@iHarlequin @DinoFarmBlake Saying "all games have to be is fun" is like saying "all paintings have to be is good." What does that mean? As a consumer, I guess it's fine but it has no explanatory power when it comes to critically discussing game design. It's like talking to a guy who is designing an engine and saying "it's ok, but it needs a little more GO." Those words lack any sort of utility in discussion.
@abHS4L88 @DinoFarmBlake I'm not arguing there is no variety. I'm saying the variety is just a mountain of inherent complexity. Noise. "now try this cap. now try this box. now ride this monster. now shoot this cannon." they're little chores. Little pretty looking chores to keep you busy. A well-designed ruleset doesn't need this. "Variety" comes from depth of play. I think Mario 64 has so much more depth just by virtue of how elastic and open controlling mario was. That you didn't need scripted, heavily-themed "stuff" to carry your ass. You could do some crazy wall kick thing that the game designer didn't necessarily intend to get a shortcut to a star. This kind of dynamism is slowly but surely hacked out of every new game to ensure each player gets the same canned, linear, static experience. (Mario 64 has tons of problems, don't get me wrong. I hope you see my point.)
@ooole @DinoFarmBlake That's neither here nor there. They make very polished products. No argument there. I'm arguing the actual gameplay system is stale and static because what they're doing is putting a non-system on life support with "new stuff. new stuff. new stuff." Inherent complexity. Does chess need new pieces every year? does tennis need a new type of ball every year? No. They are interesting systems in and of themselves. By virtue of their design. That's what I'm trying to get at.
@phbz @DinoFarmBlake @Bread_or_Decide They play well. They look great. They're superbly made products. Not arguing that. MOST people discard a AAA entry when the new one comes out, and this is because it's all smoke and mirrors when it comes to the design of the actual ruleset. They've exhausted their rocket fuel from MG2, which was the cloud cap, the drill cap, a plethora of others. They need more fuel for the next. More STUFF. Interacting with the system in a holistic sense is stale and static. That's what I'm saying.
@kbaily @RicanV @DinoFarmBlake @Bread_or_Decide No way. Indie games are just the same thing with lower budgets. It's generally a self-indulgent love letter to mario bros or their favorite jrpg. Braid, Fez, Meatboy, Gimmick-based puzzle platformer. Same as this game. Binding of Isaac? RIpoff of smash TV. Creative control doesn't automatically mean good ideas.
@Bread_or_Decide hah. NO. Assassin's Creed is a "mash a to win" app. That's not what I'm talking about. I don't advocate for "simple for its own sake" or "complex for its own sake." I advocate for good design.
Chess has about 10-15 rules. You can learn how to play in a few minutes, and pursue a lifetime of mastery. Would you say chess "lacks variety?" Variety can come from depth of play, the emergen depth you can achieve from a dynamic gamestate. Variety as a tool of distraction is a manipulative tool of the AAA industry because they don't know what else to do. Just throw money at the problem! It needs to be BIGGERER and BETTERER than mario galaxy. Seriously. Now that this is out, will you ever play MG again? When MG2 came out, did you ever play MG1 again? If not, that should tell you something about what I'm saying.
What is really tragic about this review is its shameless proliferation of "iron lung game design." What is basically one glorified "square peg in square hole" puzzle after another is given a "9" because of the fact that it succeeded in "throwing money at the problem." The problem, you ask? No core gameplay system, and no actual depth of play. The way they keep you playing is to distract you from the fact that there's no system with "new mechanics." Different flavors of winning.
What stinks about this phenomenon is, that this iron lung game design is so congratulated and praised, that it sends the message: "Don't bother making a video game unless you can afford a planet-sized sack of dazzling content." So many games that play exactly the same and look just as good get 6s and 7s because there was "not enough variety." Is there "not enough variety" in chess? Tetris? Tennis? Why not? Because the gameplay system itself is actually interesting.
This review promotes one thing. Maintain the status quo. Keep building that humungous castle on a swamp. Throw money at the problem. DISTRACT the player from the fact that there's no actual gameplay system. With stuff. Tons of stuff. I hope you have a hundred million dollars, because if you don't you're getting a 7 or lower.
The most illuminating and transparent thing said here was "another company would have made a whole game based around the cat mechanic." as if that's a BAD thing. To actually try and achieve some kind of emergent depth with a small amount of inherent complexity. This is elegant design. This is a GOOD thing. I mean, I don't blame the reviewer for assuming that, if another company HAD done this, they wouldn't have made a deep, interesting gameplay system. They would have had a generic puzzle platformer with the catsuit mechanisms and nothing else. In which case, his suspicion would stand.
That's just it. We simply can't imagine how good it can be. That actually interacting with a system of rules can be enriching, rewarding, interesting, eternally replayable. I really, really hope the paradigm shifts soon.
That said, this is a very polished, beautiful looking piece of software whose best and most valuable function is a long, cathartic asset tour.
@PS2fweak @DinoFarmBlake "Fans of the Mario Galaxy series would probably argue the variety those games offer is what makes them interesting games. "
Couldn't have said it better myself. That's my point. Irong lung game design. these "flavors of mashing A to put the square peg in the square hole" are expensive, asset-intensive stopgap measures to obfuscate the reality that nothing is actually happening.
Here's a good way to illustrate what I'm saying. If you accept the assumption that, if a system asks you for input, your input should actually matter, and it should actually be interesting, we can then start to evaluate what constitutes interesting input. I believe interesting input is a meaningful decision.
A decision is the razor's edge between a guess and a solution. On the one end, you have a guess. Pressing A in final fantasy, guessing if it will be a crit or a miss. Or rolling the dice. Nobody would call these "decisions." On the other end, you have a solution. "Put the square peg in the square hole," "light the four torches," "walk down the linear corridor." These aren't decisions. They're labor, because the solution is obvious and unambiguous.
Decisions involve the "should I" not the "can I." At its best, on a first playthrough of super mario bros, you can choose to follow a 1 up before it falls down a cliff, or play it safe and take it slow, but not have the extra life for later. This is a real "should I" in which you're evaluating the ripples of your decision in the gamestate and future gamestates.
This is, of course, ruined by the fact that it's non-random content, and you can ultimately just memorize the game, and whether or not you "should" get the mushroom is no longer a decision, it's a solution.
Modern mario games, and most modern video games, are pretty much completely either a guess or a solution. They keep you playing with gambling compulsion loops like Wow, or they keep you playing with "light the 4 torches." "hit the switch to change the walkable blocks." "Do your chores."
The iron lung is the polish, presentation, ad mountain of new content. It's an advent calendar. Open the doors, eat the chocolates, throw it in the garbage. Once Mario Galaxy 2 came out, will you ever play Galaxy 1 again? If not, what I'm getting at may be why.
I can almost guarantee he wasn't. "Add variety to keep things interesting" is a transparent statement. It is actually saying "distract me with new little chores until I beat the game."
Further evidence of this is the Mario Galaxy games, which get awesome reviews, but are the same exact thing. Before you stop and realize you're doing braindead chores, you've got a DRILL cap, then a BEE cap, then a CLOUD cap, then the INVISIBLE FLOOR ghost thingy, then the SHOOT YOURSELF OUT OF A CANNON thing, then the Collect the 8 coins thing. Are any of these actually interesting? Or are they just raw, inherently complex content thrown onto a mountain of content with nothing at its core? "Jumping" as a core mechanism was at its richest in the original Super Mario Bros. That core mechanism has been obfuscated by gimmicky, highly-themed input mechanisms ever since.
I have lost all confidence in the industry's ability to design systems with any competence. "Iron lung game design" is a vain attempt to "throw money at the problem" when there is no gameplay system.
Oh, and just to be clear, I'm not advocating for "moe complex" for its own sake. A game system should be elegant, that is no more complex than is absolutely necessary to provide depth of play. Mario Galaxy is WAY more "complex" in terms of just raw "stuff" you have to learn and execute than, say Go or Chess, but Go and Chess are far, far, far deeper games.
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