I read to the very end and I agree with the reviewer that they've made another rosé, unfortunately. And I think that their quest was doomed from the moment the powers decided to make it a...
I read to the very end and I agree with the reviewer that they've made another rosé, unfortunately. And I think that their quest was doomed from the moment the powers decided to make it a platformer.
Full disclosure: I don't play platformers because they're frustrating and difficult for me. I don't play ANY, even if they're adorable and cute and got everything I want and belong to a beloved franchise and they make it unfailably easy.
the family focus tests often involved two parents, a “teen or tween” kid and a much younger child. These groups covered a huge age spectrum, and it revealed the ways differently aged people bring alternative forms of baggage to playing games.
How many families these days actually have two kids? And, have they interviewed these children and put them in a room with options for them to play separately, play together on other games, have the little sibling watch, vs how many actually would choose their game? Older siblings are having to be older siblings 24-7: if they're given a game, do they literally want to manually dispense hearts and manually extend ropes for their entire playthrough?
Look at actual games that the very young (~5) play. (I only have anecdotal evidence going back about 6ish years) They play "click thing, animation plays" games, sticker collect, maybe move your guy around and explore games. That's because not too long ago for them, that's what their human bodies have been doing: manipulate, observe response, input data into growing database.
Platformers represent a higher understanding of "series of steps to perform towards goal". It requires timed execution and reflex, as well as a large mental databank of video game visual cues. It's just inherently a very difficult genre.
And why do these designers feel the need to reinvent the wheel? Check out Kirby and the Forgotten Lands for example: Bandana Waddle Dee is nearly invincible and has a very limited skill set, and he just respawns near Kirby after failed jumps straight into the lava, for the 10th time this level. I know this because this is how a tween player got ME through the game. My being there doesn't slow them down: this is the most important part of making it fun for the more competent player. We've all known this from when we gave the crummy controller to the younger sibling playing late 80s ninja turtles.
That this Disney team had to add a complicated patch to jumps and edited the rope mechanic as an afterthought means they didn't design the game from the starting point of the younger player at all. This is going to be a chore of a "game" for the older player.
Also only anecdotal, but the 4-year-old I used to babysit for mostly just played Minecraft. Which I guess counts as a "move your guy around and explore game", but it also has arguably a much...
Look at actual games that the very young (~5) play
Also only anecdotal, but the 4-year-old I used to babysit for mostly just played Minecraft. Which I guess counts as a "move your guy around and explore game", but it also has arguably a much higher "series of steps to perform towards goal" metric than platformers do -- at least, imo, "jump on the thing to get to the higher thing" is more intuitive than "craft a bed so that your progress doesn't get lost". The difference, imo, is that Minecraft is eminently accessible at almost any skill level, so you can still have tons of fun even if you do everything "wrong", whereas sucking at a platformer just... sucks.
Minecraft creative mode? :) Fair, it's not that the very young kids can't perform a complex series of steps, but that they take a little longer, and interruptions and dangers to those steps are...
Minecraft creative mode? :)
Fair, it's not that the very young kids can't perform a complex series of steps, but that they take a little longer, and interruptions and dangers to those steps are more difficult to recover from. So if they can play at their pace with minimal interruption it works out pretty great. StarDewValley with some gentle mods work very well for the young players too.
While playing Disney Illusion Island, I noticed a mechanic that allowed players to drop a rope for other players to climb. The rope isn’t on a cooldown, nor a set length. If one player makes it through a platforming sequence that ends up with them higher than the others, they can drop a rope with the touch of a button and everyone can climb.
The rope didn’t always function this way, Grand-Scrutton told me. At first, the rope would only drop a certain length, because, the thinking went, they didn’t want people to be skipping parts of levels. Players would be rob of a sense of accomplishment.
But over time, the arbitrary limitations gave the team pause.
“What is the benefit of not letting that rope go to full length for the screen?” said Grand-Scrutton. “Oh, it means people can skip all the content. Well, one person has to have got through it all, and the only people skipping it are the people that probably are struggling.”
Over and over, he noted, the team would introduce a “welcoming” idea, yet adhere it to more traditional platforming standards, essentially “making game design solutions for game designers, not for players.” It was a lot of hand wringing over “the integrity of design,” when the team constantly found itself drawn to ensuring players have fun.
I read to the very end and I agree with the reviewer that they've made another rosé, unfortunately. And I think that their quest was doomed from the moment the powers decided to make it a platformer.
Full disclosure: I don't play platformers because they're frustrating and difficult for me. I don't play ANY, even if they're adorable and cute and got everything I want and belong to a beloved franchise and they make it unfailably easy.
How many families these days actually have two kids? And, have they interviewed these children and put them in a room with options for them to play separately, play together on other games, have the little sibling watch, vs how many actually would choose their game? Older siblings are having to be older siblings 24-7: if they're given a game, do they literally want to manually dispense hearts and manually extend ropes for their entire playthrough?
Look at actual games that the very young (~5) play. (I only have anecdotal evidence going back about 6ish years) They play "click thing, animation plays" games, sticker collect, maybe move your guy around and explore games. That's because not too long ago for them, that's what their human bodies have been doing: manipulate, observe response, input data into growing database.
Platformers represent a higher understanding of "series of steps to perform towards goal". It requires timed execution and reflex, as well as a large mental databank of video game visual cues. It's just inherently a very difficult genre.
And why do these designers feel the need to reinvent the wheel? Check out Kirby and the Forgotten Lands for example: Bandana Waddle Dee is nearly invincible and has a very limited skill set, and he just respawns near Kirby after failed jumps straight into the lava, for the 10th time this level. I know this because this is how a tween player got ME through the game. My being there doesn't slow them down: this is the most important part of making it fun for the more competent player. We've all known this from when we gave the crummy controller to the younger sibling playing late 80s ninja turtles.
That this Disney team had to add a complicated patch to jumps and edited the rope mechanic as an afterthought means they didn't design the game from the starting point of the younger player at all. This is going to be a chore of a "game" for the older player.
Also only anecdotal, but the 4-year-old I used to babysit for mostly just played Minecraft. Which I guess counts as a "move your guy around and explore game", but it also has arguably a much higher "series of steps to perform towards goal" metric than platformers do -- at least, imo, "jump on the thing to get to the higher thing" is more intuitive than "craft a bed so that your progress doesn't get lost". The difference, imo, is that Minecraft is eminently accessible at almost any skill level, so you can still have tons of fun even if you do everything "wrong", whereas sucking at a platformer just... sucks.
Minecraft creative mode? :)
Fair, it's not that the very young kids can't perform a complex series of steps, but that they take a little longer, and interruptions and dangers to those steps are more difficult to recover from. So if they can play at their pace with minimal interruption it works out pretty great. StarDewValley with some gentle mods work very well for the young players too.