Reducing Tediousness in Games

[Midnight Synergy]

After reading and thinking about the comments on BreakQuest (well, my own and Anthony Flack's at least) that it felt a little tedious at time to get through the long levels, I happened to give Mahjonng Quest a second look.

Completely different game, but I thought that one thing that made it very interesting (and I usually don't touch Mahjonng games) is that you don't need to go through the entire board and match every stone. You only have to free and match the yin & yang stones. I don't know if that was intentional, but I think it's really a smart design move. Rather than looking at a new board with a sense of "this is going to be a chore" you always feel that your goal is almost in reach. You just have to clear that one path (and in the process often do have to clear most of the rest of the board).

I wonder if this same idea (which seems to be appreciated by players, given the popularity of the game) can be adapted to other genres.

For example in Arkanoid/Breakquest/Ricochet/Magic Ball/etc: what about having the goal not be "get every last stone" (which can be very tedious - especially at the end of a level when only three stones are left and you don't have any special upgrades) to "just hit this one special stone", or "hit these three stones in order", etc. This would make for shorter, quicker levels, and I think keep the player more engaged in the gameplay.

The same concept would work for shmups (only one particular enemies needs to be hunted down to finish a level - the rest are for bonus points) to match 3 games (only need to make one particular match - in some sense Big Kahuna Reef does this with its boxes).

Hmmm... Mahjonng Quest and Big Kahuna Reef are probaly the two most popular games in 2005 so far. Maybe I'm onto something here? :confused: Nah. :D

[Ryan Clark]

I played Breakquest for the first time yesterday, and I actually thought it did a good job at reducing the tedium inherent in breakout clones.

For one thing, you can right-click to apply "gravity" to the ball. This gives you the ability to affect the ball's path greatly; far moreso than any other breakout game I've seen. If the ball is just about to miss an object, you can often use gravity to make it hit. I found this to be an excellent feature.

Second, it seems that if the level is taking a while, a "gift" powerup of missiles drops in from out of nowhere. I'm not sure if this happens all the time, but it happened to me twice when I was taking a while to destroy the last object on the screen. With the guided missiles, it was easy to finish the level off.

So, did other folks miss these features? Or do you just think they're not enough? I found Breakquest to be far superior to other current breakout clones in the tedium-reduction department.

However, I do agree with your general statement. Tedium in games is certainly a no-no... tedium reduction is definitely an important factor to keep in mind when designing a game. I'm working on a puzzle game currently, and although there will certainly be times when the player will have to sit there and think, we've tried to reduce the tedium by having our main character perform funny little idle animations if he stands still for too long. The idle animations ought to get a chuckle or two.

[Daire Quinlan]

Yeah I noticed that too, generally when you're taking ages to get the last brick it drops a guided missile patronisingly into your lap :)

And yes, that gravity thing is all good. Definately does the job of killing the 'get the last brick aaaargh' that bedevils arkanoid games.

I suppose its all about immediate goal satisfaction.Casting it into arkanoid terms as an example seeing as we're discussing breakquest, if your '3 second goal' (to borrow some terminology from an insightful thread somewhere on the forum) is to get that brick, and you're STILL DOING that 3 MINUTES later then frustration and ultimately boredom sets in. Not that the two have to be synonymous by any means.

(getting OFF the breakquest thing) I guess there must always be that achievable short term goal that you can achieve in the short term. This might mean leaving your current frustrating task and going off and accomplishing something else. Ideally this would then serve to make the original task easier to accomplish.

These are all just generalitys of course. Actually applying them i guess is where the trick lies :)

D.

[Anthony Flack]

I thought all those things (about Breakquest) were very good additions. Particularly the gravity. However, for whatever reason, and as much as I respect and admire the game, I'm afraid I still felt a bit bored when playing it. I really wanted to see the next level. But I often didn't really want to keep playing the current one.

One of the key things about Arkanoid (the arcade game) was that the ball gets faster and faster every time it rebounds. This happens very quickly. You really are in a very tense race to either finish the level, get another bonus life, or collect a ball slowdown before the inevitable occurs. Whereas with most PC breakout games, I can ponk the ball around for ages without any fear of dropping it.

Now, with regards to your initial topic - I would refer you to one of my favourite breakout games - Poing on the Amiga. The best part about it was, the object was not to destroy all the bricks (in fact, if you destroyed all the bricks of a certain colour, they'd all come back). Instead the goal was to hit the far end of the screen 10 times and break through. The bricks were actually an obstacle rather than a goal (although they did supply powerups).

Poing is by no means perfect, and there are a lot of things that Breakquest does far better than Poing. But because of that simple gameplay change, and because it played a very tense and fast game, it was the breakout game that hooked me the most, to date.

Naturally, as I said - if you happen to like PC-style breakout games, I'm sure you'll find Breakquest to be totally brilliant.

[BantamCityGames]

This is something I tried to do in Invadazoid (http://www.bantamcity.com/files/InvadazoidBetaInstall.exe). I too find trying to hit that last couple of bricks in most breakout clones extremely tedious so I tried to put some things in that compensate for this.

1) The "bricks" are actually aliens that approach the bottom of the screen at an increasing speed. This alone takes away some of the tedium. Think about it... whether you hit the last alien or not it's comin to get ya and that makes it less boring for me at least. (Although svero found a case where it was boring e.g. slow ball).
2) The ball speed increases every time you hit it (to a certain max speed) becoming pretty hard to handle for non-pro's. I honestly can't stand to play breakout games where the ball is too slow... it drives me nuts.
3) A UFO goes by every so often which people like to try and hit which adds a little extra variation.

Ok, enough building hype... I think this is an excellent subject on the whole. If you can reduce all tedious parts of the game, this should maximize player happiness. And happy players mean happy developers.

[Anthony Flack]

This is a case where playing your own game, over and over and over until you're sick of it, can actually help you.

I've been mercilessly slashing my game content. I've probably thrown out 3/4 of the content I've created this time around. And even with the content that remains, I still have a few changes planned. When I've played through a set of levels a hundred times, it's pretty clear to me what parts I still enjoy, and what parts I've come to hate. The parts I hate, I cut. Or I change them in some way.

[Midnight Synergy]

Yes, you're right - although oneself is not always the best judge in for your own games. For one people get attached to what they write ("I spent days on this sequence - I can't cut it!!!"). A good editor (i.e. a good set of testers, whose opinion one listens to) is worth the weight in gold here.

[oNyx]

I always found it a bit weird (suspense-wise) that breakout games get easier and the timespan between hitting bricks gets bigger towards the end of the level. Mahjongg/Shisen games are similar - that's true, but at least the timespan between matching tiles gets shorter, which kinda neutralizes that effect.

[Triple_Fox]

On the other hand, if you play a game like Windows Freecell, you'll eventually reach a point, usually after bringing out the one card holding everything back, where the game has become "trivial" and so it solves itself in a sudden flurry where everything rushes to the top. It's a visually appealing yet odd conclusion; one tends to think "all I did was uncover that three of clubs and I won the game?"

[Andy]

I was mentioning before and can just repeat. I suppose most of you overvalue how tedious that last bricks in Breakout. Of course everything depends from the game design and what are all that bricks about. But that a such type of game guys. And I suppose that real Breakout fans backward appreciate that last bricks. Why? - because in such moments the game goes up to the level where you really need to manage two-three accurate shots and this is where you can show how good are you.

REM: I especially hate that always comments in Monthly Round-Up's about this so-called "problem" and how developers weren't able to find anything to fight with it. I always ask in change - do you suppose they were trying? ;)

At least I haven't ever heard about such problem from any of our customers. They like such type of the game and appreciate how it follows.

My two cents...

[James C. Smith]

I don’t think ending the level when you hit a magic brick is a good idea.

In Ricochet you have to break every last brick. And in Kahuna you have to break every last box. I think this makes the goal of the level very clear and it makes it simple to track your progress towards the goal. There is something about human nature that makes many people enjoy getting every last bit. It can be very motivating and satisfying.

However, it can also become tedious if you really have to go one brick at a time. In Ricochet there is almost always something special to aim at that will help you destroy a bunch of bricks at once. Many levels practically “blow up” themselves half way through the level when you hit the right brick. If you ever get to a point where there are 30 normal bricks left, and you don’t have any power-ups, then the level designer did a bad job. Most Ricochet levels end in a blaze of glory rather than just aiming at those last 3 stubborn bricks. But even in those levels that “blow up” half way though, you still have to get every last brick and you usually have to stay involved. The level doesn’t completely destroy itself but it gives you a lot of help.

I think many breakout games become very tedious. I have forced myself to play a lot of them to see if there were any ideas I wanted to “borrow”. Many of them were painfully tedious because there were too many bricks, or not enough power-ups, or too many indestructible obstacles getting in the path of the ball. All the bumpers in Ultra Ball drove me nuts!

The tedium can be avoided with good level design and good game design. Any time a Ricochet level designer made a level that looked like a house or boat or face or some picture like that it would make me cringe. Most of those levels were cut. Not just because the picture looked childish, but because it made me assume the level design was more about that look rather then the gameplay. Every ricochet level is designed to have goals and rewards within the level. I dare you to find one that is tedious. I am sure there are some, and it is all subjective, but I think Ricochet is better than most when it comes to keeping the game play interesting and not tedious.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

I had a very unexpected source of inspiration on this very topic a while back, from an RTS of all things.

Most RTS games have long suffered from 'tedium' as you guys define it by forcing players to hunt down that last peon or tower, that was buried by your [explitive] opponent in a hook in a mountain range specifically where you'd never see it. You spend 10 minutes looking for him, when the game clearly should have been over long before.

Rise of Nations solved this problem not only by having multiple win criteria (take/hold the capitol, take all cities, or hold 70% of land real estate), but also with their 70% rule. (Though I've modified it and call it my 2/3 rule.)

If one player controls 2/3 of a crucial asset (land area in this case), that means they have (at least) twice the amount of that resource than the other player. It is extremely unlikely that the losing player can come back, especially when they let their opponent take twice as much of that resource as them in the first place.

The value gained by letting them try that absurd comeback is far eclipsed by the value lost in making every player sit through that wasteful period in every game instance. In older RTS games especially, the last 20% or more of *every game* was spent doing uninteresting clean-up of the opposition. It was a waste of time that should have instead been spent playing the interesting parts of more game instances.

I use the 2/3 rule in Land of Legends, and I think it makes all the difference in the world. It allows players to focus on the more fun and interesting parts of each game and allows players to playing more games and have less time commitment in each individual game.

Anyway, on an abstracted level, this fits right in w/ what you guys are talking about in regards to 1-player puzzle-type games. I think the abstracted point here is that many games, for whatever reasons springing from complexity, become less 'fun' at various stages of completion of a 'level', most usually around 0% and 100%.

In response, I think it's safe to say that a component of good game design is to really look for that in your game and find ways to trim off the ends that most players consider 'tedious.'

-Hiro_Antagonist

[oNyx]

>And I suppose that real Breakout fans backward appreciate that last bricks.

So I'm not a real breakout fan anymore? :)

Well, the problem isn't the hitting the last few bricks task - it's the punishment for mistakes. Waiting.

Imagine you would play a shoot em up wiht lots of bullets and whenever you got hit you see big fat letters scroll across the screen... "YOU GOT HIT NANANANA NYAH NYAH!" togehter with some silly annoying tune and you can't do anything for x seconds. Pretty tedious and no thrill. No one would do that, right?

Well, the classic breakout is just like that. Not that extreme, but still... you have to wait, because you missed. The classic game design works like this, but since it's not the most entertaining part it could (should) be replaced with something, which is more fun.

BreakQuest's gravity thing was a nice addtion, which completely changed that finishing part. Instead of trying to hit the ball with in right angle and being eventually punished for one pixel... you just try to reflect the ball in a pretty flat angle and then you use the force for correcting the ball's path. In the end you spend most likely the same amout of time, but it was way more interesting (because there was a higher level of interactivity involved).

Another breakout pet hate from me are those corner cases. The ball goes down in the corner and all you can do is move the paddle over to that wall. The ball will be reflected in a pre defined angle and quite often it will lead to a nothing-hit-you-gotta-wait-penalty. Well, that sucks. Some breakouts worked around that issue by allowing the player to move the paddle halfway into the wall, which means that you can influence the ball's direction even in corners.

[mahlzeit]

There is a Poing remake (http://www.gamealbum.com/Games/Arcade/Poing_PC_332_Review.html) for PC. Unfortunately, the download link seems broken. I did find a valid download link some time ago, but of course I forgot it. :)

[princec]

I've reduced tediousness in my games by

a) Using no canned behaviours - every game is dynamic
b) Making sure they're short (<10 mins to play generally)
c) Making sure they get progressively harder or different every minute

Cas :)

[NuriumGames]

Hi, it seems BreakQuest is being named in some posts, this is good :D

I think all Arkanoids can be a little tedious but think BreakQuest is one of the less tedious. Some specific things the system does to overcome it have already been noted in this topic, but here you have a little list.

- Gravity.
- When you've not break many things for a while a weapon capsule will appear for you.
- Lots of capsules, there is a power-up every 7 bricks or so, this is much more than other games.
- Weapon capsules, the system ensures that you get a weapon once in a while.
- Level design, tried to make levels accessible (not too many bricks or too many hits per brick), in fact I removed lots of bricks during the last few months of development.

But 'tedious' is not just part of Arkanoid genre. You can get stuck in an adventure, be unable to get a match in some corner in a puzzle game, ... you can even have some tedious moments playing soccer if nobody gives you the ball :)

[KNau]

Is anyone else just a little frustrated at how whiny gamers have become?

I mean, god forbid you have to develop a little skill in order to hit the last brick in a breakout game! Don't forget to add "super combo" bonuses for even the most pedestrian achievements, and lots of power ups or else the game might be too challenging! It's sickening how much game players today need to be coddled through their entire game. And all the while we have to make sure to have at least 6 weeks worth of gameplay or else the player will feel ripped off for their lousy $20 bucks.

I would love to watch the soccer moms and even so-called "hard core" gamer types play the likes of Uridium, Impossible Mission or Fort Apache on the C64 - if only just to see them break down and cry because they would actually have to learn some coordination, memory and reflex skills.

Next thing you know we'll be required to have a cutesy Mario-type character pop up every 15 seconds and say "You is da best playa ever!" and spit 1000 point bonus coins and award free lives.

[ManuelFLara]

Next thing you know we'll be required to have a cutesy Mario-type character pop up every 15 seconds and say "You is da best playa ever!" and spit 1000 point bonus coins and award free lives.
Yeah, or something like MS Office's lovely assistant (Clippy!).

"Hmm.. it seems like you're trying to match 3 colors in a row. Do you need help?" :D

[luggage]

KNau: What you mention is correct - working at a few game developers we've nearly always been asked to make the game easier and easier (usually for the USA versions). It's got to the point where you're thinking "it requires so little skill in doing this - what's the point?". May as well just show the title screen, let them click play, then pop up a "Well Done! You Win!" message.

Quite a few indie games seem to be heading this way at the moment, Slingo was one where I was wondering where the game is. It couldn't be tedious because you didn't have much to actually do. Just reap the effects.

[cliffski]

agreed. why people can bitch about half life 2 is beyond me. they dont reckon its worth $35? how much is a meal in pizza express worth? how long is each experience? sheesh.

[Hamumu]

Is anyone else just a little frustrated at how whiny gamers have become?

I mean, god forbid you have to develop a little skill in order to hit the last brick in a breakout game!

You're missing the point by a good margin here. It's got nothing to do with skill at all. As the title says, it's about tedium. Skilled or not, the endgame of breakout is BORING. If it wasn't, breakout games wouldn't include the obvious kludges like dropping an insta-destruct or win-level powerup when you have 1 or 2 bricks left and haven't hit them in a few seconds. It's boring because the punishment for missing is.... boredom! It's not blowing up and trying again, or losing points, it's sitting around doing nothing for a while. Those whiny people are your customers, you have to make them happy to make money. They're not going to adjust for you!

Breakquest adds the best thing ever to fix tedium in Breakout (and it's something that requires skill to use!): the Graviton. Even if you do miss completely, you can use the graviton to suck the ball back quickly so it's not bouncing around up there for an hour. And of course its primary use is to fix up a shot so that it will hit. On almost every level of Breakquest I'd have one of two reactions immediately upon seeing it: either "damn, this is gonna take forever, look at all that!" or "This'll be over in 2 seconds". And on every damn level, it always took just about the same very comfortable length of time. The seemingly long levels always went quicker than they looked, and the seemingly short levels always took longer, and they came together at just the right length. And there was a never a last-hit tedium, because I could whip the gravity around to my will. And doing a particularly good bit of gravity tossing was a "yeehah" moment that actually added to the fun.

Ricochet is also good about this, but not as good... nothing beats the Graviton!

Anyway, reducing tedium is not the same thing as reducing skill. In fact, it's often the opposite. A horde of trivial enemies that slowly march at you is tedious to defeat, but a fast-moving one coming at you from all sides that you have to keep from touching you is very intense.

Games have gotten easier, but you should start another topic to discuss that, because I do have some things to say about why it's a very good thing!

[James C. Smith]

Although the tedium and skill are two different issues that can become very related. Some solutions to the tedious problem end up reducing the skill needed to finish the game. I think that many casual games don’t want skill based games. They just want a jigsaw puzzle to work on. There is no way to win or loose. If they work at it long enough they will win. And if the game designer throws in some power-ups to solve part of the puzzle for them it will seem less tedious and boring. But even if it is easy, the player will still feel like he accomplished something when he finishes the game. Some casual gamers just enjoy working away at finishing the “jigsaw puzzle” no matter how easy it is.

[Winterwolf]

I'm not sure if this was posted already or not, but my experience playing games tells me:

1) That most single-player games (90%) eventually turn boring very quicky.
Adding a multi-player online feature or two-player feature will add fun to your game ten-fold.

2) Games which allow you to compete by displaying a high-score table on a central website are fun to play. You have an incentive to compete against fellow gamers.

[Anthony Flack]

One of the things most people overlook about Ricochet, but which was by far the thing that I thought was best about it, is the way the levels work. They're so twisty-changey, blowuppy and unfoldy. Constantly turning themselves inside out. It worked very well, I thought.

[BongPig]

Nope. Its not tedious. It *IS* lack of skill that feels tedious,.
I grew up in london watching the Japanese kick the shit out of just about every arcade game in Soho/Chinatown.
If anybody had watched these freaks playing Arkanoid, they wouldnt be talking about tedium.
These guys would NEVER need more than 2 hits to get the last brick. No power-ups. No bonuses. Nothing. Just raw skill.
And, as Anthony pointed out, the original Arkanoid was an evil game compared to these modern clones.

Modern gamers are indeed a bunch of wet fish.

[BongPig]

to add : I do appreciate that modern breakout developers have no real choice. The modern gamer just isnt skilled enough anymore. So the options are : develop a quality, tough breakout game that doesnt sell, or soften it up a bit and sell more. I would do it the same way. Im not having a go at any breakout devs. You've all made some wonderfull games. Its the gamers who are the problem.

[Anthony Flack]

But then, the game should really be matching its difficulty to your skill level. I usually try out these games on the "hard" skill setting, but they still don't seem all that hard (and I wonder what "easy" must be like). Perhaps they get hard later on... but that's too late! I'm bored already. It's a fine line with these difficulty curves, all right.

So perhaps tedium is simply the feeling of a game player not being challenged enough, just as frustration is the feeling of a game player being challenged too much. A game should ideally take the player to the limit, making them feel like they're just about to lose... and then they win! Hooray!

Except it's not that simple, either. Svero has talked about the kind of game that has the mindless appeal of doodling on a phone book cover, and there is a place for that, too. Perhaps people play these PC breakout games to relax and go numb?

I don't think I'd want to ever take it to that level myself, but on the other hand I am reminded of playing Ikaruga, a game in which you feel like you are in an impossible situation and are surely about to die - except you usually win! Hooray! Which is exactly what I said games should strive to be like, in order to avoid tedium or frustration. But the trouble is, it feels like that absolutely all the time. In the end I found it more stressful than enjoyable, even though it wasn't excessively difficult. It was exciting, and I didn't like it.

And come to think of it, games can be frustrating and tedious in ways that aren't strictly related to the difficulty - for example, they can send you back too far when you die. This isn't making the game harder, it's just making it annoying.

And games can be tremendous fun even when they're really easy too, I think. There are other ways to tickle people's fun receptors other than giving them endless nail-biting cliffhangers. In fact I suspect people actually enjoy games more when they feel a certain superiority, a slightly smug "damn I'm good at this game" feeling.

Perhaps, the trick is just to get players thinking "damn, I'm good", instead of "yawn, this game is easy".

[BongPig]

Tedium can also be born from lack of skill. Ive seen it myself many times.
If a player loses too often, it can start to feel tedious. This is what I think is happening with the last-brick problem in breakout games.
If I try to hit that last brick 10 times and fail, that starts to feel tedious, and I get bored. Doesnt mean every player needs 10 hits. So the scope is there in the gameplay to play better. So long as this is the case, then *tedious* is an unfair word to use.
However, take any game where ALL players have to go through the same proceedure to finish a level, regardless of skill, then thats *true* tedium.

So its not always about the challange being good enough for your skill. ( although, anthony, I do *generally* agree with you here ). Sometimes the challange is too much.

Either way, tedium is ususally the feeling at the end of it all.

[svero]

Although the tedium and skill are two different issues that can become very related. Some solutions to the tedious problem end up reducing the skill needed to finish the game. I think that many casual games don’t want skill based games. They just want a jigsaw puzzle to work on. There is no way to win or loose. If they work at it long enough they will win. And if the game designer throws in some power-ups to solve part of the puzzle for them it will seem less tedious and boring. But even if it is easy, the player will still feel like he accomplished something when he finishes the game. Some casual gamers just enjoy working away at finishing the “jigsaw puzzle” no matter how easy it is.

Except it's not that simple, either. Svero has talked about the kind of game that has the mindless appeal of doodling on a phone book cover, and there is a place for that, too.

I think these both express the same kind of thing I was talking about. There's a certain medetative quality to some games, and I think what's happened in the casual game market is... the medetative quality has been extended from its normal place (solitaire cards or mahjongg?) and has been brought to other games that were traditionally more adrenaline runners, like arkanoid. It's just this sense of constantly accomplishing something. It can be kind of mundane, but you get into a zone with it and in a way you exactly don't want it to be difficult. ANd yet... difficult isn't really correct. Because some of the games that have that quality are actually quite hard as it turns out. So I'm not sure why in their case the repetition is a zoning or meditating thing and not so much a tedium thing.

[James C. Smith]

Having levels of difficulty can help a lot. They can be either auto adjusting or user selected. Ricochet lets the user select Easy, Normal, Hard, or Insane difficulty. I intentionally named one more “normal” that that new players would have some point of reference. Since all the guy making and play balancing the game are experienced player I required that they all play on the Hard setting all the time. I didn’t want “normal” mode to be for expert players. As a result, normal mode is a little easy for experienced player. The funny thing is, the biggest fans play on easy mode! These are the people who download every new level set every day and hang out in the forum and post message all the time. Ricochet Lost Worlds has a small group of VERY loyal fans who have played every one of the 6 thousand user made level available for download. They are very experienced. And yet they choose to play on easy mode. The game even notices if you are doing very well and suggest that you should select a higher difficulty setting. But they ignore it because they like to play on the easy setting.

Many players (paying customers) have no interest in having a challenge. And it’s not only the new user made content that keep them playing. Many of these same people say they played Ricochet Xtreme over and over and over again for a year or more. The original Ricochet has 170 levels with no level editor. The fans just kept replaying those 170 levels and many of them did it on easy mode. Go figure.

[oNyx]

All this talking about skill... the thing with the last brick is that it's completely pointless. If you hit or not... it doesn't matter. You can try it for all eternity. As a player you can't lose anything except some time. Your "decisions" don't have any weight.

It's like... a platformer game where each level ends with 10 doors. You have to try all of them in order, because only one works. No one would do that, because it's completely pointless and unrewarding.

That's the whole problem. Even if you hit it with the first try, it doesn't feel rewarding at all. So, it's good to do something about that. Some small psychological tricks here and there for making it interesting and if possible also rewarding.

Ok. Some easy reward thing would be a time bonus. Boooooring!... That's true. So for example... as soon as you hit the brick before the last brick. The last one turns into... uhm... a bomb! With digits on it... couting down (ss:mmm format for the "omg it counts fast" effect). Say 15 seconds... that's it. If you don't hit it blows up and the level is over. If you hit before time runs out you get a defuse bonus. You can also go a step further with having some kind of stats screen after each level, which shows the main character of the game. If you managed to defuse it you get a nice smile and thumb up or victory pose... and if you didn't the character is all smutty, worn out clothes and a pretty disappointed look ;)

See? That was easy, wasn't it? Effectively we didn't changed much, but now it's more interesting, because we added some pressure. We also added two kinds of reward - score and the happy character image.

It's really not about making it easier - it's about making it interesting and rewarding.

[KNau]

So hitting all the bricks except that last one is fun? What is it about the last brick that makes it so maligned?

Your door analogy doesn't quite work for me because it's completely random, one door works and the others don't. There's no randomness to breakout, you hit the brick or you don't. Anyone can see how the physics in a breakout game work and how the ball responds to the paddle. If it takes you more than a few rebounds to hit the last one then you just aren't learning.

The real question when it comes to skill development is that people who play through 1000 levels of Ricochet on the easiest level are really no better at that style of game than they were when they played for the first time. It's almost passive entertainment - like watching a movie. It's more about the spectacle of moving pieces and flashing colours than it is about the actions the player takes.

The only challenge in a rebound game is the last few objects. Anyone can smash bricks when the screen is filled with them.

Understand, I know that I'm wrong on this and that making stupidly easy games is the way to go if you are in the casual market. In that sense I fully support destroying the last brick for the player (hell, destroy them all). That's not going to stop me from venting about it though ;)

[James C. Smith]

...people who play through 1000 levels of Ricochet on the easiest level are really no better at that style of game than they were when they played for the first time...

I think they do get better as they play more. But they still don't like to be challenged much. They are good enough (skilled enough) to play or normal or hard mode, but they still prefer easy mode because it is less stressful. Also, not everyone is like this. Many players do like to be challenged. That is why it is important to have the option of selectable level of difficulty or different levels sets to play.

[KNau]

An example I find particularly grating is the game that I am releasing next week. It's a basic puzzle game where the goal is to match up coins to clear the screen. It's a really simple concept - five 1 cent coins make a 5 cent coin (and up from there). But on my first tests I got comments that the concept was too hard!

I've never considered myself a hardcore gamer but I guess that I am. And maybe that's the audience line between hardcore and casual. If you are willing to learn and work through the challenging parts of a game then you're hardcore. If you want the game to complete the hard parts for you then you're casual.

Edit: Again, I realize that I'm wrong and that selectable play levels and a slooooowly ramping difficulty level are the ways to go.

[oNyx]

>So hitting all the bricks except that last one is fun? What is it about
>the last brick that makes it so maligned?

The thing with breakout is that it gets easier towards the end.

>Your door analogy doesn't quite work for me because it's completely random,
>one door works and the others don't. There's no randomness to breakout,
>you hit the brick or you don't.

Missing by 1 pixel feels random especially with today's rather high resolutions of 640x480 and up (that's "high" compared to it's arcade roots).

>The only challenge in a rebound game is the last few objects.
>Anyone can smash bricks when the screen is filled with them.

Yes, that's true. And I'm really against removing parts which require some skill. However, (and that's my whole point) it needs to be interesting. My (rather silly) door analogy was supposed to create an equally boring setting without any pressure and without any reward. The last brick pretty much feels like that for me... despite the fact that I often need only one or two trys.

The bomb brick creates a reason to hurry (pressure), which will encourage more people to try everything to hit that last brick as fast as possible - which in turn makes that last brick thing more interesting and not easier at all. Well, in fact it is easier, because after only so many tries the game pulls the plug and the level is over... but psychologically it feels harder and more challenging just because some pressure was added.

The whole difference is basically "I will hit the brick sooner or later" vs "I want to hit the brick as fast as possible". You can of course set that "as fast as possible" rule for yourself as some kind of game you're playing in your head (maybe you already did that?). However, a lot of people won't do such a thing simply because they like gaming as a non thinking activity (like me) or because they can't really measure their skill like that, if they only count the number of rebounds. So, for making it interesting for as many people as possible you can integrate some supporting rules.

[Anthony Flack]

I thought the principle skill in breakout was in successfully hitting the ball... but I guess that's the old sort.

But that's why going for the last brick feels tedious... there may be skill, but there's no risk. If you miss, it's just blink-blonk-blink-blonk until you don't miss.

[mkovacic]

An example I find particularly grating is the game that I am releasing next week. It's a basic puzzle game where the goal is to match up coins to clear the screen. It's a really simple concept - five 1 cent coins make a 5 cent coin (and up from there). But on my first tests I got comments that the concept was too hard!
That's the way things are today, really, and it's not exclusive to the casual market, either. Everyone is bitching about how retail games today are unoriginal and how publishers are evil for not wanting to try out new things, but I think the reality is that people don't really want truly new concepts at all (atleast not enough people). The "originalty era" of the retail market wasn't about truly original games at all, IMHO, it was about mixing genres that weren't mixed before (action-RPG, FPS-RPG, RTS with RPG elements, FPS with story-telling, etc). Now that we ran out of genres to mix, all that's left are small improvements in existing stuff, or truly new stuff, and nobody wants the latter, yet everyone complains about unoriginality of the former.

Meh, I went on a bit of a rant there. ;)

Regarding the difficulty in the casual space, a few datapoints:

- a lot of people think of Super Collapse as "challenging", and the game that "makes you think". Check out the comments in RealArcade forums.
- Light&Shadow (http://www.lemonade-p.com/gameinfo.php?index=0) is so "hard" it doesn't sell _at all_.

[NuriumGames]

I think some people just look for some entertainment, not a challenge nor an adrenaline discharge.

For example I love the Gran Turismo series (I think today is the release of GT4 here, I'll go to the mall later :) ), but some times I just want a bit of distraction and games like Big Kahuna Reef in relaxed mode (impossible to loose, just keep matching till next level) are perfect.

[Fost]

We've often been asked for cheats in Starscape, not because people get stuck, but because people just want to play through the game again without putting any effort in. I never really undertood this, but I know a lot of people who play everything on easy just so they can get through a game quickly and with as few setbacks as possible. Essentially, they just want the experience of a game, not the challenge. I suppose it can be fun just blasting away at things with no setbacks though, I just prefer the challenge. Lots of people just want passive entertainment these days, which is ok I suppose. Personally, I can't even bear to watch much tv lately.

I do think Bongpig also has a point though - as research for our next game, I've been playing a lot of old isometric platformers. The ones from Ultimate are punishingly hard. I quite often get frustrated, turn off the game, then come back to it 5 minutes later. They are still addictive, but very frustrating and tedious when you ineviyably mess up.Hopefully that's something we can avoid, but obviously a major concern for us in this gaming climate.