9 ms·

More notes about pain as a game mechanic

41 points by luu 3y ago

tgv 3y ago
[flagged]
- qsort 3y ago
  The broader point is "game mechanics with permanent memory", which is interesting as a thought experiment. Imagine chess with "you may have your opponent retract a move, but only once in this 9-round swiss", or a Magic the Gathering card with "you may only use this effect once per tournament", or a penalty in sports where you must sit out the rest of the season. I wish they hadn't picked pain and mutilation examples as it's the most deranged way possible to make the above point.
  - tgv 3y ago
    There are other ways of permanent memory, like engraving it in stone. Or what did you think about a trophy for the winner. However, the mechanics to which this is compared, heal, and are therefore not permanent. It's simply pathological.
  - eadler 3y ago
    Aren't 'legacy' mechanics exactly this?
  - dmurray 3y ago
    It's not exactly the same, though. If you were in the last game of the tournament (or your life) you would have no additional penalty for using these abilities. You might still be averse to cutting off your fingers.
    - rcxdude 3y ago
      Yes, I think there is some aspect that's supposed to be about a trade that has some effect outside the game. I think these are generally not desirable in games because they either reward those who have more resources outside the game or they reward those for which the game represents a larger fraction of their life as a whole, and this is generally against the usual fairness we tend to prefer in games (especially a bias towards this already exists through factors which are hard to control. Explicitly making it part of the game is already unnecessary).
  - thfuran 3y ago
    >or a Magic the Gathering card with "you may only use this effect once per tournament", While not exactly that, there used to be some pretty wild cards with permanent effects: https://tappedout.net/mtg-card/timmerian-fiends/ https://tappedout.net/mtg-card/timmerian-fiends/
    - rcxdude 3y ago
      Ah yes, ante was a pretty crazy mechanic.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    I think in the chess case this would just cause a lot of strange games where one player has used it, and one hasn't and therefore the player who hasn't can probably win more or less at will. Games where both players still have it will probably end up drawing because going into complications is just too risky. There will be too many strange ways one player could suddenly win. I realise you're just using it as an example here, I just can't help but analyse a chess variant when I see one.
jwilk 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35941369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35941369 ("Notes on rarely-seen game mechanics", 5 days ago, >100 comments)
felixgallo 3y ago
The canonical game about Pain is "Getting Over It", by Bennett Foddy. Truly a masterpiece.
- jimbob45 3y ago
  Which is weird because I Wanna Be the Boshy puts GOI to shame in the masochistic difficulty department.
  - Tade0 3y ago
    I think it's the narration during gameplay which makes GOI so memorable.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
      That brings back a vague memory of watching a youtuber play it and at some point he was raging more at the commentary than the game because it was so pretentious(to his mind). I bet that aspect to it was probably intended too, which I love
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    The games mentioned are far too masochistic for me. But at my current skill level, trying for the cosmic ocean in Spelunky 2 feels not only masochistic but hopeless because I will probably never be able to do it. And yet I keep trying. I don't even know why at this point. But I'm not ready to give up on it.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    Games like I Wanna Be the Boshy are generally a different kind of difficult: they have quite frequent save points and fast restarts close to where you last failed (except for on the very hardest difficulty, which is not the intended difficulty). Getting over it is easier mechanically but it's very punishing: in many places failure will put you right back at the start, meaning a retry is very tedious.
    - 3y ago
hyperhopper 3y ago
Interesting strategy for HN score: make all your comment replies long form blog posts (and maybe add one or two other asides before the reply)
- jrockway 3y ago
  I do this when I hit the length limit, but I don't submit the post as an article just, "see my reply here". People do click them!
grrdotcloud 3y ago
Being a father of a toddler has taught me that patience is a type of pain tolerance. If I can be patient longer than my toddler can inflict "pain", I win.
angry_moose 3y ago
There was a fairly famous article on the internet about a couple guys who modded their original XBox controller (I think) to deliver a significant electric shock every time they got hit. As I recall, they rewired the rumble motor circuit to instead trigger a ~10,000V stun gun, the output of which was wired back to two metal contacts they added to the grips. It's turning out to be impossible to search for, but always seemed like a fun idea.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  IIRC, the 90s Japanese game show "Irritating Stick" had a premise where you had to guide a metal training sword (a stick) through a wireframe maze without touching the sides. Failure would shock the contestant.
  - throwaway173738 3y ago
    This is similar to one of the Tough Mudder obstacles except the sword is your body.
brian_cunnie 3y ago
After 15 years of playing rugby, where pain is an ever-present game mechanic, I will say this: My hardest season was the one where I had shin splints. You'd think the concussions, the hematomas, the separated ears, the stomped feet, the scraped hands, the black eyes would be painful, and you'd be right: they're painful. But not as much as the shin splints. Go figure.
- lewiscarson 3y ago
  I rarely see rugby mentioned on primarily American forums. Where are you from? Pacific Islander, UK, Europe, South Africa?
  - brian_cunnie 3y ago
    I’m American, and as a kid I loved playing the game “Cream the Carrier” (tackle the ball-carrier). The closest analogue as an adult was rugby, and there are four rugby clubs in San Francisco, so I played for one of them.
rcxdude 3y ago
This is a theme which the video game Inscryption plays with a little, both with ingame mechanics representing similar effects, and (spoiler) some effort towards extending this outside the game to at least the computer you are playing it on, though the developer wisely goes with the honor system for actually enacting the results.
sdwr 3y ago
The finger-cutting in chess must be a reference to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubitsume https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubitsume Which makes more sense in the criminal underworld than in chess. That kind of feedback loop is terrifying and beautiful. A similar (less gruesome) loop in the white-collar world is effort measured by tiredness. Bags under the eyes is an honest signal for mental strain over time (as far as I know).
- mjd 3y ago
  I had that at the back of my mind as something similar, but I didn't intend it as a reference. The two games are very different. A better chess analog of yubitsume would be: you can make one (normally) illegal move in the game, if you pay for it by chopping a finger.

41 points by luu 3y ago

tgv 3y ago

[flagged]

qsort 3y ago
The broader point is "game mechanics with permanent memory", which is interesting as a thought experiment. Imagine chess with "you may have your opponent retract a move, but only once in this 9-round swiss", or a Magic the Gathering card with "you may only use this effect once per tournament", or a penalty in sports where you must sit out the rest of the season. I wish they hadn't picked pain and mutilation examples as it's the most deranged way possible to make the above point.
- tgv 3y ago
  There are other ways of permanent memory, like engraving it in stone. Or what did you think about a trophy for the winner. However, the mechanics to which this is compared, heal, and are therefore not permanent. It's simply pathological.
- eadler 3y ago
  Aren't 'legacy' mechanics exactly this?
- dmurray 3y ago
  It's not exactly the same, though. If you were in the last game of the tournament (or your life) you would have no additional penalty for using these abilities. You might still be averse to cutting off your fingers.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    Yes, I think there is some aspect that's supposed to be about a trade that has some effect outside the game. I think these are generally not desirable in games because they either reward those who have more resources outside the game or they reward those for which the game represents a larger fraction of their life as a whole, and this is generally against the usual fairness we tend to prefer in games (especially a bias towards this already exists through factors which are hard to control. Explicitly making it part of the game is already unnecessary).
- thfuran 3y ago
  >or a Magic the Gathering card with "you may only use this effect once per tournament", While not exactly that, there used to be some pretty wild cards with permanent effects: https://tappedout.net/mtg-card/timmerian-fiends/ https://tappedout.net/mtg-card/timmerian-fiends/
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    Ah yes, ante was a pretty crazy mechanic.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  I think in the chess case this would just cause a lot of strange games where one player has used it, and one hasn't and therefore the player who hasn't can probably win more or less at will. Games where both players still have it will probably end up drawing because going into complications is just too risky. There will be too many strange ways one player could suddenly win. I realise you're just using it as an example here, I just can't help but analyse a chess variant when I see one.

jwilk 3y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35941369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35941369 ("Notes on rarely-seen game mechanics", 5 days ago, >100 comments)

felixgallo 3y ago

The canonical game about Pain is "Getting Over It", by Bennett Foddy. Truly a masterpiece.

jimbob45 3y ago
Which is weird because I Wanna Be the Boshy puts GOI to shame in the masochistic difficulty department.
- Tade0 3y ago
  I think it's the narration during gameplay which makes GOI so memorable.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    That brings back a vague memory of watching a youtuber play it and at some point he was raging more at the commentary than the game because it was so pretentious(to his mind). I bet that aspect to it was probably intended too, which I love
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  The games mentioned are far too masochistic for me. But at my current skill level, trying for the cosmic ocean in Spelunky 2 feels not only masochistic but hopeless because I will probably never be able to do it. And yet I keep trying. I don't even know why at this point. But I'm not ready to give up on it.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  Games like I Wanna Be the Boshy are generally a different kind of difficult: they have quite frequent save points and fast restarts close to where you last failed (except for on the very hardest difficulty, which is not the intended difficulty). Getting over it is easier mechanically but it's very punishing: in many places failure will put you right back at the start, meaning a retry is very tedious.
  - 3y ago

hyperhopper 3y ago

Interesting strategy for HN score: make all your comment replies long form blog posts (and maybe add one or two other asides before the reply)

jrockway 3y ago
I do this when I hit the length limit, but I don't submit the post as an article just, "see my reply here". People do click them!

grrdotcloud 3y ago

Being a father of a toddler has taught me that patience is a type of pain tolerance. If I can be patient longer than my toddler can inflict "pain", I win.

angry_moose 3y ago

There was a fairly famous article on the internet about a couple guys who modded their original XBox controller (I think) to deliver a significant electric shock every time they got hit. As I recall, they rewired the rumble motor circuit to instead trigger a ~10,000V stun gun, the output of which was wired back to two metal contacts they added to the grips. It's turning out to be impossible to search for, but always seemed like a fun idea.

jstarfish 3y ago
IIRC, the 90s Japanese game show "Irritating Stick" had a premise where you had to guide a metal training sword (a stick) through a wireframe maze without touching the sides. Failure would shock the contestant.
- throwaway173738 3y ago
  This is similar to one of the Tough Mudder obstacles except the sword is your body.

brian_cunnie 3y ago

After 15 years of playing rugby, where pain is an ever-present game mechanic, I will say this: My hardest season was the one where I had shin splints. You'd think the concussions, the hematomas, the separated ears, the stomped feet, the scraped hands, the black eyes would be painful, and you'd be right: they're painful. But not as much as the shin splints. Go figure.

lewiscarson 3y ago
I rarely see rugby mentioned on primarily American forums. Where are you from? Pacific Islander, UK, Europe, South Africa?
- brian_cunnie 3y ago
  I’m American, and as a kid I loved playing the game “Cream the Carrier” (tackle the ball-carrier). The closest analogue as an adult was rugby, and there are four rugby clubs in San Francisco, so I played for one of them.

rcxdude 3y ago

This is a theme which the video game Inscryption plays with a little, both with ingame mechanics representing similar effects, and (spoiler) some effort towards extending this outside the game to at least the computer you are playing it on, though the developer wisely goes with the honor system for actually enacting the results.

sdwr 3y ago

The finger-cutting in chess must be a reference to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubitsume https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubitsume Which makes more sense in the criminal underworld than in chess. That kind of feedback loop is terrifying and beautiful. A similar (less gruesome) loop in the white-collar world is effort measured by tiredness. Bags under the eyes is an honest signal for mental strain over time (as far as I know).

mjd 3y ago
I had that at the back of my mind as something similar, but I didn't intend it as a reference. The two games are very different. A better chess analog of yubitsume would be: you can make one (normally) illegal move in the game, if you pay for it by chopping a finger.