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Comment by endemic | Hacker News Reader

Cool from a tech standpoint, but trophies/achievements are lazy game design. Rather than motivate players with story progression, skill mastery, etc., they're just checklists to complete.

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Sometimes they are, but for people who would self-impose an additional challenge anyway, achievements can provide some extra fun.

I've also seen achievements used for humor and story purposes; they can provide that bit of levity that helps ameliorate an excessively dark moment, or turn a nasty trap into a chuckle, or provide a fourth-wall-breaking moment.

For an example of that last case, see the Portal 2 achievement "This Is The Part Where He Kills You".

A fun example of this is magicka, that has some of the most hilarious achievements I've ever seen in a game, full of references. Some examples :

- http://magicka.gamepedia.com/Let_off_some_steam (Notice the logo)

- IMMA FIRIN' MAH LAZER!!!!: Successfully cross two beams into a more powerful one.

- It's over nine thousand!!!!: Deal over 9000 damage to one enemy.

Well-made, well-placed achievements certainly do have a place, even in casual gaming.

That was one of my favorite parts of the game, and the Achievement really was the cherry on top. It pops up just before you fade in, and it seems like a cheeky spoiler, and then the huge white Title Text to the dialog to the absurd "you really should grok where you stand on this" setting comes in. And then - if you wait for a little bit - the point really gets driven home...

I think they are very much underutilized in games. A lot of developers seems to simply add achievements for reaching various milestones (how developer-like :P) -- but they could be used for so much more!

What kinds of edge cases came up in testing that would be fun for the player? What kind of super secrets can you rally your playerbase to find/hunt down? What kind of silly little tasks can you come up with?

I like them as a way to push me into aspects of the game that I would normally never try.

For example, in WoW it got me to go explore all of the other faction's territories, which I didn't even know was possible. It also got me to run the old dungeons that no one did anymore.

When designed right, they can be really good.

To me achievements make more sense when you count the community aspect. They can be humorous or motivating while playing standalone, but usually games have their own ways of providing a sense of progression and achievement (or they will be boring!). Achievements become really interesting when you compare them against the community, and you can find extra motivation in "oh, only 10% of the players have managed to do this, lets go for it!".

Further development ideas for retrophies inclued building on this community aspect. Although now that I've discovered retroachievements.org I'm not sure it's worth the duplicated effort :P

I disagree: it's a site map for what you can do in a game and what you might find enjoyable. The achievements themselves aren't as important as seeing what experiences the game offers.

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