Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

gamedeveloper.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 62 posts

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#31

Post by schnevets »

DylanSp wrote: post #27
schnevets wrote: post #5

I haven't played this game, but I'll definitely add it to my watchlist from this insightful conversation. I had an interesting experience with friction playing the Retro Bowl (football) and Retro Goal (soccer) games on my iPhone. I don't usually play sports titles, but they build an interesting feeling where you just can't win 'em all. If you are building a franchise, some matches will be impossible to win, so you ju…

I'm guessing they're a step up in complexity, but the Football Manager series might be up your alley. Especially starting in the lower leagues, there's going to be a similar dynamic, where your semi-pro team just isn't going to be able to win everything out of the gates.

I have had some fun with Football Manager, and it does have a similar vibe of "letting the story play out". However, the Retro games allow you to actively control players in the match itself, instead of only being the manager like in FM.

That's the cool thing: an extremely skillful player may thrash an opponent and earn a big reward, but in a different situation may only be able to "avoid disaster". I feel like this is similar to real-life, but isn't really applied in a lot of games.

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#32

Post by the_af »

duxup wrote: post #14
schnevets wrote: post #5

I haven't played this game, but I'll definitely add it to my watchlist from this insightful conversation. I had an interesting experience with friction playing the Retro Bowl (football) and Retro Goal (soccer) games on my iPhone. I don't usually play sports titles, but they build an interesting feeling where you just can't win 'em all. If you are building a franchise, some matches will be impossible to win, so you ju…

Maybe I’ve had good luck but I’ve run across more f2p games that have all the trappings of dark patterns and having to pay just to win and … they’re actually good games and skill wins over pay to win. I wish there was a good way to classify a “f2p… but reasonably balanced “ game.

Do you have examples of good F2P games? I'd like to take a look.

To me, a bad pattern -- usually done by F2P games, but I don't think it's mandatory for them to use it -- is both the mindless grind ("am I having fun with this, or just clicking stuff?") and the pay-to-skip aspect. To me the latter is the worst, an admission by the game developers that their game is boring and the only way to get to the "good parts" is to spend money to fast-forward them. Usually there aren't even any good parts, it's all skippable.

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#33

Post by schnevets »

duxup wrote: post #14
schnevets wrote: post #5

I haven't played this game, but I'll definitely add it to my watchlist from this insightful conversation. I had an interesting experience with friction playing the Retro Bowl (football) and Retro Goal (soccer) games on my iPhone. I don't usually play sports titles, but they build an interesting feeling where you just can't win 'em all. If you are building a franchise, some matches will be impossible to win, so you ju…

Maybe I’ve had good luck but I’ve run across more f2p games that have all the trappings of dark patterns and having to pay just to win and … they’re actually good games and skill wins over pay to win. I wish there was a good way to classify a “f2p… but reasonably balanced “ game.

You are absolutely correct that the genre is maturing more than many gamers realize. Many gaming pundits that I follow seem to get caught in a particular game, and it changes their perspective of the format as a whole. For example, I have been hearing a lot of praise for Final Fantasy: First Soldier lately.

I actually think something similar to the Gartner hype cycle applies [1]. Any shovelware became profitable during the Zynga/King heydays, but quality declined and the ecosystem become more competitive. We are now hitting a point where some quality is needed to distinguish ones self.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#34

Post by schnevets »

the_af wrote: post #32
duxup wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’ve had good luck but I’ve run across more f2p games that have all the trappings of dark patterns and having to pay just to win and … they’re actually good games and skill wins over pay to win. I wish there was a good way to classify a “f2p… but reasonably balanced “ game.

Do you have examples of good F2P games? I'd like to take a look. To me, a bad pattern -- usually done by F2P games, but I don't think it's mandatory for them to use it -- is both the mindless grind ("am I having fun with this, or just clicking stuff?") and the pay-to-skip aspect. To me the latter is the worst, an admission by the game developers that their game is boring and the only way to get to the "good parts" is…

I have had a lot of fun with Brawl Stars. Supercell got a bad wrap because Clash of Clans was so frequently mimicked, but they clearly have some passionate designers.

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#36

Post by MWil »

schnevets wrote: post #5

I haven't played this game, but I'll definitely add it to my watchlist from this insightful conversation. I had an interesting experience with friction playing the Retro Bowl (football) and Retro Goal (soccer) games on my iPhone. I don't usually play sports titles, but they build an interesting feeling where you just can't win 'em all. If you are building a franchise, some matches will be impossible to win, so you ju…

I had a similar urge in Retro Bowl but it wasn't based on my impression that I was being "trapped" into failure unless I spent cash so much as that's what legitimately happens when there's a finite game clock. The Green Bay Packers for example, can absolutely take up the last 9-10 minutes of the game in real life leaving you with 30 seconds for a hail mary strategy. That's a real life pressure that I felt in that game where the CPU has the ball and the lead.

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#37

Post by airstrike »

> What sorts of shortcomings do you feel may be integral to a work? That can be removed?

> > If you had infinite time and budget to make a game, I believe it’s still entirely fair for you, as an artist, to choose the limitations that define your work. Or for your work to, in some way, be compromised! You're a flawed human being, making a flawed execution of a flawed creative vision. The word ‘flaw’ in itself, when applied to art, is not an inherent detriment. It is instead an acknowledgement that we are communicating to each other in the limited way that we can given our limited time and perspective in this universe, and that this is in fact what makes those words exceptional.

> > My point isn't that things should not be fun, but that so-called ‘shortcomings’ can be a critical part of making them fun, especially when intentionally chosen. With that context, it's been kind of jarring to play critical pieces of game canon for the first time and see imaginary Steam reviews pop up in my head. If Silent Hill 2 was released for the first time today, I’m fairly sure it would have negative Steam reviews for how foggy it was. Are those theoretical reviews correct? Yes. And are all of those theoretical reviews also wrong? Undoubtedly.

This is such a interesting take, particularly that first paragraph which alone probably made the article worth reading and sharing.

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#38

Post by NoNameHaveI »

MWil wrote: post #36
schnevets wrote: post #5

I haven't played this game, but I'll definitely add it to my watchlist from this insightful conversation. I had an interesting experience with friction playing the Retro Bowl (football) and Retro Goal (soccer) games on my iPhone. I don't usually play sports titles, but they build an interesting feeling where you just can't win 'em all. If you are building a franchise, some matches will be impossible to win, so you ju…

I had a similar urge in Retro Bowl but it wasn't based on my impression that I was being "trapped" into failure unless I spent cash so much as that's what legitimately happens when there's a finite game clock. The Green Bay Packers for example, can absolutely take up the last 9-10 minutes of the game in real life leaving you with 30 seconds for a hail mary strategy. That's a real life pressure that I felt in that gam…

PACKERS!!! WOOO!!!

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#39

Post by duxup »

the_af wrote: post #32
duxup wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’ve had good luck but I’ve run across more f2p games that have all the trappings of dark patterns and having to pay just to win and … they’re actually good games and skill wins over pay to win. I wish there was a good way to classify a “f2p… but reasonably balanced “ game.

Do you have examples of good F2P games? I'd like to take a look. To me, a bad pattern -- usually done by F2P games, but I don't think it's mandatory for them to use it -- is both the mindless grind ("am I having fun with this, or just clicking stuff?") and the pay-to-skip aspect. To me the latter is the worst, an admission by the game developers that their game is boring and the only way to get to the "good parts" is…

World of Tanks Blitz is a game I’ve been playing for over a year now, lots of fun.

Re: Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

#40

Post by svachalek »

pickettd wrote: post #22
austinl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you liked Anathem, I'd recommend reading Gene Wolfe's series, The Book of the New Sun [1]. I didn't quite like it the first time, but decided to reread the series because I kept thinking about it a year later. The world is deep, and Wolfe does a great job of revealing parts of it, bit by bit. The use of vocabulary in the series is so unique that someone produced a companion dictionary called the Lexicon Urthus [2]…

As an additional data point - I've read Anathem multiple times and have loved it every time but I read The Book of the New Sun series and really disliked it (though to be fair, I only read TBotNS series once). But I know that TBotNS gets great reviews. So as always with books, your mileage may vary.

Gene Wolfe (the author of TBotNS) loves unreliable narrators. His books are almost like a game of trying to figure out how exactly he is lying to you, with only the flaws in the narration as your guide. They don't come to a satisfying conclusion where all is revealed to you; you may never even realize you've been tricked.

It's another example of friction, you have to realize the game you have entered, and be willing to figure out a novel (or in this case trilogy) sized puzzle, where the puzzle pieces are buried in perfectly ordinary prose. If it sounds like fun, and you're up for the challenge, his books can be a unique pleasure. If not, you will miss out on a lot of the more interesting things that are happening between the lines.

If you're interested in the concept I recommend Fifth Head of Cerberus as a better entry point into Wolfe's writing. It's a collection of 3 novellas set on the same planet. They are inter-related but each is basically its own story-puzzle, in a much more digestible size than New Sun.

Post reply on HN