Comment by seventhtiger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by seventhtiger | Hacker News Reader

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There's a solid game design framework underlying that choice, beyond just being smoke and mirrors.

Most single player games are not "true games". They are puzzles. This is also how players perceive them.

As defined by Chris Crawford a game requires competition. Multiple agents who play, which creates the possibility of win and loss.

In most single player games, the game agents are not equal competitors who can win. They are only obstacles and challenges for the player. Even if the game is built with difficulty in mind.

So the mistake of thinking of actually intelligent game agents is like thinking why doesn't the Rubik cube ever win. It's not why someone plays it.

Notable exceptions are where software is used to substitute a player in a multiplayer game, where they do usually maintain the game structure and compete.

I don't think "gamers" or the general population agree with your definition on true games.

Nintendo single player games are often considered the gold standard of games in different genres. Mario, Zelda, Pokemon are all household names.

I do think your points were interesting, so thanks for sharing!

Maybe I focused too much on the terms. They certainly don't think of the word puzzle, but they do treat them as that.

Someone playing Zelda doesn't go into it ever expecting Ganondor to try to win. The player either solves the game, or they stop playing. But they can't lose, which is why I called it a puzzle.

In comparison to something like Chess AI where the computer agent is actually trying to win and make you lose.

So you'd find players asking whether it's single or multiplayer and competitive or casual and so on and they're really trying to place the game in that categorization. Is this game just a series of challenges for me, or are there opponent agents trying to win.

Most single player games are not "true games". They are puzzles. This is also how players perceive them.

This is definitely news to me, I have not ever met someone who feels this way who plays videogames.

I put that in quotes because I didn't want to emphasize the terminology but maybe it didn't work. Whatever they call them, players treat games with equal opponents who can win, and games that are only a series of challenge entirely differently. The issue I'm talking about is developers trying to insert competitive agents into games which gamers expect to be a series of challenges.

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