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

The elegance of movement in Silksong

theahura.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 358 posts

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#61

Post by eviks »

Think the article makes a good distinction between games being hard because they're bugged and not designed well enough, so your expectations are broken and you're frustrated by how (game) life is unfair vs. a perfected design with precise match between your skill and results

> movement is so finely tuned and so precise that I know deep in my bones that any hit or death is entirely on me. Of course, that in turn makes tangible improvement extremely visible. You go into a boss fight and die, and then you die again, and then again. Each time you get a bit further, and do a few more hits. And slowly, finally, painfully, you come out on top victorious

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#62

Post by thaumasiotes »

akavel wrote: post #48
the_af wrote: post #7

Am 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…

In the same boat here - I played it for a while, but was (and am) sincerely super confused what people find so amazing in it. I mean, it's an ok game, and I get that some people may like it, why not; but the repeated claims of it being the best of all time, to me totally baffling. Already the respawning of the critters, and the grind to get some coins to get such a basic game feature as a map, two early aspects that…

> I played it for a while, but was (and am) sincerely super confused what people find so amazing in it.

That's very easy to explain. It's a Kickstarter effect.

Boardgamegeek is a website that, among other things, aggregates ratings of board games into a big master list of which games are the best, kind of like imdb.

The list has been corrupted by Kickstarter - it turns out that, when a game with a Kickstarter campaign comes out, everyone who reviews it is someone who backed the Kickstarter, and those people are personally invested in the idea that their game is good. You have to wait for quite a while before a Kickstarter game's rating can be usefully compared with a normal game's.

The waiting period for Silksong seems to have had a similar effect on the people who bought it right away.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#63

Post by vunderba »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #25

Fluid & fun movement feels great and a lot of my favorite games have it - Doom, Hades, Ori, Celeste, Apex Legends, The Finals and more. To me it's an ingredient in a great game, not something necessarily unique to Silksong though.

I'm a huge fan of pixel perfect platformers. Chalk Cuphead and Super Meat Boy up on the list of games with a very natural connection between player coordination and game mechanics.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#64

Post by loloquwowndueo »

the_af wrote: post #7

Am 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…

You’re not the only one. Hollow Knight is a gorgeous game but it’s difficult to the point of becoming unenjoyable.

I persevered and beat it out of pride, not because I was having fun (some bosses took me more than 100 attempts to finally beat, that’s not fun, it’s a chore). About a year later I did it again just to prove to myself it hadn’t just been a fluke. But after that - no more. And I’m certainly not buying Silksong, I won’t give money to creators who hate their gamers so much.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#66

Post by osu_Vanilla »

Analemma_ wrote: post #2

There 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…

[dead]

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#67

Post by djtango »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #49

> Silksong as a game should not exist. It is so brutally difficult that it stretches the very definition of the word "game". Games are supposed to be fun [...] I haven't actually played HK yet, and I don't normally play Souls-likes, but I did finally start playing Elden Ring about two months ago. Yes, I've had times where I'm cursing out loud because I've been trying to beat a boss for three hours without success, so…

My first play through of Elden Ring was a pseudo challenge run - capped at 125RL (pvp meta) and dual UGS style. No ash of war usage. No guides for bosses.

Malenia took me over a month, and probably over 500 deaths and I had to relax the ash of war usage (still limited by my very low FP)

The entire end game was brutal as this was before the buff for UGS animation speeds and most boss openings were shorter than anything than a crouch poke but I loved every minute of it. Just like learning to play something new on an instrument just cos you can't nail it in one try, one week or even one month doesn't mean you won't eventually get it.

One meta lesson I like about Souls is it provides a safe environment to learn what performing under pressure is like. The music and feints are absolutely diabolical for playing with your emotions and heightening your stress. I always play better on mute (but that's no fun)

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#68

Post by vunderba »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #49

> Silksong as a game should not exist. It is so brutally difficult that it stretches the very definition of the word "game". Games are supposed to be fun [...] I haven't actually played HK yet, and I don't normally play Souls-likes, but I did finally start playing Elden Ring about two months ago. Yes, I've had times where I'm cursing out loud because I've been trying to beat a boss for three hours without success, so…

> Silksong as a game should not exist. It is so brutally difficult that it stretches the very definition of the word "game". Games are supposed to be fun [...]

I haven't played Silksong yet and I know difficulty is rather subjective, but is it really that difficult compared to the realm of punishing platformers like NES Ninja Gaiden, Cuphead, Spelunky 2, the dark world portions of Super Meat Boy, etc?

I played the first Hollow Knight and didn't find it particularly hard. (not easy, but definitely not Dark Souls level punishing).

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#69

Post by hinkley »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #49

> Silksong as a game should not exist. It is so brutally difficult that it stretches the very definition of the word "game". Games are supposed to be fun [...] I haven't actually played HK yet, and I don't normally play Souls-likes, but I did finally start playing Elden Ring about two months ago. Yes, I've had times where I'm cursing out loud because I've been trying to beat a boss for three hours without success, so…

I played Hollow Knight. I don’t recall if I defeated a single boss. I must have done a couple but several of the first you were meant to defeat remained unchallenged.

There are non boss fights that get more elaborate as you go, and let you pick up some new skills and abilities.

Another one like this that shouldn’t have been was Orie and the blind forest. If you play it on story mode, which I did because it was great eye candy and I just wanted to see it all, there a spot in the middle of act 2 where you have to land several double wall jumps in rapid succession with nearby spikes. Someone at that studio needs to be beaten about the shoulder with a clue bat about wtf “story mode” means. I never got to see the story and was too mad to watch someone else play it on youtube.

I’m fairly sure that my problem with both was the same. Only partly fat fingers and part was that certain movements don’t work identically on all controllers. Some things are counterintuitively easier on a D pad than a thumb joystick. It’s just not as crisp to go from one input to another 90 or 180° opposite. If your game mechanics are built on that, then some ports will be much harder to play.

You should either not port them, or adjust the timing grace period up on that hardware.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#70

Post by Gigachad »

mrinterweb wrote: post #45

I've played a couple hours of silksong. I don't get the hype. Its a fine game, but I really think people are over hyping it. The internet hype loop on this game is turning me off on it. It's a nice metroidvania game.

I’ve had multiple friends insist that I absolutely have to play this game. But I just know I won’t like it because I don’t like any of the other games that are like it. This game seems to be the labubu of gamers in terms of social media hysterics.
Post reply on HN