[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Crapstorm

No, not always. Back in the '80s, Infocom ranked their games by level of difficulty, i.e. "novice," "intermediate," and "expert." They deliberately made games, like Wishbringer (1985), to ease newcomers into the pasttime. I haven't seen an adventure game marketted "for beginners" since then.

You misunderstand me, I think. I'm not saying that I'm looking for a game for beginners, or even a game which makes things easier for beginners. I'm looking for a game with a well-thought-out difficulty curve. When I think of a good difficulty curve I think of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, so maybe I ought to point that out just to show what I'm saying. (I'd decided in the last post not to bring it up, but I really need to get the idea across.) It's a game which gets pretty difficult later on, with lots of different types of gameplay that the player needs to understand completely. But every gameplay element is introduced gradually and clearly. It's not designed only for beginners, but it acknowledges that it might be someone's first game. And it doesn't do it in a way that's condescending. For instance, the player might not know how to use an analog stick at the very beginning. The game doesn't baby the player- it just puts the very first controllable scene in a small 2D room where there is a clear goal to walk over to the door. (This is what I meant by subtle.) It's as un-frustrating a learning environment as possible, so that the player won't feel overwhelmed. After that, the game can take the element as a given. Or as another example, as soon as the player gets the slingshot there is a very small puzzle which can only be solved by understanding how the slingshot works. Immediately afterwards, the player is put in an action environment which can only be passed with the slingshot; the solution is less obvious, but it is the same solution. After that, the player will understand to handle anything that comes their way for the slingshot.

I hope I've made clear what I'm talking about. I'm not saying the developers need to be condescending- I'm just asking if there were any adventure developers ever who understood that their players would be learning as they went, and designed a game for that.

A bad difficulty curve is when a game starts and the player, still trying to get a feel for the interface, is asked to solve a complex inventory puzzle. The proper way to design that is to give the player at the start examples of every type of interaction, where it's perfectly clear what needs to be done. A bad difficulty curve is when a type of puzzle is used only once, in the best way the developers can possibly think of. Proper design would be to use a very simple version of the puzzle first, then continue with that type of puzzle as a returning theme, each time more complex and brain-twisting, until by the end of the game there is an extremely difficult variant of the puzzle. A bad difficulty curve is when the second half of the game is easier than the first. Proper design would be to increase the difficulty level slowly and consistently. A bad difficulty curve is when the final puzzle of the game is a self-contained one having no connection to any of the previous puzzles. Proper design would be for the end of the game to be the climax of the most common type of puzzle.

I dunno- maybe I'm using the words "difficulty curve" wrong. Maybe there's a different term I ought to be using. But I think I've made myself clear by this point. A game which is well-designed can be played by players of any level of experience, because the player will always be given the tools he needs to succeed. A poorly-designed game can only be played by people who already know what they'll be asked to do before they start. An inexperienced player playing a well-designed game will always be challenged for a little bit, because his skill will constantly and consistently be stretched. After solving each problem, he will be satisfied. But if that player tries a poorly designed game, he will feel frustrated and confused throughout. And then he'll go to a walkthrough, and in the long run he'll feel left out of the experience. In a well-designed game, a player will be much better by the end of the game than he was to begin. In a poorly-designed game, that is not necessarily the case.

I don't have the patience for poorly designed games. Some of you may recall how annoyed I get by typical adventure games. Adventure games came from a time when if you were completely stuck (a sign of poor design), you'd keep trying anyway. Eventually, you'd figure it out on your own, and then you'd be able to deal with similar puzzles whenever they showed up in other games. Well, I didn't play those older games, and I don't have the patience for them. If I get stuck, I will check a walkthrough, and I won't be sorry to do so. I've got better ways to spend my time than force myself through a poorly designed game. For instance, I can spend my time on games that were designed well. But when I use a walkthrough to solve a puzzle, I don't learn anything at all. When I end the game, I'll be no better a player than when I started. And when I play another adventure and come across the same kind of puzzle, designed just as inaccessibly, I'll be just as stuck.

Now, in an ideal world, most adventure games would be designed well and no one would get very frustrated. You'd stick with it for a few minutes, and you'd remember something you'd done earlier, and you'd figure it out. But this is not an ideal world, and adventure games have never been the epitome of good design. Yet there might still be a solution. Adventure games' puzzles are pretty conventional. Every now and then you'll see one which is truly original, but it's rare. So you should only need to learn it once, in one game, and then you're equipped to play all the rest. What I am looking for is that one game.

And to repeat for the umpteenth time: I am not talking about dumbing adventure games down. Since adventure games are so impenetrable (due to not teaching their players what they need to learn), modern adventure designers often try to make their games more accessible by not making their puzzles difficult. Well, it works, in that more people can now play the games. But the problem of bad design doesn't go away, because the players are still not much better by the end of the game than they were from the start. A flat difficulty curve (albeit a bumpy one) is pointless, whether that "curve" is on ground-level or so high up that no one can reach it. An easy adventure won't prepare new players for hard adventures, it'll just waste their time. And for experienced players it'll just feel lightweight. So no, that is not what I'm looking for.