Punish the players!!!

[Christian]

Hello.

How are you?.

This post is about discussing the subject
on the title, is it good to punish the players?,
that is, is it a really good idea to make the
player feel mad about something?.

For me, it is much better to make the player
feel nice things, and not to punish him/her for
his/her mistakes.

Like for example, the super mario bros game,
when you missed a jump, and you ended falling
out of the screen, the game punished the player
for failing. This is a prehistoric feature we should
get rid off, dont you think?, we should aim to the
future!, and dont put any obstacles in making the
player feel great when he/she plays games!.

[papillon]

You might want to tone down the level of judgment/emotion in posts like that. But then, being an evangelist can be a great way to stir up discussion...

For a CASUAL game, it's generally not a good idea to punish the player much - they are playing to relax and feel good, they don't want to be really frustrated.

For other styles of gameplay, the player will be seriously pissed off if they feel that the game is 'cheating' to make them WIN. If there's no challenge, what's the point? They might as well be watching a movie or something else that requires no input from them...

This is one of the points to having difficulty levels - allowing the player to control their own desired level of frustration. Pointing at Diablo, if you played in normal mode, you never REALLY lost when you died, you just had a minor setback... play in Hardcore and suddenly the risk is much greater and you really can lose it all, but it's YOUR CHOICE. So players who don't want that level of frustration can just not play that way.

[Ricardo C]

Like for example, the super mario bros game,
when you missed a jump, and you ended falling
out of the screen, the game punished the player
for failing. This is a prehistoric feature we should
get rid off, dont you think?, we should aim to the
future!, and dont put any obstacles in making the
player feel great when he/she plays games!.

It's a game. It has certainb goals that need to be attained in order to "win". Failure to meet those goals should result in "punishment", or else where is the challenge? Now, we could argue about the best way to maintain the challenge without frustrating the player, but "punishing failure" is hardly a prehistoric feature.

I think we should aim to provide a fun, but challenging experience. You can make the player "feel great" without patronizing him/her.

[ggambett]

is it good to punish the players?

No. You want them to feel great and buy the damn game, not hate it/you.

[GBGames]

Was that first post meant to be poetry? I tried to see if maybe the first letter of each sentence spelled out something, but it didn't. B-)

I believe that some games are pretty good at not punishing the player. I read about a Wario game for GameBoy. Wario couldn't die. He could get flattened or otherwise deformed, but you couldn't die. I'm not sure how well received it was.

Still, you could challenge people in other ways. For example, a lot of PopCap games give you a ranking and score no matter how badly you played. You win no matter what...you just win more when you do better.

But some games punish you because that IS the way you are encouraged to do better. Is it a bad "prehistoric" mechanic? I'm not sure, but this thread gives me some things to think about.

[lakibuk]

The first law of non-punishment!
Thou shalt not put the extra in ye game that inverts thy control.

[Christian]

I think that there is a difference between punishment and challenge, challenge doesnt need punishment, only the chance of commiting mistakes.

There is a difference between falling through the stairs because of unleashed shoes and beign pushed by someone else.

One thing is commiting a mistake, and another thing is beign punished by it.

Take the game of golf for example, imagine if whenever you made the ball fall in the sand the other players has the right to hit him in the head with a baseball bat, that is punishment for his mistake. But making the ball fall in the sand is not a punishment for the mistake, because that the mistake in the first place, and besides the sand adds more oportunities for challenge, because the game doesnt end there.

But i understand something, the sense of danger, the sense of the possibility of beign punished, can be a tool for us, BUT it must be used with balance, because the SENSE of beign punished, the fear of beign hurt is the good thing, NOT actually beign hurt.

Another thing is a challenge.

You dont need punishment for a challenge, you just need something that is almost hard for the player to achieve.

Is tetris a challenge?, i think it is, how does it punish your mistakes?, what happens if you put a piece where you dont form a line?, it IS a mistake, but the game doesnt punish you, it is a challenge anyway.

[papillon]

... Did you play some super-secret version of Mario where you were zapped with electric shocks if you missed a jump or something?

[Christian]

heh.

Actually yes, but that was when i was sleeping.

What i am trying to say is that the mario game could still make the player able to miss a jump and at the same time not punish the player by killing him, maybe make a second plataform down or something like that. That way personal failure still exists, but external punishment doesnt.

Even if it is not a fisical punishment, it is an emotional one.

[cliffski]

sometimes punishment REALLY adds to the experience. For example, In Democracy you might think you can cut back on the intelligence services, and neglect the patriots, but when you do, the patriots will try and assasinate you, and without good intel, they will suceed and kill you, ending the game suddenly.
Most people who experience that think "SWINE!" but because they can tell it was their own fault for letting it happen, they actually dive back into the game determined not to make the same mistake again.
Punishment is good in games, as long as its balanced with rewards that you felt like you earned.

[monco]

Wow, maybe you should just get better at Mario and stop trying to dumb down games.

[Greg Squire]

There's a balance here. Without any risks or punishment, you'd always win and that's no fun as you don't think you've accomplished anything. Of course if the challenge is too hard and you always loose, then that's no fun either. Good games can strike a good balance for players of differing skill levels, and that's not easy to do. I think it's always best to "soften" the punishment (or consequences) or offer second chances, if possible. Of course if the difficultly level is set to "Masochist", then by all means bring on the punishment!

[Sillysoft]

I sell strategy games that come with computer AI enemies. Even though many players find the AIs to be quite challenging, I regularly get players asking for harder computer opponents. You could see hard computer AIs as 'punishing', since if they win then the user will lose. But this possibility of defeat also provides a fun challenge for users.

I think the best way is to have multiple difficulty settings. Allow players to play the game with very little 'punishment' if they want, but also let players be challenged at a maximum level if they desire.

[Black Hydra]

Punishment is sort of a vague concept. Punishment could be considered the lack of a reward, so therefore to not punish people would be to always reward them. Without decisions with consequences it is no longer a game (perhaps just a boring simulation).

The key here is frustration. A perfect game should never make the player feel frustrated only challenged. There is a fine line between frustration and challenge, so using whatever methods possible to shorten this line is key.

Its good to remember that not all games have to be particularly hard to be good. Some game designers try to take concepts from arcade games (IMO the quintessential vidiogame genre) and apply them throughout all games and find they don't always hold water. Some games, especially those which have a focus on story or other factors for entertainment, can have a lower difficulty level and still be as fun because the player isn't playing solely to be "challenged".

[electronicStar]

I think Christian actually raised an interesting point here:
While reading this thread I started to visualize a prototype of Mario game without any punishment. For example when the player would fall into a hole he wouldn't lose a life (there wouldn't be any life at all), you would wait 1/2 seconds and there would be a little anim of Mario sweating climbing painfully on the edge of the platform.
This would be like an ultra casual , laid-back type of game, the goal would just be to complete all the levels at your own pace.
I think this idea is viable, it deserves more consideration.
Maybe that only relate to my personal experience, but I don't see what I would be loosing if there was not any punishment in the game, I might actually enjoy it better.
It's definitely going to make it to my TODO list.

[Ricardo C]

you would wait 1/2 seconds and there would be a little anim of Mario sweating climbing painfully on the edge of the platform.

That's still "punishment", just to a differeent degree. No punishment at all would be Mario bouncing right out of the hole without missing a step.

[ChilledOut]

A great example of punishment which I feel adds a lot to the excitement of a game is the risk of having to put another quarter in an arcade game. The threat of having to spend more money really makes you want to make the current game last as long as possible. The fact that there is a real-world consequence is very unique.

[electronicStar]

That's still "punishment", just to a differeent degree. No punishment at all would be Mario bouncing right out of the hole without missing a step.

It wouldn't be punishment since it wouldn't prevent you from finishing the game at the first session. It wouldn't be more punishment than the 1/2 secs wait at each level change or the time you have to wait for Mario to slide down the pole. It's just a delay which the game is already full of and it would add a little bonus anim so it would be more a reward than a punition really.

[svero]

From my point of view as a player, a game is ONLY interesting when I start failing in some way. If I can play without losing its dull.

That being said, I think that this isn't right for all games. Some titles seem to be enjoyed more as medetative zoning out titles. Like collapse. You don't want collapse where if you dont click the right set of blocks in 3 seconds you die and have to start over. Just wouldn't work.

So in the end I think it comes down to the kind of game you're making and the kind of player you're targeting.

- S

[BantamCityGames]

No. You want them to feel great and buy the damn game, not hate it/you.

Ooops.... I think I really messed up Invadazoid then!

Seriously though, if devs want to make a game that SELLS to the casual market then just make a game that is almost impossible to lose, but gives the player the impression that THEY are the reason they are still alive and popup a bunch of bonuses and flashy graphics to empahsize that.

The reason I can't seem to make a game like this is because I'm from the Nintendo era and *I* need a challenge when I play a game and this seems to subconsciously slip into my games.

[Christian]

Again, i would like to say that a challenge doesnt need to be frustrating.

Frustration IS important for SOME players, players who enjoy HARD fun,see the folowing from here http://www.xeodesign.com/emotioningames.html

The challenge focuses attention and
rewards progress to create emotions such as Frustration and Fiero (an Italian word for
personal triumph).

[Anthony Flack]

Let's not forget that fiero though. No frustration, no fiero. And beating a hard game gives you wicked fiero. No point in having an olympic gold medal if they gave them out to everyone just for turning up.

It wouldn't be punishment since it wouldn't prevent you from finishing the game at the first session. It wouldn't be more punishment than the 1/2 secs wait at each level change or the time you have to wait for Mario to slide down the pole. It's just a delay which the game is already full of and it would add a little bonus anim so it would be more a reward than a punition really.

Maybe the first time. After seeing him do it 50 times it wouldn't be much of a reward.

But when is a punishment not a punishment? Is making the player restart the level a punishment? Hey, it's just a delay, and they get to play through the first bit again so it's kind of like a reward. What if you just had to go around the long way to get out of the hole? Again, just a delay, doesn't stop you from completing the game.

But that aside, you will end up creating one of those games I came out against on some other thread the other day. In order to stop people from winning it within the first hour, you'll need to make the game really, really long. If you make a game with 200 levels, then chances are it won't have any more interesting stuff than a game with 20 levels in it. It'll just be really drawn-out and boring, and without challenge either. Some people seem to like that, certainly. I think it's awful though.

[Bmc]

Seriously though, if devs want to make a game that SELLS to the casual market then just make a game that is almost impossible to lose, but gives the player the impression that THEY are the reason they are still alive and popup a bunch of bonuses and flashy graphics to empahsize that.

I think you hit the nail straight on the head... it's sort of like hiding a 20 dollar bill in the pocket of a broke man too proud to accept help.

[Anthony Flack]

I think that's totally true. I also think that if that's what we're reduced to, I personally don't want to bother.

[svero]

I think you guys are missing the point a bit here. I mean.. imagine playing solitaire or mahongg, where when you click on tiles ocassionally theres a red alert and you have to click the next card/tile in 2 seconds or you blow up. That may be a good game, I don't know, but what it isn't is solitaire or mahjongg. A game doesn't have to be hard in the sense that you die or lose and have start over for it to be fun or challenging. It can be increasingly hard to get points, or hard to figure out the best strategy to clear the board etc... The challenge need not be structured like a platform game where you start and stop lose/win. Its not that the games have to be dumbed down or made very easy necessarily. In fact I think if you just point blank make a game too easy you will fail. Making a game easy doesn't make a game fun.

[Stu]

But when is a punishment not a punishment? Is making the player restart the level a punishment?

Restarting the level I failed is fine with me but if you want me to throw a frothing fit in my den then do this:

Group your levels in sets. (four or five levels in a set) If I fail in the fifth level of a set, make me repeat the entire set. This is the most effective way to make me feel punished and not want to continue.

[Anthony Flack]

Ah, Super Mario style. Although I can understand the logic of it (lose a life, restart the level - lose all your lives, restart the set), I agree that that's just a bit too harsh for people these days.

I think you guys are missing the point a bit here

Well, the point for me is related to game length. If you don't want to give people barriers to progress, then your game will have to be one of the following:

* Extremely replayable
* Open-ended
* Very long

We've been seeing a lot of games take this approach with a lot of levels. Too many levels, too similar.

[BantamCityGames]

Restarting the level I failed is fine with me but if you want me to throw a frothing fit in my den then do this:

Group your levels in sets. (four or five levels in a set) If I fail in the fifth level of a set, make me repeat the entire set. This is the most effective way to make me feel punished and not want to continue.

I hereby punish you!

[Black Hydra]

One rule I strongly believe is that a player should never have to redo anything they have already beaten. Now this has limits for some games in some settings, but I think it should apply to most games.

If I have already completed a task, repeating it is tedious and should be avoided. I feel contempt for anyone who tries to use this as a way to artificially raise gameplay length.

If I have failed a section, I am fine repeating it, but if you make me redo something that I have already completed then you are just pissing me off.

And if you are using this as a mechanism to increase game length, then shame on you! I'd rather play a short game that didn't do this than a "longer" one that did. You wouldn't try to make a movie longer by showing pieces of film the audience already watched.

Remember, a game's length only matters if it is good. Good games we want to last forever, if it is bad then who cares? So why cut quality to increase length?

[KNau]

I don't think it was mentioned but one thing that Super Mario World did really well was give the player an option for extending their game indefinitely. You could always go back and earn lots of free lives on the "bonus" level if you were stuck. This was absolutely brilliant design and a strategy that almost every player used to some extent. I'm surprised that few (if any) developers have borrowed that idea.

I guess the Grand Theft Auto series is good, too, because you can die or get arrested an infinite number of times as long as you have some money. You just wake up at the hospital or police station and have to go buy your weapons again. It made losing a mission less of a big deal because your "avatar life" didn't depend on it. You never have to see "Game Over!".