The elegance of movement in Silksong
theahura.substack.com
The elegance of movement in Silksong
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Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#2There are probably a bunch of videos in this genre, but I found [0] to be a particularly good explanation of why Hollow Knight felt so good. If you’re experienced at game design none of this is probably news to you, but if you’re unfamiliar with terms like “coyote time”, “jump buffering” etc., this video is a great introduction to how video games break physical realism to provide a better-feeling experience, and how tuning this is critical to getting a game which feels great. Silksong is presumably using all the same techniques.
Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#3There are probably a bunch of videos in this genre, but I found [0] to be a particularly good explanation of why Hollow Knight felt so good. If you’re experienced at game design none of this is probably news to you, but if you’re unfamiliar with terms like “coyote time”, “jump buffering” etc., this video is a great introduction to how video games break physical realism to provide a better-feeling experience, and how…
> Silksong is presumably using all the same techniques.
But Silksong feels terrible. Its movement is awful and difficult to control. Hollow Knight felt smooth. Silksong is the opposite of that.
This very post is mixing its message:
>> The secret to why this game is like crack is the movement. The movement is so buttery smooth that simply getting back to the boss that just ripped you to shreds is a complex, skillful, and fundamentally enjoyable experience.
>> So am I having fun? I certainly don't feel joy in my heart when I fall into the lava for the seventeenth time because I missed a jump (if lava was a boss it would easily take the top spot for the number of times it killed me).
Falling into lava seventeen times because you keep missing the same jump is not an experience of smooth movement with player affordances.
Interestingly, there is coyote time in Silksong, but not enough that you can reliably do dash-jumps. It's just that occasionally you'll notice a jump starting from the wrong location, a little to the side of and below the edge you wanted to leap off of. Much more often, you'll notice that you hit the jump button but the jump never went off, which is the exact problem coyote time is supposed to solve.
Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#4> Selling to businesses is very easy. You go to a business and you say "hey, you like making money?" And the business will say "why yes, I do like making money" and you will say "great, I can help you make more money.
This is so wrong it hurts. You'd be amazed at how often "I will save you $X, guaranteed, or your money back" is a non-starter when selling to companies.
I've spent a career very slowly gaining respect for enterprise sales people - going from "Ugh, sales people are all snakeoil salesmen" to "I can't believe what they do is even possible, much less regularly done" over about 20 years.
Selling software to large organizations involves finding a champion within the org, then figuring out the power structure within the org via an impressive sort of kremlinology. You have to figure out who loves your product in the org, who hates it, who can make the buying decision, whose approval is needed, who's handling the details of the contract, and so on. You need to understand the constellation of people across engineering, procurement, legal, leadership, and finance – and then understand the incentive structures for each.
Then you have to actually operate this whole complex political machine to get them to buy something. Even if it's self-evidently in the interest of the whole organization to do so, it's not an easy thing to do.
Anyway, all that to say: "b2b sales are easy" is... naive... to say the least.
Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#5> Selling to businesses is very easy. You go to a business and you say "hey, you like making money?" And the business will say "why yes, I do like making money" and you will say "great, I can help you make more money. This is so wrong it hurts. You'd be amazed at how often "I will save you $X, guaranteed, or your money back" is a non-starter when selling to companies. I've spent a career very slowly gaining respect f…
yes, and I think one big reason enterprise might not buy your product even if it is guaranteed to make/save $X is $ is often NOT most important thing to the people make buying decision, specially when it is not your own money to save or gain
Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#6> Selling to businesses is very easy. You go to a business and you say "hey, you like making money?" And the business will say "why yes, I do like making money" and you will say "great, I can help you make more money. This is so wrong it hurts. You'd be amazed at how often "I will save you $X, guaranteed, or your money back" is a non-starter when selling to companies. I've spent a career very slowly gaining respect f…
Can confirm. At one point in my career (after reflection on the situation) I realized I had been made a champion by a subsidiary of IBM for one of their products. I found myself in some really bizarre meetings with our execs and their executive sales people that left me feeling like a puppet that was made to tell our CEO that we needed this. They really took us apart, It was all very slimy.
Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#7Am I the only one who didn't like Hollow Knight?
In theory, it's just the game for me: indie, charming graphics, technically well done. What's not to like?
In practice, it felt too difficult, too much work, too repetitive, and simply unfun to me.
edit: interesting, downvotes for expressing an opinion directly related to sentences in the article (how difficult games are enjoyable somehow to some people; the article is all about difficulty and enjoyment regardless!). Is this the famed respectful and intellectually stimulating discourse of HN? Guys (and gals) please realize I'm not saying you are wrong to like Hollow Knight or Silksong, just adding a data point to the fact some of us don't like punishingly difficult games.
Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#8There are probably a bunch of videos in this genre, but I found [0] to be a particularly good explanation of why Hollow Knight felt so good. If you’re experienced at game design none of this is probably news to you, but if you’re unfamiliar with terms like “coyote time”, “jump buffering” etc., this video is a great introduction to how video games break physical realism to provide a better-feeling experience, and how…
> Silksong is presumably using all the same techniques. But Silksong feels terrible. Its movement is awful and difficult to control. Hollow Knight felt smooth. Silksong is the opposite of that. This very post is mixing its message: >> The secret to why this game is like crack is the movement. The movement is so buttery smooth that simply getting back to the boss that just ripped you to shreds is a complex, skillful,…
For the record, I didn't enjoy Hollow Knight much either. It felt too repetitive and difficult to me...
Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#9There are probably a bunch of videos in this genre, but I found [0] to be a particularly good explanation of why Hollow Knight felt so good. If you’re experienced at game design none of this is probably news to you, but if you’re unfamiliar with terms like “coyote time”, “jump buffering” etc., this video is a great introduction to how video games break physical realism to provide a better-feeling experience, and how…
> Silksong is presumably using all the same techniques. But Silksong feels terrible. Its movement is awful and difficult to control. Hollow Knight felt smooth. Silksong is the opposite of that. This very post is mixing its message: >> The secret to why this game is like crack is the movement. The movement is so buttery smooth that simply getting back to the boss that just ripped you to shreds is a complex, skillful,…
I am unsure if I am just terrible at this game or more of a casual gamer with poor reflexes now, but Silksong feels particularly unforgiving. I did all the jumping puzzles in the most recent Prince of Persia game and figured out almost all of the puzzles and bosses in Metroid Dread after practice (lots of trial and error) without resorting to walk throughs, Silksong just revels in punishing you for making mistakes and forcing you to work to get back to where you just died.
Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong
#10I'm not familiar with the the named platformer titles beyond word of mouth and I may not have the free time to become so for a while but anecdotally I found some years ago that the movement controls in the games Titanfall, Doom (2016) and Titanfall 2 produced the same feeling of flow between the hands and brain the author articulates. It may come to pass that games will one day be benchmarked by neurological metrics in the superior parietal lobule and ACC of their players next to their frames per second, load times, ping stability, 1% lows and memory scaling.