by Kenneth Chen | Oct 27, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is well known for having a toxic community, but the specific nature of its toxicity shows a different direction than what we would see in most other online games. These players have found new and inventive ways to express their negative behavior rather than falling back to the more traditional forms of toxicity. I see PUBG as a strong example that toxicity is learned and not innate, and that toxicity is a result of game design.
by Kenneth Chen | Oct 13, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
Many games will use a narrative event to break pre-establishing rules in order to accentuate the moment. However, the way in which this is done can dramatically affect the relationship between the player holding the controller and the character going through the narrative event. This is particularly noticeable in RPG boss fights when the protagonist is so determined to win that they become invincible through sheer determination, which ruins the player’s sense of urgency. Azure Striker Gunvolt circumvents this problem by giving the player a generous super-mode called Anthem, but also presenting new challenges which specifically target the nature of Anthem’s abilities.
WARNING: Major spoilers for Azure Striker Gunvolt and Undertale, and a scattering of other games.
by Kenneth Chen | Oct 2, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
The War of the Chosen expansion for XCOM 2 introduces three factions that hate each other, and it’s up to the player to unite them to defeat the aliens. This social tension is represented in gameplay through the “Lost and Abandoned” mission, which introduces the player not only to the factions themselves, but also to the new threats that make the factions necessary. Although the factions are strong, they also have weaknesses, and the player learns firsthand why they need to work together.
by Kenneth Chen | Jul 6, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
In many ways, Dishonored 2’s narrative setup is exactly the same way it was in the original Dishonored. There are only so many ways that someone can be dishonored. But after the titular inciting incident, the two games diverge in how they handle temporal morality: the way that characters (including the player) develop their sense of morals as the game progresses. The first Dishonored focuses on moving forwards into the future, whereas Dishonored 2 focuses on unraveling events that happened in the past. These two directions cause their stories to be different in subtle but important ways.
WARNING: Massive spoilers for both Dishonored 2 and Dishonored.
by Kenneth Chen | Jun 11, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
The nature of procedural level generation makes it hard for designers to implement a smooth difficulty curve. Instead, each level is treated as a static plateau of difficulty, with large jumps from level to level. With old-fashioned hand-placed levels, designers can create scenarios that have a much smoother flow of difficulty, even within the same level. But Dead Cells manages to get the best of both worlds: randomly generated levels with self-contained difficulty curves.
WARNING: Spoilers for late-game enemy types.
