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Reply 140 of 232, by ZellSF

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Joakim wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:41:

I like walking simulators in some cases. For instance I think Bioshock Infinite would have been great without the meaningless repetitive action.

Funny enough, by the "No failure condition" criteria BioShock isn't a video game (in BioShock Infinite you can run out of money though).

Reply 141 of 232, by Shagittarius

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ZellSF wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:32:
It's generally understood that when you quote a post, your reply is to the post quoted. Not a comment on another post entirely. […]
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Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:25:

I brought up Walking Sims, and you mentioned retirement home bingo. It doesn't matter that your other reply was to a different user it was about the same subject.

It's generally understood that when you quote a post, your reply is to the post quoted. Not a comment on another post entirely.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:25:

I'm glad that you added a defense to Walking simulators in your latest reply. In the case of walking simulators saying that movement itself is the puzzle seems like a pretty low bar to set for gameplay to me. Dragon's Lair is considered a game too which isn't too far from a walking simulator but it adds timing to the mix as well. No I don't think Dragon's Lair or any of those are great games, but there is a level of challenge there that I don't see in the walking simulators.

1) I mentioned adventure games and puzzle games. Games with no timing elements. Are these not games?
2) You do more in walking simulators than just move.

Before I answer I'm not really arguing that Walking Simulators can't be called games. Just that its something I hate about modern games, that design.

I think there are more elements in adventure games than the interactive narrative games. I'll use Gone Home for an example. In Gone Home you can move, interact with the environment by activating elements, and discovering key items which further the story and unlock forward progress. This is what I can remember of the interactions. In traditional adventure games you also have an inventory, can manipulate the inventory within itself and apply it to the environment. You also have character interaction in traditional adventure games, conversational puzzles. I don't really see puzzles in walking simulators, its just move and click until you touch all the things to advance the narrative. Everything is simply in service of the narrative. In good games the narrative only exists to serve the gameplay. I would argue that story or narrative is the least important part of a game and to orient all your gameplay elements in service to the narrative exposes the true intention of walking simulators, to share a non interactive story disguised as a game. Hence my original comment about failed authors.

I don't even want to go into how horrible the story in Gone Home was and the rules of literature that it breaks. Its not only a bad game, its bad literature too.

Reply 142 of 232, by Shagittarius

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ZellSF wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:43:
Joakim wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:41:

I like walking simulators in some cases. For instance I think Bioshock Infinite would have been great without the meaningless repetitive action.

Funny enough, by the "No failure condition" criteria BioShock isn't a video game (in BioShock Infinite you can run out of money though).

I don't agree with the "Failure Condition" criteria. I think you could design a game that you can't fail but still present challenges. I mean I guess you are still failing if you don't complete the game, but every game has that failure condition.

Reply 143 of 232, by ZellSF

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Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:56:

I think there are more elements in adventure games than the interactive narrative games. I'll use Gone Home for an example. In Gone Home you can move, interact with the environment by activating elements, and discovering key items which further the story and unlock forward progress. This is what I can remember of the interactions. In traditional adventure games you also have an inventory, can manipulate the inventory within itself and apply it to the environment.

Gone Home has a inventory system, with keys in, which I assume you can apply to the environment.

As for all the rest of the comments about narrative driven games, I still see no meaningful distinction between walking simulators, adventure games and interactive fiction games. They're all about figuring out what to do next, by trying various things. They're all closely related, narratively driven games and the only distinction I can see you drawing between them is the difficulty of figuring out what to do next.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:56:

its just move and click until you touch all the things to advance the narrative.

I mean that's literally how I would describe classic adventure and interactive fiction games.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:56:

Hence my original comment about failed authors.

Let's get into this too: really dumb take. They're failures because they don't want to write books? Because they want to explore different ways of telling a narrative? This is just insulting people for no reason.

Reply 144 of 232, by Shagittarius

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ZellSF wrote on 2022-06-23, 16:20:
Gone Home has a inventory system, with keys in, which I assume you can apply to the environment. […]
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Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:56:

I think there are more elements in adventure games than the interactive narrative games. I'll use Gone Home for an example. In Gone Home you can move, interact with the environment by activating elements, and discovering key items which further the story and unlock forward progress. This is what I can remember of the interactions. In traditional adventure games you also have an inventory, can manipulate the inventory within itself and apply it to the environment.

Gone Home has a inventory system, with keys in, which I assume you can apply to the environment.

As for all the rest of the comments about narrative driven games, I still see no meaningful distinction between walking simulators, adventure games and interactive fiction games. They're all about figuring out what to do next, by trying various things. They're all closely related, narratively driven games and the only distinction I can see you drawing between them is the difficulty of figuring out what to do next.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:56:

its just move and click until you touch all the things to advance the narrative.

I mean that's literally how I would describe classic adventure and interactive fiction games.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:56:

Hence my original comment about failed authors.

Let's get into this too: really dumb take. They're failures because they don't want to write books? Because they want to explore different ways of telling a narrative? This is just insulting people for no reason.

I'm going to take a break from replying to allow other people to be involved if they want to be, but I don't see how you could play Gone Home vs. something like Monkey Island and think there's no difference in the number of game mechanics and challenge level. With Gone Home the interaction exists to prod you along exposing the narrative, in monkey island the narrative ties together the puzzle challenges.

Have you heard the expression, "Those who can, do, those who can't teach." Well I would say those who can write fiction do, those who cant create walking simulators. To be fair not all walking simulators are the result of bad authors, some are the results of bad game designers.

Last edited by Shagittarius on 2022-06-23, 16:30. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 146 of 232, by ZellSF

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Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 16:27:

I'm going to take a break from replying to allow other people to be involved if they want to be, but I don't see how you could play Gone Home vs. something like Monkey Island and think there's no difference in the number of game mechanics and challenge level. With Gone Home the interaction exists to prod you along exposing the narrative, in monkey island the narrative ties together the puzzle challenges.

I wasn't saying there wasn't a difference, but the distinctions you're providing about what classifies a video game are muddy at best.

All I hear really is "they're not video games because I say so" with no clear reasoning. I could do the same with adventure game, because they don't have my arbitrary amount of game mechanics and challenge level.

awgamer wrote on 2022-06-23, 16:29:

I think he's saying they couldn't cut it as writers/get published, so they do their doesn't make the cut writing through gaming medium.

I got what he's saying, I was just replying it's a bad assumption made just to insult people. I mean for a guy that's upset I indirectly called him old...

Reply 147 of 232, by Shagittarius

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ZellSF wrote on 2022-06-23, 16:50:
I wasn't saying there wasn't a difference, but the distinctions you're providing about what classifies a video game are muddy at […]
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Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 16:27:

I'm going to take a break from replying to allow other people to be involved if they want to be, but I don't see how you could play Gone Home vs. something like Monkey Island and think there's no difference in the number of game mechanics and challenge level. With Gone Home the interaction exists to prod you along exposing the narrative, in monkey island the narrative ties together the puzzle challenges.

I wasn't saying there wasn't a difference, but the distinctions you're providing about what classifies a video game are muddy at best.

All I hear really is "they're not video games because I say so" with no clear reasoning. I could do the same with adventure game, because they don't have my arbitrary amount of game mechanics and challenge level.

awgamer wrote on 2022-06-23, 16:29:

I think he's saying they couldn't cut it as writers/get published, so they do their doesn't make the cut writing through gaming medium.

I got what he's saying, I was just replying it's a bad assumption made just to insult people. I mean for a guy that's upset I indirectly called him old...

I already said I'm not arguing about if they are video games. I'm saying they are bad video games.

You "indirectly" called me old because you implied my statement could be used for retirement home bingo. Yet you complain about me referring to a generic group of people, not people who I'm having a conversation with.

Reply 148 of 232, by ZellSF

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Shagittarius wrote on 2022-06-23, 16:59:

You "indirectly" called me old because you implied my statement could be used for retirement home bingo. Yet you complain about me referring to a generic group of people, not people who I'm having a conversation with.

Insulting people just because you aren't talking to them isn't that much better.

But yeah, this "walking simulators are where failed writers and game designers go" seems like pretty clear bullshit to me when those games are doing quite well.

Reply 149 of 232, by dr_st

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Joakim wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:41:

I think Bioshock Infinite would have been great without the meaningless repetitive action.

I think the first Bioshock would have also been great without the meaningless repetitive action.

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Reply 150 of 232, by Kerr Avon

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dr_st wrote on 2022-06-23, 21:03:
Joakim wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:41:

I think Bioshock Infinite would have been great without the meaningless repetitive action.

I think the first Bioshock would have also been great without the meaningless repetitive action.

Are you referring to the thousands (it seems like) of times where you have to play the old video game 'Pipemania' to hack something? I doubt many people would disagree with you there, it was so *tedious*. And it was made worse by the fact that sometimes they were impossible to complete, as the random board generator never checked to see if the board it created was actually able to be completed. So you had no choice but to lose and to restart the hacking.

This is just one of many faults of Bioshock 1 that was fixed in the second game. Bioshock 2 is a much better game, not only because it fixes the tedious hacking, but because it also fixes many of Bioshock 1's other faults, such as the way the enjoyment factor falls of a cliff after the mid-game revelation (no spoilers here!) in B1, the terrible final fight (the end boss battle) in B1, and the way B1 so often feels like a collection of set pieces rather than a journey through a different world. Plus B2 improves upon many of B1's aspects, such as having better weapons and plasmids, some great new features (such as the Big Sisters, the Brute Splicers, and having to protec the Little Sisters whilst they harvest the Adam from the corpses), and an improved morality system. Actually, B2's morality system is still basic and very flawed, but it's better than in B1, and does make minor changes to things you witness later in the game.

The first game does have more memorable characters, a better story (though after the big revelation mid-game, the story pretty much dies), and that fantastic first view of Rapture, which is definitely one of the best openings in video gaming history. Why does Bioshock 2 not have any scene as good as that? I sometimes wonder how someone who played Bioshock 2 first would imagine Rapture to be, as B2 doesn't give you the awe-inspiring vision that the first game does.

Bioshock: Infinite is the worst of the three games, if you ask me. At times it is visually and musically amazing, and at times it's atmosphere is really good, but the gameplay is a step back from the two earlier games, the story is unconvincing (and the ending is pretentious rubbish). It's just not a great experience, and is one of the most disappointing games ever, in my experience, as I was expecting so much more going by the pre-release videos we were shown over the game's development. It's a good game, but far beneath the first two games, and far, far inferior to the genre-defining classic we were all expecting.

When the Bioshock Remastered collection (containing all three games) came out, I hoped it would replace the first game's hacking method would be replaced with the second game's version. But sadly not.

Reply 151 of 232, by Joakim

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I don't remember bioshock 1 (or 2) being very tedious. Maybe the first game was so original it did not matter that the action was just a filler. If I were to replay it my opinion might be different.

(The second one I don remember much about tbh.)

Reply 152 of 232, by dr_st

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Kerr Avon wrote on 2022-06-24, 17:46:

Are you referring to the thousands (it seems like) of times where you have to play the old video game 'Pipemania' to hack something?

Mostly. However, the combat, as far as I remember was also rather tedious and repetitive. As were the dumb catchphrases that the enemies were repeating as they roam.

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Reply 153 of 232, by realnc

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ZellSF wrote on 2022-06-23, 15:43:

Funny enough, by the "No failure condition" criteria BioShock isn't a video game (in BioShock Infinite you can run out of money though).

Don't worry. The publishers have solved the issue now. All you need now is enter your credit card info and then you can buy virtual money through "micro" transactions.

Reply 154 of 232, by DNSDies

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ZellSF wrote on 2022-06-23, 14:57:
DNSDies wrote on 2022-06-23, 14:40:

Video games are supposed to be an interactive media with a loss condition or they're not games anymore.

Puzzle games say hello.

Adventure games too actually.

You're right, it's just a puzzle. It's not a game, in the same way a jigsaw puzzle is not a game.
A jigsaw is a puzzle. The consequences of its configuration are determinate, for fitting puzzle piece A to spot B has always the same outcome: the piece fits of not, and if the piece fits, the system state alters into a more lucid picture. If the piece does not fit, the system state remains the same.
You can win a game, but you only solve puzzles.

Also, Bioshock has an option to disable vita-chambers, by not using it you degrade a game into an interactive novel with no consequences where the rules don't matter. It becomes a puzzle with a set and simple solution.

Reply 155 of 232, by Bruninho

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Reasons to hate modern games
- Price
- High end hardware requirements
- Amount of storage required (FS 2020 requires min. whooping 150GB)
- Bad code (if it were optimized, it could run on less powerful hardware, not just bad code, but also bad developers)
- Too much focus on graphics and almost no focus in a good storyline or no "edutainment" at all.

Grand Prix 4 = Abandonware, 2002 game + GrandPrixGames.org F1 Mods like F1 2022 = $0 and can run on any hardware with a decent cheap gpu
Codemasters F1 2021/F1 2022 = Almost USD 50, or 260 brazilian reais!!!

GP4 modded can have the same quality, good graphics and fun. And its a 20 yr old game being still modded by community fans!

Last edited by Bruninho on 2022-06-29, 00:34. Edited 1 time in total.

"Design isn't just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
JOBS, Steve.
READ: Right to Repair sucks and is illegal!

Reply 156 of 232, by schmatzler

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Bruninho wrote on 2022-06-28, 17:17:

- Too much focus on graphics and almost no focus on a good storyline or no "edutainment" at all.

This. A lot of games are just bland - they're shiny but without any substance.

Modern RPGs are a perfect example of that, a lot of them give you big open worlds that are either totally empty or filled with same-style missions (e.g. fetch quests) on every corner. This is boring!
Borderlands 2 was one of the biggest offenders for that in my opinion. I had fun with the first one because you had progress. I didn't get the best weapons until the very end, I died often because the game was challenging at times.

Borderlands 2: Run around and collect the same stupid sh*t every few seconds then do a fetch quest followed with another fetch quest. And when you find weapons, they will be worse than the ones you already have 90% of the time. Also look at our villain, isn't he funny, he makes funny jokes to be funny - that's funny, right? Blergh...what a disappointment.

RAGE had a big world but you were just driving around. RAGE2 is just Borderlands with a slightly different facelift.

I welcome games like Fallout New Vegas, which isn't perfect by any means - but it encouraged exploring the vast world and the buildings in it. You were rewarded with stuff that could be found in every corner. I wish more games would do that.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 157 of 232, by Kerr Avon

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What about the things that no gamer in history has ever asked for, but that the game developers kindly inflicted, sorry, gifted upon us?

For example:

- Unskippable cutscenes (seriously, who thought this would be appreciated by people paying good money to play the games?),

- Unskippable cutscenes (again, yes, but this is a much worse example) which occur before a boss-fight or difficult battle, so when you die (repeatedly) you then have to sit through the quickly becoming monotonous cut-scene just to get to action.

- The game mechanic whereby you have to keep pressing a key or button (on your keyboard or joypad) to simulate the effort of forcing opening a door or a window, or lifting a heavy object, etc,

- A weapon carrying limit in first and third person shooters that are NOT trying to pretend that they are ultra-realistic simulations of real-world combat,

- The game mechanic whereby the screen turns red when you are injured, making it harder to see the enemies or anything. The game 'Control' seems almost like it is doing this ironically, because in that game the enemies are mostly red, so the more injured your in-game character becomes, the harder it is to actually see the enemies you are fighting. A genius bit of design, that is 😮(

- Locking higher game difficulty levels, so that, say, the player has to first complete the game on 'Hard' mode before they can play the even harder 'Nightmare' mode. This is wrong because (a) the player should be able to play on whatever skill level he/she chooses, even if the game is new to them, and (b) what about the times when the player has played the game many times, and is an expert at it, but because they are now reinstalling the game from scratch again (and so there is no save-game or whatever on the PC/console that says "The game has been completed on a lower skill level, so now Nightmare difficulty is unlocked") then the player will have to complete the game on a lower skill level instead of just starting on the highest skill level as they would prefer.

And not the same type of problem, but:

- Why, in so many third person games, does your character continue to move their legs and run on the spot when they are moved into a wall or obstruction? It just screams lazy design, and reminds you that it's just a game.

- Why, in (again) so many third person games, is swimming so awkward? You want to swim up or down, but end up turning around heading downwards as the game gets confused. This never happens in first person games (that I remember), but it's quite common in third person games.

And on a more personal note, I wish more games had mirrors and weather effects. Mirrors can remind you of the character that you are playing, and rain or snow can (to me) really liven up a scene, and add to the atmosphere and feel of the game. I also used to hate it when games didn't have cutscenes (my hearing isn't too good) or an option to invert the Y-axis, but thankfully those two omissions are far less common nowadays.

Reply 158 of 232, by Plasma

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DNSDies wrote on 2022-06-28, 14:39:
You're right, it's just a puzzle. It's not a game, in the same way a jigsaw puzzle is not a game. A jigsaw is a puzzle. The cons […]
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ZellSF wrote on 2022-06-23, 14:57:
DNSDies wrote on 2022-06-23, 14:40:

Video games are supposed to be an interactive media with a loss condition or they're not games anymore.

Puzzle games say hello.

Adventure games too actually.

You're right, it's just a puzzle. It's not a game, in the same way a jigsaw puzzle is not a game.
A jigsaw is a puzzle. The consequences of its configuration are determinate, for fitting puzzle piece A to spot B has always the same outcome: the piece fits of not, and if the piece fits, the system state alters into a more lucid picture. If the piece does not fit, the system state remains the same.
You can win a game, but you only solve puzzles.

Also, Bioshock has an option to disable vita-chambers, by not using it you degrade a game into an interactive novel with no consequences where the rules don't matter. It becomes a puzzle with a set and simple solution.

A puzzle is a type of game. You do not need to be able to "win" a game. One of the definitions of game is "activity engaged in for diversion or amusement."

Reply 159 of 232, by Shagittarius

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Plasma wrote on 2022-06-29, 13:30:
DNSDies wrote on 2022-06-28, 14:39:
You're right, it's just a puzzle. It's not a game, in the same way a jigsaw puzzle is not a game. A jigsaw is a puzzle. The cons […]
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ZellSF wrote on 2022-06-23, 14:57:

Puzzle games say hello.

Adventure games too actually.

You're right, it's just a puzzle. It's not a game, in the same way a jigsaw puzzle is not a game.
A jigsaw is a puzzle. The consequences of its configuration are determinate, for fitting puzzle piece A to spot B has always the same outcome: the piece fits of not, and if the piece fits, the system state alters into a more lucid picture. If the piece does not fit, the system state remains the same.
You can win a game, but you only solve puzzles.

Also, Bioshock has an option to disable vita-chambers, by not using it you degrade a game into an interactive novel with no consequences where the rules don't matter. It becomes a puzzle with a set and simple solution.

A puzzle is a type of game. You do not need to be able to "win" a game. One of the definitions of game is "activity engaged in for diversion or amusement."

I think a win condition is a requirement for a game, but I also think finishing a puzzle is a win condition.