The Difference Between Challenging and Punishing Games

[RipperRoo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs

I think some of these tips are very useful, especially because its referring to the difficulty.
So i post it here and hopefully it can find its way to the Index of Developer-friendly Topics.

[BPzeBanshee]

As said in the few posts in the Developer-friendly Topics index I highly agree with most of the points covered here. nasty_wol also has a point about hidden features and long play sessions not necessarily being a bad thing but I think a lot of what the video covers in this regard can be translated to what a lot of us folks cover in shmups already.

In short, thinking a little outside the box and less literal with this vid and you're well on your way to success. I'll add this thread to the index shortly.

[HydrogLox]

One thing that "Extra Credits - When Difficult Is Fun - The Difference Between Challenging and Punishing Games" overlooks is that today's video game industry needs consumption to fuel it's own existence. Arcade games consumed your quarters at an alarming rate and it typically required a significant investment of time and money to develop skill on a single game to finally get "your quarter's worth".

Today's video game industry is looking for an experience that will get the money out of the customer's pocket and lasts just long enough so they don't feel ripped off but are left wanting more, ready to spend more "disposable" income on the next product. This product typically ends up being some type of quick time event movie/visual novel. Good challenging games are much more difficult to create and have too much replay value for an industry that needs to sell everybody their next product.

[Deril]

...Today's video game industry is looking for an experience that will get the money out of the customer's pocket and lasts just long enough so they don't feel ripped off but are left wanting more, ready to spend more "disposable" income on the next product...

I work in gaming industry for 6 years, and I never encountered obsolescence as one of game requirements. (it might be true with IT hardware, furniture and similar industries... but not gaming.)

Good pay to play games are striving to be not too long, and not too short - just right. Unless replay-ability is main part of the game - making game too long is bad idea. There is a market for not re-playable games, players want to have one kind of fun, then just finish a game, and move to different kind of fun. (in many cases as fast as possible..)
Bad games can be too short because they don't have much to offer, or too long because its artificially prolonged to justify purchase price...

And it is certainly not true with freemium games where, keeping player in the game is one of 3 main objectives.(monetization, retention , virality)

[nasty_wolverine]

freemium games where, keeping player in the game is one of 3 main objectives.(monetization, retention , virality)

on the topic of freemium games, people dont quite understand that there are two kinds, Free to Play and Pay to Win. You can guess which one sucks more.

[Doctor Butler]

Challenging games are incongruent with current market-trends.

Narrative-heavy hand-holding games, and MMO/FPS with MMO elements are what shift units.

[nasty_wolverine]

Challenging games are incongruent with current market-trends.

Narrative-heavy hand-holding games, and MMO/FPS with MMO elements are what shift units.

You forgot graphics, 1080p generic washed out colors with motion blur. I remember a time when games had art instead of graphics.

[pegboy]

It's the difference between dying in Gradius III (arcade) and dying in Gradius V.

In general I think that video sucked. Battletoads is an awesome game, and Super meat boy sucks ass.

[Rozyrg]

I like EC a lot; but I have mixed feelings about that video too.

As for F2P, even the 'good guy' variations on the model have their consistent bad points. Overly protracted progression mechanics, having to *work* towards a point where the game actually becomes fun, mind-bending repetition.

It goes without saying that arcades had built-in negative design consequences as well; but with them, we at least have plenty of hindsight and can carefully extract the good bits from the bad. We can see where their coin-sucking tendencies actually served the game's design and made it more exciting vs. when it outright ruined otherwise well-made games.

I think it all comes down to not bending your game too much towards your monetization model - the moment the player knows they're being fleeced, the experience has been damaged. Also, just designing your game well.

Battletoads is an awesome game, and Super meat boy sucks ass.

I specifically have a problem with people emulating old design in a strictly superficial, thoughtless way. I haven't played SMB; but I always think of the recent Strider remake - there are parts where foot soldiers spray fast bullet clusters Hiryu has no way of dodging. It's obviously just imitating the look and behavior of an old game but not understanding the machinery behind them at all.

[nasty_wolverine]

I specifically have a problem with people emulating old design in a strictly superficial, thoughtless way. I haven't played SMB; but I always think of the recent Strider remake - there are parts where foot soldiers spray fast bullet clusters Hiryu has no way of dodging. It's obviously just imitating the look and behavior of an old game but not understanding the machinery behind them at all.

Now this is good advice, the video bashes hidden mechanics, but as you say, it depends on the implementation.

For example, Battle Garegga and its infamous rank. Perfect example of a well designed mechanism, which even though hidden, is very intuitive. Tell-tale sign of rank is the bullet speed and item drop speed. After a few playthroughs you can easily figure out that powering up too much increases rank and dying decrease. Fairly intuitive, and for a normal clear thats all you need to know, obviously high level players will and have worked through more details, where as superplayers like kamui have learnt to completely master rank and push it as far as it can go.

So the point is, a punishing game would screw you over with little chances of comebacks, where as a challenging game would give you chances to comeback provided you learn to know what to do.

[RipperRoo]

Challenging games are incongruent with current market-trends.

Narrative-heavy hand-holding games, and MMO/FPS with MMO elements are what shift units.

Though there are Challenging Games that sell, so i dont think this is true.
Define "mmo" elements... hope u were not refering to a xp bar and choice of loadouts as mmo ;D

You forgot graphics, 1080p generic washed out colors with motion blur. I remember a time when games had art instead of graphics.

thats exactly where indie games fills the gap.. And making a game good looking, doesnt make it bad.

In general I think that video sucked. Battletoads is an awesome game, and Super meat boy sucks ass.

Thats like because i prefer Metal/rock i would say everyone who says "rap is good music" sucks.

also they dont say battletoads suck or super meat boy is an awesome game. They just say the fucking evasion part of battletoads is shit, and i totally agree!
its so boring to just memorize the pattern. and u have to start the whole game again if you fail. While in SMB u can just jump right in again.

For example, Battle Garegga

i have thought a bit about our discussion in IRC and after i read know more about garegga and the rank system, i would still disagree with you.
But lets not go through this again

So the point is, a punishing game would screw you over with little chances of comebacks, where as a challenging game would give you chances to comeback provided you learn to know what to do.

That is basicly the message, it is true and it is important!

[Drake]

Now this is good advice, the video bashes hidden mechanics, but as you say, it depends on the implementation.

For example, Battle Garegga and its infamous rank. Perfect example of a well designed mechanism, which even though hidden, is very intuitive. Tell-tale sign of rank is the bullet speed and item drop speed. After a few playthroughs you can easily figure out that powering up too much increases rank and dying decrease. Fairly intuitive, and for a normal clear thats all you need to know, obviously high level players will and have worked through more details, where as superplayers like kamui have learnt to completely master rank and push it as far as it can go.

I would argue that the EC team wouldn't call rank mechanics in general a "hidden" mechanic at all, in the same way that they talk about in the video. Sure, it's "hidden" in the sense that a number isn't displayed to the player telling them that it's getting harder, but that doesn't mean rank isn't displayed in a way the player can understand or that it will (in general) arbitrarily lead to deaths for no sensible reason. However, it does have to be done in a reasonable manner rather than having massive spikes in difficulty or suddenly having things pointblank you or inventing rules that run contrary to what you're otherwise telling the player.

That being said, I would then argue that many of the rules in Garegga regarding how much rank is gained and what it affects are not obvious nor intuitive whatsoever, and would certainly fall into this category of poor design that they're talking about; never even mind that accumulating too much rank will make the game literally impossible. Keeping more lives makes the game harder because dying then reduces rank less? That's a ridiculous rule, even though the concept of sacrificing lives to reduce rank by itself is not necessarily a bad rule. Powerups increasing rank even when fully powered is dumb too, along with shooting being a contributor to rank rather than say killing enemies (which incidentally is why people thought killing was the factor for so long). The issues with Garegga's rank system aren't due to the rank system itself, but like you said, the implementation of it is what makes some aspects unreasonable design.

[nasty_wolverine]

That being said, I would then argue that many of the rules in Garegga regarding how much rank is gained and what it affects are not obvious nor intuitive whatsoever, and would certainly fall into this category of poor design that they're talking about; never even mind that accumulating too much rank will make the game literally impossible. Keeping more lives makes the game harder because dying then reduces rank less? That's a ridiculous rule, even though the concept of sacrificing lives to reduce rank by itself is not necessarily a bad rule. Powerups increasing rank even when fully powered is dumb too, along with shooting being a contributor to rank rather than say killing enemies (which incidentally is why people thought killing was the factor for so long). The issues with Garegga's rank system aren't due to the rank system itself, but like you said, the implementation of it is what makes some aspects unreasonable design.

Garegga has 3 basic rules:
1> Collect least amount of items required for survival
2> Dont hoard bombs and lives
3> Collect all medals

Optional rule for low rank play:
4> dont blow shit up if dont need to

thats it really.

[Drake]

Whether you can summarize the basic goals or not doesn't mean that they're well-communicated to the player, are in line with what is actually communicated, or results in a reasonable proportion of impact to the game. Blowing shit up isn't even a part of rank besides the fact that you need to shoot in order to destroy things, and although you basically won't be shooting if you don't want to destroy things, it's still not a sensible rule.

If you had never played Garegga before and didn't have other people compile information on its systems, how long do you think it would take you to figure out its metagame of scoring to produce extends that you want to quickly get rid of in order to keep rank low rather than actually using them as spare lives? How long would it take to figure out that items that seem like they would make survival easier, actually make survival harder? Why does it make sense to not then also avoid bomb fragments when picking up other items results in significant rank increases? You might even notice that using bombs increases rank, which seemingly goes against what you actually want: using them to score for more lives to then use for rank control. Why would dying decrease rank but bombing increase; who knows! If you concluded that you wanted a maximum upgrade for some reason, does it really make sense that picking up more of the same items (that seemingly do nothing anymore) would keep increasing rank as much as it does? Why does the rank go up so high in regular play as to be impossible if you're actually just playing well by any other standard, and then have you actually be worse off than if you had kept your resources low?

The very fact that the specifics of the rank system were basically just heuristics and hearsay for the majority of Garegga's history is evidence enough that they didn't do it right. Garegga is sweet in many ways, and the convolutedness of its systems makes for an interesting flow and playing experience for a rank-based game once you're accustomed to it, know how it works and can manipulate it, but that doesn't mean that it's conveyed in a way that is at all reasonable to a player. You can make a rank-based game, even one where rank is invisible, without doing what Garegga does. It's only in retrospect that you could possibly say these were acceptable design choices, or that its systems are simply challenging rather than punishing. I absolutely guarantee you that if any developer modeled a new game in any genre similarly to how Garegga was, it would be torn apart critically.

[Squire Grooktook]

I really wish they had used a different word besides punishing. I mean I get what they're trying to say, Gradius III checkpoints vs Gradius V checkpoints as was mentioned above, but making punishment a dirty word is the worst thing you could do imo.

The problem with modern games, to me, is not the lack of challenge at all, but the lack of punishment. I don't want my games to be mindless shooting sprees, I actually want to feel tension, excitement, etc. and you can't have tension or excitement without the possibility that something bad will happen.

With a fighting game, you don't need in game punishment, because both you and your opponent know implicitly that the winner will be crowned the superior player, at least for that match. But single player games need something real to make you not want to die.

Hence not being able to save in the middle of an rpg dungeon. Hence having to redo a lengthy boss fight in an action rpg. Hence having to return to the beginning of the game in an arcade game. If you're not giving the player a real punishment, something to really make them sweat, you're not generating excitement.

Ironically, the punishments in classic arcade games actually make the games better. Instead of grinding away at one check point all the time, returning to the beginning creates a difference in kind (ha ha ec terminology) and gives you a new chance to bring more resources to the part where you failed.

Anyway, this is why, as much as I can respect it as a different kind of gameplay experience, I absolutely loathe the super meat boys and I wanna be the guys of the world. They completely excise punishment, and along with it they completely excise tension and excitement. Players are supposed to revel in "achievement", but I don't play games for achievement. I don't play them for the destination. I play them for the road, and the road in these games is more boring and repetitive an experience than any I could imagine.

Sadly, that's what's in now, and it creates a kind of snowball effect. You give the new generation of gamers only games that don't punish them, and pretty soon the idea of being punished seems like lunacy to them.

[mamboFoxtrot]

When it comes to arcade-styled games where you have to start over upon getting a game over, I feel like I'm literally the only person who just shuts the game off at that point and tries again some other day, rather than restarting over and over again and getting mad as hell. With save-state styled games like Meat Boy and such, I feel more compelled to retry a spot, which generally results in me getting frustrated, fucking up more, getting more frustrated, and then not even being able to enjoy challenges that come after because I'm too busy feeling irritated at having failed something 80 times in a row.

Granted, when it comes to longer games like 3D hack n slashes or RPGs, I don't mind there being checkpoints every room because HELL NO am I doing stupid box-shoving non-puzzles over and over again every time I die to something!

The "non-punishing" philosophy is often held up as a "smart solution to difficulty", but it honestly feels more like a cop-out most of the time. If a game is "punishing" and requires me to replay large portions of the game, but the game is SHIT, or even just kinda not that good, then I just fucking drop the game. With the Meat Boy style, even if I don't really like the game, I'll probably keep pressing on to see if it gets better because hey, its not like I actually ever have to replay any of the shit I don't enjoy once I get passed it. In that way, it is more commercially viable for a developer, since they don't have to worry as much about a challenge being fun, interesting, or even fair.


But seriously wtf is that voice, man?

[Rozyrg]

The rapid stop-start of stuff like SMB is what really irritates me about it. Gameplay is like music - you don't want to hear the same few seconds of a song over and over, much less totally out of sequence.

Badly designed/paced difficulty just tends to break the flow.

[n0rtygames]

Good grief, this has to be one of the best posts I've seen on Dev forum in a long time. Props Drake.

Whether you can summarize the basic goals or not doesn't mean that they're well-communicated to the player, are in line with what is actually communicated

Your points on Garegga are absolutely spot on. Giest118, when he was around - made an absolutely great post to this effect regarding conveying things to the player. A wise man and many people should listen to his ramblings. To summarise what he said again, he used DoDonPachi as an example - pretty much ripping off what he's already posted at this point but it's worth bringing up again.

Pretty much everything you need to know to play the basics of DDP (including even beginning to play for a reasonable score) are explained to you within the opening 20 seconds of the game through extremely visible hud elements. The select screen shows you your modes of fire, you get a basic idea of the controls. You get a few moments to fly left and right, maybe let off a couple of shots before the enemies come on screen.

You blow up enemies, you get a nice big chain counter in the top left and a bar that goes down. When the bar runs out, the chain drops. You now know how to get a good score in DDP!

Rank, if implemented well - should really be invisible to the player (in my opinion). It's not one of those things that need to be displayed since the general expectation is that the longer you are playing the game, the harder it gets. This can be as simple as a variable that just increases per frame, or you can have other factors that contribute aswell.

That said, although Raizing games really do kick off a debate on this - they're worth studying to get a feel of how you can start playing around with a dynamic difficulty. While they're not to everyones taste, at least learning how they work can give you ideas on how to implement your own systems.

One good thing to keep in mind, just because DOJ and beyond add rank when you use a hyper, doesn't mean that this is a hard and fast rule set in stone. Perhaps your game simply gives you a giant beam attack when you use the hyper and lasts about 3 seconds. Perhaps it only takes about 5 seconds to recharge the meter that it uses. Add rank every time you use that thing and you're quickly going to find yourself in Pink Sweets territory. It might make more sense to do something simple like increasing the players rank based on an overall item counter (like Futari Orig) or how they're scoring and not tying it directly to specific actions..

So yeah, agree with Drakes post completely. Make sure that things are communicated to the player well through the HUD. Chances are if it sounds obscure and you need to explain it through a manual or forum post - someone is probably going to hate you for it.

(so make sure you do it properly and sneak this stuff in and don't tell anyone - telling people your secrets is the worst thing you can do )

edit : The better communicated your games rules are, the more responsibility the player will take if they fail imo

[Obscura]

One good thing to keep in mind, just because DOJ and beyond add rank when you use a hyper, doesn't mean that this is a hard and fast rule set in stone.

Adding rank on hyper, at least temporarily, is pretty much a necessity for any game with a hyper-like system.

If you want to see why, try playing a few credits of Deathsmiles, and also try playing some old Capcom platformers (Strider and Black Dragon have some of the best rank implementations I've ever seen). If you're going to have a way to let the player become really powerful, you've got to make sure that they don't become too powerful for the game to continue being entertaining -- to take Deathsmiles as an example, if you don't activate Death Mode, when you pop hyper, you pretty much trivialize whatever part of the game you're at; even the bottom area of the castle turns into "hold down the fire button", since with no rank-up on hyper, you're controlling a protagonist that's waaaaay more powerful than what the game was designed to accommodate (this is also why "rank up when the ship gets more powerful" is a good mechanism).

[n0rtygames]

Sorry, I should have been a little clearer on this.

For example, in Giest's TW games - he has pretty much two levels of dynamic difficulty. One for being in hyper mode and the other just regular. There's no sort of cumulative rank for constantly using hypers - just that the game is more challenging when you're using a hyper. After the hyper wears off, things return to normal. It's a pretty good approach actually.

Generally yes, it's good design to have the game push back a little for the reasons you've said - but you don't have to do it exactly like DOJ in the sense that popping a hyper adds a permanent rank increase.

The important part of that post being this really :

Perhaps your game simply gives you a giant beam attack when you use the hyper and lasts about 3 seconds. Perhaps it only takes about 5 seconds to recharge the meter that it uses. Add rank every time you use that thing and you're quickly going to find yourself in Pink Sweets territory.

I wanna use the rose cracker damnit.

Really though, it just comes down to balancing whatever system you decide to go with.

[Obscura]

I wanna use the rose cracker damnit.

Play Recca

(I agree that Pink Sweets rank is pretty retarded.)