I do not know why, but it seems a lot of game designers confuse impossibly difficult to complete without trying several times, with a reasonable challenge in a game. A good game should typically be somewhat challenging, enough so that a given part of it should not be able to be completed without first having invested some time to master the required skill. Challenge exists in order to help maintain a players interest, and this is usually performed by engaging a player in developing, or exercising interesting skills. This testing process is typically what creates a lot of the games fun. Usually if a part of a game can be completed without any significant level of skill, or thought, that section is not engaging. So, typically a section of a game will require a few attempts to complete, while the players develops the required skills to the level required to complete that section. However, some game designers seem to think that a valid challenge is one that simply requires the player to do something over and over. As though meaningful, engaging game challenges equate to having to try something over and over. But it is not the process of having to repeat something over and over that creates a meaningful game challenge. A challenge should exist to interest the player, and likely to develop certain skills. A meaningful challenge is not a section of a game that has elements that make the section impossible to complete within a short period, regardless of skill level. Many games include elements which are so hard that no matter how good you are, you cannot complete that section without a little luck. This is not a meaningful, engaging challenge. This is challenge for the sake of challenge, and ultimately pointless and frustrating. A game section that can be impossible to repeat in a given attempt simply due to random chance, is not a proper challenge, and this situation should never arise. It is fine if luck plays some part, such that a sufficiently unskilled player needs some luck to win, or might be defeated by poor luck. However, when no matter how good someone is, they can still lose, the challenge is not proper. Bad luck should *never* make it impossible for a skilled player to lose no matter what they do. Sure, always winning is boring, but losing simply due to bad luck is frustrating and does nothing to make things any more enjoyable, or to enhance the *fun* of the game. It is counterproductive, and rather stupid. Game design is something that requires a lot of thought, and to do it well requires a lot analysis. This is not something anyone that can program, or think up rules should attempt to do, not if one wants to be sure they can create a *good* game. Game design is both art and science, and one should study *volumes* before one attempts to make a complicated game. Not having this knowledge leads to a lot of these errors....
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 04:09:48 +0000
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