In GUN, you get some uber-weapons after you beat the game and all side missions. The problem is that after you beat the game and all side missions, there's nothing left to do! I'd give GUN a pass if, like some of the Resident Evil games, I get the uber-weapon after beating the game but can start a new game WITH the uber-weapon(s).
Castlevania/Metroid handles the uber-weapon pr
Kinda Sorta ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Would Tony Hawk games be as much fun if you could only do 1/4 the moves in the begining? Course, as your stats increase throughout the game certain moves go from tough/impossible to easy but you can still basically do almost everything at the very beginning when it comes to moves.
Unlockables are fun but some games take this concept to far...
Re:Kinda Sorta ... (Score:2)
Re:Kinda Sorta ... (Score:2)
As much as I love the Tony Hawk series it's getting really tired, I'd almost say it rivals Madden in terms of how much they add with each annual "re-release"
Water levels (Score:1, Informative)
Perhaps that space has a higher air pressure than outside?
Re:Water levels (Score:4, Funny)
A wizard did it.
But what...
A wizard...
Re:Water levels (Score:2)
Re:Water levels (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Water levels (Score:2)
Yup (Score:2)
And what the hell is up with picking on Myst? That game is what, 13 years old? Come on
Good ideas, but not for all. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Person can't drive car til they get license, they must past a long involved series of missions to do that, then to own a gun they must get a gun license, which happens through another set of four missions. Person finds a rocket launcher on the ground, must now take lessons from a third NPC."
Sounds exciting. How about
"Person grabs a car, drives to a local gun range, buys a simple gun because it's all he can afford, as he drives to the next point, he finds an AK-47 on a local gangbanger, he grabs the weapon and starts to shoot up the street".
I don't know the second one sounds like it'd be more fun. I mean learning new "skills" is good, but learning simple stuff that should be available at the begining is lame. In San Andreas, they locked the Airports, which is a good thing at times. People could still get in, hijack a plane and fly badly.
I think that cavet that you should gain skills depends on the game. If you're doing open world games, you shouldn't get completely new skills unless there's a reason. Perhaps you can get a group together after a while and lead them because you earn their respect. But then again from the begining you're able to use all your abilities that you normally would with out having to "unlock" them.
I looked at the writer's bio and found he wrote a bunch of books, good for him. as well as
"Ernest was most recently employed as a lead designer at Bullfrog Productions, and for several years before that he was the audio/video producer on the Madden NFL Football product line. "
Re:Good ideas, but not for all. (Score:1)
"Ernest was most recently employed as a lead designer at Bullfrog Productions, and for several years before that he was the audio/video producer on the Madden NFL Football product line. " ... Hmmmm I'll leave on that note. You can decide yourself on his opinions validity, oh and that's ALL the specific industry experience he gives.
It's all [designersnotebook.com] the industry experience he gives?
Re:Good ideas, but not for all. (Score:2)
He had 7 YEARS at EA, I'm sure that also left him a little jaded. I've never been employed by them but I'm sure the employees have little to no say, especially working on madden every year, at the company I work (game industry developer) the lower end people have a lot of ability to move however we try to create fun games, not
Re:Good ideas, but not for all. (Score:1)
He's an unemployed game designer complaining about turnover in the game industry!?
Re:Good ideas, but not for all. (Score:3, Interesting)
Eh, San Andreas was f'ed up in a number of ways. I just can't be bothered to play it anymore, because even after I cheat to get the jetpack or helicopter it still takes too damn long to retry a mission. I'm not sure whether to respect or pity the people who actually finish that game. (Maybe they never fail a mission, I dunno.)
It's like they took Vice City, which IIRC I 100%'ed (so it's not li
all marketing, no game (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:all marketing, no game (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:all marketing, no game (Score:3, Insightful)
I never saw any ads for Halo but after playing it at a friends house I became instantly addicted, it had a balance to it that other FPSes at the time seemed to lack. If the game sold only on advertising hype then there would be no explanation for the massive popu
Casual games / gamers (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather have all the features, abilities, etc "unlocked" from the beginning so I can have FUN. Racing games are the worst. Start with crappy car, on a boring track. Then spend hours to achieve first-place so you can get a slightly better car, or have a slightly more interesting track. Repeat for days until you finally can run the high-end cars on challenging tracks. All in the name of providing "lots" of gameplay. Gameplay, yes. Fun, not so much.
Give me all the cars, tracks, cool weapons, gadgets, etc all at the beginning and let me get my hours of gameplay in 10-20 minute pieces of fun.
I think "Casual games" and "Casual gamers" want fun out of their games, not work. Which means a lot more games can fall into the "casual" category than just brain teasers and Bejeweled or Tetris clones. Let the hardcore crowd work for weeks to unlock the super-baddass-mega-blaster, but at least give everyone else the option to click a "unlock all" option and just have fun.
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently picked up Star Ocean 3 on the cheap (I'm a bottom feeder, what can I say?) and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to finish it. I'm still in the first sixth of the game and already there was a dungeon I barely could get to the next save point before I had to stop anyhow. I'm nervous that this game, which I otherwise enjoy so far, is going to throw a required three+ hours to the save point at me, and that's going to require
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
In fact, I think the last RPG I played all the way through was FF1&2, and I'm not sure I completed all of that. That was over a year ago, and I've played at least two RPGs
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
I had the same problem in FFX too. Everything up to that point I thought was pretty well balanced for someone who wants challenging fights that you can win with thought and a couple of tries. But it seemed to me the end boss was a real jump after that.
Eventually I cheated; I found that I had just enough stuff to "mix" a Trio of 9999, which makes all damage
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
I've got to agree with the grandparent, though, about VIII. Due to some poor planning, I ended up at Ult
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
Well, that was your first mistake. I was warned about SO3 before I got it (I loved SO2, btw), unfortunately, I didn't take heed, and picked it up anyway. The game takes itself WAY too seriously, the story blows, and gets worse and worse as the game progresses. The gameplay is extremely unbalanced and thus unfairly difficult. For a game that's supposed to be about real-time action, it leaves way too much to chance, and not enough to actual skill. The item creation syst
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
This is one of the reasons I'm a bottom-feeder; somehow, blowing $50 feel much more than 2.5 times worse than blowing $20.
My biggest complaint so far is completely unrelated to any of that; I was hoping for a sci-fi RPG, not a fantasy RPG with spaceships. I suppose I should have known better; Japan's RPGs are pretty stuck in their groove.
This was probably the deciding factor between it and Suikoden, which was next to it.
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever played SO2? It's even more a fantasy RPG than SO3. In fact, SO3 would have been better off had it NOT done so much sci-fi. Basically, for the first half of SO2, the main character is stuck on a planet that's pretty much like old-school Final Fantasy or Suikoden, in terms of technology and civilization, at the mid point, you leave planet 1, and end up on planet 2, which is much more contemporary in nature. All the sci-fi elements are VERY secondary (you end up on a ship for a total of 4 minutes
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
Oh, sorry to respond twice, but I wanted to comment about the sci-fi / fantasy thing. To be honest, I've never seen a full "sci-fi" RPG. I guess Fallout could be considered this, but I can't really get myself interested in that series. There are a lot of halfways, like Xenosaga, .Hack (though I can't vouch for them, personally), FF8 is sorta light on the fantasy elements (and one of my personal favs, if you haven't played it already). But every American or Japanese style RPG I can think of has a lot of fant
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:2)
Bastards programmed it so you have to actually meet some minimum performance guidelines for the play to count. And no unlock codes, of course, even though there is really no reason not to include them.
I really enjoy DDR, but this is by far my b
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:1)
But then the 13-19 year old set decries it as "t3w ez" or "teh l4m3" and it doesn't get shelf placement.
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:1)
Put another way, I don't care if a bunch of 13-19 year olds don't think I "earned" the stuff. Let them "earn" it if it means that much to them. Flag save games, screenshots, whatever with "Casual Play" or something like that to keep them happy that the "posers" aren't trying to brag ab
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:1)
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:1)
Re:Casual games / gamers (Score:1)
Mostly because game companies want to make as much money as possible and if they can include more persons in the fold, they'll change the game to make more money.
Everything in moderation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exercise a bit of moderation. And remember, you don't need to add bells and whistles to keep the player interested. That job can be left to the plot. If the game has a great story, you can re-use the same damned engine without adding any new features at all and you can keep the player interested beyond the endgame and into completely different titles. Some of the best selling games of all time shared an engine and just plastered some new content on top. Why don't developers remember that?
I agree! (Score:2)
I didn't agree with the first claim, probably because i prefer multiplayer games, nor the last, because i don't believe realism is always the best choice. But the rest of the article was very objective, so to sum it up:
Re:I agree! (Score:1)
unlocking new features (Score:2)
Eternal Darkness (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about the crates (Score:3, Funny)
The ones that got it right (Score:5, Interesting)
The most obvious one that comes to mind is Half-Life. The original. They do give you lots of new and interesting weapons throughout the game, but the gameplay is the same, which means you don't actually have to learn many new skills during the course of the game. My only complaint there would be Xen at the end, where the physics completely change.
But mostly, the game interface and the gameplay itself doesn't change fundamentally. What changes is the content. An example would be going into a tunnel which leads to a cliff face -- the tunnel has the feel of the vents and such, then you hit the cliff face -- completely different. Suddenly, you have to look up and down, and you have to watch your step. Get through that, and you're in a trench, trying not to get noticed till you get to somewhere you can successfully lob a grenade from. And so on.
And enough "plot" to keep you interested. They don't need a cutscene to keep things interesting.
Compare that to, say, Zelda. The entire game is discovering new and cool bits of gameplay. It's rarely frustrating, because if you make it through the first level, you've got the hang of discovering and using these new bits of gameplay. And again, no cutscenes needed, although they are there.
Or Halo 2. Gameplay is very consistent, yet you're never without a sense of place, and while there is a bit more repetition than I'd like, the story does move along, and so does the kind of situation you end up with. Sniping jackals takes a completely different kind of skill than driving a tank, or swording a bunch of Flood. Yet the learning curve is practically nil, and I don't think I ever felt cheated by suddenly being presented with a completely different game that I sucked at.
And compare that to a game that gets it completely wrong like, say, Doom 3. Absolutely nothing new. Oh, sure, towards the end you get the SoulCube, and the final boss battle is interesting. The rest of it is completely boring. I mean, there are some relatively interesting puzzles involving machines and controls, but it's almost impossible to notice those, or any bit of plot development, amid all the insane, mind-numbing repetitiveness of the levels. The only thing that changed was the environment, and it was kind of cool the first time through, when the graphics were hot shit. Now, yawn. All the cheap thrills don't work when you know where they all are, and it just isn't a fun game anymore.
One of my most frustrating games has got to be doing the minigames in Final Fantasy X. Thank God they aren't required. One night, my roommate and I decided we wanted Tidus' Legendary Weapon, which meant we had to beat the Chocobo training session. This required a wholly different skillset than anything else in that game, and in fact, was completely different than most other games I've played. It's a race -- on a bird that doesn't always want to go where you tell it -- where you must dodge oncoming traffic (seagulls) and also collect enough balloons to win. With very little margin for error -- not only do you have to be able to handle this game, but you must absolutely kick ass at it. Took the two of us about three or four hours of playing the exact same 40-second race over and over.
Or the lightning dodging. Completely unlike anything else required. Fun anyway, because after I could get to 10 or 20, I started over, got to 50, and just kept going, 200 was pretty easy. But the same roommate could never do it.
In the case of FFX, this is completely forgivable, because neither of these are required. In fact, anything actually required by the plotline was incredibly easy -- it breaks the longstanding tradition of having Omega Weapon be the most powerful enemy in the game. Omega in a pansy next to some of these (optional) Arena monsters -- roommate goes in thinking it's going to be the toughest battle ever, summons an Aeon in overdrive, unleashes the overdrive... one hit. We must've laughed for
Re:The ones that got it right (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed, I was at a loss to find a way to stop falling to my death starting that level. And it appeared from search results many people were just so exasperated with questions about it that they just berated people for not going through the tutorial when really it is just that it takes so long for some players to get that far (not playing every free hour of every day) that that one little detail on how to do those long jumps gets forgotten.
Just like how I don't know how to do them right now.
Re:The ones that got it right (Score:2)
"...Indeed, I was at a loss to find a way to stop falling to my death starting that level. And it appeared from search results many people were just so exasperated with questions about it that they just berated people for not going through the tutorial when really it is just that it takes so long for some players to get that far (not playing every free hour of every day) that that one little detail on how to do those long jumps gets forgotten..."
I didn't have this problem. Before you go into the portal
Re:The ones that got it right (Score:2)
Yes, but as I recall there was a bit of a rush to get you on your way. No safe play in a practice area before you had to get in the portal. Not like in Half Life 2 where you get to play catch with the gravity gun for awhile until you're used to it. (The fun ended for me when I acci
Re:The ones that got it right (Score:2, Insightful)
I bought KH2 with high expectations - the first game was great in my opinion. However, KH2 screwed it up big time. They tried to take what was good from the first game and add on more (limits, drives, different summons and magic, etc.) to make it a new experience and justify people spending $50 on the new title. However, all of the new stuff is almost completely pointless
Re:The ones that got it right (Score:1, Flamebait)
That's quite a trick. Holding up and pressing dodge will dodge up, who'd have imagined? You, sir, are a god among gamers.
Would you mind terribly if I asked you a question? I've
Did you also hate WarioWare? (Score:2)
And then you go on to describe something with about as much variety as WarioWare. What does WarioWare do right that Path of Neo does wrong?
Re:The ones that got it right (Score:2)
Choose-your-own-difficulty (Score:1)
I like games where some of the powers/abilities you can obtain are optional. In particular, the Gamecube's two Metroid Prime games do this fantastically.
There's a certain number of items that you're required to get (without exploiting glitches), and they're introduced regularly throughout the game, all the way up until the last couple of boss fights. In addition to these, however, there are extra weapons (such as MP1's wavebuster or ice spreader) that are immensely powerful and helpful, but also complet
Re:Choose-your-own-difficulty (Score:1)
Re:Choose-your-own-difficulty (Score:2)
[1] We won't talk about the Omega Pirate.
Finally, the deaf are getting some help (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, some people may say that it's less realistic to have captions, and in fact I've gotten really tired of Knights of the Old Republic periodically yelling at me about using captions in the loading screens ("turn off subtitles for a more cinematic experience" my ass, I NEED THOSE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE SAYING, so shut the fuck up!). That's fine; if you don't want subtitles, don't turn them on. That's why it's called closed captioning!
I've even had people call me a snob when I tell them that when I watch anime (and that's not often), I will only watch subtitled anime, not dubbed. (How does that make me a snob, anyway?). I asked them how they'd feel if they were in wheelchairs and it was seen as snobby to actually demand that buildings and street corners have wheelchair ramps. Oh, their expressions
Half-Life 2 even has the standard symbol for closed captions on the box (a TV with "CC" printed on the screen). Why can't other games do that, too?
Re:Finally, the deaf are getting some help (Score:3, Interesting)
It's about time the issue of captioning is getting press. I'm hearing-impaired and captions are vital to me.
What's tragic is that people like you should not have been suffering in the first place. Voice-only communication in games is a recent phenomenon. For most of it's history, games required sub-titles since that was all there was room for! None of this fancy-smancy voice MP3/PCM/WAV data takes all sorts of migs and megs of memories that cost mucho dinero to produce.
I can hear just fine, but I'm
Re:Finally, the deaf are getting some help (Score:3, Informative)
Captions are also very important for non-native speakers, average school english might be enough when you have a non-accent english speaker, but as soon as a game adds some accent it gets a heck of a lot more difficult to follow, if the game has environmental sound or badly balanced volume for speech and other sounds it gets often impossible to decipher what people are saying. One game which solve
Closed Captioning is not just for the deaf (Score:2)
I have normal hearing but I use closed captioning on TV quite a bit. In noisy environments it can help. Bars have discovered that closed captioning is extremely useful when carrying a sports program because you can't hear the commentary.
In many films there is background dialog or additional statements that may not be audible. The caption writer works from the script so they can type in whatever is said and it can add important and subtle details which might otherwise be missed.
About the only thing I fi
Re:Closed Captioning is not just for the deaf (Score:2)
I'm my own parent? Cool.
The errors drive me crazy, too. I know why live captions have the mistakes, too, but that doesn't make them any more tolerable. I'd like to see more quality control. People depend on them and making a half-assed excuse isn't enough.
I really think whoever put that "more cinematic experience" crap in KOTOR has never actually thought about why
Re:Finally, the deaf are getting some help (Score:1)
Re:Finally, the deaf are getting some help (Score:2)
I'm a big anime fan, myself. And I, like you, tend to prefer my anime and foreign films in their original language. BUT, the cold hard truth is that many times, subtitles are better in anime because you DON'T understand what the person is saying, and in actuality, the writing is just really really bad. Having a show in a different language with subtitles can start to mask bad writing, of which there is a lot of, everywhere, and anime isn't ammune to it. I tell this to some anime fans, and they get really de
Game duration (Score:3, Interesting)
- add reprise levels: all the ideas from previous levels, but in a different order!
- force backtracking: what fun, revisiting the same areas I've already completed. Paper Mario:TTYD did this and it killed the game for me
- Fiddle with the save points so the player has to repeat more of a level after dying
Replayability (Score:2)
Re:Game duration (Score:1)
In the strategy department: (Score:1)
Note to designers: if you're going to make things unlockable, make sure the game's still playable without them
I choose option C: (Score:1)
Ve-e-e-ry frustrating.
Re:I choose option C: (Score:2)
Someone's not a big fan of the Metroid Prime series, I take it? They did just that, and, as you can see, many of us are using those games as an example of the pinnicle of successful game progression. Now, granted, they didn't give you EVERYTHING in the beginning, they just gave you the basic powerups: morph ball, bombs, missiles, and grapple beam (about 1/4 of the actual powerups in the game). Now, that little intro wasn't what made the game great, but I think it was an interesting idea, and done well. I do
Bad Web Designer, No Twinkie (Score:3, Insightful)
I should make a column called this, and put pages like this one on it... pretend the next paragraph is a header.
Not Including Links to Other Articles in the Same Series
If an article is the seventh in a series, why aren't there links to the other six articles? How about a link to a page that has links to all of them without having to sort through Gamasutra's other features? Even a separate page for the Developer's Diaries series of articles would be an improvement over what we have now.
Not at top levels (Score:2)
I'm not sure if agree with this thesis, whilst there is a lot of changes in the grunt work, artists, coders etc. Its a different story for those higher up in the organization who have the a much longer track record and also have the responsibility f
Coin-op Crapola (Score:5, Interesting)
I have noticed for a lot of games a problem which I refer to as "coin-op crapola," stunts that should have ended when the user paid for the game all at once, and should have been dropped when they no longer had to keep making the game too hard in order to get you to drop more quarters in the video game. These include, but are not limited to:
Having done programming professionally for over 25 years (including game programming), I am aware of what it takes to write programs or to develop them. And nothing I have said is excessively hard to implement, or in most cases, even necessary. But it still continues over and over and over and...
Paul Robinson <paul@paul-robinson.us [mailto]>Re:Coin-op Crapola (Score:1)
Agree with all your points but the above really touched anervein me... it's the disease of many programmers... reinventing the f**king wheel... same phenomenom plagues Linux distro's... progress is so slow of
Re:Coin-op Crapola (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember thinking about this playing Half Life. Initially I would only save between major encounters, but as I progressed I gradually started quick s
Re:Coin-op Crapola (Score:2)
It's not. There is no reason other than policy - the rules the game designer chooses - to prohibit a save at any time. Where a game does not allow saving it's because the designer/programmer has chosen to prohibit it. Being a programmer "I can say that I know this as a fact, a certainty beyond any shadow of a doubt whatsoever."
Why should t
Re:Coin-op Crapola (Score:2)
Just because they have been around for a long period of time does not mean they are good, it simply means that they've been around for a long time.
Re:Hey, gamers! (Score:2)
Re:Hey, gamers! (Score:2)
Strafing in the games is likely a
Re:Hey, gamers! (Score:2)
Re:Hey, gamers! (Score:2)
Re:what has the author done exactly? (Score:4, Informative)
Published Games
RabbitJack's Casino for IBM PC (1989-91)
Third Degree for CD-I Player (1992)
John Madden Football for 3DO (1994)
Bill Walsh College Football for Sega CD (1995)
Madden NFL 97 for Sony Playstation, IBM PC, and Sega Saturn (1996)
Madden NFL 98 for Sony Playstation and IBM PC (1997)
Madden Football 64 for Nintendo 64 (1997)
Madden NFL 99 for Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64, and IBM PC (1998)
Michelle Kwan Figure Skating for IBM PC (1999)
Madden NFL 2000 for Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64, and IBM PC (1999)
Unpublished Games
Takeover for IBM PC (1991)
Dungeons & Dragons for the CD-I player (1991)
Baseball '93 for IBM PC (1992)
Wildfire! for IBM PC (1993)
Baseball for Sega Genesis CD (1995)
Psychic Warriors for IBM PC (1998)
Genesis: The Hand of God for IBM PC (1999)
Dungeon Keeper 3 for IBM PC (later retitled War for the Overworld) (2000)
Theme "X" (2000)
To me personally this credit list doesn't seem very impressive from design aspects. Perhaps he made a name for himself in the industry with his consulting work.
Re:what has the author done exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)