Friday, August 11

Smuggler’s Run (Game Boy Advance) Review

And you ramp off a rugged hill, top speed, airborne; your tachometer peaks, your engine revs free. It’s bliss, in a way. And you’re down clatter, shocks squeeze, slip traction skid; grip and you’re off again racing an arrow straight for smoke. No time to kill but stones to juke.

Smuggler’s Run for the Game Boy Advance (Rebellion/Destination Software, 2002) is a port of the PlayStation 2 version developed by Rockstar San Diego (then Angel Studios) and published by Rockstar. Every Smuggler’s Run (there’s a sequel and then a GameCube port) is wicked fun, an adrenaline rush that doesn’t stop. The music kicks into gear immediately and your rivals won’t wait for you to shift.

On mountainous, rugged terrain, your goal is to race to a smoke signal, pick up contraband (the “smuggling” part), then deliver it to another smoke signal across the open map. Sometimes, allies help out, opponents jostle for the goods, and police give chase with sirens howling. If another vehicle checks you while you’re holding the contraband, they’ll steal it from you. Likewise, you’ll nab contraband from another vehicle when you tag it. Scraping paint, losing parts, and nabbing goods is crucial element of physicality and friction. It’s tense too, when you just barely miss a delivery and you spin around for another pass, probably overshooting the smoke and terrified that an enemy will ram you from behind, robbing your efforts of payoff.

Smuggler’s Run is about speed, traction, and air. The sound design is critical and euphoric. You’ll be racing with tires digging up dirt, then fly off a hill airbound and your tires spin free, your engine revs, and your tachometer peaks. The tachometer serves only to represent the engine’s load while driving, feedback for your speed, irrelevant to handling and functioning. Please watch this recording demonstrating the sound.


Driving straight isn’t always straight-forward. There’s little time to assess obstacles while plotting a course. You can pause play and open a map with select, which can be useful but isn’t practical for frequent access. You’ll mostly be relying upon a green arrow on the HUD pointing you to your next smoke signal. But the smoke signals themselves are pretty small, have only moderate draw distance, and have a cruelly miniscule pick up range. Furthermore, rocks, shrubs, and trees obstruct your path. The obstacles are balanced well for the world, I think, fairly placed and sized so that you pass by a fair few by luck but will slam into plenty if you’re not keeping an eye out or aren’t in control of your car. Learning to balance the two was key to enjoying the game. Here’s another video, discussing learning to play the game right.


I enjoyed the heck out of this game and will pop in the cartridge now and again to enjoy the adrenaline. Used cartridges run cheap right now, so I recommend picking up a copy if you have a Game Boy Advance compatible device.

Saturday, July 29

Pokemon Rangers: Why Drawing Loops is so Engaging

If you’re familiar with the “circle drawing” combat of the Pokemon Ranger series, you might be under the impression it’s...sort of dumb. But you’d be wrong! It’s actually clever and engaging, and I want to talk about why.

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia (Creatures Inc./The Pokémon Company/Nintendo, 2008) is the second Pokemon Ranger title, for the Nintendo DS. Combat in Shadows of Almia is quite a bit different from the first Pokemon Ranger, and somewhat different from the third (Guardian Signs). For example, in the original game, you need to capture Pokemon in a single, unbroken line with a set number of loops. You can draw extra loops beyond the minimum to earn bonus XP. The combat in Guardian Signs is more similar to Shadows of Almia, except Pokemon can also become "agitated", which functions as an extra shield you must break through. But we’re going to discuss Shadows of Almia specifically.

“Combat” in the Pokemon Ranger series is, in fact, all about making friends. You befriend Pokemon by drawing circles around them with the stylus, but they have a friendship bar that is effectively HP, and they attack you because they don’t like you invading their space. So, we’re just going to call it combat.

On the battlefield, Pokemon dash about and periodically attack. Your goal is to capture them by drawing lines in loops around them. But your line length is limited, and when the Pokemon attacks your line, or even walks through it, your line breaks, forcing you to lift the stylus, place it again, and start drawing a new loop from scratch.

(You can also attack with your own Pokemon moves on the battlefield, but we’re just going to focus on the line drawing.)


Here’s a demonstration.

I want to highlight a few aspects of the loop-drawing mechanics that make combat so enjoyable.


The key is that Pokemon can break your line. Pokemon passing through your line will break it, but it will not deal damage. Pokemon landing an attack on your line breaks it and deals damage. An attack or unexpected dash into your line, and your line shatters like glass. The sound is brilliant. And suddenly your line dissolves and your stylus is dead, like it’s out of ink. You’re doomed to drag your dry styler about impotently, forever, until you start a new line. The only way to start a new line is to lift your stylus, press it back onto the screen, and start drawing again. The impact of taking damage is so visceral, literally physical.


Further incentivizing you to perform well are little “bonus” achievements that grant extra XP. For example:

-Capture a Pokemon with a single line. -Capture a Pokemon quickly (or very quickly!) -Capture a Pokemon without taking damage


These bonuses are the real game, like letter grades in Devil May Cry; in fact, battle performance is graded in this game too! To excel at capturing Pokemon, you need to know how to read the battlefield, anticipate attacks, understand how Pokemon react to your stylus, and know when to use your assistant attacks. But the core component, really, is risk vs reward. Drawing loops takes time. Drawing large loops takes more time, according to the laws of physics, and is therefore slower to complete a capture, but it’s also safer because your line is farther from the attacking Pokemon. Drawing smaller, tighter loops is faster but riskier, the line being that much closer to the target, more vulnerable to attacks and erratic dashes, and at risk of being snapped. It happens so fast.


Take too long, and you miss out on one or both of capture speed bonuses. If your line is broken, you lose the unbroken line bonus, and if your line takes damage, you lose the flawless victory bonus too. And then there are bonus streaks you can earn from succeeding in multiple battles sequentially.


As you level up, your line grows longer, allowing for larger and safer loops. You also gain damage reduction perks. But nothing in-game improves your manual dexterity or your skill reading the battlefield, nothing freely grants bonuses, and nothing dampens the viscerality of a breaking line.

Thursday, July 20

The Wild at Heart: Personality and Information through Voices

This article contains spoilers for The Wild at Heart (2021, Moonlight Kids/Humble Games). If gaming is among your hobbies, I recommend just playing it instead. It’s exceptional.

The Wild at Heart is an action-adventure game of sorts. Players play as young teenagers Wake and Kirby, best friends who have run away from their homes to live in the woods. Unexpectedly, Wake and Kirby find themselves in a magical realm called the Deep Woods. It’s populated by quirky elder beings, roaming monsters, and little friendly creatures called spritelings. Players team up with squads of spritelings to save the realm from dark forces encroaching upon it.


The game plays similarly to the Pikmin series from Nintendo. Coincidentally, the fourth Pikmin game releases tomorrow (July 21) for the Switch, and that series uses voices similarly as will be discussed here. In The Wild at Heart, players wander about the Deep Woods, collect and spawn spriteling companions of different varieties, battle monsters with their spritelings, and complete quests to save the realm.


The Deep Woods has five kinds of spritelings, each with a unique design and approach to battle, but more relevant to the point, they have their own personalities that are expressed, in part, by their voices. The designers and sound engineers at the game’s developer, Moonlight Kids, imbued the spritelings with voices that both express their personalities and also inform the player of battle conditions.


The sound design in The Wild at Heart is incredible throughout. Simply exploring the Deep Woods is extremely enjoyable because of rolling brooks, swaying trees, cavernous echoes, and the footfall of Wake and Kirby on the surface. But this essay focuses on the voices and sound effects of the spritelings in particular.


I’ve recorded a video of The Wild at Heart to demonstrate the spriteling voices and how audio cues assist the player in combat. This video is clinical to isolate the focus on the spriteling voices, but know that the game in actuality plays smoothly and blends all sorts of sounds wonderfully. It’s a joy to play, and listen to.


There are five spriteling types: Twiglings, Emberlings, Shiverlings, Barblings, and Lunalings. Spritelings can be tossed at objects and monsters to attack them, called back to the player character, split into squads, sent to gather resources, and praised for being perfect just as they are.


When the player tosses a spriteling, the spriteling chirps a signature cry of its type as it flies through the air, both aurally identifying the type and expressing personality for the creature. In this section of the video, I toss each type of spriteling, ten at a time, to demonstrate their range of vocal responses. Each of the spritelings has a distinct voice and is accompanied by unique sound effects.


On blogger, embedded videos always start at the beginning, even with a time code. So I've linked to the timecode of each section instead. The link will open in a new winow.

Notice how the shiverlings (I’ll allow you to infer which ones they are) make little icy crackling sounds as they’re tossed. Emberlings make fire popping sounds as they trill joyfully. And Barblings swish through the air as they spin, rolled into balls. Notice also that each spriteling has a unique landing sound effect. I love that the Twiglings land like stumps.

By holding a shoulder button, players can select their spriteling type with a selection wheel. When a type is highlighted on the wheel (by tilting the analog stick in that direction), the spriteling effect plays there too.

When the player has multiple types of spritelings in tow, he or she may swap between types by pressing a shoulder button. When a spriteling type is swapped to, the spritelings coo distinctively to aurally notify the player which type he or she has at the ready.

Spritelings are tossed one type at a time until that type is depleted, when the next type steps forward. In this video, you’ll see me toss the spritelings one at a time, as before, but listen for the voices when a new rank steps forward. The effect notifies players that they’ve depleted the type they’ve been tossing, that a new type has been selected, and which.

Spritelings are perfect just the way they are, and the player can praise them with a button tap, called a “Quick Pep”. As always, the spritelings purr uniquely when praised. Here they are individually.

Here’s their collective voices when praised in groups. This is also a good demonstration of their landing sounds when dispatched all at once.

And here’s a bunch of spritelings all together.

Finally, here’s a brief clip of combat showing off the variety of sounds during live play. The spritelings make unique attack sounds as well, but they are more difficult to hear because monsters make their own sounds when hit.

Friday, July 14

Tchia: Matching Mechanics to "Boring" Level Design

In Tchia (Awaceb, Kepler Interactive Limited, 2023), players become the titular character, a young girl of twelve, to explore her home islands of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Tchia is incredible in every regard and I highly, highly recommend it. Tchia is best experienced first-hand to discover the magic of its movement and mysteries, and it's available on PS4 and PS5, Steam, Epic Games Store, and streaming over GeForce Now if you own the Epic Games Store version. If you’re interested, play the game first and then come back to read this little article.


Tchia can jump, swim, slide, paraglide, and climb trees. If Tchia climbs to the top of a tree, she can cling to the crown, sway the tree back and forth, and catapult herself into the air. It’s the best thing ever. Once she’s in the air, Tchia is free to open her glider, or dive into the sea, or grab onto other trees that she’s flung into. Then she can catapult herself again.


At one point in the game, an NPC gives players a quest to retrieve a specific species of crab from a mangrove forest called Kwéö. Mangrove forests are salty swamps, and when I first saw it, I thought to myself, “Oh man, I’m going to have to walk through this flat swamp; not too exciting.” But then I realized that I could just climb a mangrove tree and launch myself deeper into the forest. What I had feared was a chore was suddenly a super enjoyable little game because the swinging and gliding physics are so well tuned. If I wanted to, I could try to launch myself all the way across the forest, tree to tree, without ever touching the ground, like a monkey playing hot lava.

Shamefully, I realized that I needn’t fear the forest floor anyway because it’s gorgeous and fascinating and we’re privileged to stroll through it. But by matching an inspired mechanic with deceptively boring level design, Awaceb transformed a flat, (seemingly) repetitive area into a brilliant joyful playground.

Thursday, July 13

Haven Wants to Reassure You

My goal is to write a short, mostly stream of consciousness post every day, to reflect on my thoughts of games I’m playing and get back into the practice of games writing.

In Haven (The Game Bakers, 2020), the player/s clear floating islands of “rust”, a pollutant destroying the habitat. Dark red and menacing, rust often blankets most of an island, spreading from crystal-like deposits scattered about, like creep nodes in StarCraft II. Clearing rust is as simple as gliding over it, like a paintbrush, and passing near a rust deposit clears a large swathe of rust surrounding it. Each island is polluted with a finite number of rust deposits, and with a little diligence and exploration, cleaning up an island entirely is a fairly simple task. Island topography and navigation becomes more complicated as the game progresses, but to give you an idea, clearing an island might take about 10 minutes, as a general estimate, if you’re fairly directed in your goal. Collectible fruit tends to distract from the task and roaming monsters inhibit it.


Clearing an entire islet is rewarded with an “Islet Cleared” commendation and positive acknowledgement from the characters. Additionally, players can then fast travel to that islet, so players are incentivized to clear islets if only to open up the spot as a shortcut for later exploration. However, clearing islets is not necessary to complete the game. Clearing rust (for the most part) is optional.


While exploring islets and clearing rust, one of the characters will occasionally say, “you know, you don’t need to clear all of the rust.” I think this callout serves two purposes: one, it's a reminder that clearing rust is not required to complete the game. More interestingly, though, the statement alleviates the pressure on players to clear the rust just because it's there. When playing games, I'm constantly, constantly thinking about "optional obligations". That's my term for optional objectives that feel like their required if only because their present, or if the benefits of completing the objectives is essentially necessary or feels that their necessary, facts aside. Clearing rust in Haven is a good example. Rust is all over the place; is bright and garish and draws players to clear it; is satisfying to clear; and is particularly satisfying to clear in entirety because players are rewarded with a wonderful sound effect. I'm susceptible to optional obligations and frequently find myself victim to their draw. I suspect that the need to complete optional objectives (or find optional collectibles, or complete side quests, or stealth past all enemies, etc) is likely related to OCD behavior, but I believe that many players feel obligated to fulfill optional game elements regardless.


This is why I appreciate the characters explicitly explaining to one another and to the player that, really, you don't need to clear all of the rust, if you don't want to. The statement is reassuring, forgiving players for feeling emotionally obligated to clear the rust, and providing an off-ramp for players to abandon the option, particularly if players aren't enjoying the task. Clearing rust becomes time consuming, and I bet the developers knew that not everybody would enjoy the task and wanted to both remind and reassure players that they can just walk away if they prefer. It's a generous, considerate inclusion and respects players for having tendencies that may be counter to their preferences.

Thursday, December 2

Guild Wars 2 Bindings for the Steam Controller

I decided to finally try out Guild Wars 2, considering it's free, but I'm very much a couch gamer, so I wanted to see if it was possible to play with a Steam Controller. There are a few configurations online, but none of them were quite what I was looking for, so I spent several hours experimenting with creating a customer configuration of my own, and I'm very satisfied with how it's turned out.

Download the Steam Controller Configuration Here

To play Guild Wars 2 with a Steam Controller, follow these steps:

  1. Obtain a Steam Controller
  2. Connect the Steam Controller to your PC with a cable or via Bluetooth
  3. Open Steam
  4. From the menu bar, select Games > Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library > Gw2-64.exe
  5. Download the Steam Controller Configuration Here
    1. Open Steam Client Bootstrapper
    2. The Steam Controller Configurator Dialog will open
    3. Click Apply Configuration
  6. Launch Guild Wars 2 from your Steam Library
  7. The game should automatically detect that you're using a Steam Controller, and the binding should automatically be active.
  8. Note: If you make changes to the configuration, when you return to the game, they won't be active right away. Press the Steam button to open the overlay, then press it again to close the overlay, and your changes should be working then.
Guild Wars 2 Steam Controller


Here are the controller bindings:

  • Start: Open Map
  • Select: Open Hero Panel
  • Analog Stick: Move
  • Analog Stick - Click: F/Use
  • Right Track Pad: Move Mouse Pointer
  • Right Track Pad - Click: Left Mouse Click
  • Left Track Pad: Function Keys (Switch Style)
  • Left Track Pad - Outer Ring: Auto-Run
  • Face Buttons: Skill Bar (1-4)
  • Left Shoulder Button: Left Mouse Click
  • Right Shoulder Button: Right Mouse Click
  • Left Trigger: Dodge Roll
  • Right Trigger: Jump
  • Left Paddle: Skill Bar 5
  • Right Paddle: Switch to Hotkeys 2 (Skill Bar 6-10)
    • While in Hotkey 2, the paddle functions are reversed.
Let me know your thoughts on Twitter.

Sunday, August 29

Lara Croft Go: Puzzles and Experience

Lara Croft Go is a brilliant puzzle game for Android and iOS (and PlayStation and PC). It's immaculately designed. Players traverse exotic dungeons in search of ancient artifacts. Playing the game involves solving spatial puzzles by moving Lara, turn by turn, through boards of deadly creatures and traps. The game is divided into seven themed books, each filled with a number of chapters, themselves comprised of three or so puzzles each.

Puzzle Games
Lara Croft Go is a particular type of puzzle game. It's type is defined by two tenants:
-It has finite options
-It has perfect information

The game's being finite means there are a limited number of actions allowed at any given time: Lara can move and act in very few ways each turn.

The game's having perfect information means that players know what will happen in response to every action and how the game elements themselves will act and react at any given time.

Strategy Games
Let's discuss how puzzle games differ from single-player strategy games. Let's consider Fire Emblem, for example, specifically The Blazing Sword for GameBoy Advance (because that's the one I've played).

Fire Emblem is finite because players have only so many actions they can choose from at any given time. Though the player's options are significantly greater compared to a game like Lara Croft Go, because there are many more units on the fields and the player can move them in any order, technically the player is still restricted.

Fire Emblem is not a game with perfect information, but it does come close. The AI is governed by a very simple set of rules. For example, opposing units will always attack the weakest of the player's units within their range, ignoring units who may be closer but stronger. So therefore, players can confidently predict, if not outrightly know, how the AI will act.

However, attacks in Fire Emblem have odds of being successful. Any element of a game that is random is referred to as RNG (random number generator), as a shorthand. Players must consider their chances when deciding how to act. And even if the game did have perfect information and were wholly a puzzle game, it's far too complex to solve easily.

Puzzle Solving Methods
Puzzle games that are finite and have perfect information are solvable by a number of methods. There is overlap between these methods, but it's fun to consider the nuances between them.

Solve Ahead/Logic
Observe and analyze the puzzle and plan your actions in advance. Then execute. No action is necessary until the puzzle has been mentally solved.

Exploration and Experimentation
Explore the puzzle and observe. Moving your piece around the board opens new perspectives and visibility of new board states.

Elimination
Trial and error. Because there are finite possibilities, eliminate them one by one.

Deduction
By looking at the puzzle, assume what's likely.

Try and Fail
Acknowledge that you won't solve the puzzle on your first attempt, and enjoy the process of figuring it out.

Luck
Brute force. When all else fails, just keep doing your best. Eventually, you might get lucky 

In reality, we solve puzzles with a mix of these methods. Everyone solves ahead, even if by only a couple of moves. But very few possess the mental capacity or memory to solve complex puzzles entirely in advance. I certainly do not. I can plan ahead maybe four turns; then I'm tapped out.

Puzzle Solving Process
The puzzle solving process more commonly happens in stages. Puzzles in Lara Croft Go are constructed in stages connected by branching paths. Advancing through a stage involves identifying the correct path by eliminating dead ends.

Observe
Observe the puzzle to grasp its structure and elements, particularly the obstacles and danger most near.

Deduce
This is almost an instinctual response. Rapidly derive a solution given your understanding of the game's rules and your assumptions about the designer's wiles.

Plan
Plan your solution. Planning is technically process of elimination. You're just eliminating wrong answers mentally. Pretty soon, you reach a point where you're confident enough to advance safely, if not correctly. That might only be two steps, but you need to plan only so far as the next branching path to commit, especially if you know you're able to return to the board's current state without hitting an end-state. In Lara Croft Go, an end-state is either death or immobility, forcing a restart.

Explore and Experiment
This is where players spend most of their time. You've reached a point where the puzzle is too complex to plan ahead any farther. There are too many branching paths to eliminate, so the next recourse is to explore the board and experiment with it, like a toy. Your optimal goal at this point is to explore each path while avoiding an end-state.

Eliminate
As you experiment with the mechanics and board states, you'll begin to eliminate bad paths. Eliminate enough paths, and eventually you'll find the right one.

As long as you avoid an end-state, you can explore the solution infinitely and, by elimination, are guaranteed to eventually succeed. With careful enough observation and sufficient planning, it's absolutely possible to solve every puzzle on your first attempt.

Get Lucky
Eliminate enough wrong steps, and eventually you'll find the right step, even if you happen upon it by surprise.

Puzzle Examples
Let's look at a few examples.

Solve Ahead
The Maze of Snakes - The Canyon of a Thousand Snakes - Puzzle Three
Here's a great example of a puzzle being solvable in advance, and being fun to do so too. By this point in the game, players have learned the mechanics of the snake and of the spear, so this puzzle is purely application.

This is also a good example of a puzzle having "breathing room", meaning superfluous options. The entire left column can be removed from the puzzle; none of those spaces are used in solving it. But then the player would have too few branching paths. "Solving" the puzzle would involve traveling down the only path available (more or less). Part of the challenge in puzzle design, at least for the designer's of Lara Croft Go, was finding a balance of complexity.

Eliminate
The Maze of Snakes - The Canyon of a Thousand Snakes - Puzzle Four
Here's the very next puzzle. It's the exact same challenge but more complex. Sucker Punch calls this M+1. It's unnecessary to solve this puzzle ahead. Instead, solving the puzzle looks much like the process detailed earlier; it's solved in stages by eliminating branching paths.

The first two moves are scripted, but then, once you have the spear, you've arrived at four branching paths.
They are:
-Right
-Left
-Forward
-Throw the spear at the snake down the line

Right is eliminated easily. It's immediate death. Most everyone would conclude this without needing to actually witness it.

Left starts off fine. You'll survive the move, but then you'd have only one choice: kill the snake from behind. But observing ahead to the consequences of that decision, you'd conclude that the next snake would kill Lara. Because this path leads to death pretty much immediately, you can close off the option and consider your final two paths available.

Snakes lunge at Lara only when she moves to the adjacent space. So stepping forward is a safe option. And so is throwing the spear. However, the spear is a precious resource, and since advancing forward is safe, there's no reason to throw the spear. So, of the four paths, you'll quickly identify the correct one. And then repeat.

The Maze of Spirits - Using the Trap - Puzzle Three
Here's a much more complicated example of process of elimination. But it can also be an example of "getting lost in the woods". The branching paths become so long and winding that you may be on the wrong path entirely for ages and ages.

Red Herrings
The Maze of Stones - The Dam's Edge - Puzzle Two
Here's a red herring, or a trap. You need to think two moves ahead to survive. As the puzzles become more difficult, you start to assume that the obvious next step is probably wrong.

The Maze of Stones - Through the Web - Puzzle One
Here's another red herring. This is a good example of where you can "go down the rabbit hole". Once you've decided that a single way is the only way, you may spend significant time trying to prove a mistaken assumption. You're twiddling your thumbs, but you just haven't realized it. Eventually, you'll either give up or try something else -- out of boredom more often than realization.

Luck
The Cave of Fire - The Burnt Tree - Puzzle One
...two hours later
 
Best Puzzle
The Maze of Spirits - The Doorstep of Spirits - Puzzle Two
This puzzle is ingenuous. Just very clever design.

Most Impossible Puzzle
The Cave of Fire - A Restless Chase - Puzzle Two
Experience
While playing Lara Croft Go, I often asked myself if there was a "right" way to solve a puzzle. Not if there was a correct solution, but rather a proper method of approach. Did the designers intend for the puzzle to be solved in a certain way? 

I completed Lara Croft Go without cheating. But I often struggled to tackle puzzles in a way that felt earned. Several puzzles took two hours to solve, and I "solved" a couple purely by luck. I did not see the answer until I'd accidentally found it. I expected more from myself, to be better at solving ahead, and I felt guilty that I didn't measure up. I felt like I was failing at the game.

My guilt derives from an unfortunate affliction of perfectionism and the belief that the only excuse for failing at the game, as it felt to me, was my own cognitive limitations. So solving a puzzle via excessive elimination, and certainly by luck, was emotionally equivalent to cheating.

Games are all alike in that they're experienced and felt. Ultimately, a player's emotional response to playing a game is the game. Everyone's experience is unique and personal. A game may be invigorating to some but frustrating to others. Or blissful, and to others boring. 

Greg Kassavin was once asked if Hades was his best game. He responded that he doesn't think of his games that way. For some people, nothing will match their own experience playing Transistor, and the meaning it has to them. For others, Bastion was significant for them. Or Pyre. Or Hades. The games themselves are defined by their emotional experience, not some objective quality.

All of this is to say that my having perfectionist tendencies made for my own experience with Lara Croft Go, in the form of frustration with myself. Someone whose mind functions more fluidly may better enjoy the exploration process. Which I did enjoy as well, a lot, but it was intermixed with guilt.

So asking yourself what's the "right" way to play the game, the answer is not which method of solution did the designers intend, but what approach is most pleasurable, for you, or puts you into a flow state. But even that argument is invalid. Because there's no right way to play a game. There's no right experience or wrong experience.

On a livestream of Previously Recorded, Rich and Jack talk about the Platinum game Vanquished, which they had both just played. Rich played the game aggressively. He said that's how the game was meant to be played. That was the intention, he said, and that's how it is most fun. Jack, however, played conservatively. He played from cover, rarely exposing himself or charging in. He satisficed. You might also call it cheesing the game (though I hate the term).

Rich very much enjoyed Vanquished. Jack very much did not. Jack's argument was that the game, in its design, did not force him to play aggressively, so therefore it was advantageous to play cautiously because he had greater odds of winning.

So is it anyone's fault that Jack did not enjoy the game? If Platinum intended for players to engage aggressively, is Platinum at fault for failing to design the enemies and arenas in a way that forced that behavior? Or is Jack at fault by playing Vanquished the "wrong" way and subjecting himself to an unenjoyable experience. What if, while playing, Jack recognized that he may enjoy the game better if he were to approach combat aggressively? What if, despite this recognition, Jack could not force himself to play that way because of his own biological predispositions and behavioral inclinations?

All of these are fair arguments. But here's another perspective. Perhaps there is no wrong way to play the game. Perhaps Jack and Vanquished just don't match. Because it's likely that another player engaged in combat conservatively too, but actually liked their time with the game.

Ubisoft has trended towards freedom of approach in all of their IPs, and I think this is partly why. Splinter Cell: Conviction and Splinter Cell: Blacklist are perfect examples. Assassin's Creed is another. Watch Dogs is another. Far Cry is another.

Our experience playing a game is only partly influenced by a game's design. When a game matches the player perfectly, the experience is frictionless. For me, this is Sly Cooper and Burnout 2. Ghost of Tsushima is a more recent example. But despite a likely attempt, some day, I very much doubt I will enjoy Sekiro. Other players thrive on the challenge and the satisfaction of success. This friction is basically flow theory at a grander scale. Most games, though, I would say are experienced with grades of friction. I absolutely loved Lara Croft Go, but the complete truth is that my experience was marred by my own expectations.

Think to games you've played. What games have been frictionless experiences? What games will you never enjoy? And most of all, with what games have you experienced some friction? And why? When you consider your opinion of those games and your recommendations for improvement, how much is influenced by your subjective experience with a game's elements mismatching your play style or mindset?


A Tangent on Splinter Cell
And here's a tangent on Splinter Cell that I wrote, but it didn't fit into this essay. I wanted to share my thoughts anyway.

Until Blacklist, Splinter Cell necessitated a very specific approach. They, and stealth games in general, are essentially puzzle games, in fact. But Splinter Cell never sold as well as many of Ubisoft's other franchises, so the company mandated that the next game appeal to a broader audience. The designers realized that they would therefore need to design Blacklist to appeal to the aggressive shooter market, but also not alienate their core fans. So they designed Blacklist to allow for a variety of play styles.

Unfortunately, there isn't much evidence that their new design model was effective at increasing sales. Long-time Splinter Cell players lamented the new style, saying that it was "watered down." This isn't actually accurate because the stealth design is as strong as ever, though it is missing some of the intimacy and pace of Chaos Theory. Conversely, I'm fairly certain that the series will never attract those who gravitate towards aggressive shooters. It's unfortunate because both games are excellent, and Blacklist in particular has perhaps the best level design I've ever played.

Ubisoft recognized that not every game is for every person. But they're an enormous company that spends the most on development of any in the world. Their concern is not only to recoup their costs, but also turn significant profits because if one game isn't, then another game might. They want to capitalize on their resource investment. The sentiment of the design is to allow a broader swath of players to enjoy Splinter Cell on their own terms. Their marketing, however, was not effective at selling this intention, despite their building explicit play styles into the scoring system in Blacklist.

Thursday, August 6

CARRION Review

Designing a game where the player is all powerful is challenging. The player needs to feel suitably destructive but be countered with appropriate resistance so that the game isn’t a cake-walk. With reverse-horror game CARRION, Phobia Game Studio has found that delicate balance, both empowering the player as a behemoth of chaos, and generating just enough friction to pose a challenge.
In CARRION, players assume a grotesque mass of flesh, teeth, and tentacles. Breaching their containment unit, players stalk a cavernous science facility populated with civilians and soldiers. Players will wreak havoc as they attempt to escape the facility, rending people in two and feasting on their corpses to gain strength. The behemoth is enormous but graceful in its movements. Traversal is smooth and responsive, tentacles thwipping intuitively to walls and ceilings as the monster glides with ease. The simplicity of movement makes you feel in control of your new domain, and its denizens your hapless victims.


The level design does a good job of directing players despite its labyrinthine structure. I got lost only a couple of times, which I find to be a commendable achievement for a game that has no map. Corpses will remain where you left them, a bloody trail in your wake, which also helpfully reminds you of where you’ve been. As you progress through the game, you evolve ever more powerful means of devastation, and tools for solving the metroidvania-style puzzles. Most of the puzzles are dead simple, but I would argue that puzzles don’t need to be particularly hard, just challenging enough to make you feel satisfied. You're an intelligent life-form, after all.


Many of the people residing in the game carry pistols or assault rifles, and only a few shots are necessary to take you down. But you are a beast of raw strength, and encounters are primarily playgrounds of destruction, setpieces of mayhem, specifically designed to empower your fantasy. You’ll burst through doors, barreling into puny scientists, flinging them against the walls, ripping them apart and feasting on their bones. You’ll tear scientists from walkways and drag them into murky depths, their hellish screams echoing off the cavern walls. You’ll find air ducts clearly constructed for the simple pleasure of assaulting soldiers from behind, or perhaps you’ll parasitically possess one to lay waste to his friends.


Unfortunately, the grab mechanic can be finicky and tempers your feeling of unbridled power. You can aim your tentacles to snare humans and objects, but sometimes you’ll flail about clumsily and wiff, feeling impotent. You’ll occasionally wish that latching onto victims was less nuanced.


CARRION is a joy and, in my experience, gets better and better as it progresses. Clocking in at four hours, it’s also the perfect length, ending just before it becomes tedious. CARRION was developed by only a handful of individuals, but it’s an impressive feat for any size team. They’ve managed to fulfill a dream of playing a berserking monster, and we whole-heartedly recommend it.