Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction
gamedeveloper.com
gamedeveloper.com
I had an interesting experience with friction playing the Retro Bowl (football) and Retro Goal (soccer) games on my iPhone. I don't usually play sports titles, but they build an interesting feeling where you just can't win 'em all. If you are building a franchise, some matches will be impossible to win, so you just need to try your damndest to lose less. While action games will warp you to a checkpoint when you die and roguelikes will bring you back to the beginning, these games give you a penalty and let you proceed. It's a fun procedural narrative when you have an abyssal record, pissed off investors/fans, and a team with great potential, but low morale.
Unfortunately, these games are single player but F2P, so there is a tempting micro-transaction of spending $2/$5/$10+ to get a morale boost or funds. I appreciate the design decisions, but it does make me think the game traps you into failure until you spend some cash.
I had to admit that I spent real money in Retro Goal. I actually justified it by pretending I had to take Qatari funding to keep my Premier League team afloat.
I think the best roguelikes are the ones who let you fail and then proceed limping. Or maybe the best games in general, since I'm not sure if Rimworld counts as a roguelike. Either way, to start from the beginning in a good roguelike means to have made a chain of bad decisions.
I am not sure if FTL is the best example here? FTL is slightly unusual because it has a turn-limit, because you always have to move forward, and you might not have enough time left to recover.
By contrast, in Nethack there are basically no mistakes that damn you to limp along and lock you out of winning. Either you die quickly, or you can recover into a winnable position. (Though you might be locked out of certain niceties for a run, you don't need any specific permanently-loseable nicety to win.)
IIRC (it's been a while) the luck component in it is also largely negative, in that bad things can randomly happen to you but (substantial) good random effects are minor and unusual, so you can't even luck your way into enough resources to have a hope of winning, as in something like Nethack where a desperate prayer or drink at a fountain or something might totally turn your game around. If you're more than very slightly behind, the game's not going to hand you enough to salvage your run, period.
I think part of the trouble is the illusion-of-choice map system. In reality, you have to be taking certain routes to do well, by deliberately seeking encounters, et c. The illusion is that you can take an easy route through an area and still be on a path to victory. IMO the maps are kinda pointless in that game, given how the mechanics work, basically just providing an opportunity to fuck up without knowing it, and also permitting the limping-to-the-end-but-long-ago-doomed effect.
I find FTL frustrating because I like some aspects of it but IMO it makes some major mistakes in terms of game mechanics, to a degree that I find it hard to appreciate the things I like (mainly the tactical combat minigame). I get what they were trying to do with the rest of it—the time pressure cutting off options and forcing choices, et c—but it doesn't all come together correctly. Needed one more conceptual pass to make it all fit properly, which is even more frustrating when it's not that complex a game. All that effort to finish it, but fundamental flaws left in place throughout.
One saving grace is that a game of FTL doesn't really last that long. So even if you limp along, you didn't waste that much time.
I never really went into limping mode, though. I usually tried to turn my games around by staying aggressive; but eg burning through my missiles and drones faster when the run goes badly. In some sense, if you have missiles left when you die, you didn't use enough missiles.
There's some strokes of good luck in FTL, like the scrap collector or the long range scanner. But they tend to increase your longer term average, they don't provide an immediate bonus. (Exactly as you say.)
I wish there was a good way to classify a “f2p… but reasonably balanced “ game.
To me, a bad pattern -- usually done by F2P games, but I don't think it's mandatory for them to use it -- is both the mindless grind ("am I having fun with this, or just clicking stuff?") and the pay-to-skip aspect. To me the latter is the worst, an admission by the game developers that their game is boring and the only way to get to the "good parts" is to spend money to fast-forward them. Usually there aren't even any good parts, it's all skippable.
Skill is the majority component in the game (given that top players can take a level 1 account all the way to legendary level) and it is so generous handing out in game currency to level up cards you can happily never spend a penny on the game.
So surprising given it comes from the same people as Clash of Clans.
I suspect a lot of devs and etc are just trying to find a revenue source and not committed to dark patterns or etc.
Minor plug for UnCiv being FOSS
I actually think something similar to the Gartner hype cycle applies [1]. Any shovelware became profitable during the Zynga/King heydays, but quality declined and the ecosystem become more competitive. We are now hitting a point where some quality is needed to distinguish ones self.
That's the cool thing: an extremely skillful player may thrash an opponent and earn a big reward, but in a different situation may only be able to "avoid disaster". I feel like this is similar to real-life, but isn't really applied in a lot of games.
> > If you had infinite time and budget to make a game, I believe it’s still entirely fair for you, as an artist, to choose the limitations that define your work. Or for your work to, in some way, be compromised! You're a flawed human being, making a flawed execution of a flawed creative vision. The word ‘flaw’ in itself, when applied to art, is not an inherent detriment. It is instead an acknowledgement that we are communicating to each other in the limited way that we can given our limited time and perspective in this universe, and that this is in fact what makes those words exceptional.
> > My point isn't that things should not be fun, but that so-called ‘shortcomings’ can be a critical part of making them fun, especially when intentionally chosen. With that context, it's been kind of jarring to play critical pieces of game canon for the first time and see imaginary Steam reviews pop up in my head. If Silent Hill 2 was released for the first time today, I’m fairly sure it would have negative Steam reviews for how foggy it was. Are those theoretical reviews correct? Yes. And are all of those theoretical reviews also wrong? Undoubtedly.
This is such a interesting take, particularly that first paragraph which alone probably made the article worth reading and sharing.
As an example, in Papers, Please, the UI is a significant source of friction. But the player can compensate for it by figuring out the best way to organize their workspace and the best "route" to go through all the pieces of information they have to check, and then implementing that consistently. Figuring out the best way to do things is a substantial part of the gameplay.
Also, in general with cases where there's no fast travel and travel is used as a source of friction, the player may still have many ways of reducing its cost. They can choose more efficient routes, find shortcuts, or obtain faster ways of traveling. An extreme case is Morrowind, where, by the middle of the game, most players will have memorized the network of various overlapping travel options and/or found or created a magic item that will allow them to zip around at ludicrous speed.
I haven't played Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, but if organs eat each other, I wonder if there are any mechanics that allow the player to compensate for that, such as being able to re-arrange them as they're loaded to keep organs likely to eat one another far apart.
What other examples of "friction" are there in this game besides that some organs in your inventory may eat other organs? That's just a single example but I don't see anything else mentioned.
What's the difference between "friction" and just challenges in a game (or good old plain "difficulty"). I understand many casual click-and-wait games in the last decade essentially autoplay, and there's no way to lose: you just click, and wait (or expedite the wait by making a micropayment), and that's all there is to them. Has this become so much the norm that the concept of a game that can be difficult, or requires skill, or where you can lose, is surprising?
Are UI limitations themselves a sort of friction? That's a concept I can get behind: one of my absolute favorite games is "Papers, Please!", which effectively deploys cumbersome UI as a gameplay element. You are bureaucrat and most of your game area is your desktop, which is tiny, and you must shuffle papers and overlapping game elements in that limited space under stress and with a time limit -- and the experience is great, if frustrating. So if friction is this -- a conscious way to limit the player's interaction with the game, in ways that enhance and add challenge to the gameplay experience -- then I'm ok with the term!
I'm not convinced every bit of frustrating UI is good "friction". The author mentions many old games, but to be honest, even as a retrogamer I find going back to some clunky UI decisions of old games so frustrating it impedes my enjoyment of those games.
I think some "friction" is indeed useful, and that the convenience of a modern UI is sometimes detrimental to the gameplay experience. To name another example, also from Lukas Pope (hey, fanboy here!) in "Return of the Obra Dinn", the player is an insurance inspector unravelling the mystery of a merchant ship that returned without crew. There is no way of teleporting between spots in the ship, even if it would be a modern and convenient UI: the author has said he wanted to recreate the feeling of walking inside a medium size ship, and teleporting would have destroyed that feeling.
However, the extreme of "sometimes the UI makes you misclick or doesn't respond accurately" would be frustrating for no good gameplay role. It seems the issue described in that twitter thread, of clicking on an item but it got sold so it got swapped with another one at the last second, and you end up buying the wrong one, is borderline frustrating for no good reason.
A player could accuse the author of being lazy, e.g. "you just didn't think this through and now you want to claim bugs are features", whereas the limited UI in a game like "Papers, Please!" -- like it or hate it -- is evidently intentional, and there's no mistaking that.
The first example that comes to my mind would be Witcher 2 and the use of potions. You are a bit squishy and the beneficial effects from potions are impactful. However, it is a bit of a slog to prepare and consume the potions before an encounter.
In contrast, Witcher 3 simplified the mechanic to such a degree that it might as well be Diablo where you are chugging potions mid-battle.
As an example, I think the biggest mistake Blizzard made with World of Warcraft is a) adding flight, and b) making flying so easy.
a) devalues the hard work developers and artists put into gorgeous scenery, because those flying high overhead will miss much of it. b) destroys much of the gameplay when outdoors (where most flying occurs), because it's far too easy to (say) hover straight down near some item that needs collecting, grab it, then take off again VTOL-style.
The use of vocabulary in the series is so unique that someone produced a companion dictionary called the Lexicon Urthus [2]. There's also a great podcast called Alzabo Soup, that covers the series in depth, chapter by chapter.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun [2] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5970607-lexicon-urthu... [3] https://www.alzabosoup.com
It's another example of friction, you have to realize the game you have entered, and be willing to figure out a novel (or in this case trilogy) sized puzzle, where the puzzle pieces are buried in perfectly ordinary prose. If it sounds like fun, and you're up for the challenge, his books can be a unique pleasure. If not, you will miss out on a lot of the more interesting things that are happening between the lines.
If you're interested in the concept I recommend Fifth Head of Cerberus as a better entry point into Wolfe's writing. It's a collection of 3 novellas set on the same planet. They are inter-related but each is basically its own story-puzzle, in a much more digestible size than New Sun.
It struck to me like an 80s animated movie: extremely rich from a technical point of view but, well, not a good history and even boring for some people (think about Vampire Hunter D or Angel's Egg. For the record, I love these movies).
Meh, I'll give it another go, after I finish Blindsight from Peter Watts (2006). Thanks for reminding me of that saga!
Another recommendation is to try the Book of the Long Sun series instead. I actually recommend that to folks more frequently if they aren't sci-fi readers. I think it's a bit more approachable in terms of language, and the tone is very different. There's also no character like Severian in that series, which I think is a good thing.
I always tended to stick to Sci-fi but recently I found that I didn't dislike Fantasy as I thought (I love the books from Brandon Sanderson).
Regarding the obscure English: I _loved_ learning those words as I have a thing for old and obscure words, you should see the face of my friends when I speak on _proper Spanish_ but they can't get a thing hahah ;D
Have a nice one!
Definitely notable when it's tweaked up really high like stephenson likes to do, but I think that's a knob a lot of authors twist to varying degrees.
If you like books with their own language, Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur trilogy does it more and better than anything else I've read (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7562764-the-quantum-thie...). It actually makes me question my interaction with regular language, since there's so many words that you can barely grasp in there... but I wasn't super bothered and thought I understood it sort of ok. But I doubt I could really explain them if pressed too, they just sort of felt well defined based on context that I accumulated.
It made me think that my brain just doesn't go very in depth with words and is pleased with a shallow contextual understanding of what they mean. Sort of like the protagonist(such as he is, more like primary victim) of Blindsight by Peter Watts(he's a science communicator that can sort of get the shape of concepts at a shallow level, but never really understands them).
[0] https://steamcommunity.com/app/1507780/discussions/0/3192486...
The result is a slower-paced game where you really feel like some guy in the outdoors cooking skinned rabbits on a stove and picking your way through an abandoned cottage in the countryside.
R* could have easily not designed this friction into the game but it adds to the ambiance. To contrast this would feel very out of place in GTA, which thrives on a frenetic, chaotic experience.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/search/?q=organ%20harvesti...
Because if it is I'm a confused app.