An analysis of unclear lessons in video games (2019) | Hacker News Reader

An analysis of unclear lessons in video games (2019)

arstechnica.com

34 pointsTomte21 comments

I think the best games are the ones not outright telling you how stuff works. Figuring this out is part of the experience and then, when you learn a new mechanic you can go play the game again and feel how powerful that knowledge really is. Like the wall jumps in Metroid III (SNES).

Unfortunately game designers are often lazy, just printing some instructions on the screen instead of making the game in a way that the player will naturally learn these things.

If I’m thinking of the same game I think the manual explains a lot of things. I tried it a couple years ago and had to read the manual because there were times I didn’t know what I was looking at and got completely stuck.

I never read manuals for games before playing them. A controller only has so many buttons and pressing them all usually reveals enough to get going. Some level of perseverance is needed for this, however. There were times when I got stuck in games and tried for months or years to advance. Sometimes I eventually managed it. Other times, I didn't. But if you lack the perseverance to keep trying for years, then maybe you're just suited better for another hobby.

Personally, I think it's the wrong answer to hold the hands of players even more than they do nowadays. It just waters down the experience, when there's zero skill required to beat a given game.

> But if you lack the perseverance to keep trying for years, then maybe you're just suited better for another hobby.

I agree if the hobby you're talking about is "beating games that are intentionally hard to learn", or "solving interface puzzles".

However I think only a minority of players are into that hobby; possibly the same people who used to enjoy old adventure games (see http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html ).

I am convinced that most people are interested in playing games in general, and even if they seek challenge, it's not necessary the challenge in understanding what the game even wants.

Maybe game literacy is a thing. After all, can't enjoy a book if you don't know how to read. But if you don't know how to read, that's hardly the fault of the book.

Most game designers understand that the act of play is an act of learning, and learning new things is exactly what makes games interesting. However, different games assume that you get to learn some things in that manner, and other things are just a neccessary alphabet that you have to get as fast as you can to get things up and running.

In a classical example, you can spend your whole life learning chess, but no one expects you to figure out how different pieces move by trial and error - it's explained prior to the game. It's not because chess game designers are lazy: it's because figuring out how pieces move wouldn't be a fun gameplay.

If you play chess on a computer, clicking on a piece will reveal it's movement option. Of course, just like when playing on a real board, moves like En passant are hardly ever explained to newcomers. In fact, none of the people I have played chess against even know that En passant is a valid move. It's kind of like the wall jumping in Metroid, just that knowing about it won't enable you to do all kinds of cool tricks.

I wonder how many online chess players thought their opponent was cheating and exploiting a bug, when they first saw en passant.

It just looks like a plausible bug in indexing.

Especially given that the possibility of using that move isn't tied to where the pieces currently are, but to what the opponents last move was. Wonder if anyone ever managed to write a bug report with the exact behavior only to be told that this is a feature and not a bug.

Here's an article featuring dozens of people complaining about just that:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/his-pawn-cheated-and-kill...

It's hard to get this right.

Games like DotA, LoL, Minecraft, Terraria are have a high cost to get started and the first hours, days or weeks can be frustrating.

Fortnite is also hard to get really good, but it also features luck. If you hide good, you can get a second place really quick and if you're really lucky, the last two players just kill each other simultanously.

I forgot the name but there was this game released in .. 2017? A metroidvania in which you have all the tools at your disposition from the beginning of the game, but aren't taught how to use them / know they exist until later in the game. So a player who has already finished the game could refinish it very fast.

Game Maker's toolkit made a video on it.

Could you try to hunt this down, I'd love to know.

I looked through Game Maker's Toolkit's YT videos, but without knowing quite what I was looking for, I couldn't find it.

(copying my other comment): Just found it, it's Toki Tori 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=084BUNlI7Gk

If you happen to remember, please tell me. That sounds awesome.

Just found it, it's Toki Tori 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=084BUNlI7Gk

Rocket League is the extreme of that idea.

The Witness is an interesting point in the space.

I was hoping for more actual lessons here.

For those interested in game dev lessons, I wrote up some of the things I learned from making Flash games a decade ago:

http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/8lessons8games.html

I really recommend clicking through and watching the referenced embedded video that forms the basis for this article. It's very well done and much more substantive than this summary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7f3JZJHSw

The summary: Some games are simple and intuitive, some are not; that is the only lesson.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com