Capturing Gaming Feel Not All About Complexity?

Thanks to GameSpot for its 'GameSpotting' column discussing the largely indefinable 'feel' of a videogame, suggesting: " I'd much rather play a very simple game with a great feel to it than a highly complex, sweeping game consisting of a huge variety of different elements, none of which are terribly good in and of themselves." The writes goes on to compare the "polar-opposite types of game design philosophies" displayed in Ikaruga ("I think of [the game] essentially a flawless masterpiece") versus Morrowind ("I think of [it] as being great mostly through the sum of its many parts"), before concluding: "Games shouldn't take on extra features for the sake of it... Quality of gameplay is ultimately what matters most to people who avidly play games, and high-quality gameplay comes from having the right feel, rather than the other way around."

Comments

for example

[standsolid]

One might enjoy a game like Super Off Road because of it's simple, yet addictive gameplay.

When you see hte sequel, Super off road baja, you wonder WTF happened

On the other hand, tho, You have a game like Zelda: Link to the Past, which is a FANTASTIC game -- Then you compare it to Ocrina of Time... and you can see how "Features" can improve a product.

Re:for example

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether it was an improvement or not is debateable, but the key with Ocarina of Time was that they maintained the outstanding feel of the gameplay. But even so, there weren't many truly new features in Ocarina of Time. The gameplay was for the most part consistent with that of Link to the Past.

Re:for example

[mausmalone]

On the other hand, tho, You have a game like Zelda: Link to the Past, which is a FANTASTIC game -- Then you compare it to Ocrina of Time... and you can see how "Features" can improve a product.

An excellent example, as it also illustrates how new "features" can ruin the feel for certain people, since "feel" is a very very subjective thing. I know at least a few people who think Link to the Past is better than Ocarina of Time, and usually they just say that in 3D "it isn't the same."

Re:for example

[Zangief]

An excellent example, as it also illustrates how new "features" can ruin the feel for certain people, since "feel" is a very very subjective thing. I know at least a few people who think Link to the Past is better than Ocarina of Time, and usually they just say that in 3D "it isn't the same."

Count me up. While I think that Ocarina/WindWaker are great (I have not played Majora's yet), I think the game lost a lot in the 3D transition. The 2D games (TLOZ and ALttP, I'm not talking about AoL here) were more frantic, and the map was actually bigger (in the sense of complexity, and sheer size of things to do). Ocarina and WindWaker both sport huge maps, but they are mostly empty.

The dungeons were also bigger in ALttP. I think that the dungeon size/complexity in the 3D games is similar to the dungeons in the original TLOZ.

ALttP was a perfect game...

Riddick

[fozzmeister]

1st game that I believe has been very good in more than one department, fps (loads of action, powrful enough weapons and sometimes weak enough baddies to give a feeling of Doom. Dark area's combined with amazing atmosphere, ability to shoot lights and lure enimies makes it nearly as good as splinter cell (it has more accurate lighting too) and better than manhunt, gr8 story (as far as i have got) and good RPG elements.

Its a film license, how did it not suck!

N to the ethack

[MilenCent]

Yes, it's time for the mandatory Slashdot mentioning of Nethack, brought to you courtesy of ThinkGeek and Invisible Lallapalooza....

Nethack is an example of a game that rides its complexity to greatness. It makes it hard to learn, but once you learn it, it's wonderful.

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about it lately....

A little too complex...

[jammac]

I had been anticipating the release of Morrowind for quite a while before it finally released. The complexity and non-linear style of gameplay seemed to be exactly what I thought I wanted. However, after purchasing and playing it for several hours, I realized that despite the apparent complexity of the game, it was in fact TOO open-ended, so much that I felt lost and overwhelmed at times.

What I'm trying to get at is that for myself I would rather see a simple, yet potent game (Ikaruga is a great example) than a more complex do-whatever-the-hell-you-feel-like style game. A complex game like one of the Baldur's Gate games is much better than Morrowind, as the latter's complexity is better suited as a MMORPG.

Re:A little too complex...

[gl4ss]

the trick to playing morrowind is to not care about that.

of course it's kind of hard if you expect it to be like all the other games that come now that give you very direct orders on where to go with little choice.

and then when there's no choice they still say that it's a 'free world where you can go anywhere' - yet in farcry, where that's mentioned often(in reviews, they make a big deal out of it that you can walk around the 'open' levels), has limits on the levels you can't pass, so it's NOT up to you to choose the route(you can't use the waterways like one would want for example, and there's no plantation on areas you werent meant to reach)..

though, even in morrowind it's good to have certain goals you're pursuing - but the game doesn't force you to that(since most of the time you have couple of alternative goals you might wish to reach).

Re:A little too complex...

[Lynxara]

However, I think the poster's original point is that a game like Morrowind is basically unplayable until you've decided upon which of the range of offered goals you want to pursue. If you aren't the sort of player who goes into a game like that knowing what general sort of thing you'd like to do, the range of choices is more confusing than empowering. This phenomenon is why I inevitably put "sandbox"-style games like Morrowind down after tinkering with them for a few hours... I have fun, but just don't care enough to invest a lot of time or energy in picking what I want to do out of all the options the game gives me. As a gamer, I respond more to Ikaruga-style games where the task to be achieved and how to achieve it are very strongly defined, and the challenge is actually getting the job done.

Re:A little too complex...

[gl4ss]

well, each to his/her own then.

but that's what kept me playing morrowind for weeks, instead of the usual DAY it takes to finish games these days.

morrowind has a general plot, but you can put more time into the various optional quests than what you could put into digging through for example KOTOR completely(and I mean _really_ completely). with morrowind you also tend to always have some kind of objective from somebody. in this sense morrowind is a lot like fallout's, one 'master plot' and a shitload of other stuff to do so if you wish you can just go on and fish for some treasure by following some clues.

ikaruaga is a fine _action_ game.. but it's no adventure that developes as you go.

Re:A little too complex...

[Lynxara]

This conversation makes me really, seriously wonder if there aren't just two basic sorts of games, and two basic sorts of gamers who will tend to prefer one type of game over another. I can acknowledge when a "sandbox" style game is good, but it's not my preference; similarly, you acknowledge that Ikaruga is good for the sort of game it is, but it's obvious not your preference.

The two big trends in American gaming now, as far as I can see, are retrogaming and MMORPGs/"sandbox"-type games. I wonder if most of your big retrogamers aren't pretty much like me, gamers who prefer definition and simplicity, while the crowd following your MMORPGs and big "sandbox"-style titles are essentially like you, preferring something complex and evolving with lots of possibility. I imagine a lot of has been written about these basic game-style preferences, but I wonder how seriously the gaming industry has taken it. While I think people who prefer "sandbox" games are well taken care of by current trends in game design, I wonder if what's fueling the retrogaming demand is the simple fact that gamers who prefer simplicity don't have a whole lot of new, highly publicized material to pick from these days. I certainly don't buy very many new games anymore, despite really loving gaming....

Re:A little too complex...

[gl4ss]

well, gamers who want simplicity AND replayability are kinda shafted.. except that there's games like neverball for totally free. or the hundreds of flash games on various websites. there's more coders now than ever probably and it's easier to start than ever.. and most 'retro' type action/puzzle games are easy to clone and twist somehow.

if you just want simplicity there's dozen or so mediocre first person shooters or action jumper wanabe games released every year.. thing is these lack replayability even if they're sometimes good otherwise the fun is over in 8 hours(+0-4).

I play way too much games it seems :)

(and code some crap occasionally as well, retro focused)

Re:A little too complex...

[Weirdofreak]

I'm in the middle. I don't play simple games for long because they get repetitive, but I don't like the big open-ended ones where you can do whatever the hel you want because I don't get a sense of quest. Sure, I'm improving my skills, but I like the story progressing and me being in the middle of it. Even games with relatively little actual story, like Metroid Prime, since new paths open and it's clear where I have to go next, it feels like the story is pregressing, even if it's not there. Just training up a character for ages isn't particularly fun to me, but nor are twitchy games where one mistake means I have to start over again. I like a sense of pregression more than anthing else in a game.

Re:A little too complex...

[thrash242]

I definately prefer games (particularly RPGs) with completely open-ended gameplay. I want a simulated world in which I can do whatever I want and play my character however I want. Daggerfall and later, Morrowind were pretty close to this. I've played bibliophile characters who mainly collected books. I've tried play both good and evil characters. I've played thieves who robbed houses as their main ocupation. One thing I haven't done yet, in either, is play the Main Quest the whole way through. I've had too much fun doing everyrything else to get around to dedicating any time to it. The fact that I can do that and still have stuff do do is my favorite thing about the Elder Scrolls series. My only real complaint about Morrowind is that it's not random *enough*. Daggerfall was much more random and more open-ended IMO. There were *thousands* of towns you could go to and it would take literaly over a week (real time) to walk across the whole map. Where Daggerfall was weak was that the towns and most dungeons were randomly designed (at creation time, not dynamically). So they often didn't make sense and had little flavor to them. MW improves this a lot where everything is designed, but I still miss that randomness that was in Daggerfall. If they could combine DF and MW in the next Elder Scrolls game, it would be great. But I think that Elder Scrolls games also cater to gamers who want to "win" a game. They have (from what I've read) good stories that you can follow and participate in if you want. So if that's your style, I don't know why you can't have fun playing MW also. Just don't wander off the beaten path and do what you're told by NPCs.

Briefly, on the retro game subject, I love retro games also. I've been doing little but playing Doom lately and before that I was playing emulated games (NES, SNES, Arcade, C64) constantly. So I can appreciate a good simple, rigid, and linear, but fun game also.

I also love Simcity because there are no definate goals defined by the game designer. I wish other Strategy/Sim games were like this instead of having the "missions". Most have sandbox mode, but it's often kind of boring with nothing at all going on.

BTW, I just got Arena from the TES site and got it to run under DOSBox, so now I can play the first Elder Scrolls game too. :)

In short, what I often look for is a simulation of another world (or this world, but doing something I wouldn't be able to do), not really a "game" as such.

N to the ethack, and Crawl

[cjeris]

Those frustrated trying to learn Nethack's large library of instant-kill one-trick jokes may try Crawl, and struggle instead against its large library of instant-kill out-of-depth monsters.

Seriously, from the point of view of the original article, although Crawl is a turn-based roguelike game it gives a convincingly frenetic fast-action feel. You have time to think between moves, but mistakes are punished harshly. The game's principal flaw is that, until you become VERY good, only about 10% of your characters survive long enough to gain any control over their fate.

www.dungeoncrawl.org

Re:N to the ethack, and Crawl

[MilenCent]

Those frustrated trying to learn Nethack's large library of instant-kill one-trick jokes may try Crawl, and struggle instead against its large library of instant-kill out-of-depth monsters.

Actually....

Lately I've had opportunity to do a lot of thinking, and a lot of reading, on Nethack. And I've come to the conclusion that it's not nearly as deadly as new players believe.

These are the things that kill most new players:

• A monster. As in, loss of hit points from getting attacked by a monster. This is the biggie; probably 95% of deaths are due to this, and even experienced players die most often to these.
  
• Starvation. But once you know you can eat monster corpses, and once you know about everyone's friend, the #pray command, this almost never happens. That leads us to....
  
• Food poisoning. But again, once you know never to eat a corpse that hasn't been killed in the last, say, 20-or-so moves, this never happens.
  
• Choking on food. Again, just never eat when full.
  
• (Actual) poisoning. Whether from poisonous monsters, poisonous arrows, or poisoning traps (arrow, dart, spiked pits). This is the second most common cause of death, even among experienced players. Gaining poison resistance is an important early-game goal.
  
• Paralysis from smacking a floating eyte. If you ever see a cause of death that reads "Killed by a newt, while helpless," this is why.
  
• Monsterous insta-death. Primary among these sources is the lowly, yet potent, cockatrice. A little care goes a long way in dealing with these.

Those are the biggies, but they aren't really that many of these. No one ever dies by "an imperious order," or "fell hundreds of feet to his death," in normal play. The vast majority of deaths come from getting killed by a monster, getting poisoned by one, or by cockatrice or other monster with a method of instadeath (and there are not a large number of them).

In particular, new players are best served by being wary of soldier ants. Check it out.

Best Example

[eamonman]

Would be Tetris. I like all the simple versions like the Arcade and the Nintendo (NES, GB) versions. I've tried the Xbox version and I think it's BS (you shouldn't be able to keep re-flipping a piece to keep it from sticking,) but my point is that the simple, set rules of gameplay have made it into classic game that I can still pick up and play at any time, even though I've been playing it a little more than half my life.

Re:Best Example

[mausmalone]

Your example actually reminds me of Gorillas.... a classic, but with extremely simple gameplay. A bunch of players lobbing a bunch of explosive bananas at each other one at a time... and its simplicity makes it a whole lot of fun.

Being lost and overwhelmed is a great show stopper

[krinsh]

... that is, stopping you from continuing the show. I have at least a half dozen games I've put down because of the complexity, regardless of the 'feel'. Then I've had some otherwise cheeseball games - like the "Journeyman Project" games, "Project Nomads" (wait there's a common element there - 'project' in the name!) and several different java/flash games that were appealing not so much for the gameplay or innovative concepts (at the time I played them); but for their environments - the background world you were playing in; the scenery and story that evolved and prompts people to write fan fiction and draw their own fan art - like in "Halo" (I beat the PC game on it's default setting, not Legendary yet I don't have time to try!) where people who know and love 'Ringworld' finally *SAW* one and they're building upon the game with halfway decent paperbacks and a supposedly kick-ass sequel.

Games are complex nowadays

[superpulpsicle]

If someone showed me wolfenstein enemy territory back in 1980, I'd think the game has an unacceptably difficult learning curve. Basically only very extreme geeks could understand it enough to play it.

If someone showed me wolfenstein enemy territory in 2000, I'd think it's no complex than any other game in the market.

What does that say? Alot about the complexity of games in general in the market going up and up.

Re:N to the ethack, A to the DOM

[OgdEnigmaX]

Those wishing for a more consistent Roguelike world -- indeed, it has an extensive overland map -- and a pretty interesting story besides (if you survive long enough to start to learn it) ought to try Thomas Biskup's Ancient Domains of Mystery, or ADOM for short. As devious as Nethack and SLASH-EM can be, I'm always pulled back to ADOM's imperiled world, which is also ridiculously deep and as such a blast to learn. Note that while the game is free, the source is closed (largely in order to prevent the development of variants inconsistent with the author's vision of the world and the monsters that inhabit it) and as of yet there are no OSX or Amiga ports.

Re:Being lost and overwhelmed is a great show stop

[Drawkcab]

And I've stopped playing games for being too simple. For example, while FF1 was great on the Nintendo, since then the bar for RPGs has been raised, and I find the modern FF games too simple to be interesting. If I wanted to watch a movie, most actual movies have better plots, and if I want to play a game I need something engaging.

A game like Morrowind, while not a perfect game, held my interest for a lot longer. A complex game like ATITD held my interest for a lot longer than a very well-done but very simple MMORPG like City of Heroes. I always go for complexity and game mechanics over the story and feel.

Thats why its great that there is variety. So each person can choose what suits their own tastes. I think its wrong to argue that games in general should be more or less complex. Some games should be complex, and some simple. Some should tell great stories, while others have immersive gameplay but a perfunctory story. Which is how it is now.

The one thing that gamers really need is more diversity, more genre-breaking, more experimentation, and fewer cookie-cutter clones of whatever recent titles were popular and are easiest to develop. 80s games haven't all aged well due to their simplicity, but one thing they had going for them was that because of the simplicity they could be developed by individuals or small teams, which lead to a lot of variety and experimentation that is often lacking in modern big-budget games. Art resources, 3d rendering, and a movie license are no substitute for originality in gameplay.

Too many games offer hours of boring gameplay

[kc78]

One of the main gripes with video games is that they aren't long enough. I hear this all the time from people. However, I hate it when I play a game and it makes me go through the dumbest hoops just to make the game longer. For example, I recently started playing Champions of Norrath. There's one level I just finished where you have to fight through this ant hill of giant ants until you get to the bottom and kill the boss queen ant that's plaguing the city. I must have killed ants for an hour just going around in a circle until I finally got to the end of the level and then had a tedious fight with this ant. All with no save areas in between. (Granted I could gate out and save at least.) I was so bored and I don't know how many times I screamed, how much further is this stupid thing. Same thing happened when I was trying to make my way through Lord Vanderhosts' castle in that same level. A game that does it right however is Knights of the Old Republic, which I'm also playing right now. I've already played for 11 hours on it (which is a lot for me) and haven't gotten bored once. The levels are laid out, at least so far, with common sense in mind. There's no intricate dungeon just for the hell of it. When you're in a base, it makes sense to be in the base and going through the rooms you're going through. I love this game, and haven't gotten annoyed with it even once. It's not overly difficult, but the story is amazing, and the gameplay is great. I'm not even sure I'll go through the hassle of finishing Champions of Norrath, but I'll play KoToR until my fingers bleed.

Re:N to the ethack, A to the DOM

[MilenCent]

I've played a fair bit of ADOM, and while there are definitely things to like about it, I don't get the sense of richness that Nethack provides. The closed-sourceness of ADOM is probably a big reason for this; with only one person supplying ideas for it, even if he *is* pretty sharp overall, there's just not that much variety to the game, and some of what there is is outright cribbed from Nethack.

Another thing about ADOM is the sense I get that it cheats. It biases item generation depending on player class, and it generates better random items on harder levels. Thus, necessarily, some of that "try to tackle the dungeon with different classes" approach is different. While Nethack includes a dungeon that's different for each class, ADOM subtlely changes the whole game.

And also, I think the inclusion of a story in a Roguelike is basically misguided. Roguelikes are made to be replayed over and over, and a story gets progressively less interesting the more times you hear it.

Furthermore, there are precious few stories in videogames that are worth anything. really. I include both Nethack's and ADOM's in this summary imperious judgement.

Feel me

[BortQ]

Anybody that agrees with this article's point should check out my Risk-style game Lux. It has the strategic feel of the boardgame risk, with some enhancements like network play and such.

I have stayed very true to the feel of Risk, and it has been quite successful!

Too much complexity

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

I've actually been thinking about this in relaiton to RTS games, which I enjoy, but it applies to all really. Games can be too complex to be fun. Now where that line lies will vary with the individual. It depends largely on how much time you have to devote to the game. I find Total Annihilation and Starcraft enjoyable and fun to play. I appreciate the depth of Age of Kings and other newer games, but I simply don't have the time to get past the learning phase.

When it was released, TA enjoyed great popularity, which declined as large numbers of somewhat inconsistently designed third-party units filled the game. How does one deal with an amphibious, flying Krogoth snuffler? TA has been enjoying a resurgence, largely confined to either the original unit set or the CC expansion set. Starcraft, which avoided that pitfal has remained popular and even has professional competition.

I admire AOK. I wish I had time to get to the point where I could concentrate on strategy instead of trying to remember which eight things I have to build to find out if I remembered the right combination to counter an attack of elite Jaguar warriors. It seems to me, that a good game has rules that are complex enough to be challenging, yet simple enough to be learned relatively quickly. It's fine to be fourteen and have hours and hours for gaming each day. If you have a full-time job and a family, your time is limited. I want something I can enjoy without devoting my life to it.

This isn't intended to start a "That game sucks" flamewar. There is a legitimate market for extremely complex games, if they are well designed. I think, however, that there is a much larger market for well designed games that challenge your mind's strategic sense rather than just your ability to learn and memorize rules. After all, chess has lasted a good ling time with only six different pieces and pretty simple rules.

Re:Too much complexity

[Jad LaFields]

Just to another voice to the complexity sliding scale: I used to get all the big-name RTS titles like Warcraft II & III, TA, Homeworld, etc., but would always find that about half-way to 2/3s through most games the complexity of the games got to high -- too many units to manage, to many avenues of attack -- that the games became no longer fun, either because I was losing all the time, or contantly pausing (Homeworld became a pretty, 3D turn-based game soon after the Gardens of Kadesh for me, even though its a game that many consider to be 'easy').

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that not only are there many differences between people for their tolerances for complexity, but people themselves frequently have ranges of tolerances that can change over time. I've recently gotten very much into Morrowind after nearly giving up RPGs a few years ago, and I love the open-ended 'choose-your-own-adventure' feeling of it. Of course, the last game I really enjoyed was Call of Duty, which is so linear and focused that the game even tells you "You cannot open this door. You will never have to open a door in this game." the first time you attempt the cliched FPS "try every door to find the one that opens to the next room" technique.

The most important thing, when it comes to complexity, is interface design. Homeworld had incredible interface design for the first true-3D RTS, but apparently it still wasn't enough for me, as I would frequently lose entire squadrons of fighters that could only be found with frequent use of the 'pause' button. But I don't want to go off into a rant, so I'll leave this comment off now.

My stupidest deaths

[ReKleSS]

I don't play nethack much any more for some reason, probably has something to do with ut2004. Anyway, my 2 stupidest deaths, that aren't in your little list:

• Playing as a knight, I tried to mount a horse. I slipped and fell off. Thinking that this was just a one-off thing. I tried again. Fell again. One more time. Fell and died.
• This one was unfair. I entered a room. A rock fell on my head. I moved another square. Another rock fell on my head. This happened a few times, and then I got killed by a rock. These were all individual rocks!

Granted, these could probably have been prevented by thinking a bit more (leaving the room and not trying to mount the horse), but oh well....
-ReK

Re:My stupidest deaths

[marco0009]

"Taloliok killed by kicking a wall" Pretty stupid.

Re:My stupidest deaths

[MilenCent]

Was it a tame horse?

But that *is* really bad luck with the rock traps, heh. My condolences.

I once made it to the Wizard before knowing how essential it was to have magic resistance at that stage, and died to a finger of death spell. I did ascend eventually, though.

Ikaruga is over-rated

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's fun to play a good old top down shooter with 3D graphics, the "clever" black and white polarity gimmick wears off VERY fast and gets rather annoying. Basically, gameplay is reduced to figuring out what color the designer intended you to be (black or white) in each area of a level.

well duh

[Kent Simon]

am i the only one who thinks this whole thing is just a little ... obvious?

Ikaruga had an intended audience... not over-rated

[blahplusplus]

Ikaruga was not just about the polarity. Polarity forces you to make choices, thats is whats so fun about polarity is skill factor involved in conjunction to how the levels are designed. (Level 4 anyone?) hardly a gimmick when you need to use it skillfully to survive! Knowing when to absorb enemy shots and knowing when to release them to kill enemies in the correct order to obtain the maximum score is what ikaruga is about. If you have any doubt check the demos on different screen widths/options on horizontal it will show you advanced chaining techniques in the levels in conquest mode.

Ikaruga was mainly about chaining and getting a high score. It is a twitch skill based game. The game while short and somewhat uninspired had deep puzzles for chainers in level design. Just watch some of the best ikaruga players The goal of any serious ikaruga player is to chain enemies and rack up the highest score possible which is a tremendous feat in and of itself. Thats the Ikaruga's main draw, is the challenge of mastering the levels and chaining perfectly, not to finish the game on easy just shooting guys blindly or dying until you get infinite continues to finish the game.

Check out some of the replays here... this is what ikaruga is really about.

http://kiken.sirkain.net/Ikareplay.html

VGA Planets

[servognome]

I loved to play VGA planets 3.0 back around 1995. The game had a simple interface, but the gamplay could get very complex. Then they added features, hyperspace jumps, gambling ships... eventually the game became just bloated with complexity.
Also look at the Civilizaion line of games. Civilization is a classic, civ2 for me hit the sweetspot, not much more complex than the original, but a few helpful tweaks. Then Civ3 added more resources and culture, and is much more complex and less fun to play. Then there is Civ:Call to Power, which totally crosses the line of complexity to where the game isn't fun. Slavery, lawyers filing injunctions, corporate franchises in enemy cities?
Developers definately need to evaluate whether the complexity they add enriches the experience, or just makes it more difficult.

Re:Ikaruga had an intended audience... not over-ra

[jerkface]

No disrespect to Kiken, but his videos are nothing compared to the cream-of-the-crop selection available at ikaruga.co.uk. Incidentally, the guy who did the chapter 4 video available there has since improved on it quite a lot, but he hasn't been doing video capture lately. For something more optimal, check out the chapter 4 prototype mode video.