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Comment by Pannoniae | Hacker News Reader

This also explains the declining gameplay and immersion of many (most?) games. The art and the gameplay are simply not synced to each other, so they feel separate and disjoint. For example, the environment having similarly looking but differently behaving objects like rocks.

Or how instead of designing emergent systems, most games just slap modifiers on everything and "balance" that way. +20% bow reload speed and +25% speed, anyone?

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I think this harmoniousness operates in more subtle ways, too. I'm playing through the new Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom, and it's a lot of fun, but there's something that doesn't quite click... like the UI is a behavorial engagement layer over the game, and not part of the game itself. Like you can never be completely in the world because something outside is holding your hand all the way.

The 16- through 64- bit Zeldas, for their clunkiness, were compellingly immersive. I don't think it's just nostalgia; I've played indie games where the UI is part of a whole that sucks you in. This is true even if the UI has a modern feel, like Hollow Knight, which felt overpolished in its presentation and interface, to me at least, in a way that was off-kilter -- yet something about it sucks you in instead of pulling you out, being part of the world's presentation and in an aesthetically transitive sense part of the world itself. There's something about these modern AAA games where you feel like you're not playing a game but rather a Skinner box containing a game. It's just not the same. I can't exactly put my finger on it.

Yup, games abandoning skeuomorphism and UI animations is arguably even worse than regular UIs abandoning it.

The game UI should feel part of the game (good examples: SimCity 4 and Sid Meier's Pirates) and not feel out of place.

In-game advertisements are also off-putting unless they fit thematically and stylistically into the game.

edit: your comment was much better when it was more verbose!<3

This argument makes sense, but I am not sure I agree with it.

When I read a book in a modern typeface, it does not remove me from the story in the book. I do not need to read a world war II history book in Fraktur to get into it. Maybe, like typography, it has more to do with what one is used to?

A book is not a visual medium. A game is. In a book, you imagine the environment in your head, in the game, the graphics are already imagined (and drawn) for you. If the graphics already exist, a "modern" flat soulless UI overlay just makes for a painful disjointed from the in-game world experience.

Just for discussion's sake.

It is debatable what happens in our heads. When we play one of the earlier pixel Zeldas, one might argue our mind is filling in all the details with higher resolution images. I can still agree with this argument, though.

In terms of the UI, the game controller is also a soulless interface, and I guess one could claim it gets in the way of experiencing the game.

My opinion is simply that the UI being disjointed from the game world experience might make it more or less enjoyable, depending on experience.

As an example, I prefer a file > save checkpoint on a game, that gets out of the way, as opposed to one of those games where you have to go to a special place to save. In that case, for me, the immersion is ruined because I am constantly reminded that I cannot save the game state. Other players might think a File > save checkpoint menu is a flat soulless ui and they prefer the in-game integration.

I am not talking about "if it's pixelated, you can imagine it being immersive". Games like Tropico, SimCity 4 or Sid Meier's Pirates have fairly high-resolution icons (well, obviously not on 4K but it isn't pixel art either) which leave not much room for imagination, and they work very well.

The "soulless UI" effect happens when developers try to use flat design in a game where it doesn't work with the aesthetic. A game set in the future? of course. A game set in 1700? hell no. and also if the game uses too many numbers. If there are many "+20% this, +10% that" that also feels unimmersive so the player is dragged out of the game world.

The UI for Tears of the Kingdom has been quite annoying to me in this regard but so many aspects of that game were just troublesome. It's still fun, but the story and characters make no sense, the UI is modern and lifeless. They went into the weeds of the gameplay, you can see that's where they put their energy. I've been disappointed in a lot of the directions... It's just bad furries left and right. This game would sell with most anything they put in it, but it feels lackluster and unmemorable in many areas. I'm probably a minority in thinking the voice actors are trying too hard too..

I do love the idea of being able to go up and down though it feels a little awkward to me as I normally have to go way up to go down into the underground due to a lot of level design. I kinda wish they put some more cliffs nearby to save me the time. I like the underground a lot though and find that part the most fun.

I think this is also interesting in the direction of the OP's opinion. The new Zelda, for all its AAA chops, has in its main storyline the writing and directing of a bafflingly terrible anime. Incongruously, the story concept itself is compelling, and the scriptwriting for the game's many side characters is verbose (conventionally for Zelda) but otherwise cromulent.

I kind of wonder if something internal happened that the original article is describing. Side NPCs are designed by game designers, so probably written by them or people close to them. The game's concept is probably worked on closely with the top people in charge. But for the main story's execution, one might imagine there's no organizational requirement that the guys in charge have to have a clue how to write or direct a game or even any clue how to write or direct at all.

I wonder if this is the reason why Starfield is so disjointed and the inventory system is the same as it always has been. You would think they would put a specialist on such an important part of the game.

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