The Game Design Dungeon

Within these virtual walls the game mechanics which have committed the most heinous, diabolical Crimes Against Gamers are interred, without hope of parole. Abandon hope all ye who enter here!

Want to bring charges against a game mechanic? Feel free to leave an accusation in the comments!

The Prisoners

Quick Time Events (QTEs)
Found Guilty by a vote of 9 to 4 (21st January 2009)

The Innocent

The First Innocent Game Mechanic Will Appear Here
Found Not Guilty by a vote of x to y (Date)

Comments

[Katherine]

The animation at the top would look better if it didn't flash so fast...

[Chris]

Katherine: I'm totally ignorant of the way these sort of animations work. If you (or anyone else) can slow down the flashing rate I'll happily replace the image.

Cheers!

[Katherine]

I probably don't know much more, but maybe I will poke it with my gif animator program when I get home (and then that will make it incompatible with one or more browsers knowing my luck.)

[OsK]

The "handsaving" which is the absolute way, by forcing you to think about saving about every 10s, to destroy immersion... It should be thrown into the pits of the Game Design Dungeon !

[Chris]

OsK: Ah yes, "creep saving" as some people call it. Yes, I think I can add this to the docket for a future trial... Thanks for the accusation! :)

[OsK]

Farming has been given birth by the RPGs genre but has since crossed it's genitor's borders, that could also be an interesting trial.

Farming as the obligation/possibility to gain something out of a precise game sequence or gameplay trial should be seen as an artificial way to extend one's game life expectancy, and thus as the lack of time/will to add more content.
World of Warcraft kind of gave it it's first officialization with the daily repeatable quests system I guess.

In my view, it should be thrown down into oblivion in the deepest depth of the Game Design Dungeon, or at least be tried ! ;)

[Katherine]

Is an inability to change the mouse sensitivity a mechanic?

I can't think of a mechanic that I hate every time I see it; all mechanics I've thought of only irritate me in certain circumstances, which I would put under bad implementation.

[Trevel]

For crimes against gamers everywhere, I hereby nominate the following mechanic:

The Unskippable Cutscene.

Leniency shall be granted to those under 7 seconds in length. The death penalty shall be demanded on those over a minute, or between a save point and a difficult boss fight.

[Katherine]

Oh hells yeah! I agree with you completely Trevel. But is it a game mechanic? My definition is I think stricter than Chris'. I see a game mechanic as something that determines how you play the game, whereas with unskippable cutscenes, you're not playing the game at all, merely watching a movie ;)

[Behrooz 'Bezman' Shahriari]

Ah, but in causing you to not play, isn't it determining 'how you play the game' - the result being 'with annoying imposed breaks'.

Having recently started playing Team Fortress 2, my conviction would be against "large dead zones" in the centre of the analogue joystick. There's a sudden jump from not moving the cursor at all to having it move at more than the minimal rate. Instead, if the dead zone were reduced significantly, with a negligible amount of movement around the centre and a slightly more gradual acceleration, it'd feel more instantly natural rather than requiring us to adjust.

Real things react in a minute way when we exert a minute amount of force. Since the N64, consoles have been able to give varying results in response to varying pressure, but having a big dead zone just seems to make a game's controls far less intuitive than it should be!

A pardon is given for a game where animation is an issue, or it makes no sense to want a minute response (say, in any platformer or most games that involve control of a non-shooting human). But when controlling the wheels of a vehicle or our aim, there seems to be no reasonable excuse!

[Chris]

Hi all!

Osk: what you call "farming" is what many people call "grinding" - this is an interesting debate! I will consider this one for a future trial.

Katherine: mouse sensitivity... yes, this is one of those accessibility issues the industry is slow in catching up on. But I can't argue that you *shouldn't* allow players to adjust sensitivity, so this would be less of a trial and more of a general indictment.

Trevel: again, how could I possibly argue in favour of unskippable cutscenes? :) I need issues that can be argued both ways to hold a trial.

---

I think there will be lots of these little niggles that there is no case in favour of. Perhaps we can devise another minigame which plays these niggles off against each other - the winner being pardoned and the loser being condemned to the Dungeon (a la Jesus vs Barabbas).

I'll ponder this and get back with some draft rules soon.

Cheers!

[Peter Crowther]

Grinding is certainly an interesting one for a trial, given that its inclusion in a game causes grumbles but potentially keeps Logistical players coming back.

I'll toss in achievements. Sample pro: increased longevity of play as a player goes back through the game (often existing content, which makes it compelling for MMOs where there is a cost of authoring new content to keep the player base happy). Sample con: Gotta... Get... The... Bloody... Achievement...!

[Trevel]

And yet they (Unskippable cutscenes) seem to be done consistently and repeatedly by the game industry. Someone must think there are pros to it... I've just no idea what, but you're right -- it'd an indictment (or a lynch mob), not a trial.

For a more controversial trial: Instant Death Traps. Or, perhaps "Limited Lives".

[Chris]

Peter: excellent, I'm glad you mentioned Achievements as this is one of my bugbears right now - although I certainly see the positives as well as the negatives. In fact, my original three issues to put on trial were QTEs, Achievements and unmarked scavenger hunts. I shall definitely be taking Achievements to trial at some point later this year! :)

As for grinding, you're right - people moan about it, but some players actually do really enjoy it. Trouble is, even the players that enjoy it think they hate it because what they remember are those times when the work vs reward dipped below what was entertaining. I think we'd struggle to make a trial of this, but I shall mull...

Trevel: Instant Death might be better suited to one of these x vs y games, rather than a trial. "Limited lives" is an interesting one, though, as it has a significant effect on the gameplay either way. Let me mull this one... I don't think I'm ready to move on it yet, but I could pursue this in the future.