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It's funny, because I started to play Spelunky again after a long absence, which is arguably one of the hardest games to master on your own. I'm not particularl

It's funny, because I started to play Spelunky again after a long absence, which is arguably one of the hardest games to master on your own. I'm not particularly good, played for about 28 hours and have not yet finished the game. (I rarely reach the ice caves...) The thing with this game is: It needs a lot of awareness, patience and you need to know all different kinds of game mechanics. It's not terribly complicated, but uncovering everything by yourself is madness. I was so frustrated that I started to watch videos and was enlightened by some of the tactics (yeah, around the shopkeeper...) So the blog post has some correct points: To improve, you need to inform yourself and maybe try to get feedback. But is it fun? Is it fun to read everything about the game, potentially spoiling it, simply to own? I'm not sure. I believe you can have a lot of fun without being the best for quite some time, but I have to admit that there's a point, where it starts to hurt your ego.. So then you start to read everything about it and then what? I think, there are personal and environmental limits, which learning cannot fix. You cannot simply fix the patience you need to play the same level again and again just to improve. In FPS games, you cannot get to the 95% without investing in your hardware. And you simply cannot compete with people having too much time on their hand, while you juggle your job, family and household. The thing is, maybe going for the 95%-tile is futile? But who cares? Simply enjoy to be average. Support your teammates as good as you can. Have fun walking into that spike trap for the 100th time. Don't take everything too serious.

shorts_theory 7y ago
Spelunky is an absolutely terrific and soul-crushing game. Though I'm not sure if it's a good example here because most of the mechanics (apart from the absolutely ridiculously arcane series of things you need to do to go Hell) are designed around being amenable to self-discovery. The shortcuts system for each world is very useful for learning all the weird situations which can result in death.
- zubspace 7y ago
  It's the same with every kind of roguelike game: a) Either you try to go for as long as you can, enjoy dying and discover the endless amount of content and interactions. b) You bite the bullet, start to read everything there is in forums, wikis or on youtube and see yourself progress further. To decide, which way to take, there are two questions: Can you play the game just for fun and accept losing a lot? Or do you want to compete with other players? You can play each game both ways and I think, there must be a place for simply playing for fun. But if you really want to get into the 95%th percentile, there is no other way than go for b) I believe. You won't discover everything there is to know simply on your own. And this is the same for a game like Overwatch as it is for Spelunky or most other deep games. You cannot compete against a community of players. And even if you know everything there is to know: you could soon learn, that the highscore table is a lot higher than you first thought... Maybe a) was the better way to play the game after all?...

shorts_theory 7y ago

Spelunky is an absolutely terrific and soul-crushing game. Though I'm not sure if it's a good example here because most of the mechanics (apart from the absolutely ridiculously arcane series of things you need to do to go Hell) are designed around being amenable to self-discovery. The shortcuts system for each world is very useful for learning all the weird situations which can result in death.

zubspace 7y ago
It's the same with every kind of roguelike game: a) Either you try to go for as long as you can, enjoy dying and discover the endless amount of content and interactions. b) You bite the bullet, start to read everything there is in forums, wikis or on youtube and see yourself progress further. To decide, which way to take, there are two questions: Can you play the game just for fun and accept losing a lot? Or do you want to compete with other players? You can play each game both ways and I think, there must be a place for simply playing for fun. But if you really want to get into the 95%th percentile, there is no other way than go for b) I believe. You won't discover everything there is to know simply on your own. And this is the same for a game like Overwatch as it is for Spelunky or most other deep games. You cannot compete against a community of players. And even if you know everything there is to know: you could soon learn, that the highscore table is a lot higher than you first thought... Maybe a) was the better way to play the game after all?...