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Inside Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator’s deliberately designed friction

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

#41

Post by soared »

TMWNN wrote: post #20
meristohm wrote: post #2

Since I care about memorable stories that emerge through play, convenience is not king. It’s a difficulty balance to strike, as we all have different frustration tolerance and different reasons for playing games in the first place. I’ve always been an explorer in games, and I used to care more about being powerful. Now what little free time I spend in games is less about the (illusion of the) end goal and more about…

>Since I care about memorable stories that emerge through play, convenience is not king. As an example, I think the biggest mistake Blizzard made with World of Warcraft is a) adding flight, and b) making flying so easy. a) devalues the hard work developers and artists put into gorgeous scenery, because those flying high overhead will miss much of it. b) destroys much of the gameplay when outdoors (where most flying o…

On the other hand, I quit new world because it turned into a walking simulator.

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

#42

Post by sushid »

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…

That's very interesting. I felt like Retro Bowl was well made but almost too easy. As long as I had a mid-term QB and a top tier WR the games were a breeze.

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

#43

Post by victorcharlie »

austinl wrote: post #17
sidibe wrote: post #9

The way he describes friction reminds of the book Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Good book with a giant obstacle of tons of made up vocabulary. I read that a long time ago, and now I'm not sure how much I enjoyed the story/characters and how much of it was just a different level of immersion and satisfaction from getting through the friction.

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]…

I really _really_ tried to enjoy The Shadow of the Torturer but I couldn't fall into rhythm I guess. As English is my second language, I had to struggle to know if a word was invented or just obscure English (I found that the author uses a fucktonne of the latter after I finished it). And I hate needing a glossary to read a novel (looking at you Tolkien).

It struck to me like an 80s animated movie: extremely rich from a technical point of view but, well, not a good history and even boring for some people (think about Vampire Hunter D or Angel's Egg. For the record, I love these movies).

Meh, I'll give it another go, after I finish Blindsight from Peter Watts (2006). Thanks for reminding me of that saga!

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

#44

Post by Spellman »

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…

Some notables from the Big Names: * Call of Duty Mobile * Alto's Odyssey (personally prefer Alto's Adventure) * Genshin Impact is pretty polished * League of Legends: Wild Rift * Hearthstone/Legends of Runeterra * SoulKnight * My Friend Pedro

Minor plug for UnCiv being FOSS

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

#46

Post by indigochill »

bentcorner wrote: post #23

Reminds me of the intentional friction in Red Dead Redemption 2. When you go through a house to take things, you have to literally see your character pick things up before it can be placed in your inventory. There is no auto-collection in this game. The result is a slower-paced game where you really feel like some guy in the outdoors cooking skinned rabbits on a stove and picking your way through an abandoned cottage…

Another example of intentional friction is all the fiddliness of walking and generally antagonistic terrain in Death Stranding. Since a primary way the player interacts with the game is laying down roads and lines and stuff that generally eases the pain of getting from Point A to Point B (and moreover, asynchronously cooperating with other players to construct useful routes), the initial process needs to be painful in order for the construction to feel cathartic.

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

#47

Post by austinl »

victorcharlie wrote: post #43
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]…

I really _really_ tried to enjoy The Shadow of the Torturer but I couldn't fall into rhythm I guess. As English is my second language, I had to struggle to know if a word was invented or just obscure English (I found that the author uses a fucktonne of the latter after I finished it). And I hate needing a glossary to read a novel (looking at you Tolkien). It struck to me like an 80s animated movie: extremely rich fro…

I couldn't imagine trying to read Wolfe with English as a second language — definitely commendable! One thing I'd recommend if you're giving it another go is to read the chapters, then listen to Alzabo Soup (the podcast) afterwards. It's a spoiler-light discussion of the book, and they highlight a lot of things I missed on the first read.

Another recommendation is to try the Book of the Long Sun series instead. I actually recommend that to folks more frequently if they aren't sci-fi readers. I think it's a bit more approachable in terms of language, and the tone is very different. There's also no character like Severian in that series, which I think is a good thing.

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

#48

Post by dkbrk »

I think friction works best when it's not completely out of the player's control. That way it's an opportunity for the player to exert their agency. If the player can't exert any control over friction though, if it's a fixed cost they have to repeatedly pay and can't do anything about, then it's just drudgery.

As an example, in Papers, Please, the UI is a significant source of friction. But the player can compensate for it by figuring out the best way to organize their workspace and the best "route" to go through all the pieces of information they have to check, and then implementing that consistently. Figuring out the best way to do things is a substantial part of the gameplay.

Also, in general with cases where there's no fast travel and travel is used as a source of friction, the player may still have many ways of reducing its cost. They can choose more efficient routes, find shortcuts, or obtain faster ways of traveling. An extreme case is Morrowind, where, by the middle of the game, most players will have memorized the network of various overlapping travel options and/or found or created a magic item that will allow them to zip around at ludicrous speed.

I haven't played Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, but if organs eat each other, I wonder if there are any mechanics that allow the player to compensate for that, such as being able to re-arrange them as they're loaded to keep organs likely to eat one another far apart.

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

#49

Post by eru »

brimble wrote: post #28
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and roguelikes will bring you back to the beginning I think the best roguelikes are the ones who let you fail and then proceed limping. Or maybe the best games in general, since I'm not sure if Rimworld counts as a roguelike. Either way, to start from the beginning in a good roguelike means to have made a chain of bad decisions.

That's more a quality of the "rogue lite" subgenre, no? Which I do personally prefer to the traditional kind. Though "fail but keep going" can go very wrong, in the case of something like FTL, where you can easily have "lost" by the end of the first or second area due to a bad roll, but still manage to limp all the way to the end (with no hope whatsoever of winning). An early "game over" would be preferable there to…

Your observation about FTL sounds about right. Though, if you are an experienced player and playing on a lower difficulty, there's many scenarios that you can turn around that might look lost?

I am not sure if FTL is the best example here? FTL is slightly unusual because it has a turn-limit, because you always have to move forward, and you might not have enough time left to recover.

By contrast, in Nethack there are basically no mistakes that damn you to limp along and lock you out of winning. Either you die quickly, or you can recover into a winnable position. (Though you might be locked out of certain niceties for a run, you don't need any specific permanently-loseable nicety to win.)

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

#50

Post by rendall »

austinl wrote: post #17
sidibe wrote: post #9

The way he describes friction reminds of the book Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Good book with a giant obstacle of tons of made up vocabulary. I read that a long time ago, and now I'm not sure how much I enjoyed the story/characters and how much of it was just a different level of immersion and satisfaction from getting through the friction.

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]…

The Book of the New Sun is my favorite series of all time, and the only one I have read 3 times, first when I was 13, and the last after 40. The first two times, I did not have a clear idea of what was happening, just thought it was beautiful. The third time I actually got a grasp of the narrative arc, understanding who Severian was and who he became. Just, a marvelous series.
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