Game Essentials - 20 Difficult Games

Last week, in a discussion of the essentials of game design by John Harris, Gamasutra posted a list of twenty really difficult games. It's interesting not only for the purposes of the article (examining the concept of challenge in game creation) but also simply as a personal scorecard for your own gaming career. My personal albatross: "8. Monkey Ball, a.k.a. Super Monkey Ball. Putting that monkey in the ball may have been a whimsical masterstroke, but don't let it fool you. This game is hard. Design lesson: If you're going to make a super hard game, make it fair. No one thinks Monkey Ball is unfair. There is no randomness. Everything that happens is a direct result of the player's actions, and there are no hidden portions of the level waiting to destroy the player. It's not like a boss enemy with secret attacks the player couldn't possibly survive the first time seeing it. It's not only possible to reach and finish Monkey Ball's Master levels, but it could be done on one's first try. Winning the lottery is more likely, but it's possible." How many have you mastered?

Comments

Ikaruga

[benbean]

It made me sit through eleven pages only to find Ikaruga wasn't on the list. Pah.

Not hard

[Pancake Bandit]

I don't really understand the purpose of this list. At least the author doesn't pretend that these are the 20 hardest games ever, just 20 difficult games. Mischief Makers, even getting all the gold gems, was a bit of a challenge but not an extremely frustrating one. Lolo wasn't that much harder than a lot of puzzle games I've played. A few of the games on the list were only difficult because they suffered from poor gameplay, silly programming decisions or lousy instructions.

Re:You won't see any more of these.

[kisrael]

I've been a classic gamer for a long, long time, I was posting on r.g.v.c. since like '93 or so...

Here's the thing: games now have distinct content, lots of it, not just one playfield or enemy set speeded up.

(Ideally, this content involves new interactions, i.e. involving programmers as well as designers, not just the artists saying "well, here's a 'new city' to 'explore')

So people want to get the game that they pay for. Me, and maybe it's a personal fault throughout many aspects of my life, I don't like challenge for its own sake. I want to play with novel interactions in as economical a way as possible. (And, oddly, the time a game uses is counted both towards its cost and its benefit)

Most games, especially sandbox ones, will have some rewards for the really dedicated and skilled player, or at least have challenges so such a player can self-motivate and have something to do. And now you even have youtube and specialty sites to show off your 'l33t skillz. Quit griping that big chunks of content aren't being created (and tested) just for you and your dedicated little band...