Videogame Discussion

[knightsdestiny]

Hello everyone!

Recently, I started a software developement degree course and in a couple months I'll start building a project portfolio. One of the things I am considering working on for this portfolio is a new kind of videogame.

That being said, I'd like to know what element or characteristic brings you back to playing the game time after time.

All input is appreciated, now arguements please. :)

[Galactic Druid]

There is one game I play at least once a year, despite knowing everything there is to know about it; The Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past.

The game has a great balance of story. It's a little dated these days, but it's there and it works. It also knows when to shut up and let you play. It's a great balance of it.

The game's challenge is just right too me. Not too easy, not too hard, with plenty of ways to make it harder if you want: forego hearts, for example.

Graphically speaking, it's a treat. This one is hard to nail. By comparison, Ocarina of Time is practically painful for me to look at these days. LttP understands a core concept I wish more games did: a good art style stays timeless far more than the most cutting edge graphical power. For another comparison, look at some of the most realistic looking games from the Dreamcast era vs. Jet Set Radio. JSR still looks bright and fun and cartoony today, while many of the other games look very dated.

Gameplay is where things really shine though. For every Zelda game really, but especially LttP. The sense of exploration and discovery is incredible, with a new secret around every corner, and not every new toy is sealed off in a dungeon. It's pretty cool to blow up a wall and discover the ice rod the first time. More importantly, LttP just shut up and let me discover these things on my own. I moss the respect for the players intelligence older games seemed to have.

That's not even getting into the huge variety of ways you can play using the randomizer. I won't go into it much because it's not about the original game design, but I will say the fact that you can take every item in the game, and mix them all up to the point where it's hard to recognize, and it can still work is a testament to how well designed that game and it's world are.

Other games I've come back to a lot include stuff like Diablo, Stardew Valley and Rune Factory. Similar to LttP, these games havev a constant feel of new stuff and accomplishment. Rune factory is especially dangerous with this; I'll find myself up near midnight going "Okay, just one more day, I can harvest all my crops tomorrow... oh dang, that was enough to afford this major upgrade, well, I gotta see what I can do with it... oh, I might be able to explore more of the map now, gotta take one more day to do that... well I can't go to bed now, my crops will be ready tomorrow...". With Diablo, it's a case of the game feeling different each time, thanks to the variety of ways to play it. Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon are great at this too, each run feels unique. It's great when you get some awesome synergy going with items, as well, though development in those games is more random than diablo.

Bottom lining it from all this, what's important to me in a game are:

A sense of accomplishment. Doesn't have to be big every time, but if I can walk away from playing a couple hours feeling like I did something, that's great.

Not every game can have a sense of exploration in the way Zelda does, but they can have it. Whether it's a secret area in an FPS, an alternate route in a 2D platformer, etc, that feeling of discovery and reward carries a lot.

Style over substance with the graphics.

If you want players to play more than once, give them a reason to! Characters that play differently, new story elements, etc all help a lot. The only RPGs I've played more than once all the way through are Chrono Trigger for all it's amazing alternate endings and Fire Emblem Three Houses for being practically a whole new game each time.

Rougelikes and randomly generated games can be very replayable by nature, but IMO, it's not enough to have procedurally generated levels and call it infinite variety. The best rougelikes know when to randomize design and what to keep consistent to make a game shine and be replayable.

All right, long post is long. I'm peacing out here while it's still readable lol.

[Carly]

one game i played a lot of was Alpha Centuri, it was in the ilk of civilizations.

the graphics was crap, but the awesome thing about it was that were several ways you could progress simultaneously.

You could explore more of the map - and the world was randomly generated each time. You could build armies, you could research tech, you could focus on trade with others etc - you could built more buildings in your cities that do more for stuff.

it just had several angles of development or improvement at the same time.

[Lyron]

I probably played Mass Effect 3 (if not the trilogy's entirety) at least five times through to completion. I would say the illusion of choice helped, but really, of the times I completed the playthroughs, I was always (predominantly) paragon and I always romanced the same person. I would just kind of miss the characters after a while and need to see them, plus I'm a sucker for an emotional story, and the soundtrack had some memorable compositions.

Skyrim and Fallout 4 for the fantasies, and they're easy worlds to just jump into.

Civ V because it will scratch my itch for turn-based strategy. The "one more turn" syndrome hits hard.

Although I have never completed it (too ADD I guess), I will occasionally jump into Horizon Zero Dawn because I love the feel of the archery combat.

I haven't really gotten around to replaying them because I haven't had the itch for that style of game in a while, but Stardew Valley and Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns really stood out to me. They both provide enough content and pace things well so that you almost always have at least one thing to work toward, or one new thing to freshen the experience before it can become stale.

[Galactic Druid]

Weird fun fact: Story of Seasons is the Harvest Moon series of games that inspired Stardew, while Harvest Moon is a cheap knockoff of Harvest Moon, weird as that sounds. Basically, when the company that made SoS got big enough to publish in the US themselves, Natsume who had been publishing them kept the rights to the name Harvest Moon. That’s why there’s an upcoming Story of Seasons game that’s a remake of Friends of Mineral Town, and why Harvest Moon seemed to take such a nosedive in quality around the time SoS showed up.

[Marumor]

I thought Story of Seasons was made because something happened to Rune Factory. I was sad to hear they weren't making more RF; I always preferred those to Harvest Moon. It wasn't the combat. I think I just enjoyed the characters more. I think RF 4 was the first RF or HM where I dropped my initial romance target (just shy of completion) because this grumpy horse mofo. I didn't like him at first, but he grew on me.

What brings me back to a game?
Being able to jump right in, especially if it's multiplayer!
One of the things that killed WoW for me was the amount of content and BS I had to do just to stay "caught up" enough to raid. I would get online to play with friends, but I can't do that new dungeon until I grind out this new zone. :| I don't mind grinding; I mind being roped off from the people I want to play with. I can't or won't play the game as often as they do, so keeping up with all of the new quests and stuff that come out is a major chore.
I ain't got time for that. Games like LoL and Overwatch always really easy to get into, even if you haven't played in a while, and I appreciate that.

Not choking on forced content.
Kind of an add-on the point above. I appreciate rich lore and story, but I'm here to play, not read or watch. (My opinion on this mostly revolves around multiplayer games; story is a lot more important in RPGs and the like.) I love games that let players explore the lore on their own time, at their own pace. If your story isn't good enough to pull people in, it's definitely not good enough to shove down someone's throat.

I mostly play online multiplayer games lately, but with single-player?
Banner Saga
The game is GORGEOUS. Art is amazing and the music is fucking incredible -- and they both fit together really well. The characters and story are very well written, which makes it very easy to get swept up in it. Aside from just being a very aesthetic game, the way the story branches definitely gives it high replay value. Story choices, resource management, and battles you win or lose effect what characters you have, and those characters affect what scenes and characters you might see in the future. The ending is mostly the same, but how you get there varies. It has a very Game of Thrones feel to it in that "Oh, lord. Who's going to die this time?!"
13/10 Will send the big, green frog man over the cliff again.

Journey
Heeeey, same musical artist! Journey (PS3 + PS4) is a very short and simple game, but like Banner Saga it has epic music and an A+ aesthetic. The story in this one is really vague, however, and I don't think there's a single word said or written (in a real-world language) aside from menu and credits and such.

Meadow (another multiplayer game) comes to mind when I mention Journey. Though, it's more like The Isle without the bloodshed. Like Journey, there's no way to communicate directly, but you can use sounds and emotes. You just frolic around a small map as an animal. No direction, no real goal. There are obelisks on the map that give you points towards unlocking skins and other animals, but that's about it. It is amusing to see a group of animals running around the map looking for them -- many obelisks require 1-2 specific animals to pop it open. Everyone seems to communicate really well without words, and it makes the game playable by all sorts of folk since there's no real language barrier.