Balancing Challenge Against Frustration In Games

Game-ism has an article discussing the balance game developers strive to achieve between making games challenging enough to be interesting, but not so much that they are frustrating. The author points to Assassin's Creed and GTA IV as examples of recent major titles which may have suffered from gameplay that was too easy to master. Conversely, a minor title like Bionic Commando Rearmed achieved more success than expected in part due to the sense of accomplishment that comes from completing parts of the game.

Comments

First things first

[Anonymous Coward]

No more cutscenes. Especially long-winded cutscenes before a difficult combat. Even moreso cutscenes that can not be skipped by player before a difficult combat. Don't care if a game is difficult or frustrating but games are meant to be played, not watched. If I wanted cutscenes then I'd just rent the MGS4 machinima direct-to-DVD movie.

Re:So many frustrations

[spire3661]

I have this issue with being slightly red-green colorblind. I can see the colors but red and green are sometimes indistinct to me. Older games didnt address this issue as well as newer ones, as publishers realized a fairly decent chunk (8-10%) of their core audience is at least partially color blind. I often equate being partially colorblind to being tone deaf. Its not like you cant hear the notes, its just hard to distinguish between them sometimes, right?

Re:Cut scenes required by law

[KDR_11k]

Intro screens are usually not considered cutscenes, the "cut" part is understood to mean "cut away from the game".