On the Trend of Forgiving Game Design

[jehu]

I'm experiencing a weird kind of indie shmup burnout.

On Switch, we've already seen a flurry of impressive indie releases this year (NeverAwake, Drainus, Graze Counter GM) and I came into the month being excited to try them all.

Well now I have, and they're all very competently made games, but there's something almost candy-like in consuming them. At first, they're a joy, but afterwards you feel a little empty and a little sick.

Graze Counter GM has great visual design, and the mechanics are very satisfying to engage with. However, because the counter and break systems allow you to become invulnerable and clear away bullets, you hardly ever end up in any kind of danger. It wasn't more than a day before I had cleared Unlimited Extreme (the hardest difficulty) and unlocked all the achievements and characters.

NeverAwake was similar. Set aside an afternoon to play it, and soon found that the power-up system allows for such broken combinations that the entire game just folds. NeverAwake might be worse than Graze Counter in this regard because it doesn't even require you to play at all well to beat its hardest challenges. You can set your load-out up in such a way that copious automatic healing and special weapon spam is almost infinitely available. Held my attention for several hours while I unlocked everything, but left me feeling unsatisfied and braindead.

Drainus is a more complicated case. The visuals are phenomenal, the stages are pretty well designed. And, though the main campaign is also pretty braindead, the unlockable Arcade Mode offers challenges that at least require you to play competently to pass. But, nevertheless, the absorb mechanic allows players to trivialize many potentially difficult moments in the game, it allows you to take a ton of hits, and the shop system is more of an annoyance - a stumbling block in the gameplay - than a fun node of player choice and engagement.

So, I'm left with mixed feelings about the efforts of the indie scene to push towards more accessible games.

The issue isn't with accessibility per-se. I'm all for Novice Modes that respect the player and attempt to integrate them into the game's systems and prepare them for harder challenges. Crimzon Clover is a prime example of a well-designed Novice Mode. Rather, I'd say Graze Counter, NeverAwake, and Drainus reveal what happens when the ethos of accessibility is so deep that it reaches its hands into the very mechanics of the games. When the emphasis on 'wants you to succeed' becomes more like 'doesn't want you to fail,' or even 'doesn't let you fail.'

If the 'Classic Arcade' rules of the game are clearly established early on - meaning: if you get hit once, you die - a well-made game will bake the 'if you get hit once, you die' assumption into the design of the whole package. You should be able to make it through the whole game without getting hit, and that leads to a kind of design tightness that I've come to appreciate about the best Arcade experiences. (This is no guarantee of a good experience, as we all know from playing plenty of cheap-death shit, but rather provides a solid foundation around which to design a game provided the designer is a good designer.)

Likewise, if the 'ethos of copious forgiveness' is the core design assumption of a game, the forgiving nature will be baked deep deep into everything. With Graze Counter and NeverAwake - and Drainus, but to a lesser extent - I often got the feeling that 'they couldn't make this game hard even if they wanted to.' That is, these games couldn't be made hard without altering or dismantling the core mechanics of the game - the same mechanics that informed all the design decisions of said game. For example, Graze Counter could be made difficult without the invincibility of the 'Graze Counter' system, or NeverAwake without the power-up interactions, or Drainus without the generous reflection meter, but then these games would cease to work properly because they are all designed around these player-oriented consolations. (Maybe stripping these systems would make these games difficult, but it would be a poorly designed difficult - not at all like the 'difficult, but fair' feeling that the best examples of the Arcade STG readily create.) Thus, short of breaking their game - these developers have designed games that are created with a inextricable 'easiness' that compromises their depth and longevity. To be clear, this isn't to say that any of these games are badly designed - quite the opposite. It's just that their design emphasis on 'player forgiveness' forces a kind of shallowness into the experience. At heart, I genuinely don't like the feeling that I've mastered a game after spending only a shallow afternoon with it.

I write because I wonder whether any of this will be controversial. There continues to be a lot of talk about making the genre more accessible. Do games like Graze Counter, NeverAwake and Drainus provide a path forward - for newcomers and perhaps even for us? Do any of the forums longtimers enjoy these games? Is it nice to have a relaxing romp through something easier from time to time? Or are the people more on my side - inexpressibly excited about the new STG blood, but disappointed that their experiences with the games aren't as deep as they'd like?

[To Far Away Times]

I passed on Graze Counter for this reason. Drainus is cool, but obviously targeting a wider audience.

I think Senjin Aleste is a good example of a more forgiving (arcade difficulty) shmup. I really like that game and how it handles its lives system. Senjin Aleste allows you to recover lives slowly on a timer, so getting hit early on isn't frustrating or an instant restart, and you can easily recover to full resources within a few minutes.

[Steven]

I am typing this on my Vita because I am too lazy to get out of bed to turn my computer on, so please forgive any mistakes I may make.

Modern game design in general places perhaps too much importance on accessibility; god forbid you actually have to think for youself instead of relying on the massive arrow on the screen that shows you exactly where to go, or, even worse, the horror of having extra lives or otherwise requiring the player to actually use skill to finish the game.

Accessibility is fine, but I think the industry is increasingly unwilling to take risks; every game has to be for every player, and game design has reached an unprecedented level of safeness, and also sameness. It's all formulaic and homogenized now.

One of the most major and most disturbing trends is that games are now disposable. Once you are finished with a game, you throw it in the trash and never play it again. As a result, I feel that companies are trying to make that single playthrough easy for everyone to experience on their first, and only, playthrough, which achievement/trophy data shows that the vast majority of players never complete anyway, so maybe none of this actually even matters.

Have you played Grand Cross Renovation yet? I got the same feeling of weirdness from that game that you seem to have gotten from the games you mentioned. Now Grand Cross has some interesting scoring mechanics that can greatly extend the amount of time you spend with it if you are into scoring, but if not, it's a pretty easy game that comes across as a super trippy and indescribable Radiant Silvergun. Unlike the games you mentioned, though, I think this game could easily be given a harder difficulty setting that does not break the exisiting game.

I don't really think this acessibility focus is too much of a problem, though, and the reason is that there are plenty of old games that give us what we want, and we know the good games to recommend to new players, like a game you mentioned: Crimzon Clover novice mode. That game in general is just ridiculously well-designed.

Now I am apparently weird because I don't really care about bullet hell very much at all (80s Toaplan >>>>>>>> CAVE. There, I said it), but I have checked out some of CAVE's novice modes on games like DDP Daifukkatsu and Saidaioujou and I think they would be fine entry points as well, as those are still well-built and relatively modern games. Hell, I think Crimzon Clover predates Saidaioujou anyway, so if that is modern, Saidaioujou certainly is. There are great options out there that are well-built and solid entry-level experiences despite not being as easy or simple as something like Thunder Force III. Eschatos comes to mind.

Ultimately, someone who doesn't know anything about STGs, or where to go to learn about STGs (here, basically), will go on Steam or whatever and buy some game because they want to try STGs. Maybe they will hate the game. Maybe they won't. I don't think it actually matters. If they have some interest, they'll probably do some research and find out about games like Crimzon Clover or Eschatos or whatever. Basically, the old games that are good are going to continue to be there and people will continue to recommend them, so even if everything going forward feels a bit hollow in comparison, I don't really think it is a problem.

[BEAMLORD]

I can't argue with that, Jehu. I think we are still waiting for the next Crimzon Clover, something with serious arcade chops that also has an in-road for newer players or the shmup-curious, as demonstrated by that game's Novice mode like you mentioned.

My most recent experience of this was with the recent release of Mecha Ritz on Switch. Been around a while obviously, and has garnered some rep, so I was excited to play it. So when I 1cc'd it on my third or fourth attempt the day I picked it up, I was sorely disappointed. As much as I really like the aesthetic and how it plays (handles so well and feels so good in mid-flow), I felt bummed and hollow, feeling I had really achieved nothing at all.

The sliding-scale rank system and generous shield and extend drops really mean that a player of any level can 1cc in short order. You could choose to start the game at rank 300 or something, then finish it at rank 000.

I get that perhaps Mecha Ritz is a game to play for score at higher levels that allows for lesser mortals to enjoy the base thrill of a 1cc, and so its a great game for newcomers whilst leaving room for those inclined and able enough to push the rank. I prefer a stricter framework of set difficulty.

[To Far Away Times]

Another great entry level shmup is Darius Burst AC.

With it's polygon visuals, trippy music, 4 player mode, 15 minute length, and tons of routes ranging from a very easy clear to a few that are quite difficult, there's a little something for everyone. The arcade cabinet is also impressive AF with the massive 32:9 screen, enclosed bench and subwoofers. If you see it, you just have to play it.

And while almost anyone could clear an ADH route within a few attempts, there are plenty of routes that offer increased difficulty, with some of the Extra routes being quite challenging.

The rechargeable burst lazer is quite a forgiving mechanic that takes a little practice to pull off. That's a game that doesn't have to sacrifice anything to have a broader appeal.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

So, I'm left with mixed feelings about the efforts of the indie scene to push towards more accessible games.

Why? There's already like a million games out there you could play geared towards a more "hardcore" audience. If you're finding indie shmups too easy then just go play those. There's nothing wrong with games aimed at various skill levels being out there.

I suspect you've never encountered people who struggle with Touhou games even on Easy mode. Yeah, they're out there. Do people who enjoy shmups but aren't any good at them not deserve to have options out there that represent cool, but accessible games? Drainus and Rolling Gunner Novice/Casual are great examples that don't water down the mechanics but still make it easy enough for anyone to get into. Your complaints about Drainus, given that it's a perfect game in terms of offering the best of both worlds and catering to a mix of skill levels, are particularly crappy to read.

There's nothing wrong with games being on the easier scale of things. There's plenty I've had fun with. Vastynex is a good example. Drainus's arcade mode is quite a respectable challenge, too. Even if the game is easy for survival play it can be fun just to experience, to play for score, etc. Finding a game too easy to 1CC? Go for a deathless run.

Your thread sucks.

[jehu]

I think Senjin Aleste is a good example of a more forgiving (arcade difficulty) shmup. I really like that game and how it handles its lives system. Senjin Aleste allows you to recover lives slowly on a timer, so getting hit early on isn't frustrating or an instant restart, and you can easily recover to full resources within a few minutes.

Still haven't had the opportunity to give the game a whirl, but this sound very cool. Hope it comes out on something more modern. I like that M2 seem committed to accessible design languages that remain engaging. I'm still a little torn on their Toaplan SuperEasy modes that ramp up difficulty while you aren't getting hit and actually become far more difficult than 'Arcade' if you play well. I think they torque things down too quickly when you get hit - the game loses confidence in you very quickly. Deathtiny is still a masterclass in its accessible-to-impossible balance, and I wish they would try to design more robust arranges like that in the future. I bet we see one for DOJ.

Also with you on DariusBurst. The difficulty ramp is very well done. It was a very smart choice to sacrifice the 'giant pyramid of stages' to the mini-3-stage-triangles that allowed for more bite-sized gameplay. I still have to get back to some of those more difficult triangles...

I am typing this on my Vita because I am too lazy to get out of bed to turn my computer on, so please forgive any mistakes I may make.

A remarkably tidy (and long) reply for a Vita.

I haven't tried GCR, but I'd still like to. Visual design seems very cool, and the Kamui collab is too enticing to miss. Have heard reports that players are just kind of fumbling around with buttons, watching things happen, and somehow winning. Felt that way about Astebreed which might also be among the games I'm discussing - though the memory of how everything there works has faded quite a bit.

I agree that Cave does it pretty well. Especially for DFK Black Label, I thought the difference in picking 'Bomb' vs. 'Strong' led to pretty good incremental upticks in difficulty.

I'd bet you'd be with me in hoping that M2 would experiment with more medium difficulty arranges for their Toaplan releases. Many Toaplan games - from Same! to Tat.Ou - would really benefit from some kind of intermediate step between SuperEasy and Arcade.

I get that perhaps Mecha Ritz is a game to play for score at higher levels that allows for lesser mortals to enjoy the base thrill of a 1cc, and so its a great game for newcomers whilst leaving room for those inclined and able enough to push the rank. I prefer a stricter framework of set difficulty.

Yeah, Mecha Ritz is an interesting case. I LOVED my first 72 hours with it, but also came away with S+ clears on my first few tries with certain ships. There's a ton of variety there, and the rank gets truly batshit when you're playing very well - so it's rather churlish to complain about the difficulty. But I came away with the same feeling as you - a stricter difficulty design framework would have likely made the playthroughs a little more compelling. But this is definitely one more case where you couldn't just implement something like that without changing the design language of the whole game.

Overall, though, I did enjoy Mecha Ritz more than all three games I mentioned in the topic post. For me, not the worst example of how to make 'excessive forgiveness' in design kind of work.

Why?

Your topic sucks.

Appreciate you engaging with the post, BKR, but your reply reads like it's engaging with an uncharitable distortion of my post and not what I actually wrote. It's not about whether or not easy or accessible games have the right to exist, but about the rise in hyper-accessible design languages and how they impact a game's depth and longevity. If you have something to say about that, I'll happily read.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Good game design is hard, hence Euroshmups.

I preordered Dr. Anus based off a lot of feedback from others that, while the default is very easy it offers a lot of harder options and there's a proper curated arcade mode (something Streets of Rage 4 could have done with). It's the ideal balance for the modern market - something for casual players who want a little nostalgia but also want to feel unstoppable, but plenty of options to challenge more seasoned players.

Scaling difficulty options is hard too, which is why often it's just bullet speed and enemy hitpoints. Sometimes anything but the default is basically a waste of time - harder is impossible, easy offers no preparation. The gap between modern novice modes and normal mode is often too great. An approach I quite liked was the recent indie GyroBlade - difficulty doesn't impact enemy HP or bullet speed, but rather adds in more, more aggressive enemies and swaps out basic tanks for rocket tanks. It's brutal, but it feels considered by the developer instead of just moving a slider and not playtesting it.

There's room for novices and casuals, and for experienced players. It just requires a bit of effort. In the past, the focus was on the hardcore with casual players an afterthought. Now it seems like OP's complaint is the focus is on the more casual player. We need both! Psikyo's console ports are a good example, you can start at the lowest difficulty and work your way up - difficulty scales gradually, though albeit in a fairly simplistic manner, but introduces tougher patterns and faster bullets with each step up. A new player has a difficulty curve within a difficulty curve, while a seasoned player can just start out on normal.

[Lethe]

As always in these discussions talking about raw difficulty is a fallacy. The problem is these games' inability to effectively reconcile their mechanics with the player's expectations. It's not the difficulty's fault, the game just isn't well-designed. It takes either a disinterested player, or a certain type of person to truly find a game's underpinning in how easy or hard it is. For appreciative enthusiasts all the other shit is always going to be more important than raw difficulty, even in the halls of the arcade gaymer (nobody would play Tatsujin Ou if it didn't have its presentation).

Being unable to overlook a game's "wrong" difficulty is an indication that other parts of the design have failed, whether it's in making the specific mechanics meaningful, or a failure to be artistically relevant in another sense. I don't like basically anything DFK does mechanically, it's expressively bankrupt, so I fall back on whether it's an entertaining challenge, and it's not really, so it's shit. Meanwhile Hellsinker is easy with incredibly abuseable elements, and has very little animal appeal at all, but it excels at everything else, so it's great and talking about whether it's too easy or not is pointless.

also came away with S+ clears on my first few tries with certain ships

Try going for an S++++++++++, it's not too hard and will make you look at the game a bit differently.

Question for you, jehu - what's your attitude towards a hypothetical game that's more difficult? If it's well-designed, do you clear it once and then drop it, and if so is that "better" than doing the same for an easy game? If it's badly-designed, do you not bother experiencing it at all, when you might decide to give an easy badly-designed game a full playthrough?

[Rastan78]

As always in these discussions talking about raw difficulty is a fallacy.

I agree with you here. I think part of the problem comes from a tendency to overemphasize 1CCs as the hallmark of skill. Not that 1CCs aren't important it's just sort of an overly linear way to evaluate gameplay.

It's only really a useful point of comparison if you stop at first 1CC on every game. You don't see that kind of comparison in the FGC too often. There's an understanding that each game is pretty much a limitless mountain to climb where you decide how far to go. Basically as long as it's fun. There's no built in quitting point.

I think what the OP is driving at is that easy and accessible games are fine, just include enough depth to bring players back over time.

Take a look at indie success stories in other genres like Celeste, Hollow Knight and so on. These aren't games that are afraid to challenge players or provide additional challenges on repeat playthroughs or extra content.

So the question isn't just is a game easy or hard, but is there a meaningful learning curve that accommodates a range of players and rewards long term play? If you don't have that both new and veteran players are going to quit after a short time.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Appreciate you engaging with the post, BKR, but your reply reads like it's engaging with an uncharitable distortion of my post and not what I actually wrote. It's not about whether or not easy or accessible games have the right to exist, but about the rise in hyper-accessible design languages and how they impact a game's depth and longevity.

Drainus is a more complicated case. The visuals are phenomenal, the stages are pretty well designed. And, though the main campaign is also pretty braindead, the unlockable Arcade Mode offers challenges that at least require you to play competently to pass. But, nevertheless, the absorb mechanic allows players to trivialize many potentially difficult moments in the game, it allows you to take a ton of hits, and the shop system is more of an annoyance - a stumbling block in the gameplay - than a fun node of player choice and engagement.

these developers have designed games that are created with a inextricable 'easiness' that compromises their depth and longevity. ...their design emphasis on 'player forgiveness' forces a kind of shallowness into the experience.

If you have something to say about that, I'll happily read.

Literacy is the fine line between reading, and understanding what you've read.

I think what the OP is driving at is that easy and accessible games are fine, just include enough depth to bring players back over time.

Not when he's shitting on Drainus with such an elitist tone, one of the best recent shmups to have come out of nowhere. The absorb mechanics and the customization elements in which you can develop your ship freely are pretty damn cool. The speed change function midgame is also insanely clever (though it's still safer to setup in the shop and the defaults are pretty good). Literally the only negative thing I can aim at it is the charge bar doesn't change color or graphics when it hits full charge, meaning there's ambiguity between an almost fully charged and full charge (which gives you invulnerability). Sure, the story mode even on Hard is really, really easy to 1CC if you're remotely familiar with shmups (and relatively easy to no-miss clear compared to most arcade 1ccs when you're familiar with the bosses and powerups). But that's the point. Story Mode on Ridiculous and Arcade Mode on Hard are both very respectable challenges though.

Scoring also seems quite tricky and fun. You have to work hard to build up that multiplier by aggressively absorbing stuff and it's easy to get hit by accident and drop it. As far as bullet cancelling shmups go, this one is a fantastic balance of fun without being too forgiving, certainly compared to some other attempts at it I've seen (Rolling Gunner's Overpower mode, which requires far less player engagement and input to cancel everything on screen nonstop, being one of the worst).

There's sometimes the view that shmups fans have a "you are insufficiently hardcore" snobbish attitude and it's stuff like this that likely contributes to it. Referring to the games as "braindead" while trying to claim you respect easy games and the gamers who find them challenging is tough to swallow. If you don't like the game, fine, but do it from the mechanics standpoint and not while patting yourself on the back about how gosh darn good you are at all these games.

"Man, I'm feeling exhausted by how good I am at all these braindead indie shmups!" is not a prelude to good discourse.

I'd also note most of the games he's listed and claims compromise on meaningful longevity or incentive to get better at shmups do in fact have a variety of difficulty modes that allow for a natural progression of skill and player development. Giga Wing's shield is in many ways equally potent as Drainus's shield can be, offering shorter lived protection but with much higher relative damage thrown back at the enemy with each use, and I'd never entertain the claim that its shield mechanic somehow is too forgiving, and is thus too shallow to encourage people to work up to other more mechanically austere, demanding shmups.

[Steven]

I am typing this on my Vita because I am too lazy to get out of bed to turn my computer on, so please forgive any mistakes I may make.

A remarkably tidy (and long) reply for a Vita.

I haven't tried GCR, but I'd still like to. Visual design seems very cool, and the Kamui collab is too enticing to miss. Have heard reports that players are just kind of fumbling around with buttons, watching things happen, and somehow winning. Felt that way about Astebreed which might also be among the games I'm discussing - though the memory of how everything there works has faded quite a bit.

I agree that Cave does it pretty well. Especially for DFK Black Label, I thought the difference in picking 'Bomb' vs. 'Strong' led to pretty good incremental upticks in difficulty.

I'd bet you'd be with me in hoping that M2 would experiment with more medium difficulty arranges for their Toaplan releases. Many Toaplan games - from Same! to Tat.Ou - would really benefit from some kind of intermediate step between SuperEasy and Arcade.

CAVE's novice modes are pretty good, but you could also make a case for arcade Mushihimesama's original mode, as well. The bullets in that are super fast, but you're fast too, so I think it works out okay for new players, and it's probably one of CAVE's best games, although there are a few oddities that I have not played yet like Ibara, Pink Sweets, and Muchi Muchi Pork!. Pretty sure Taito Hey has Ibara (Kuro? I forget which one it is, but I am pretty sure they have one of them) and Muchi Muchi Pork!, so I should stop by and try those, although I'd have difficulty getting myself off of the 1941 Counter Attack, R-Type Leo, and Soukyuugurentai cabinets they have lol. They got rid of Dogyuun!! recently and I am very sad.

I think it's generally fine to have easy games, mostly because, as I have mentioned before, not everything needs to be as hard as Daioujou Death Label, and there should be entry-level stuff. There are plenty of non-shooting games that I have played where I was very disappointed that those games were significantly easier than what I wanted, but in most cases it's fine, even if I don't like it.

Now Same! Same! Same! and Tatsujin Ou are both special cases. Same! 1P is actually a very well-designed game, and you can see this in the Mega Drive version, as it's like 95% identical to the arcade version but not completely insane. The problem with 1P arcade Same! is the way the rank system works; it increases the bullet speed far too high and far too early in the game, so if one could redo the rank system to make it more in line with something like Kyuukyoku Tiger, you'd essentially fix the game with just that, immediately making it a top-tier Toaplan game. I actually like the crazy bullet speed in a twisted sort of fashion, though, so...

If you didn't try Taito Hey's custom mode settings that they location tested a few months ago, go into M2 Same!'s custom options and turn on the autobomb, make the game end at the end of loop 1, and make it so your weapon only powers down by one level when you die. This kind of fixes the game. Kind of.

Tatsujin Ou is just fucked, though. You'd have to completely rebuild the game to fix all of its problems, thereby creating a new game in the process, and then it's no longer Tatsujin Ou. There is that great ROM hack that mycophobia made that fixes some of the game's balance issues, though, so try that and see if you like it. This ROM hack is even supported on the MiSTer, although the audio on the Tatsujin Ou core itself is still in development and some of the music and sound effects do not work properly. It's a very strange game in that it's both super difficult and super boring at the same time, but like with 1P Same!, I actually like playing Tatsujin Ou, even though I know it's a terrible game.

[jehu]

As always in these discussions talking about raw difficulty is a fallacy.

I agree with you here. I think part of the problem comes from a tendency to overemphasize 1CCs as the hallmark of skill. Not that 1CCs aren't important it's just sort of an overly linear way to evaluate gameplay.

This is a good point, and I'm definitely guilty of this to some extent. There are certain games I like to score, but I tend to like to score the games I initially cleared with some effort.

I have to believe I'm not alone in this. You're speaking directly to my thinking with your discussion of the gradual learning curve - Hollow Knight and Celeste are great examples outside of shmups. Both games continue to have very active communities; the formula works.

Taking a look at the STG genre's history, I think games that combine mechanical soundness (in scoring, too) with a certain level of difficulty, a difficulty barrier even, end up being the games with the most enduring legacies.

This perhaps explains why our community gravitates around arcade titles, and why console-oriented games are so underrepresented in our canon. Short of having a counterstop, console games are still 'limitless mountains' as you say. Why does our community seem so fixated on scaling the limitless mountains of arcade games over the limitless mountains of console games? Why don't we have a console-oriented Plasmo tweeting out a ticker-tape of new records Genesis-exclusive or PCE-exclusive STGs?

Is it a difficulty and depth thing? Or is it something else?

Question for you, jehu - what's your attitude towards a hypothetical game that's more difficult? If it's well-designed, do you clear it once and then drop it, and if so is that "better" than doing the same for an easy game? If it's badly-designed, do you not bother experiencing it at all, when you might decide to give an easy badly-designed game a full playthrough?

Spent some time thinking about this, and I suppose I came to rather paradoxical results for my own preferences. I think the metric I would use is 'quality time' rather than 'playthroughs' if that makes sense.

Two games I've played in the past week - Phelios and NeverAwake. I've enjoyed the former more than the latter, but haven't come close to clearing the former and have actually spent more time playing the latter.

It's not like Phelios is the most difficult game in the world, but it does make you show evidence of your mastery. I really like that - will only let you get away with two or three hits before you're done. Now, could I play NeverAwake in a self-imposed spartan style, only allowing myself to take two or three hits before manually restarting myself? Yeah, I could. But there isn't really an in-game incentive to do so, so I don't make the effort to clean up my act. If I know that I'm playing relatively poorly, and I'm still 'passing' in the eyes of the game, I find it demotivating and I enjoy my time with the game less.

This is an important psychological moment for me personally. And, as a psychological motivator, I admit it isn't completely rational and isn't immune to criticism. But I also think that this psychological motivation is something that many among us share. I don't think it's quite right to call it an elitist stance; compared to other members of this community, I'd readily admit I'm on the lower side of intermediate skill-wise. As I was trying to express with our community's emphasis of arcade games over console games, this seems to be a more widespread psychological phenomenon. Is there a way to play NeverAwake at a hyper-competitive level that would require extraordinary precision and incredible skill? Could I play Graze Counter at the same level that MAZ plays Ikaruga? Yeah, I suppose I could try to push the games that far. But something about the games' forgiving nature doesn't push me to do that, despite the fact that it is a 'limitless mountain' like every game. Could someone play BioMetal SNES like a 'limitless mountain'? Yeah, but this isn't something people tend to be intrinsically motivated to do despite the game's undeniable quality. Hell, someone could play Deep Blue like MAZ plays Ikaruga - for it, too, is its own breed of 'limitless mountain.'

"Man, I'm feeling exhausted by how good I am at all these braindead indie shmups!" is not a prelude to good discourse.

Personally, I think the discussion has been pretty good.

Edit: Ah, Steven, I just saw your post after posting mine. Headed to the sack, but I like what you wrote and will follow up tomorrow!

[Ebbo]

It's an interesting topic. Personally I find myself struggling with this "fulfillment problem" with a lot of modern games, not just shmups. While I don't have much to add, I'd like to continue on something what Rastan78 said about overemphasizing 1CC mentality:

I think it's something to do with how games present themselves, at least partially. Modern/consolified shmups could use a lot of more organic ways of encouraging players to fully explore their underlaying systems, regardless how accessible they are. What these incentives might be really depends and should be solved game-by-game basis. I feel this kind of holistic approach would help to make any game feel more fulfilling even for experienced players.

[Steven]

Part of the problem is that people now demand that their games are at least 50 hours long or they consider it trash, and the concept of replaying a game for any reason has become foreign to them. "Why the hell would anyone want to play a game again when you can play something different?" or something like that. Score, and extra lives, are laughed at as "relics and reminders of when games were bad". It's completely ridiculous, but that does seem to be how it is. Go spend the next few years of your life on GameFAQs or wherever and you'll see these types of things pop up fairly regularly.

BTW I went to Taito Hey today and they have Ibara Kuro, Pink Sweets, and Muchi Muchi Pork!, but I ended up playing Teki-Paki, Thunder Dragon 2, Tatsujin Ou, FixEight, Saidaioujou, and Gradius there instead lol. 1941 Counter Attack is gone and I am almost as sad as I was when they got rid of Dogyuun!!.

[To Far Away Times]

Part of the problem is that people now demand that their games are at least 50 hours long or they consider it trash, and the concept of replaying a game for any reason has become foreign to them. "Why the hell would anyone want to play a game again when you can play something different?" or something like that. Score, and extra lives, are laughed at as "relics and reminders of when games were bad". It's completely ridiculous, but that does seem to be how it is. Go spend the next few years of your life on GameFAQs or wherever and you'll see these types of things pop up fairly regularly.

I miss the days of games that could be beaten in one setting. I can't even count the number of times I played through Sonic 3, Megaman 2, Megaman X and X4, Castlevania IV, and so on. Double digit playthroughs for all of them, I'm sure. And it's just about the experience of playing them. Enjoying the visuals, music, and gameplay. They're comfort food. A short, perfectly executed game is infinitely replayable.

A Megaman X caliber game that I want to play through 10+ times is worth way more than a padded AAA game that has filler and is designed to stretch the content as long as possible.

[Ixmucane2]

"Forgiving" design isn't limited to shmups. I recently saw a bit of Genshin Impact, a fantasy RPG with an unusually large roster of characters, and it seems designed from the ground up to gently take the player through X hours of intensely scripted plot, no failure expected.

Not sure what to do? There are missions.
What characters are appropriate for the missions? The summary screen of the mission recommends a set of magic or elemental types, and every character has one.
But how should I equip them? With instant remote access to everything your party has found or made, regrets are unlikely.
Are the characters getting beaten up anyway? Pause mid-combat to heal them or swap them with someone else.
Can't find things? Handy markers point to the object of your mission (e.g. the camouflaged entrance of a secret hideout on a cliff face: 5m to your left, no wait, you slid, 7m up).
Still can't find things? There's a special schematic visualization for important stuff that, if you don't actually look around, might appear to be random scenery.
Didn't find things, and you are not sure you searched everywhere? An assistant promptly tells you to move on to the rest of the map.
I don't understand what kind of player could find this trivial gameplay not boring.

[Sumez]

I haven't played the three games mentioned here, but it's a really interesting writeup.

From what I read here, it sounds to me like the problem isn't so much the idea of a forgiving design, but rather the complexity of a shmup reaching the point where it informs the core design of each challenge in the game. That you can't strip away the overlaid mechanics and play it as a classic "kill stuff and avoid bullets" shooter, because you're intended to make use of much more abstract mechanics in order to play for survival. Whether the games are then too easy or not seems almost secondary in this equation, though if the mechanics straight up prevents challenging design, I can see it being more of an issue.

Personally I'm not too fond of bullet cancelling mechanics in games for this reason - not the challenge part, but the stage design part. If it reaches the point where you're expected to cancel bullets, it feels like I'm playing a brand new genre. Not one where I'll misdirect aimed patterns and dodge bullets in order to survive, but one where I'm engaging in abstract mechanics first, and dodging second. That said, there should definitely be enough room for both to exist.

Either way this game makes me want to try Drainus regardless. I've considered preordering it on SLG, so maybe I'll have a copy in a couple of years.

[nrook]

I haven't played the three games mentioned here, but it's a really interesting writeup.

From what I read here, it sounds to me like the problem isn't so much the idea of a forgiving design, but rather the complexity of a shmup reaching the point where it informs the core design of each challenge in the game. That you can't strip away the overlaid mechanics and play it as a classic "kill stuff and avoid bullets" shooter, because you're intended to make use of much more abstract mechanics in order to play for survival. Whether the games are then too easy or not seems almost secondary in this equation, though if the mechanics straight up prevents challenging design, I can see it being more of an issue.

Personally I'm not too fond of bullet cancelling mechanics in games for this reason - not the challenge part, but the stage design part. If it reaches the point where you're expected to cancel bullets, it feels like I'm playing a brand new genre. Not one where I'll misdirect aimed patterns and dodge bullets in order to survive, but one where I'm engaging in abstract mechanics first, and dodging second. That said, there should definitely be enough room for both to exist.

Either way this game makes me want to try Drainus regardless. I've considered preordering it on SLG, so maybe I'll have a copy in a couple of years.

I think you can have a mechanically complex shmup without compromising the difficulty of the core experience. Hellsinker isn't particularly hard to clear, but it isn't trivial, either, especially if the player chooses the game mode without autobomb. I certainly didn't recognize the unsatisfying experience described in the OP in my experience with the game, so I think it doesn't fall prey to the problems described there. Bullet hell dodging is deemphasized in favor of careful routing, but routing is the bedrock of half the genre anyway. I haven't played Stellavanity, but my understanding is that it pairs complex mechanics with a very high level of challenge, at least on its highest difficulty levels.

Of course, Hellsinker is also famously unapproachable. Maybe that's because it presents a high level of initial complexity without being fundamentally forgiving.

[Lethe]

Yeah, I don't think "complexity" is quite the right word here. It's poor use of high-level mechanics to the point it becomes an overwhelming gimmick.
I'm reminded of Kanzaki's description of Hellsinker, that despite its fearsome reputation you can still make some progress with fundamentals and getting incrementally more comfortable with what it's doing, even if you don't really understand what's happening. It isolates and retains the basic aspects of STG appeal despite being so unconventional - yet many other much less complex games can't seem to help but water that appeal down. You flounder for a bit, then end up going, "oh, I see the crux of the gameplay now" and after that there's nothing more to it.

Spent some time thinking about this, and I suppose I came to rather paradoxical results for my own preferences. I think the metric I would use is 'quality time' rather than 'playthroughs' if that makes sense. (...)

I can relate to all of that. You get bitten by the arcade bug and start wondering why anything else should exist. But this is why I waffle about art; if the limitless mountain does exist, the things that you're going to want to spend time on are whatever produces the best synthesis of elements. The total experience of playing is what's really going to motivate you to come back over and over, regardless of "objective" quality; that goes as much for the impression of depth or challenge (as opposed to the true final depth) as it does to the presentation, circumstantial significance or sentimentality, the most basic parts of design like how the ship controls, etc.

[Sumez]

I think you can have a mechanically complex shmup without compromising the difficulty of the core experience.

For sure, I think that's clear. Some of the toughest STGs out there have super obtuse mechanics.
Just saying it sounds like OP isn't bothered by the idea that "games should be easy" itself as much as the topic is about integral game mechanics that specifically compromises the survival challenge in favor of a pure scoring challenge.

[m.sniffles.esq]

In some defense of NeverAwake, if you believe the loadouts are making things too easy, you can simply--y'know--not use them. It's not like they force you...

I mean, I certainly have problems with the some of the design decisions, as well. But the loadouts aren't one of them.

With that said, if you have a quarrel with earned boosts making the going too easy in general--I have some bad news--the trend isn't going anywhere for awhile. You can blame "Hades", if you want. The practice was around long before that, but I've noticed that title exerting a lot of 'influence' on the games currently rolling out. And certainly, there's a feeling among current players that if you put enough time in, you've 'earned' the right to become an unstoppable ball of destruction (whereas in the past, that reward came from good play, not just man-hours)

[Sumez]

You can definitely implement that mechanic in different ways... I'm kind of in the same boat where if you're at the point where clearing a game being a challenge requires some set of self imposed limitations, it will rub me the wrong way no matter how fun those limitations still are.
I want a game to tell me up front that they think this is the way it's supposed to be played. Like when Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection picks the hardest difficulty setting for you at default.

[hamfighterx]

Take a look at indie success stories in other genres like Celeste, Hollow Knight and so on. These aren't games that are afraid to challenge players or provide additional challenges on repeat playthroughs or extra content.

I think that's an insightful comment - Hollow Knight is definitely marketed to a wide audience, and is a rather unforgiving game with a steep difficulty curve. But the challenge doesn't seem to have harmed the game's widespread popularity. Same deal with stuff like Elden Ring and the Souls games. These are no longer niche enthusiast titles, but hugely popular games with a mainstream audience. More often than not, the games are actually celebrated for their challenge (though to be fair, there are a not insignificant number of people who skip them due to the perceived difficulty, or who wish they had easier difficulty options).

Then again:

1) Look at the fighting game world and games like the hugely successful Guilty Gear Strive doing a VERY streamlined take on a series that had become mechanically overwhelming to all but the best players. Same deal with the major success of Dragon Ball FighterZ and its simplicity of execution being really appealing to a wide audience. Those streamlined/new player friendly approaches seem to illustrate paring things back to make for a more inclusive game being the right call. On a similar note, I would argue that the entire reason the fighting game scene crashed so hard around the turn of the millennium was due to people outside of the hardcore core audience becoming turned off by the increasing complexity and difficulty - the genre was not revitalized until being basically rebooted with more significantly more accessible games like Street Fighter IV.

2) We're also talking here about STGs that were born of an often cynical arcade-focused approach of making games difficult primarily in order to collect more money. Some of the obtuse challenge was more down to business decisions than purely game design philosophy. I can't really defend a "let's get as many quarters/100 yen coins as possible" approach to game development, for no sake other than profitability. There's a certain nostalgia for that era of arcade style gameplay, and some people have acclimated to it to the point of expecting it, but it's not unreasonable to think that blindly copying that kind of development approach that was a function of the arcade BUSINESS model is inherently going to limit your audience for stuff like modern PC/console releases.

3) We also shouldn't discount that a significant chunk of the hardcore STG community is made up of an aging population who remembers these games fondly (including, I'd wager, most of us here on this decidedly old-school forum). But age is a bitch and will catch up with all of us eventually. I have no doubt I'll continue playing these games as I get older and older and my reaction time gets worse and worse. Quite honestly, as the years progress I find it less and less fun to beat my head against the wall of brutal challenges (say, Arcade 1P Same! Same! Same!), and more excited to play with assist options, super easy modes, and the like. I agree with M2's take that including these kinds of modes is a way to make these releases appealing to a larger amount of people - both newer fans and long-time genre supporters. I also think it's great the way M2 always presents these as an option and goes out of their way to include "Super Easy" modes - but also includes the option to play without those kinds of assists.

[dai jou bu]

I think that's an insightful comment - Hollow Knight is definitely marketed to a wide audience, and is a rather unforgiving game with a steep difficulty curve. But the challenge doesn't seem to have harmed the game's widespread popularity. Same deal with stuff like Elden Ring and the Souls games. These are no longer niche enthusiast titles, but hugely popular games with a mainstream audience. More often than not, the games are actually celebrated for their challenge (though to be fair, there are a not insignificant number of people who skip them due to the perceived difficulty, or who wish they had easier difficulty options).

Yeah, it basically boils down to everyone properly marketing the game to say what it actually does. Nobody’s going to complain about getting a game that does precisely what the marketing told them the game was going expect them to experience; that’s why those games have their audiences despite being less accessible than most mainstream titles.

2) We're also talking here about STGs that were born of an often cynical arcade-focused approach of making games difficult primarily in order to collect more money. Some of the obtuse challenge was more down to business decisions than purely game design philosophy. I can't really defend a "let's get as many quarters/100 yen coins as possible" approach to game development, for no sake other than profitability. There's a certain nostalgia for that era of arcade style gameplay, and some people have acclimated to it to the point of expecting it, but it's not unreasonable to think that blindly copying that kind of development approach that was a function of the arcade BUSINESS model is inherently going to limit your audience for stuff like modern PC/console releases.

Correct. There was an interview with the guys who made gradius gaiden, and one of the big things they took into consideration of the game’s design was that since this was going to be console-exclusive and never be released in arcades, they intentionally lowered the overall difficulty of the game and gave us one of the most innovative mechanics ever seen in the series before Treasure came in and essentially out R-Typed R-Type Final with Gradius V. This constant shouting of SHMUPS WERE THE DARK SOULS OF VIDEO GAMES BEFORE DARK SOULS WAS COOL AND THIS SHMUP DOES NOT FEEL THAT PUNISHING ON THE NORMAL DIFFICULTY SO IT SUCKS DO NOT PLAY IT BECAUSE DANMAKU IS GOD on this forum gets really tiring and isn’t why I got into shmups in the first place; it was the Konami codes that made it possible to be able to access the later parts of a game that was originally designed to suck your money dry in the arcades that helped me get better at the game to the point that I no longer needed them.

1) Look at the fighting game world and games like the hugely successful Guilty Gear Strive doing a VERY streamlined take on a series that had become mechanically overwhelming to all but the best players. Same deal with the major success of Dragon Ball FighterZ and its simplicity of execution being really appealing to a wide audience. Those streamlined/new player friendly approaches seem to illustrate paring things back to make for a more inclusive game being the right call. On a similar note, I would argue that the entire reason the fighting game scene crashed so hard around the turn of the millennium was due to people outside of the hardcore core audience becoming turned off by the increasing complexity and difficulty - the genre was not revitalized until being basically rebooted with more significantly more accessible games like Street Fighter IV.

I love how this forum just eats your post drafts when your login session times out and you hit the preview button. Now I have to retype this quoted response again.

Yeah, Street fighter IV showed us the way forward and BlazBlue showed us the logical conclusion down the rabbit hole of madness. BlazBlue required so much combo execution memorization compared to the last iteration of Guilty Gear at the time of its release just to be competitively viable that I was completely turned off from fighting games entirely until the release of Guilty Gear Xrd, since by that point they realized the folly of what they did with BlazBlue and tried to make it slightly more accessible to the mainstream (ie- the game pauses when you perform a Roman Cancel); that, and the character designs were a real step down from the energetic designs of Guilty Gear and felt like they were trying to appeal to the visual novel crowd with this series.

[Sumez]

Are people really gonna start playing the "arcade design was bad design because all the games were unfairly hard and just trying to steal your quarters" card on this forum of all places?

[dai jou bu]

Indirectly, yes, as the first shmups used that doctrine as part of its game design. The 1CC dogma is one of the consequences of this philosophy. It is kind of nuts that you could blow the MSRP of a AAA console game over a terribad run of a shmup on parts of the game you’re still not familiar with.

Rhythm games that started off on consumer devices instead of the arcades are generally more forgiving when they’re brought to the arcade, and somehow there weren’t any riots.

[XoPachi]

Probably already said, but I agree with you. I find this extends to faaar more beyond this genre. There's a lot of junk that just gets made to be nearly on rails because people complained past stuff was harder. So you get anemic shit like Sonic Forces, Forspoken, and GOW Ragnarok among -many- others.
I'd say the STG genre is generally far more elegant about it's strive for inclusivity. But yeah, there is still this lack in fulfilling replayability and numbness to the first playthrough. I understand Graze is more of a scoring game, but the only reason scoring in an STG is interesting to me is because the *other* half of the game is challenging. If there's no threat and all I can do is score, what's the point?

I am typing this on my Vita

Chad

[dai jou bu]

I understand Graze is more of a scoring game, but the only reason scoring in an STG is interesting to me is because the *other* half of the game is challenging. If there's no threat and all I can do is score, what's the point?

I’m not going to try and explain why games Lately have tried to be more accessible because that’s way beyond the scope of this discussion, so play another game whose design language speaks to you then? Sounds like you’re doing the shouting thing I mentioned earlier in this thread.

In all honesty I’d gravitate towards this game over a majority of danmaku shmups out in the past ten years due to my personal tastes. Maybe if it gets a physical release in the future. I’m assuming we’re talking about graze counter, and not some other game that has the word “graze” somewhere in its title.

[hamfighterx]

Are people really gonna start playing the "arcade design was bad design because all the games were unfairly hard and just trying to steal your quarters" card on this forum of all places?

Not necessarily "bad design" or "unfair", but it's definitely a reason WHY a lot of arcade shooters were designed the way they were, and is worth recognizing. It usually wasn't because devs thought that was the best possible choice from a design perspective, it was quite literally dictated by the business due to arcade operators being more concerned with profitability than gameplay. It's quite impressive that many of these games were still extremely fun despite the restrictions placed on the devs to make the game hard enough that average credit time wasn't too long. You really have to make a compelling game to get people to keep making the decision to pay one more credit to get to that next stage, or to practice and sharpen their skills. And it's totally understandable that people who are nostalgic for these kinds of games enjoy seeing more of them, with similar difficulty, just because that's what they are used to and grew to love.

But if you're talking about longer term viability of the genre, you need new fans too. And if you're launching on a platform that isn't pay-per-credit, minutes per credit is just not a very meaningful metric of business success for publishers. So it makes perfect sense to prioritize things other than sheer difficulty. Seeking to entice a wider population of potential players by making your game more inviting is not an unreasonable decision.

Of course, it's always a fine line. Just as an uncompromisingly difficult game may drive some people away, a game that provides insufficient challenge is going to get boring and cause players to lose interest. Devs aren't always going to hit the mark, and sometimes they may indeed go too far the other way and design a game with mechanics that just inherently prevent the game from ever providing a sufficiently compelling level of challenge for players who are not beginners. I think this is the kind of thing Jehu was calling out in the original post's examples of Graze Counter or NeverAwake.

But it's also a little insane to me to limit your audience by steadfastly clinging to being intentionally unforgiving as the only way and just telling potential new players to "git gud". ESPECIALLY when you're no longer trying to make money primarily by selling to arcade operators who want a constant flow of credits to the machine. Companies like Cave and M2 certainly seem to agree with me, with all of the more welcoming game modes and mechanics they have included in their console releases: M2's Super Easy modes, Cave dabbling stuff like auto-bomb mechanics or selectable lower difficulties (e.g., Deathsmiles letting the player keep selecting the rank 1 easy path through each stage), options to turn off particularly egregious mechanics like brutal rank systems. I like the current M2 approach of giving a lot of optional tools/assists, providing extremely accessible "Super Easy" modes, etc... but still including "classic" difficulty if that's the player's choice. The game mechanics allow for both styles, best of both worlds.