Something else I enjoyed about it that hasn't been talked about is the ability to terrorize guards into killing eachother, it's just an interesting thing to be able to do a pacifist run while massacring everybody since you technically didn't kill them.

@franzluggin398

8 жыл бұрын

+Diamond Warrior (Wii Pony) Yay, loophole!

Mark of the Ninja was a classic case of KISS and my favourite part was the fact that the game remember that your character is a NINJA and should able to do things we associate with ninjas. I like the fact that there is a no kill and no alarm bonus which gives the game replay value and the fact that you can unlock new outfits that give you the edge if you wish to play the game again with a different play style.

One thing I feel Mark of the Ninja does really well in addition to what you covered is the amount of choice they give the player. You touch on how the game makes all information easily understood through their ui and the 'ninja sense' mechanic it utilizes. You even mention that it allows players to 'plan', and thats where i want to expand. Mark of the ninja doesn't tell you as a player, but because of its easily understood controls/mechanics the game allows for huge veraity in how players tackle situations. Not only in levels, but in overaching strategy (allowing for the game to mold to many playstyles). There's no one way to finish a level, take out an enemy, or in true ninja fashion completely give everyone the slip but your target.

@diamondwarrior2003

8 жыл бұрын

(This comment contains spoilers.) Speaking of choice, that's also very well done in the ending, i have spent God knows how hours on forums debating between whether killing Azai or Ora was the good ending, the game doesn't make the decision isn't clear cut but the developers knew it was a good idea since it would prevent people from choosing the good ending and instead didn't give us any more information than what we knew

@ivaldi13

8 жыл бұрын

I think that they didn't mention agency because it's implied. As part of being a video game, some agency has to be involved. As part of being a good one, quite a bit must be. As part of being a stealth game, it's all the more well-reasoned that it has high agency. Even some \bad/ stealth games give multiple choices. I mean, it's a solid point, but I just want to be fair and say that it's also a somewhat obvious one when given the subject matter.

Didnt even mention the fear AI for when guards start to lose it and act erratic. Loved that aspect of this game.

The best aspect of that game, to me, was how on the hard difficulty you also got a line-of-sight. Ristricting your vision like that made you more careful about progression and really made you have to move to observe your surroundings, rather than relying on a near-omniscient map-like view of the environment.

I prefer my Stealth Games with 8 hours of cut scenes

@almozayaf

10 жыл бұрын

Chareater that was MGS4 references

@PaulZeroSolis

6 жыл бұрын

I prefer mine with 17 hours of hiding under a box.

Mark Of The ninja is a truly great and wonderful game to uphold. It's one of those games where it makes you want to be perfect at it no matter how many times you mess up.

Related to your design series: Shadow of Mordor does a fantastic job of making stealth and failure interesting. A sneak failure causes you to miss out on an easy kill, and sometimes attracts a dangerous mob. Sneaking around and waiting for an opportunity is exciting, something too many stealth games just don't do well. If you screw up, rectifying the problem isn't drudgery, but it's not trivial either. But it also handles other failures well. Beyond stealth: Dying creates a nemesis, a fantastic point of interest that drives the player forward. Using the wrong ability on a captain (e.g. immune to stealth kills, or won't let you flip over his head) can delay the kill, make you miss out on an opportunity, or even injure you. You have incentive to not die and to know which abilities are right to use against a captain, but getting it wrong isn't the end of the world. You're driven to learn about a captain before taking him on, but you're not doomed if you take on an unknown. The game also has one of the few well-implemented quick-time event systems I've seen, e.g. with mind-controlling mounts and last chance events. The quick-time events are rare enough to not be in the way, they're telegraphed well so the player isn't sidelined, and they are optional and usually non-lethal. Failure means you miss a chance to get on a carador and have to evade it and climb up for another chance, for example. The Last Chance QTEs are optional (you have to equip a rune), and reasonably easy to pull off (with ample opportunity to see the event coming), but they become more difficult the more you brush death. If you fail a Last Chance, you get the death that was coming anyway, and you get to see the orc get a promotion for killing you (and man, do you want to find him again and return the favor). Last chance is given to the player as an opportunity (complete this QTE for your benefit) instead of an unwelcome compulsion (we're forcing this QTE on you during a cutscene -- act fast!). Counter-attacks are less of a QTE than a prompt, and failure incurs a hit and can disrupt what you were doing (e.g. lose a fantastic combo, or interrupt a devastating hit on the captain). You have an incentive to counter properly, but a missed counter here and there isn't devastating. You can also often control the difficulty, deciding where you visit, which captains you take on (though some can sneak up on you), scouting for threats in advance with wraith vision, sneaking, etc... but you can also amp up the difficulty by threatening a captain before taking him on. The threat makes him notably more powerful and erases some of his vulnerabilities, but you get a better reward when you take him down. It's a challenging enough game that it's far from trivial or boring to play, but it handles failure in stealth and other aspects of the game extremely well and usually turns failure into a point of excitement, adrenaline, or motivating interest. The nemesis system in particular is a brilliant way to make failure interesting, and to really spur you on to take down that orc again in the future.

@danielhale1

9 жыл бұрын

Okay... Having played more of the game, I want to revise something I said above: Shadow of Mordor does fall flat on its face dealing with Quick Time Events on several occasions. It seems the game's main story is very fond of them, and the further you get into the story, the more "Ermahgherd! AAA QTEs Everywhere!!!11!!" the game becomes. Very disappointing. What is with AAA games and removing gameplay in favor of quick time event cutscenes? One of the late-game story battles was so choreographed it was almost a QTE sequence, and the other was literally a QTE cutscene when it could have been an awesome climactic battle. >:( That's so unsatisfying. I suppose people warned me though: the main game is dissatisfying; nemesis system sells it. I also dislike the rare QTE that has you press a button rapidly, because it's uncommon enough that it catches the player by surprise (and by the time you realize what you're supposed to do, it's too late). I more often fail that one because I don't recognize the symbol in time, and I'm used to any other action but mashing. I got better with time and more exposure, but it still felt annoying anytime I encountered it. Just my opinion on that one though.

@burnwolfember729

9 жыл бұрын

Daniel Hale I agree with you. And, on your first 30 mins. of playthrough the first QUICKTIME or MASH!! Will, catch you off guard making you go through a punishment you didn't deserve.

I think the idea of "power fantasy" really is Mark of the Ninja's strength. The base game really isn't too difficult, but the difficulty comes from the challenges that come from the game to go the extra mile to be a ninja. Both those challenges, the many tools available that each fulfill a very unique and specific purpose, and the varied costumes with different gameplay properties allow for players to choose their personal favorite style of play, similar to what Dishonored also tried to accomplish.

@SHOBHITAUSHESH

10 жыл бұрын

Exactly. In games like MoTN, the player's concern should be on executing a kick-ass plan and not about just evading enemies. This requires accessible information...information allows for planning. Stealth games that push for the 'Power Fantasy' approach all share the same basic characteristics - Splinter Cell Conviction, Arkham games, Far Cry 3, Crysis etc.

Important subject on stealth that you didn't really mention is that GOOD stealth makes the player feel vulnerable. Because why go stealthy if you can easily chop off people's heads with just a few swipes or gun them down? Good stealth games make you die in one or two hits so that theoretically, you could do a combat run, but it's not practical because stealth is the best option. One of my favorite stealth games sadly fails at this, Dishonored. It's so close to perfect, Igor wasn't so easy to just go in guns blazing, you are still actively punished with the chaos system, but it's easier to play a combat run of Dishonored than a stealth, and for a stealth game, that's not ideal. This is why many stealth ACTION games fail.

@AdonanS

7 жыл бұрын

Robotic Sausage That seems a bit subjective. I think PURE stealth makes the player vulnerable, not just good stealth. Having the option of cutting down your enemies just makes backtracking easier in my experience.

@TheDoomista

7 жыл бұрын

To be able to go full Rambo in a stealth game is merely a in-game difficulty adjustment, just like playing mage in Dark Souls 2. If you want to be hardcore, then don't kill people. If you are in a really tough area, you can adjust the difficulty by killing enemies from behind or completely change your game experience by picking up a shotgun and stomping everyone. Deus Ex Human Revolution (I did not play mankind divided, yet, but i finished DEHR multiple times on all difficulties) master this idea. And while it makes killing people easy, if somebody raises the alarm then the open combat is quite hard and you lose some XP along the way. Even sheer killing people from cover with a pistol rewards you less XP than subduing them by hand which is more risky (and requires more advanced stealth skills). Also, if a game supports a quick save, that's actually something to overcome the wait-on-failure thing. Sure, you still have to load your save state when you mess up, but if you save often, you're like 5 meters from the place you've screwed up. It's not how the pros do it, but it definitely eases the game for casual players. And I can tell you - the difference between Splinter Cell Chaos Theory with quick save and Splinter Cell Blacklist is that save system. As much as I enjoyed the SCB, I ultimately hated the checkpoint system.

@jeorgedegagne8064

5 жыл бұрын

This comment, exactly what I was looking for. Sums up why I loved SOCOM so much.

Mark of the Ninja is my favourite indie stealth game.

A weakness I find stealth games have that I don't know how to solve; Save-scumming. All to often my strategy for beating a stealth game is to run into a room guns blazing, alerting all the guards and alarms, get killed, reload the level, and now having memorised where all the guards and alarms are, easily sneak through the level. Unless I'm playing the video game adaptation of "Edge of Tomorrow", I think this completely kills the fantasy of stealth games. How should a game designer solve this?

@jeansl10

10 жыл бұрын

Well arguably, if the player does this, it's his fault... The designer shouldnt punish other players to stop certain players from removing the challeng from their game.

@Aravan242

10 жыл бұрын

I mean often they add an Ironman mode so that you can't. Think of like X-Com. if its something you don't like doing that's the next challenge level

@Mellion555

10 жыл бұрын

Maybe set up a random generating system where the guards and alarms are set in different places when the game gets reset without saving. Or even using different/stronger guards as well. It probably wouldn't be perfect, but at least the odds of that type of gameplay paying off and defeating the difficulty is cut drastically.

@excalibran

10 жыл бұрын

You can waste massive amounts of time playing the game badly until you memorize the exact solution. Other people have less patience and just observe the room. Boredom is its own balancer.

@LittleJimmy835

10 жыл бұрын

+Jacob Kusmenko : I think randomisation is a good solution. Say if a room has two guards in it, you could give them six randomly selected spawn points, so they're in a different place on each play-through and prevent players from just memorising their locations. +jeansl10 : I don't think blaming the player for finding exploits is the solution. Like, if a player finds a bug that lets them walk through walls, you patch it, you don't just say, "Hey! You're not meant to do that!".

There have been too many stealth games I've played where upon being seen I just reload checkpoint because I have OCD for the ghost bonus. Sometimes I which stealth games would just omit ghost bonuses so I wouldn't be compelled to keep hitting quickload. You have no idea how frustrating it is going for the "clean hands" achievement on the hardest difficulty in Dishonored.

@GScottActing

10 жыл бұрын

I know exactly what you mean. I failed a perfect no-kills run in both Dishonoured AND Deus Ex: Human Revolution while having absolutely no idea where my mistake lay. Ghost bonuses are the game's way of saying "this is what you need to do to play the game RIGHT", since a high score is usually indicative of high competency (and in the case of DE:HR, gives you more XP for levelling up). Putting that in your game makes me feel obligated to work towards getting it, which lengthens gameplay, I guess...often at the cost of save-scumming. Assuming you even CAN save-scum. I'm looking at YOU, Hitman Absolution.

@TeamAmazing123

10 жыл бұрын

It's even worse when you finish the game and then realize that you didnt get the ghost bonus in only one section.

@CloudCuckooCountry

10 жыл бұрын

Gareth Scott Ugh, Hitman: Absolution. Thanks for reminding me, now I'm getting flashbacks to that police level. The thing is, with any other game I'm perfectly happy stumbling poorly through it on my first playthrough and if I really like the game I'll play it through again on higher difficulties to try to master it naturally myself. But as soon as you put that "perfect run" award into the game I feel compelled to do it perfect in my first playthrough. Which not only lessens my enjoyment, but sucks out the replay value of the game since once I've figured out how to do it perfectly there's no reason to go back and do it again. Not that "perfect run" awards are bad, but notifying me of it right from the outset is probably flawed. I heard the Dishonored devs say "you can get through the game without killing anyone and we have an achievement tied to it" in an interview and that ruined it for me because I was determined from the outset to get through the game on a ghost/no-kills run because suddenly anything else seemed like I wasn't playing the game properly. If I had somehow unlocked ghost bonuses and was informed of the no-kills achievement AFTER my first playthrough, that probably would have made me enjoy the game both as a fun stealth adventure, and then as a test of skill. I wonder how many other people also suffer from stealth game OCD?

@GScottActing

10 жыл бұрын

The worst thing about Hitman Absolution was the hypocrisy of its scoring system; the game says "kill no-one but your target" and docks you points from your final score for each person you kill that WASN'T your target, but each level ALSO has challenges to kill a particular non-target enemy with a specific part of the environment, or with a particular weapon. Make up your mind, game!

@Milano606

10 жыл бұрын

Gareth Scott Yeah but those challenges were designed to ecourage replaying levels with a different approach. It tries to give you hints and an incentive to finish a level in another way, which I thought wasn't such a bad idea. I did really hate the checkpoint system though

I literally just started playing this game two days ago and I'm now wracking my brain to figure out something useful to say that wasn't already said. You really hit on almost all of the things about the game that I liked and I thought worked well except for one, and that is very simply Level Design. Every level has large chunks of map built to be traversed in a multitude of different ways. There are single path portions of the game, but those tend to be lower on the stealth elements and more just areas to pass through or puzzles to solve. This game gives you options, lots of options, and not just in how you move around. They give you options on how you want to play generally; want to kill everybody and bulldoze through? There are items and character layouts set up for that. Want to sneak through without ever being spotted or laying a finger on any guards? There are options for this as well. You guys talk a lot about choice in your videos and while this game may deal more with the 'open world' type choice, where the simple openness and multiple-points-of-approach defines what a player can do, this game provides a very solid example of one which give the player a strong sense of agency. Mistakes, as you pointed out, are your own, and success, as a result, is also your own. Every kill is satisfying because you did the thinking and found the opportunity to engage.

Here is an interesting idea: Disect a Rogue-like game! How do you design game with randomized maps right?

@11nephilim

10 жыл бұрын

Pretty sure they already did

@loupax

10 жыл бұрын

They did an Extra Credits on Rogue-likes, but they didn't reverse engineer the design of a specific rogue-like in a Design Club

@Legendaryknight2

10 жыл бұрын

I think a good place to look is pokemon MD2. Their rogue like is quite friendly, so you can have your time to understand the design, then there are the "zero isles" that come with an insane difficulty. To me, rogue-likes are harder to code than to design, they mostly use perma-death, so you always know what the player is going to do, even if they are already familiar with the levels. There is hardly enemy placement, just numbers of input, "5 items, they can be this one, this one and this one", and so on. The design lies on what the player can do with this items and how it affects the gameplay. Now why pokemon? Because there is no way the designer will know what you're going to use, but the player does. Zero isles are incredibly difficult to some pokemon because they suck at lower levels, so you have to choose your team carefully because you can't simply rely on TMs lying around. I'm glad this is on the stealth "section" of extra credits because on the previous video, they mention the "Aha" moment, and this comes with what the players are familiar with, they know some kind of enemy starts to appear at just a certain part, they start getting ready for it. However you have to be really careful with your AI and gameplay, because: 1- It is the only thing you can design like other games. 2- Remember when they mention something comes out of nowhere? That is extremely rage-quit risking when used wrong, yet, an important key if you want to make things intense, pokemon MD has an example of that (at least on the first 2 games): Earthquake and Silver Wind are really annoying, but monster houses are just awesome, it is interesting how if you don't have items or do something quickly, you're alone, your team mostly can't help you. It is really satisfying to defeat a herd of monsters.

Something that's always bothered me about the Assassin's Creed games is a lack of great stealth mechanics. So many things in those games would be easier and cooler if stealth mechanics were implemented.

@teleportedbread2377

6 жыл бұрын

yeah,you can't even crouch outside of bushes and only hug walls when near a corner,it's stupid

I think that discounting the gradient stealth seen in other games does a disservice to those examples that use it well. In a binary system, you can be sure that if you're hidden, nothing is going to find you; with a gradient system, you give the player a sense of anxiety or uncertainty that, when done well, can greatly improve the time spent hiding. The first example that popped into my head was the gem system in the original Thief game. When you are hiding in that game, there is a tension that you would lose completely if the hiding was binary and I strongly believe that the tension did much to improve the moment to moment feelings while playing.

@viziroth

10 жыл бұрын

Although it is true that gradient stealth can provide tension, it more often than not provides frustration. I can't count the number of times in a game with stealth mechanics I got angry screaming "my bar was all black, how the hell did he see me?!"

@ajardoor

10 жыл бұрын

Well, it should be noted that Thief complements the light gem with a fleshed out sound system - while hiding, you could listen to the background noise of guard's footsteps to judge how close they were to your position. The ambiguity of the light gem was mitigated by simply paying attention to any clunks or whistles.

@martysue3704

10 жыл бұрын

While I agree on that, I don't think it was necessary to induce anxiety in a game that had you playing an expert infiltrator who has the situation under control. You'd assume he knows his shit and can clearly differentiate between whether he can be seen or not.

@Shdwrnr9

10 жыл бұрын

viziroth I agree with your statement, "more often than not..." and used Thief as an example that I found well done. When you had a stealth snaffu, you didn't hid in a corner and say, "Ok, I'm hidden and now I wait till the guard stops searching." you said, "Oh man, please don't find me, please don't find me." The binary system will only ever get you the first response, but a well made gradient system allow for the second. As for the idea that Garret would be immune to that feeling, I can tell you from my own experience in Iraq; it doesn't matter how much you know your shit, when your life is in danger, you're going to be tense.

@joesatmoes

9 жыл бұрын

Yeah, but think about it like this: if you're a guard in a security base, you have to report any sign of unusual activity instantly. And while I get your point about anxiety, isn't trying not to be seen at all make you even more ancsious?

Great series so far! Design club has become as important to me as exrea credits itself at this point.

Another game that's worth mentioning for a fun stealth mechanic would have to be Sly 2. There's no way I could explain why to the fidelity that the guys at EC does, but I love the 'open world' nature of getting from place to place without being spotted. Do you take the streets and seek cover, or do you feel safer traversing the rooftops? Do you avoid enemies all together, or do you take them down? Being discovered isn't the worst thing in the world there either. It puts you onto your toes immediately without it being TOO much trouble to conceal yourself once again.

I know it would not have been a good example of a stealth game to put in your video, but I want to point out that the Arkham Games had some really good stealth elements to them, and the levels where you had to apply them were phenomenally done.

@unamed1142

8 жыл бұрын

I kept thinking about the Arkham games when I watched this.

I can totally see what he means when talking about Mark Of The Ninja. Everything is mapped out due to it being in 2d, and it allows the player to actually plan accordingly, where as 3d stealth games like Dishonored (which I'm funnily enough playing through now) make assessing the situation much harder, and in fact try to stop you from being able to plan ahead. I think in Dishonored the only way you can properly see guards is with an ability that's locked away from you at the start of the game, and can only be used if you decide to use your first rune on it. Mark Of The Ninja is without a doubt my favourite stealth game and definitely in my top 3 indie games to boot. Anyone who hasn't played it seriously needs to.

Man I miss Design Club, did they completely shelf this concept or could we expect to see more episodes coming? Oh, and as for this episode, I would love to see a tangent-discussion on the mechanics and choices made in Commandos. The mix of static, sweeping and patrole-sweeping viewcones, the 2-tone visibility in those, hiding your footprints in the snow, spending time studying patrole-paterns and planning approaches. Stealth meets puzzlegame with a combat-twist to highten "stress" .... so much food for thought there.

I absolutely adore Mark of the Ninja, more than most stealth games I've played. Oddly enough, it's the game where I realized the stealth and horror genres have a lot in common with one minor detail. While each game requires the player be fragile, so that a player may be encouraged to be sneaky, cautious, and in regards to horror, scared, stealth games empower the player through information, whereas horror games remove power through a lack of information. At least, proper stealth and horror games. In Mark of the Ninja, your fragility encourages you to be more careful of the situation, but you are still capable of being a deadly machine. You just need the right circumstances, and Mark of the Ninja does an excellent job letting you know about each of those circumstances with ease. Of the games with stealth elements I've played, only Dishonored comes close to that level of information, and that's only if you use and level-up Blink. It is why Mark of the Ninja is so good, as you demonstrated. Yet the odd thing with horror games is that if you give the player too much information, then they're more easily prepared. It's why the first Resident Evil is either effective or "frustrating" for players due to the camera angles. If you enter a room and hear breathing, but you cannot see anything, even the room's layout, then you're suddenly nervous. There is vital information missing. You are fragile and you are without necessary info, making the action of progressing forward an act of bravery. It's interesting how such a simple idea can create such a vast difference in scope between two game genres. Without Mark of the Ninja I don't know if I'd ever had made the distinction before.

to me MOTN is amazing, one of the games that got me back into platformers, one aspect i appreciated it the various playstyles and the reward system inherent therein. i play through this every few months :D

What about Thief? It's an awesome stealth game!

@MisterAAnderson

10 жыл бұрын

The old ones I mean. Didn't try the new one.

@Qaosbringer

10 жыл бұрын

Thief and Commandos were great stealth games. but they were PC games, so today's NES gamers don't know them like Bioshock, Splinter Cell or MGS... I think in Extra Credits, only James plays PC games :D Therefore, no mention of Thief...

@GScottActing

10 жыл бұрын

Qaosbringer I tried the original Thief game a few years ago and found it very difficult to get into. Despite being a cornerstone of the stealth game genre, I disliked it because I found it very difficult to tell when I would and would not be noticed, even with the light gem assisting me. Same goes for the original Deus Ex.

@Nasoukikos

10 жыл бұрын

Qaosbringer commandos was one of my favorite stealth series ever, only desperados surpassed that game and only because they took the AI further and introduced a realy cool story to it, the only things that were missing from the commandos series.

@Sin4Profit

10 жыл бұрын

The problem, i think, with old school stealth games, is that those mechanics had a short shelf life. When Thief was new, the mechanical language of stealth games hadn't been established so the game became suspenseful as a result. But the more conscious you become of the mechanics, the more you're playing against the mechanics, and not your own instilled sensory expectation, or exploration, you then lose the suspense and without that occupying your mind, you feel the "waiting" more.

The analysis of why MOTN is awesome jives with a lot of issues I have with many games; not just stealth. In fighting games, terms like invincibility frames and hit priority are often very important. But, usually because they're impossible to represent, people only find out about them through online wikis and careful research - because between fists flying, there are enough particle effects that some other particular "flash of color" wouldn't indicate anything useful to a player. MOTN giving every important aspect of the game its own visual significance makes learning SO much easier - I would actually argue that most of the "classic singleplayer games" that people consider so hard, are actually just as hard as a game like MOTN - but they obfuscate their systems behind unnecessary layers of complexity and obscutity; like the player is usually just slowly reverse-engineering the game's code. It feels simple and straightforward because you now understand those systems and know how to game them - but you DON'T understand what it's like to learn them on the job. An example of this is things like an RPG fighter knowing that the boss will always stand in one place growling for about five seconds before unleashing his big, arena-filling super-attack. The obvious worry players/designers would have is that games would become too easy when the player can see guards through walls, and know where all the air ducts and traps are. But that's not true - it means for one thing, you can have a slower difficulty curve so that semi-casual players who impulse-bought the game will get some badass moments in their few hours of play (AND do it without taking what feels to them like the "dumb way", ie Splinter Cell allowing you to cover-shoot your way through a level). Meanwhile, on the higher levels of difficulty, you can get even more difficult - offer the player challenges that they actually NEED those helpful tools for. Just to cap off - I also like the idea of making things more binary. A lot of people can't quite quantize how an SMG is supposed to be better in close quarters than an LMG.

Also, as Gaijin Goombah mentioned, ACTUAL NINJA!

@cardboardtenshi1008

8 жыл бұрын

+Noah Goldberg Hell yeah!

@zyaicob

7 жыл бұрын

But the gameplay is being done so poorly in this video. No bodies hidden, rushing into fights, using tools for combat and not stealth, just not ninja at all.

@sharilshahed6106

3 жыл бұрын

@@zyaicob maybe intentional to show how said actions have consequences, and the potentials are still there.

Mark of the ninja is the most accurate representation of ninjas in modern culture, you see ninjas are not combat based, they focus on stealth and information gathering. They rarely kill.

A memo within the game also mentions how they worked a lot with not just visual but also audio queues. They have thunder's sound preceed the lightning, which is wrong in terms of real physics (speed of light > speed of sound) but makes for a very noticable alert before whole are lights up for a moment due to thunder. They bend the rules to make mechanics work, and most players dont even notice.

@Ninwing

10 жыл бұрын

I noticed that part in particular, they even mentioned it in a review and I definitely realized

What's even better is how the game handles New Game Plus. It removes a lot of those explicit indicators. But by that time, you've had so much practice with the game that you can complete challenges without needing them. This makes you feel completely like a ninja, fully in charge of the situation despite being grossly outnumbered. I also like how you can pick costumes to re-inforce your play style. My first playthrough, I did no-kill ghosting. Then, for the New Game Plus, I did all-kill ghosting. And after that, I went back to mission to play the Bringer of Terror. :D

One of the best games I have ever played.

I came across another great stealth game, a flash game called tiny heist, that has a system with much in common with Mark of the ninja. One of the most exciting parts of the game, is that as you creep through the levels, enemies get bonuses, like guns, and different fields of view. The game also gives you small objects scattered around the level, that take some risk to get to, but are pleasant rewards. The time in game is also based on your movement, so it allows new players at the beginning to grasp concepts at their own pace. It is a wonderful little flash game.

You can go through a level getting seen by everyone, hiding again, and slowly taking people out. You can go through without trying to do anything special. However, the game also gives you achievements and options that allow you to play differently. They give greater challenge to those who want it. That's another great thing about MotN.

I feel one of the most important things to remember about the complaints about MotN's difficulty is that it is more a game about mastery than completion. You are awarded currency for executing executions in the most elegant manner possible, and therein lies the challenge. It's not about surviving, it's about doing everything perfectly.

@ladaas9528

10 жыл бұрын

I think that this is one of the reasons why it is widely liked. It has a lower level of frustration than may stealth games. Even if you mess up a little, it isn't an immediate failure. You usually still can run away or beat up the guard, you just won't get as high of a score. This allows the player to somewhat control how difficult the game is on the fly by how much they care about the extra points. It also adds to the replay value by making those points obvious ("yes you made it through, but you know you could do better"). It also gives the option to play through without the sound indicators, but only after you have beaten the game and thus intuitively learned how far the sound travels. This gives the feeling that you are so skilled as a ninja that you know how far sound travels.

Great work talking about the design features of the game and genre as a whole. This game definitely is great.

Way of Terror (i think it's called) was my favorite. Stringing up bodies and pouncing on guards while everyone freaks out is fun

Yknow what's the worst thing? Stealth sections in other forms of game. Because you're playing along for X hours, running and gunning, platforming, puzzling, swordfighting, whatever at your own pace, which is normally pretty fast, and then you're suddenly told "no, don't go yet, don't go yet, don't go YET... okay go now", and it entirely ruins the pacing of the game.

I can't tell you just how much I enjoy the Design Club episodes, so I'm just going to say: A LOT. Thank you.

This makes me revisit the game with a little more appreciation for its design. Thanks for the great episode.

another awesome episode, thx guys. keep up the good work.

The other thing is Mark of the Ninja's addition of scrolls which are hidden, tough but not impossible puzzles that also grant unlocks (if i remember correctly) and the use of a 3 challenge system to help guide player actions without forcing them. For example the don't kill guards and/or don't alert a guard are often used in stealth games and sometimes come with auto-fail states while mark of the ninja makes them optional but valuable challenges

Chaos Theory does a lot of this stuff too 1)- You can quicksave anywhere 2)- The sound meter displays ambient noise and your own noise, showing you how much noise you can make before alerting people 3)- Almost everyone carries a torch/flare/flashlight, meaning you can tell more easily what area are lighted and not, then all you need is common sense.

The most fun part for me was the option to either play full stealth, full brawler or a mix. It gave the game replayability without having to change the core layout of the missions. I really recommend trying it out.

@viziroth

10 жыл бұрын

Cian You can unlock hunter outfit, also, knock a guard out enough and you can eventually kill him, plus some tools are kills.

@yeto30003

10 жыл бұрын

That adds some replay value, which weapons or mask use, makes up almost a diferent game!

@andrester88

10 жыл бұрын

Cian I think what he meant by full brawler is killing everyone. You can either be a true ninja, a movie ninja, or a mix of both

@TheNoodleGod9001

10 жыл бұрын

Cian when you've knoecked them back you can stab them on the ground it gives less points, but it's there there is also the path of might, which uses this

I absolutely loved this game. The terrorizing mechanic alone made me laugh maniacally throughout the play-through. Intentionally putting a body somewhere visible in order to demoralize guards, leading them to panic and kill each other.

I played mark of the ninja when I was 7... I’ve been looking for it ever since it was the best game I’ve ever played, thanks for making this video

The stealth in Watch Dogs is actually not bad. Guard awareness is communicated audibly and you can tell guard stats by profiling them. There is still one thing that bothers me, and it happens in almost every stealth game, and that is waiting out. I don't think guards should "go back to normal" after not finding me for a while. Especially when I haven't moved from the last place they saw me. If I'm discovered, it should be game over for stealth in this section.

@Legendaryknight2

10 жыл бұрын

Mark of the Ninja got this almost right, which is interesting, it is part of the immersion, they know you're there, but they have their posts, it is probably better for them to stay there (most of the time).

@vialgyy

9 жыл бұрын

Warframe does this nicely,if you are spotted the guards change their AI, for example normally they are walking around without weapons in hand, when they see you they take them out, if you don't kill the guard that saw you he will alert all of his companions of this zone and if they see you again they will activate the alarm to alert the entire ship. You can never go back to the full stealth mode if you mess it up.

@SabreRunner

9 жыл бұрын

That's nice. But isn't Warframe multiplayer only? In Watch Dogs I also noticed another thing, the guards don't react to the fact that half of them disappeared from view.

@vialgyy

9 жыл бұрын

Eran Arbel You can play it by yourself, it's not necesarely multiplayer.

Part of the knowledge you have around the whoe game is that they took liberty on physics, lighting comes after the thunder in this game, but helps the player to know whats happening

One game that I thought had a great stealth system even though it wasn't, strictly speaking, a stealth game, was Farcry 3. Specifically, when you assault outposts in it (less so in the missions). It was brilliant because they had good, robust AI for the guards, and what was great was that you didn't really lose much if you got caught, and it was just as fun to get caught and play through that mistake as it was to not make that mistake in the first place, and the bonus you got for clearing out an outpost without being detected wasn't such a big deal that you felt like you were missing out. The game was great at giving players an objective to complete while refraining from pressuring them with rewards or punishments to complete it in a certain manner. The game only cared that you cleared out those guards. HOW you went about doing that was completely up to you. I think that the open-world design had a hand in that, because it felt less like I was choosing between a finite number of approaches that the devs allowed for and more like I was creating my own approach that the devs never predicted I would use...that they didn't even bother to try to predict how I would approach it.

This game looks so awesome. I mean just look at so fluid movements, and the fantastic art direction. I've heard of it before, but I guess I just kind of forgot about it. I'm not letting that happen again. I'm gonna go look into it more right now, definitely.

Played through new game and new game plus without ever being bored. This game is so much fun.

Love these guys! Talking about great stealth games. I hope you guys remember the commando's series. I still pop one of those in once in a while. And also uses the sound rings and enemy views.

The animation in this game looks really nice, I really like it

A couple of years ago, I was interested in Mark of the Ninja, but unfortunately the "Strong Language" in the ESRB drove me away. I was young, so I knew my parents don't want me too exposed to that stuff at a young age. As the years went on, I kinda forgot about Mark of the Ninja. But after watching this video, and now that I'm old enough to play it, I went ahead and got it. I regret nothing. This is by far one of the best stealth games in the world. Thanks, Design Club!

Thank you very much for this! Mark of the Ninja is one of my favorite games because of what you said and also because of things you didn't say there, like the final choice you make. This last choice alone...wow I think I was sitting 5 to 15 minutes in front of the screen contemplating about all I did in the game and weighing both sides before I finally picked my side. It was so surprising to me because until like the last two to three levels I thought my final choice would be pretty clear, yet when it came to this final encounter I was stunned having my brain go crazy around all I did and if it was actually for the good or the bad. To keep it short: I think this game is a masterpiece!

Now we're talking! The last design club episodes were kinda on topics that have been discussed to death, now it's getting interesting.

I played through level 1 because I saw this episode and was like "Well I can't watch this episode without having at least played the game." I was not disappointed, and the video just made me want to play Mark of the Ninja more. I also learned a lot from that Mark of the Ninja level; they did a great job introducing mechanics slowly, giving players time to make mistakes and learn in the first level, and rewarding players for exploring their levels.

I just thought about this: Design Club. Club. Fight Club. Rules of Fight Club. Rules of Design Club. Is the first rule of Design Club not to talk about Design Club?

This game is mind blowing simple and intellectually crafted. I am looking forward to the sequence of it and new upgrades!

One of the best designed games I played in my entire life. Insanely good in every respect.

Loving this show!

Such a well designed game... one of the best designed titles in recent memory, almost everything about it sings.

I absolutely love this game. I saw the great design when I looked into it.

Oh, I love Mark of the Ninja. After playing it, I felt bad that I got it so cheap in the Steam Winter Sale, but on the other hand I am glad because I could also buy the dev commentary. Such a great game.

MOTN is by far one of my top 5 favorite games.

Absolute best stealth game ever created. I can't even imagine how there could ever be a better one.

PLEASE MORE OF THESE!!!!

There is also this one level where they made thunder come before lightning as an audio queue as the lightning gave the guards a chance to spot you.

i just finished dishonored a great game but you know what made me want to quit it more than any other stealth game.. wasting my time the load times on that game are incredibly almost 1 minute and if youre having a hard time with an area guess what you will be reloading a lot amounting to minutes and minutes just watching a load screen. till this day i still play mark of the ninja such a great game that deserves being on xbox one!

@vinx.9099

7 жыл бұрын

interesting, i had a completely different experience. dishonored is by go to stealth game. all the tools you have give you a ton of options to deal with problems and it is up to you to find a way to do it. while loading times are not the greatest i didn't have to reload often, with everything you have there are tons of ways to escape situations of being seen. i personally had an in interesting curve. at the start when i was seen i had to murder everyone even though i went for low chaos. later i learned to quickly go for sleepdarts and use a ton of those to take the people who saw me out without having to kill them. but even later i learned to blink away and escape before the spotter became a real problem. this went alongside of be getting better at not getting spotted. mark of the ninja always felt like it was cheating somehow. i could see everything that was happening and acted accordingly so nothing could go wrong, yet it did, while i know it was something i did it that wasn't how it felt. dishonored also felt more organic and less mechanic. the tutorial was very linear, but it felt normal while still learning the stealth take down, taking your time but also to sometimes act quick. and if you fucked up it was almost never against more then 2 people, while at one point learning you to sometimes just run. MOTN always felt like i was playing a game that was trying to get me, while i snuk though dishonored learning how to stay undetected organically and one my own wit. nothing against your opinion of course, i can see your point and know what you are talking about. i just wanted to share my experience too.

@luisronaldofigo

7 жыл бұрын

the heart of my comment its not the game itself, its perfect like you say are the tools are there after my first/second play-through i can finish the game without getting seen and killing anybody i know the game by heart (proving that i love the game i have finished it 6 times by now and still playing). my problem with the game like i said are the loading times and that its pretty obvious that arkane studios didn't care or just plain they didn't know about them. on pc i know that the loading times are 3-5 seconds on xbox one and ps4 its a full minute of loading, and i find this unforgivable cause this game is a last gen game and it has the exact amount of time of loading. other stealth games like mgs and splinter cell dont have insane loading times and im pretty sure they took what this video says in consideration they already know that they are making you wait in game so why make you wait even more on a loading screen. the whole reloading part i guess its my own fault cause the way i play stealth games is that as soon someone sees me i reload on my first playthrough i got the ghost and clean hands achievment. hope you read all of these lol cheers !

@vinx.9099

7 жыл бұрын

AmuroDiaz o wow, 1 min? while not a problem for stuff between missions and maybe even the half way points it will taint the first and second mission mission with the distillary, doctor galvanies house and that of the painter. and i am also guilty of reloading, but as i am on PC it isn't quite as bad. the reloading feels more on par with something like elderscolls in places. and it is kind of fitting as i always think of the levels as very small open worlds and not quite as linear as other stealth games. but that also gets annoying in cities. and there it isn't even quite as bad as it is not an active moment anyway. they at least keep dungeons to 2 loading screens. it is also odd that they do so many loading screens at the start while way less later on. kind of bad design. and as you can see, i like long comment too :)

@luisronaldofigo

7 жыл бұрын

oh yes thats the beauty of dishonored and why i just preordered the collectors edition is the world building atmosphere it feels like a breathing world and it helps a lot that its not linear that you can go and explore and find lore in every single part of the level almost like a dark souls . im buying my gaming pc most likely by the end of the year and enjoy the loadless experience of dishonored.

@vinx.9099

7 жыл бұрын

AmuroDiaz damn, i just bought the normal edition.don't have the money for the collectors edition. just preordered so i don't need to keep 60 euro for it onces it comes out. and don't expect no load times, just expect 10-20 seconds.

Fantastic game, thoroughly enjoyed it!

Mark of the Ninja is properly the best stealth game I've ever played. The levels are well-designed that you can play with your own style, rather killing everyone, or no one at all. You can take it slow, or do it so quick the AI can't catch up.

I noticed about Mark of the Ninja, that when you start a New Game+, a lot of the things that you talked about here are actually gone. The player character gets a cone of vision outside of which everything gets extremely blurry, and enemies are invisible (much like a fog of war), and the enemy vision cones and circles indicating the distance your noises reach are gone.

Another great video!

You should make a video with under-represented video game genres and games that NEED to be made! ^^ Love your work!

Love this game. First time I finally managed to stop playing it they came out with the expansion (loosely used) and got me hooked again. Devious people. ;-)

What's the difference between Design Club and Extra Credits?

@Mongward

8 жыл бұрын

+Noah Grün I think that Extra Credits are mostly about narratives and metagaming, while Design Club is mostly about game mechanics themselves. I might be wrong, of course.

@moosemeesen3174

8 жыл бұрын

+Noah Grün Extra credits looks at topics while design club focuses on games

I love these talking ones :D On Extra Credits I always feel like I need to watch cuz I love the art :p But it's nice to just be able to listen to your stuff while I work :D

I grow impatient with stealth all too often, but Mark of the Ninja looks like a game I could get into because of the accessibility of it.

Good episode, and an excellent game. I'd love to hear your take on why Arkham Asylum's 3D stealth worked so well sometime.

Game design is so cool! Good job guys!

Mark of Ninja is definitely my favourite stealth game and I concluded myself it was mostly due to 2D and me seeing EVERYTHING I needed unlke the 3D stealth games where I would stumble on a guard behind a corner cause I wasn't aware he was there. In other words I'm 100% agreeing with this episode.

I LOVE Mark of the Ninja. I saw someone playing it, and immediately went out to buy it. It is amazing.

One stealth game that was amazing for its time, in my opinion, was the Sly Cooper games (and im talking 1-3 not any of the new ones). While the boss fights were really a lot of hack and slash while dodging a bunch of queues, the in betweens really felt like stealth was necessary. Guards had easy ways of detecting characters, fighting was harder if you were detected, and disengages were fun. Sly was also able to use a bunch of techniques to either dispose of or run away from enemies.

I love design club so much. It is even better than the main show in some ways.

Splinter Cell: Conviction kicks ass for almost all the same reasons

One thing you guys didn't touch on (here) was the amount of choice the player has. The various "paths" the game gives are challenging to unlock, and very rewarding. They allow for so many different ways of completing a level. Going out of your way to terrify and kill every single guard is just as legit a strategy as finding your way around and trying to never even distract one. Klei did such a good job balancing the different "paths" that its fun to just go back to an old level once you've unlocked a new path just to try and beat it a different way.

It really feels like Mark of the Ninja was moreso a puzzle game than a stealth game. You should do a video on Dishonored as well as Mark of the Ninja, as they're so damn similar.

One of the ways this game succeeds is by giving the player many options how to approach encounters. You could stab your way through the levels but you could also sneak by everyone undetected.

One thing I've found in the game is that the AI is extremely well done - dangerous, yet predictable. If you make a sound behind a guard, they'll go and investigate, allowing you to pass unobserved. If you string a guard up, another passing guard will get terrified and start shooting randomly, which can attract other guards, again allowing you to pass, perform silent kill moves, etc. But if you try and bum rush them, they'll identify and shoot at you, call for backup from other parts of the level, and even retreat to better vantage points/comrades if possible. All of this serves double duty of both encouraging the player to play the game the way it's meant to be played - as a stealth game - and makes the world and your enemies feel like real characters that could easily kill you with one false move, rather then carboard cutout storm troopers with no survival instincts beyond "shoot intruder x until intruder x dies, repeat forever.". Their AI routines make them feel alive enough that they're not just road bumps on your ride to victory. All of this goes to show: AI doesn't have to be super complex per say - every guard doesn't need to be able to build a tank from the scrap parts they happen to find laying on the ground around them - but if an enemy is programmed to change its entire behavior and pattern when players perform certain actions, this can make for a much more engaging and memorable game.

I just find it funny how the end message of being clear and giving a player a good enough overview of the factors isn't even close to unique to stealth games. it's a cross-genre commonality.

You say that Mark of the Ninja is not difficult, and I may agree, but uses the mechanic of scalable difficulty and encourages self imposed challenge by rewarding sticking to different playstyles. However, it also ties it to the fantasy aesthetic of how anyone imagines being a ninja should be like. In the video, you show mostly violent footage, but in my playthrough I chose to play through without a kill. The game at the one hand offers enough possibility to make this playstyle viable and fun and on the other hand encourages it with its reward and progression system. Makes me want to play it again.

I liked Dishonored's stealth play.

The best stealth game I've played recently is Metro last light. The way it uses the tension makes the stealth really fun to play, and you don't mind waiting for that perfect moment to move in

Damn, should have gotten it on the summer sale

Great video. I wish I had something to add, but I actually haven't played a whole lot of stealth games, so my perspective on how Mark compares to them is very limited. I'd really have to say what makes it great comes down to what you guys mentioned about making mistakes feel like they're your fault. Mark of the Ninja excels at that, and thus, I find myself engaged all the way through. That sense of fun challenge combined with the gorgeous art style, animation, audio, everything else are what made Mark of the Ninja rocket immediately into one of my favorite games of all time.

The stealth system of mark of the ninja is actually quite similar to that of the metro series. You have clear delineation of visibility as well as environmental interaction is key. Unskrewing lightbulbs and turning off power boxes give the player an advantage. The key difference is in metro, you can shoot your way to victory and completely ignore the stealth system.

Remember that this is completely optional, when you beat the game, you can play the hard mode, where all the things that are visible to make the game acessible, tend to disappear. Making it an enjoyable stealth game, with some great difficult :V. It takes risk too, makes the waiting exciting, but no one really want to wait 2 times, but in the hard mode, usually you know what you are trying, what to expect. But without all the things to make it conclusive.

I liked that you can choose your style; combat, full stealth, assassin... I really want to see MotN2 !

You should talk about the first final fantasy game, and how the beginning sets up the entire world for the player... or something like that

the music in this video was as interesting as the content of it. had to rewatch parts to pay attention to one or the other! :p

You should definitely look at the first level of Shovel Knight. It does an AMAZING job of teaching you mechanics without it feeling like a tutorial.