Problem
Ages ago, me and Culian were debating (here and here) about the not-so-recent proliferation of games that "suck for survival but are GREAT for scoring". I was trying to argue why these games presented a very poor experience, but I didn't quite prove my point, leaving it a subtle rain check saying I will discuss it as a matter of taste. At first, I thought it should have been a balance, where while the scoring system did add enough complexity to make the game interesting, the game for survival was interesting enough. I was going ahead with this point, but had two experiences which made me unsure of my position... I'll tell you all about them to motivate my point.
I was in Hong Kong, stuck in my lab with a friend during a dangerous thunderstorm outside, and we had nothing to do so we spontaneously decided to watch "King of Kong". It was a really depressing experience -- not to say the movie was not interesting, just exposed a future I'd like anyone I know to avoid. Donkey Kong was such a simple game, yet these guys practiced scenarios and plotted out/figured out things the programmers never even bothered to. I mean you had the guy at the start (I can't be stuffed remembering his name -- let's call him family guy) drawing diagrams on his CRT plotting out the fixed patterns of a spring hopping along the screen that was as going to kill him. It was like watching "A beautiful mind", where the guy was still crazy but in a much less interesting way and not a useful way. Programmers probably don't even bother with this, they just write a scalable routine/table that makes things harder as you progress. Then you had that arrogant guy that was ruining family guy's shit, damn what an asshole that guy is, he had secret videos and strategies and special relations with the score keepers, who were acting very much like an impenetrable clique -- essentially a kind of cult.
So anyway, the movie went along and family guy reached the point where the game encounters a bug and essentially halts, clearly a point in the game the programmers never intended anyone to reach. The cult gathers around like some kind of ritual has been carried out and then cheer frantically as the (relatively less cultish) family guy breaks everyone's high scores. Anyway, for me the most intelligent thing anyone said in the movie was family guy's little girl who, when responding to her father's desire to break the Guinness book record for the Donkey Kong score, said "but some people ruin their lives trying to do that".
But, aren't these guys playing for score? Isn't it pointless to go half way? Isn't part of "playing for score" waiting for Mario to die of a fucking heart attack because you made him jump too much? That's pretty depressing, think of his poor girlfriend! I mean, the arrogant guy didn't care at all, just so that his cult followers can worship him because of his latest high score. What an asshole!
Not too long after watching that movie, I was with my supervisor's kid who wanted to check out my iPhone's games. So I thought I'd see if he'd like Daifukkatsu. Of course, he loved it because of the awesome graphics, fireworks display and so on. I was teaching him what all the various controls did and managed to tell him that the point of the game is to finish it without continuing. Note that, I didn't have to convince him, it seemed obvious to him after I said so. There was no chance I could motivate playing the scoring system to him. I was thinking of ways ... I mean this kid, who will no doubt get his dad to buy it on his iPhone so he could play it, doesn't care if he beat his own score. He's certainly not going to look up this forum and keep track of everyone else's score and try to beat it. He's not going to spend hours so that he could time hypers within a few milliseconds so he could see a bigger number and get the extends he'll get anyway sooner. Shit, the lucky kid has all the time in the world and video games are just one of them. The only thing he seemed to care about, for the short period I hung out with him, was how far he progressed in the game. Seeing what's new (though the "dolls" made him laugh -- a normal reaction, he loved the mech/ship theme obviously) was his motivation and he had like a thousand other games to play so he wouldn't linger much on that either.
In both instances, I saw that the children picked out the most ... normal reaction and preference respectively. I justify this by saying healthy children's minds are the ones which are closest connected to their instincts. There's no higher level experiences or habits convoluting their preference function. In one case, playing for score essentially formed a cult, in the other case, playing for score was completely pointless!
Yet, as we all know, playing for score is a way to make a game more complicated. It puts more action, more things to worry about, which is essential in shooter which are rather simple if we strip away all of the visuals/audio/etc. That's why we keep seeing these "playing for score vs survival" threads. Doesn't this make anyone else feel like the games are essentially incomplete? Why do we have to constantly, in the game, decided whether we're going to switch over to the "survival game" (that is to get to the end in one piece), or stick with the "scoring game" (the so-called "game proper")? Doesn't this feeling jarring? Doesn't it spoil the experience? Why is a choice/optional part of the game presented to us at all?
Reaction
Though I thought about it for some time after that, life got in the way (in a really awful way, let's leave that aside) and I never came to a conclusion. As I saw from the recent thread, I've been beaten to it! I don't want to discuss it here myself, mainly because I've come to the same conclusion after reading it. Those who disagree, it's ok, this isn't for you, this is for people who feel that they're getting an incomplete experience from games with scoring.
What we really need to do (as implied by the thread title), is basically rethink the games we're playing now. The mechanics that make them fun are not only in survival, but the acts you do to obtain a higher score like chaining in DoDonPachi, or getting those lovely chips in Ketsui. What if doing those gave you a big incentive in the actual mechanics of the game (that is, the mechanics essential to your survival)? What if NOT doing those things was a determent, or even fatal? Then you could relax and absolutely immerse yourself in the game without having to decide between scoring and survival. That's because "scoring" (or what was scoring) is now survival.*
No more restartitus, no more hours of practicing the same boss milking it so you could ... milk the next box, ad infinitum. Imagine DoDonPachi Daioujou's popcorn corridors where you had to keep your chain going -- or die, how exhilarating would that be?
For that matter, why should we settle for less?
Solution
So here's what people of like-mind will do, we're going to suggest ways we can modify existing masterpieces to make them scoreless. That is to say, not to simply remove the score counter, that isn't going to cut it. It's going to need reprogramming, even a visual (e.g. new/modified sprite or a complete reskin) or audio change. You're going to have to make the optional parts more of a mandatory aspect to the game.
I'll reserve the next post to point to everyone's (good) suggestions, please only make them if you're really experienced with a particular game, otherwise you won't be familiar with the details that make it fun. You're going to have to put your game designer thinking cap on, this is definitely not an easy task.
Anyway here's an example to get things rolling:
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Giga Wing -MAN LABEL-. Instead of the reflect-shield turning the bullets into medals it terms them into little bolts of energy units, which by collecting you can replenish your ship's energy stores. There's an energy gauge at the top of the screen which depletes as a function of time, and when it hits zero your ship explodes and it's game over. So you are obliged to score the fuck out of the stages merely in order to progress in them, and the quicker the designer has set the energy depletion rate the more aggressive you have to score merely in order to survive.* Of course, I'm glossing over 1UPs for the moment but let's side step this issue unless it comes up.
