4 ms·

My criticism towards game designers is that they often analyze games from an abstract perspective, leaving out important details that contribute to the success

My criticism towards game designers is that they often analyze games from an abstract perspective, leaving out important details that contribute to the success of the game: High frame rate, stability, good quality animations, color palette/art style/fonts that are consistent with the game fiction, UI usability, soundtrack, community, abscence of cheaters... just to name a few. You can have a great game, but if it's unstable, has annoying sound effects, or constant monetization related nagging, or a toxic community or some cringy voice actor or soundtrack or excessive unskippable cutscenes with irrelevant stupid dialogs... the magic in the experience goes away. Everything counts. If you go to a 5 star hotel where everything is perfect but when you try to use the shower it doesn't work, your overall rating will be 1 star. For a experience to be gratifying, everything needs to work together. I've read countless articles and postmortems of the style "why X is successful", and then seen games that follow those documents closely and produce a horrible game. Because they are unable to capture the whole experience. Lately I played a game, Ex-Zodiac, which is a StarFox clone. Only the demo is available, but the author really captured every single aspect that made StarFox great. That attention to detail is what makes games fun.

grawprog 6y ago
To apply what you're saying to a different media. I was a big star trek fan growing up. Around the time of enterprise, then going on to the reboot and new series i'd lost interest in star trek. The series changed in ways I didn't enjoy. Not to bash on them in any way and getting to my point. I've been recommended The Orville a bunch lately. After hearing what it was, I wasn't really interested, but finally i was pushed into watching it and I was immediately hooked and finished the first two seasons in a couple days. This is the reason why: >Lately I played a game, Ex-Zodiac, which is a StarFox clone. Only the demo is available, but the author really captured every single aspect that made StarFox great. That attention to detail is what makes games fun. You can tell the people that made the Orville loved the hell out of the earlier star trek series and put a lot of care into small details that really made it feel like star trek, moreso than most newer actual star treks. Despite being somewhat of a comedic parody, like you say, they 'really captured every single aspect' that made star trek great.
- covidthrow 6y ago
  I have to agree with both your general point and your specific regarding The Orville. I wasn't excited to watch it, because I don't find McFarlane funny (as a writer/showrunner and especially not as an actor), and because I think I've only ever enjoyed maybe one sci-fi parody ever. (2 if you count MST3K as "sci-fi"..?) But my wife wanted to give it a shot because she's such a sci-fi nerd (even more than me), and you're right: they captured the utter essence of Star Trek so completely that I'm not entirely sure why he's not on a short list to do a serious Star Trek show/movie. The qualities that make Star Trek so compelling (especially Next Generation and to a lesser extent DS9 and Voyager) are ever present in The Orville in spades. That it somehow manages to combine a very serious look at life in space with some pretty raunchy potty humor is nothing short of incredible. I would fully support McFarlane (or whomever is responsible for that "essence" in Orville) doing a dramatic space opera, hands down, no question. That would be one hell of a show. Not sure the market would bear it, unfortunately, though.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    >I wasn't excited to watch it, because I don't find McFarlane funny (as a writer/showrunner and especially not as an actor), and because I think I've only ever enjoyed maybe one sci-fi parody ever. (2 if you count MST3K as "sci-fi"..?) Yeah, his comedy's a bit much for me most of the time. He's got some funny stuff, but it's usually in between a whole lot of meh stuff. I was honestly expecting family guy in space or something. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised and happy to be wrong. >I would fully support McFarlane (or whomever is responsible for that "essence" in Orville) doing a dramatic space opera, hands down, no question. That would be one hell of a show. I ended up looking up more about the show and to be fair, the show does actually have some long time star trek people involved. Johnathan Frakes(Riker), Robert Duncan Macneil(Tom Paris) and Brannon Braga(worked on Voyager and enterprise) directed a bunch of episodes. There were also a ton of cameos by star trek actors throughout the show. So there was definitely a bunch of people working on the show who had been involved in star trek. Oddly enough, back to the video game world there's also a few examples of tribute games playing off nostalgia made by members of the original staff that don't hold up to the originals they're emulating, which also shows just having original staff members isn't all it takes to capture that old greatness.
ptcampbell 6y ago
I get the point you're trying to make but regarding the hotel analogy, I expect a lot more from a hotel than a video game. The trappings of a dodgy hotel are more universal than the subjective shortcomings of games whose tropes align to specific genres. For example, I have a soft spot for the aesthetic vision of the original StarFox but the game itself is incredibly linear, repetitive and one dimensional. According to your criteria it would ruin the magic, but I don't really see it that way.
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  StarFox is not so linear or repetitive if you pay attention to it. If you just want to pass levels and see an ending, the game can be somewhat mediocre... but if you want to master the game, it has a lot more to offer. And this is even more true for StarFox 2.
jkinudsjknds 6y ago
Nobody really doubts that some art fails because its just not good. Differentiating art that is technically superb to art that really resonates is a more interesting conversation. I do game dev. It's very easy to think "this animation could be better". It's a lot harder to figure out "could this be made more fun". Tactics vs strategy.
vvanders 6y ago
The thing is unless you are a small shop like the Vlambeers of the world(rip) there's so much work to put together a game that clicks. You have to trust that your art, animation, gameplay programmers, etc are experts in their own way and there's usually at least one or two people making sure those things are all coehesive. Honestly that's the thing I think we lost in the 90s/00s was that the scope of a game was within the grasp of a team of 8-12 people. This is now making a resurgence in the indie space(latest example is Everspace 2 which just nails the feel of Freelancer and Escape Velocity).
psyc 6y ago
Are we talking about Stardew though? Because IMO it excels in half your criteria and is pleasantly adequate in the rest. If you mean games in general I mostly agree. Most teams just don’t seem to prioritize these things and it can be frustrating. Especially when the core concepts are so promising. There are a lot of reasons to idolize John Carmack, but my favorite is his lifelong obsession with latency. End to end. From the player's fingers, through the hardware, through all the many software layers, back through the hardware and into the player’s eyes. From Doom to the Oculus Rift architecture. This is why to me Id games feel and play like no others. He realized from the beginning that latency matters more than any other factor in competitive FPS games, and prioritized it as much as the rendering he’s more renowned for.
- username90 6y ago
  Stardew isn't shit in any area. Quite a lot of games (even high budget titles) are really shit in some area. No matter how great bread you use a shit sandwich still tastes worse than an average ham sandwich.
megameter 6y ago
Depth vs breadth is an issue with the study of every medium, and with games particularly, there is a staggering amount of potential breadth. Coverage of detail results in "top 10 tips" articles, coverage of the broad strokes results in an oversimplification. My current approach to game design revolves around a three-stage process: find well-justified principles, set concrete success benchmarks based off the principles, and routinely do studies of specific elements to test the benchmarks. This is something that can be applied fractally, from the top level down into every last asset, and isn't really specific to games, but it lets me cross the boundaries between media, ask and answer detailed questions like "what form of music is most appropriate for this scene?" A question like that isn't adequately answered by personal taste, and really benefits from a principled framework starting from basic philosophy-of-truth questions about the concepts. And this goes for stuff with the software and UX, too: requirements around stability, performance, ease of use and so forth appear in the success benchmarks and enforce a rough shape for the featureset. When the game "doesn't work" despite meeting technical standards, it's usually because there's a conceptual issue where the ideas the game explores are presented incoherently, where features are added because "this feature appeared in another game and it was fun there" and the contradictions implied by the juxtaposition are ignored. When the game goes in that direction, it makes players throw up their hands and say, "I don't know what this game is about." It's also harder to make such a game, because you end up laboring to paper over those contradictions with complicated special casing.
icegreentea2 6y ago
I mean part of it comes from what game designers have control or responsibility for. Game designers across the industry may or may not have the ability to strongly influence or control many of those factors that you mentioned (dependent on the scale and organization of the job and game). However, designing the core gameplay loop and player incentives is nearly always a core responsibility of a game designer. They are also often not mentioned because many of them are a different type of problem solving. High frame rate, stability, good quality animations are all effectively engineering and resource challenges. No one seeks out to not achieve those things, everyone knows that they're important. But the success of achieving those are typically driven by aspects completely out of control of a game designer (unless they are caused by gameplay mechanics or features that are just too technically taxing). I mean really, it's right in the title isn't it? This is a game _DESIGN_ perspective, not a game implementation, or game marketing, or game post-launch community support retrospective.

grawprog 6y ago

To apply what you're saying to a different media. I was a big star trek fan growing up. Around the time of enterprise, then going on to the reboot and new series i'd lost interest in star trek. The series changed in ways I didn't enjoy. Not to bash on them in any way and getting to my point. I've been recommended The Orville a bunch lately. After hearing what it was, I wasn't really interested, but finally i was pushed into watching it and I was immediately hooked and finished the first two seasons in a couple days. This is the reason why: >Lately I played a game, Ex-Zodiac, which is a StarFox clone. Only the demo is available, but the author really captured every single aspect that made StarFox great. That attention to detail is what makes games fun. You can tell the people that made the Orville loved the hell out of the earlier star trek series and put a lot of care into small details that really made it feel like star trek, moreso than most newer actual star treks. Despite being somewhat of a comedic parody, like you say, they 'really captured every single aspect' that made star trek great.

covidthrow 6y ago
I have to agree with both your general point and your specific regarding The Orville. I wasn't excited to watch it, because I don't find McFarlane funny (as a writer/showrunner and especially not as an actor), and because I think I've only ever enjoyed maybe one sci-fi parody ever. (2 if you count MST3K as "sci-fi"..?) But my wife wanted to give it a shot because she's such a sci-fi nerd (even more than me), and you're right: they captured the utter essence of Star Trek so completely that I'm not entirely sure why he's not on a short list to do a serious Star Trek show/movie. The qualities that make Star Trek so compelling (especially Next Generation and to a lesser extent DS9 and Voyager) are ever present in The Orville in spades. That it somehow manages to combine a very serious look at life in space with some pretty raunchy potty humor is nothing short of incredible. I would fully support McFarlane (or whomever is responsible for that "essence" in Orville) doing a dramatic space opera, hands down, no question. That would be one hell of a show. Not sure the market would bear it, unfortunately, though.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >I wasn't excited to watch it, because I don't find McFarlane funny (as a writer/showrunner and especially not as an actor), and because I think I've only ever enjoyed maybe one sci-fi parody ever. (2 if you count MST3K as "sci-fi"..?) Yeah, his comedy's a bit much for me most of the time. He's got some funny stuff, but it's usually in between a whole lot of meh stuff. I was honestly expecting family guy in space or something. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised and happy to be wrong. >I would fully support McFarlane (or whomever is responsible for that "essence" in Orville) doing a dramatic space opera, hands down, no question. That would be one hell of a show. I ended up looking up more about the show and to be fair, the show does actually have some long time star trek people involved. Johnathan Frakes(Riker), Robert Duncan Macneil(Tom Paris) and Brannon Braga(worked on Voyager and enterprise) directed a bunch of episodes. There were also a ton of cameos by star trek actors throughout the show. So there was definitely a bunch of people working on the show who had been involved in star trek. Oddly enough, back to the video game world there's also a few examples of tribute games playing off nostalgia made by members of the original staff that don't hold up to the originals they're emulating, which also shows just having original staff members isn't all it takes to capture that old greatness.

ptcampbell 6y ago

I get the point you're trying to make but regarding the hotel analogy, I expect a lot more from a hotel than a video game. The trappings of a dodgy hotel are more universal than the subjective shortcomings of games whose tropes align to specific genres. For example, I have a soft spot for the aesthetic vision of the original StarFox but the game itself is incredibly linear, repetitive and one dimensional. According to your criteria it would ruin the magic, but I don't really see it that way.

29athrowaway 6y ago
StarFox is not so linear or repetitive if you pay attention to it. If you just want to pass levels and see an ending, the game can be somewhat mediocre... but if you want to master the game, it has a lot more to offer. And this is even more true for StarFox 2.

jkinudsjknds 6y ago

Nobody really doubts that some art fails because its just not good. Differentiating art that is technically superb to art that really resonates is a more interesting conversation. I do game dev. It's very easy to think "this animation could be better". It's a lot harder to figure out "could this be made more fun". Tactics vs strategy.

vvanders 6y ago

The thing is unless you are a small shop like the Vlambeers of the world(rip) there's so much work to put together a game that clicks. You have to trust that your art, animation, gameplay programmers, etc are experts in their own way and there's usually at least one or two people making sure those things are all coehesive. Honestly that's the thing I think we lost in the 90s/00s was that the scope of a game was within the grasp of a team of 8-12 people. This is now making a resurgence in the indie space(latest example is Everspace 2 which just nails the feel of Freelancer and Escape Velocity).

psyc 6y ago

Are we talking about Stardew though? Because IMO it excels in half your criteria and is pleasantly adequate in the rest. If you mean games in general I mostly agree. Most teams just don’t seem to prioritize these things and it can be frustrating. Especially when the core concepts are so promising. There are a lot of reasons to idolize John Carmack, but my favorite is his lifelong obsession with latency. End to end. From the player's fingers, through the hardware, through all the many software layers, back through the hardware and into the player’s eyes. From Doom to the Oculus Rift architecture. This is why to me Id games feel and play like no others. He realized from the beginning that latency matters more than any other factor in competitive FPS games, and prioritized it as much as the rendering he’s more renowned for.

username90 6y ago
Stardew isn't shit in any area. Quite a lot of games (even high budget titles) are really shit in some area. No matter how great bread you use a shit sandwich still tastes worse than an average ham sandwich.

megameter 6y ago

Depth vs breadth is an issue with the study of every medium, and with games particularly, there is a staggering amount of potential breadth. Coverage of detail results in "top 10 tips" articles, coverage of the broad strokes results in an oversimplification. My current approach to game design revolves around a three-stage process: find well-justified principles, set concrete success benchmarks based off the principles, and routinely do studies of specific elements to test the benchmarks. This is something that can be applied fractally, from the top level down into every last asset, and isn't really specific to games, but it lets me cross the boundaries between media, ask and answer detailed questions like "what form of music is most appropriate for this scene?" A question like that isn't adequately answered by personal taste, and really benefits from a principled framework starting from basic philosophy-of-truth questions about the concepts. And this goes for stuff with the software and UX, too: requirements around stability, performance, ease of use and so forth appear in the success benchmarks and enforce a rough shape for the featureset. When the game "doesn't work" despite meeting technical standards, it's usually because there's a conceptual issue where the ideas the game explores are presented incoherently, where features are added because "this feature appeared in another game and it was fun there" and the contradictions implied by the juxtaposition are ignored. When the game goes in that direction, it makes players throw up their hands and say, "I don't know what this game is about." It's also harder to make such a game, because you end up laboring to paper over those contradictions with complicated special casing.

icegreentea2 6y ago

I mean part of it comes from what game designers have control or responsibility for. Game designers across the industry may or may not have the ability to strongly influence or control many of those factors that you mentioned (dependent on the scale and organization of the job and game). However, designing the core gameplay loop and player incentives is nearly always a core responsibility of a game designer. They are also often not mentioned because many of them are a different type of problem solving. High frame rate, stability, good quality animations are all effectively engineering and resource challenges. No one seeks out to not achieve those things, everyone knows that they're important. But the success of achieving those are typically driven by aspects completely out of control of a game designer (unless they are caused by gameplay mechanics or features that are just too technically taxing). I mean really, it's right in the title isn't it? This is a game _DESIGN_ perspective, not a game implementation, or game marketing, or game post-launch community support retrospective.