by Kenneth Chen | Mar 31, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
Nier: Automata has the unenviable job of merging open-world RPG design with hack-and-slash combat. These two directions don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but sometimes the designers need to take a side. Platinum Games is practically the face of the spectacle fighter genre, so it’s no surprise that they lean towards their comfort zone when the option is available. This divide can be noticed in one of the most mundane details: how the characters jump.
WARNING: Mild spoilers for Nier: Automata, footage from a boss battle is used to illustrate a point.
by Kenneth Chen | Mar 13, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
In my previous essay on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, I talked about how the reboot series will rarely force players to go through a combat area that they had previously completed, in order to maintain the illusion of having many choices. The latest DLC, A Criminal Past, goes against this hypothesis. You start in block A of a prison complex and must make your way to block B, which is nearly identical. Why would they break their previously established pattern?
by Kenneth Chen | Feb 16, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
Now that every single game has parkour, it’s hard to appreciate how innovative the original Mirror’s Edge was. The designers had to break the ingrained assumption that enemies are meant to be defeated, and instead incentivize players to run away while somehow making them feel badass and powerful for doing so. When you encounter hostile cops for the first time, the level uses several creative tricks that nudge players to play the game differently than they would play any other game.
by Kenneth Chen | Feb 9, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
Fire Emblem Heroes isn’t the first maliciously monetized mobile game to have rerolling, and it certainly won’t be the last. Like other “gacha” games, you spend in-game currency to get a random character for your team. Some characters are objectively better than others, and when you start the game for the first time you get a large chunk of these currencies. This results in the phenomenon of rerolling, where people will uninstall the game and constantly retry their first time until they get a very powerful hero. Why would a game designer ever want such a thing?
by Kenneth Chen | Jan 26, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
Back when the Arkham series was going at full blast, it seemed inevitable that its freeflow combat system would get copied and used in all sorts of games, from Mad Max to Shadow of Mordor. Now, we can see that it hasn’t happened. Developers have learned the limitations of what freeflow combat can and can’t do, and a lot of that is tied to how it relies on an overloaded dodge maneuver. One single mechanic can skew the design of a whole series in a suboptimal direction.
by Kenneth Chen | Jan 19, 2017 | Kenneth on Games
Overcooked is a game that lives and dies by its level design. The basic game mechanics are so simple that one would wonder if it was even possible to build a game around them. To maintain a feeling of “simple-but-difficult” the designers make heavy usage of special disruptions in the levels. Most of the time, these disruptions really sell the game and make it a lot more fun. Sometimes, they don’t.
