Titanfall 2 is a good example of how the "failure can be fun" philosophy can be applied in multiplayer games. The end of every match features an epilogue in which the losing team must get to an evacuation ship before being wiped out by the winning team. Successful evacuation can give you bonus credits (the currency used to upgrade your character) and can make you leave a losing match feeling proud that at least managed to escape with your life.

@LimeyLassen

6 жыл бұрын

Oh, that's cool.

@prime_resistor

6 жыл бұрын

The first Titanfall did that also.

@dabossman5650

5 жыл бұрын

yea

@toninhosoldierhelmet4033

5 жыл бұрын

i used to just keep fighting, going to the spaceship was boring. EDIT: going to the spaceship also usually was suicide.

@kjj26k

5 жыл бұрын

More Games need to use the Extinction Phase Mechanic.

"In roguelikes, you don't really care about death." Me, playing enter the gungeon: "NOOOOOOO I DIED WHYYYYYYY"

@PoisonFlower765

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, as someone who's clocked in over 750 hours in The Binding of Isaac (rookie numbers tbh), my immediate response was "Does it not matter? Does it really?"

If you want a game that is truly enjoyable to experience the spectacle of the player's failures, look no further than Kerbal Space Program.

@Yodaswag

6 жыл бұрын

1. the explosions are satisfying 2. u can see what went wrong in your launch, tweak whatever u need easily and get back to see the result of your tweaks. I love it.

@publicalias8172

5 жыл бұрын

@@Yodaswag too technical of a game for my spare time enjoyment but looks cool.

@Liindir

5 жыл бұрын

And Space engineers too. I'm not even mad pirates obliterated my base, it looks so damn sick when it literally starts drifting in pieces!

@Jtak-qu5hk

4 жыл бұрын

What about Dwarf fortress?

@Attaxalotl

2 жыл бұрын

[1812 overture plays over a montage of exploding spacecraft]

I also think it’s important to mention who the player blames when they fail. If they blame the game, bad controls, or its design, there’s definitely a problem, and they will stop playing. If they blame random RNG, they will keep playing because they felt unlucky, but that does not mean the game is fun. If, however, they blame themselves, that is the mark of a truly amazing game. People naturally assume they can always do better, which makes the game fun, engaging, and informative, although it is the hardest to design. But let me know if you think you can blame something else when you fail!

@UserName-uz1qu

6 жыл бұрын

I kind of disagree with the blaming yourself part. One of the reasons I stopped playing super punishing games is because I would descend into a spiral of selfhatred and anger. I much prefer games like DF where losing seems like no big deal.

@pumpkinzz5728

6 жыл бұрын

As a counter-argument to that, I would say you stopped playing them because they are punishing, because death is frequent and hard to avoid. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you stopped playing because the designers made death to be a constant threat, not because you felt responsible for something you did. Maybe I should clarify: everyone can always see why they died, but a good game also makes it clear as to how they can easily avoid it in the future. You do not like games rely on hard reads, which is fine, but you stopped playing them because you felt your mistakes were not easily avoidable. Let me know if I am wrong! :)

@UserName-uz1qu

6 жыл бұрын

Andrew W Yes, games that make it clear why I died are more enjoyable, but that can also become more frustrating because you know how to beat the enemy, but your body just won't respond quickly enough. That's one of the reasons I dislike multiplayer games too: I might have a good position on someone, but they just respond quicker and more deftly than my reflexes are capable of. It becomes even more humiliating as I get older, knowing my hands aren't going to ever get faster.

@daddysempaichan

6 жыл бұрын

It's at least better than games where you loose because your opponent has better gear than you. I can deal with loosing to someone who's better than me. It means that they have gave a lesson to me. You look back on your death and think over how you died and how to avoid it. It also means i should step up my game for the future.

@patlanticocean8290

6 жыл бұрын

Daddy Sempai Chan I was once pondering a similar thought process where I tried to imagine a RPG where the leveling system was taken out so you went in with whatever gear you chose and were weak or strong against various enemies because of your gear rather than your level and would change your tactics accordingly. In the end I decided such a game needed AI allies who could rescue you in case you got into trouble but I agree to your point. Losing to a known weakness is better than losing to a number that is just bigger than yours.

I think Cuphead is another unique example of handling death. Every time you die, the game shows you just how close you got to the finish line. And the more you improve and the closer you get, the more you want to try out that boss or Run 'n Gun section _just one more time_ to get it right.

Also, I just want to say death is not the only method of failure. A speedrunner messing up badly considers it a failure, even though the game doesn’t. Like most things in games, failure is relative to each person. :)

@Murgablodazor69

5 жыл бұрын

Or like getting an item with bad parts in Borderlands

@kitthekat6844

5 жыл бұрын

@@Murgablodazor69 Or like playing Borderlands

@Murgablodazor69

5 жыл бұрын

@@kitthekat6844 whats your problem with people playing games you dont like?

@henrywarmoth1792

5 жыл бұрын

@@Murgablodazor69 I think he just went for the easy joke. lol I could be wrong.

@elsasslotharingen7507

5 жыл бұрын

He defined failure very clearly here: death.

The Dwarf Fortress mantra: Losing is fun!

@Funkopedia

5 жыл бұрын

Kinda wish he would have mentioned more games like DF where losing or dying is the whole point. The death of your adventurer or failure of your fortress is forever enshrined in engravings and commemorated in books and the results color every subsequent play.

@VulpineCortex

4 жыл бұрын

The same goes for rimworld

@Jtak-qu5hk

4 жыл бұрын

@@VulpineCortex I think rimworld was inspired by dwarf fortress, with the same moral. losing is fun. Edit: yeah, I mean I said inspired, not copied.

@VulpineCortex

4 жыл бұрын

@@Jtak-qu5hk I know but it's still a seperate game.

@user-zz7le5qc6x

3 жыл бұрын

@@Jtak-qu5hk rimworld is more like "cute survival game which allows you to show your inner soulless immoral monter for fun"

I'm not sure if roguelikes being described as low intensity re: failing makes sense for me. I've lost characters in Nethack that I'd been playing for over 10 hours.

@TheCashiron

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I don't think he realizes what roguelikes are, he mostly talks about roguelites. Roguelikes are my favie with ADOM being my favorite game. I count it as a blessing that the genre blew up over the last 10 years, but it has made a little confusion with people classifying some games as roguelikes just because they have a couple roguelike-like properties.

@aquamarinerose5405

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah I kinda chuckled at that because I was like.. "roguelikes are a game where losing makes you lose all your progress. How is that low intensity"

I'm also going to make a comment about Dwarf Fortress and its slogan "Losing is fun!" I remember fondly the fortress that was destroyed by the Were-weasel... or that time that I thought the Zombie Yak was going to kill everybody--but actually it was the Zombie Chinchilla that wiped my entire fortress out.

Ironically my enjoyment from Rimworld comes from stockpiling wealth and laughing as mega-invasions are squashed by gamey mechanics. Ah, well, I'm the kind of person who enjoys mucking around and playing a game long past it's expiration date and probably end up discovering more bugs than a jungle in the process.

@daddysempaichan

6 жыл бұрын

Everyone has their own ways of having fun. In games I've played I tend to have hording problems, rationalizing I might need that later or I could use that in the future and never use it, like Final Fantasy's elixirs. Or like you, build a super mega base and watch as NPC's tries to assail my impregnable fortress and doing experiments on the weather or not the devs thought of everything.

@Dragonoid269

6 жыл бұрын

I think many people (including myself) have these hording problems in games. It's like the lives example mentioned in this video, a lot of good items don't really need to be used, but you'll still feel good for having them just in case you'll need them later.

@daddysempaichan

6 жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/pJuJlrGunZu5fMo.html

@DisKorruptd

5 жыл бұрын

I stockpile wealth and get nice cities going, I've got one save going where, rather than building everything into a nice secure complex, instead, I'm building a village, It's got like 10-20 people in it Each person gets a house, built to it's own dimensions (the houses are really just bedrooms, but that's not the point here) the kitchen and dining hall are seperate areas, there's even a separate tavern, rather than standard meals, I hold the long-lasting food there instead, the diner gets tea rather than booze, but the tavern also gets smokeleaf joints, I've built a power plant which also holds the research benches and comms terminal to look like the power management terminals, and I've even built a prision in which prisioners get the nutrient paste on their own,

Honestly this discussion is really important to have. It helps me explain why the death mechanic in a game like FTL really works with it's game mechanics, but the death mechanic in Bomber Crew; a similar game whose death mechanic is actually less punishing, doesn't work.

!!FUN!! in failure? You better be talking about Dwarf Fortress. I guess Rimworld counts too.

@okinawadreaming

6 жыл бұрын

Most of his points in Rimworld apply to DF, but still.

@jacksonl.2201

6 жыл бұрын

agreed

@gammaray152

6 жыл бұрын

as expected considering Rimworld is inspried by DF,

@ijmtfhgffshg2348

6 жыл бұрын

Rimworld is heavily inspired by df

@-ahvilable-6654

6 жыл бұрын

Watched this video only to see DF mentioned, and failed

This reminded me of how I was having WAY more fun in Shadow of War, as compared to Shadow of Mordor. Shadow of Mordor was just too easy and it was almost impossible to die, so I was unable to experience a big chunk of Nemesis system. Shadow of War had a Hard difficulty mode and it made me die here and there or forced me to retreat so it allowed for some great organicly created personal stories about shame and revenge.

@mr.cup6yearsago211

6 жыл бұрын

Glad to see someone who doesn't share the opinion "SoM is better than SoW in every possible way and if you think SoW is better you're stupid." Yeah I'm glad to see someone without that opinion.

@thegrayowl1557

5 жыл бұрын

I have it on PS4. The only reason I was able to see the Nemesis System in action is because I didn't know that in order to do an execution, you had to press two buttons *at the same time*. I kept trying to do it one after another in quick succession, which brought me minimal success. I still remember the mission where it finally clicked, and it had to have been one of the proudest moments of my life.

@georgiykireev9678

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, same here. Literally could not die in SoM. First playthrough of SoW was on Nemesis, which also didn't really showcase the game's mechanics. I found the experience to be at its best on Brutal difficulty, even if it made me die a little _too_ much. Gravewalker difficulty is just straightup cock & ball torture, I have no idea why you would play that

for the most part losing just wears down my finite amount of patience and makes me feel defeated if repeated too much, can't get into meat boy because of that

BAM Also, Dwarf Fortress better be in this video while I'm watching it cause Losing is fun is literally its motto

@TMTLive

6 жыл бұрын

We got cucked by Rimworld ;_;

@IgMath

6 жыл бұрын

This video made me want to play DF again.

@The_Blazelighter

6 жыл бұрын

Setari M Wasn't that the unofficial motto, though?

@DisKorruptd

5 жыл бұрын

@@The_Blazelighter no, it's pretty official, when you seach "Losing" in the help menu, it literally says "Losing is Fun"

Supergiant games pretty much universally are fasinating examples of this. Pyre gives you more EXP for your first loss than you would get for winning - but only once. Furthermore, you can still beat the entire game without ever needing to win a match, all it changes is the ultimate end of the story - tho obviously the player might still feel like crap if they lose every match of course! XD Transistor meanwhile makes you lose your most used program every time you run out of health, and you only 'truly' lose if all four program slots fail on you, increasing the flexibility of failure, but also failing a couple times can kinda gimp you which is not ideal, if I remember right anyway. And even Bastion has a basic set of lives before redoing a level, but interestingly here, certain 'tonics' that modify your character also mess with this system - one in particular gives you an extra 'life' and also does serious damage to enemies around you when you 'die', making failure also a way to suceed, in a limited fashion.

@NZPIEFACE.

6 жыл бұрын

I feel like how Transistor does it is great. If you can't succeed on something, it forces you to rethink your whole kit and try again. It works really well with the game as it's either a pure action game or a turn based RPG.

@Tigersight0

6 жыл бұрын

A note on Transistor: you lose your highest MEM cost ability, not necessarily your most frequently used one. So something like Cull+Cull+Packet is going to go first, even though you're spamming ping+ping+burst everywhere. Edit: names off the top of my head, I might have gotten them wrong, I forget.

@Tobascodagama

5 жыл бұрын

What I really love about Transistor's approach to dying is that it really encourages you to unlock more of the story by forcing you to swap around your abilities into different slots.

@Woodledude

5 жыл бұрын

@@Tigersight0 Replaying Transistor right now - One thing to note is you can't assign a Function to more than one slot, so you can't do double Cull, as an example. You can, however, do something nutty like Help(Cull(), Load()), which makes for a 12 cost ability which you will definitely lose first. Although now I wanna see that mighty doggo. A single function like Ping() would be cheapest, but... Ping is pretty useless on its own XD Get(Ping(), Crash()) would be the cheapest powerful ability, and... Probably a really good thing to snipe with. Hold on - Get(Cull(), Crash()) is a great disable snipe, then you can chain that into something like Flood(Spark(), Load()), and use Mask(Turn(), Ping()) to get the hell out of there in case what you're fighting survives that, pretty reliably. You could use Jaunt(Breach), maybe with something else, to dash around, and then stack passives, but adding Jaunt is already getting pretty high in MEM cost.

@Tigersight0

5 жыл бұрын

@@Woodledude You can't assign functions to multiple slots, but you do get duplicate functions from recurse(). Some of the combinations are weird, I expected Tap(Spark(), Bounce()) to be really good, but it turned out that the damage was so low that it was almost useless. Meanwhile, Spark(Mask(), Ping()) is absolutely incredible. It's interesting that you mentioned Get(Cull(), Crash()) though, as that turns out to be one of the only good disables with cull in it. Since cull launches enemies, it'll actually throw them out of range of your attacks afterward, unless you combine it with something like Get(). There are some very interesting ability combinations.

Failure as an experience for its own sake rather than the end of the world which makes you want to put a game down and never suffer the shame and stress of defeat again is something I really need to take to heart with RTS games especially. I have a terrible tendency to avoid them for awhile after because for some reason losing in an RTS feels way more stressful, but I started to consider the same mindset you talked about in this video- how to take something out of that whether to revise tactics, or just have a cool story/experience out of your failure and I feel like that mindset might at least make failing in an RTS less stressful and which might make you more likely to get back into it because you either revise your strats or fail again- but at least you can turn it into a cool story or experience, the last brave stand of your army facing crushing overwhelming enemy firepower, fighting to the end. I really want to approach it from that mindset more otherwise I notice I just stop playing RTS if the mindset is that failure is shameful and to be fully avoided, but then you don't learn from your mistakes, and won't improve, so at least changing how you see failure in those games might help with that, I guess. Fuck if it isn't hard to break out of that negative mindset though, I have RTS games I haven't returned to yet because I failed quite a few times starting out and didn't want to push through it or even approach failure with a different mindset like this video....bad habit I don't know why but it feels like failure in RTS is the most crushing, and hardest impacting out of all other genres for some reason.

12:16 You march into MY home, take MY title

I remember my 99 lives on New Super Mario Bros. Wii, I loved to have that number in front each time I started to play, and when I was playing with friends I didn't like them to use Mario because I knew they were to lose all the lives, but I liked to get all those extra lives again by my own.

“The greatest teacher, failure is.” Me: unfortunately, I’m a slow learner XD

"No one talk about the other side of the coin : failure" I think you haven't looked long enough, it's maybe not one of the most talked video game topic, but it's still a very common subject.

Very interesting video (thanks!)... was thinking of Dwarf Fortress the whole time though :D

@-ahvilable-6654

6 жыл бұрын

rodericktech strange it wasn't mentioned

"In Roguelikes, death has very little consequence" Never have I heard words that should be less true. Unless the term has mutated to resemble a genre that I no longer recognize, the permadeath in a Roguelike has the highest consequence of any game possible. Your game is over, everything you earned is lost, you go back to the very start with a new character, and you can't even bank on your previous experience to help you as everything has been randomized again. Not only the map/gear/enemy layouts but, especially in much older examples, even the appearance of items. That purple potion that was a full heal last run is now a bottle of burning acid.

@CuriousKey

5 жыл бұрын

This guy always talks about rogue*lites* when he says dumb stuff about roguelikes. I think he's just unexposed to actual roguelikes. Obviously, a game that *deletes your save* when you die has the highest possible consequence for death short of setting your pc on fire. Though I would say, previous experience is all you can bank on. Sure, that potion might not be identified, but what if its in a stack of 4, and there are only 3 types of common potion in the game? That narrows down the possibility field. You beat roguelikes by exploiting metagame knowledge.

@lenon3579ify

5 жыл бұрын

@@CuriousKey I think this guy's channel has a lot of interesting stuff, but he always find a way to talk about roguelites and call them roguelikes and says that kind of dumb stuff. That annoys me.

@TheCashiron

4 жыл бұрын

Haha thank you, I totally rewinded the video twice to see if he actually said roguelites. Nope :P Good videos typically, but"In roguelikes death has very little consequence..." get outta here!

@Staenhus

4 жыл бұрын

The argument, as I understand it, is that you expect to die in a roguelike. Deaths are part of the core experience and the game is designed around them, thus become less impactful emotionally than in other games, where death is an interruption rather than a mechanic. He does seem to confuse the like/lite thing, but then again, it's a pretty confused distinction in the first place. He's not necessarily wrong about death not mattering as much when it's part of the gameplay loop though.

@hommhommhomm

4 жыл бұрын

@@CuriousKey Gamedeveloper notes: set.. computer..on..fire (by e.g. turning off fans and using the graphics card to the max) when player dies

Similar case with xcom 2, when I cared too much about doing good and winning I reloaded a lot when people died or a mission went bad and wasn't having much fun due to many long loading screens and almost feeling like I was cheating. It's only when I embraced the mistakes for a constant flow of progression and altering the gameplay that I began to have fun because it raised the stakes and also losing your grenadiers or ranger might force a tactics change for the next mission and letting soldiers get captured instead of reloading lets you do a mission to rescue them later. Xcom is so much better when you let failure happen and I feel like that signifies the importance of failure in games whether it be higher stakes causing more excitement or losing something and having to think around playing without what you lost.

it'd be interesting for you to go into the failstates of stealthgames. As in, you're spotted. When that happens you ha ven't really lost yet, but the experience is sometimes so dreadful that dying on purpose feels better than dealing with the consequences. I wonder how that could be *fixed*

I’d definitely add Hades and Disco Elysium to the list! Both approach failure differently but make it an integral part of your story in interesting ways

Personally my favorite games are ones that are hard but not hard to the point of tedium. Any souls esque game I enjoy, but touhou on lunatic is tedious. I enjoy being able to master a game, I just prefer when there is more to reflect on my death than oh enemy number 3457 narrowly avoided my hail of bullets and managed to get off one shot that I thought would graze me but instead killed me.

You left Dwarf Fortress out of this video... *whispers* how could you.

0:54 Ferocity maybe?

Car salesman: **slaps roof of me** this bad boy can hold so much failure in it

9:40: So I wasn't the only one who jumped like that upon saving a grub. Nice.

Deaths in games that death is infrequent in really stick in your mind. I remember playing through Bioshock 2 I only died once, because of a glitch where a big daddy trapped my in a corner and I couldn’t do anything. I still occasionally think about replaying Bioshock two just to rip him apart all over again for ruining a near perfect first time run of a Bioshock game for me.

I'm surprised you did not talk about xcom :p

@MusketWalrus

6 жыл бұрын

bub1eboy I'm surprised he didn't talk about This War of Mine or Frostpunk

@Jtak-qu5hk

4 жыл бұрын

@@MusketWalrus or dwarf fortress

The Intensity example you gave reminds me a lot of the old flash games I used to play. You get as far as possible with what you have, die, then use that skill-turned-to-money and spend it on upgrades to do better. then you can do better, get more money, repeat until you get to the end, so dying was less punishing the farther you got.

I agree with what you said. if you play to win then you try to find ways to cheese the boss and once you cheese it you are done with the boss and forget about it. if you play it normally with the mindset that failing is ok or it would just make you better in the fight you would enjoy the fight (depends on the boss if its rng based then idk) it all depends on the game. like I was playing terraria earlier and was stuck on a boss was getting hit a lot but the more i failed the more i learnt the battle and the more i began to dodge the projectiles and it felt like a great dance with the boss with the boss getting bombarded with rocket. Another great example of this would be hitman if you play to win then you would find the most efficient way of killing the targets with a silent assassin ranking and then forget about the map but if you play normally you would discover all the funny interactions you can have

There's a reason Tynan Sylvester markets Rimworld as a story generator moreso than a game. It's all about the insanity you'll run into in that cruel, savage world. You can savescum all you like, and optimize your gameplay with killboxes so that even 100-man tribal raids don't require even lifting a finger to defend against, and reroll your characters until you get perfect colonists so that you have a 3 man colony that can do anything you need really well, right at the get-go. But you'll get the best, most exciting, internally-screaming "what the fuck is going on lmao" moments when you loosen your standards on success on the Rimworld. At the beginning when I first played it, I spent more time on the wiki than in the game, and probably spent hours generating optimal characters and maps. But eventually as I lessened my standards to "not an Ice Sheet" and "probably capable of hauling" is when I started to really have fun on the Rim. Praise Randy.

Awesome video, always improving!

The way I tend to judge what a good fail state is, is when I'm put back to the checkpoint with a good idea of why I failed and what I could have done better. Obviously that's a difficult variable to control for, but it's usually the difference between whether or not I keep playing long enough to beat the game.

A video with both "fun" and "failure" in the title and no mention of Dwarf Fortress? Well, you did mention Rimworld, so I'll have to settle with that.

Your vids keep getting better and better and I love them, you got what it takes my man, looking forward to more

This is actually really interesting being on the heels of your Into the Breach episode. In that episode, you gave FTL a bit of a roasting for being objectively too high-variance, leading to frustrating deaths. I never took an issue with that, and in fact loved it for the same reasons you point out here. The short game time and the very fun persistent unlocks never made me feel burned when I lost; they just made me excited to play again and experiment more and learn more. I assume the difference for you is that in FTL, these deaths are largely RNG-driven. But to me, it usually feels like I could have survived if I'd played better. I may be *wrong*, mind you, but it usually feels like I could have won had I been playing safer, pushing more earlier to get greater rewards to make the rest of my run easier, knowing when I should have cut my losses, etc. Even when it doesn't... losing is fun! (Sometimes.) Plus, I'm an oldschool Roguelike player, so my tolerance for these things is pretty far towards "absolute masochist."

have you seen pete complete's ice sheet challenge. its a tale about a delightful cannibal living out where the average temperature is about -50 degrees. it comes fully equipped with national geographic narration as well.

Failure is half the fun of Rogue-lite/like games. An absolute critical part of the genres structure, and literally exciting (game depending) to see what you’ve unlocked or have the ability to unlock on the next run!

Xcom. My most memorable missions are typically failures or costly wins. Just finished a Legend playthrough of WotC by going HAM in the last room, completing it in 5 or 6 turns. I won't remember that in a few months but I'll never forget the campaign that I lost the final battle and how, once things started to go wrong, they quickly spiralled out of control. It was epic.

'Forcefulness' or even just 'Force' would be a great replacement for 'Intensity' to keep the alliteration train rolling

Hotline Miami is a game that jumped into my head. Usually every level takes a minimum of three lives, with every life going further and further into the level. With every life you'll know more about the level and even grow bolder. It wasn't until later into HTLM that I actually had good combos and actually started slaughtering.

Bloodborne is a good example of a game where you fail over and over but as soon as you progress it feels so satisfying and feels like you’ve truly achieved something

Fervor, Ferocity, and Fury all work as synonyms for intensity according to Thesaurus.com.

Me: * hears background music in beginning * Me: * ptsd of 10 hour desu desu *

interesting, I saw number of videos for fail states. I missed mention of fail state as a game mechanic like for example in the shadow of mordor.

Who else was really hoping he'd touch on Dwarf Fortress' "Losing is Fun" mantra?

@terrydavis1286

4 жыл бұрын

Or kenshi and rimworlds

Been finding your videos for a little while now. I think the last few have been a great improvement in terms of you finding your voice.

Corpse runs in all games I've played are definitely tense, but with smart play, they can make your risk pretty much non-existent. In dark souls you can lure that enemy that you're not sure you can beat to a place you know you can reach reliably. That way you'll never lose anything since you won't die before retrieving it.

I think the opposite. Roguelikes crush you when you die, Darksouls or Hollow Knight is much more alike to Sundered, with the caveat that you need a checkpoint instead of dying to get stronger. But still it's a game with constant progression, and as such, you know death is at worst a waste of your time. In roguelikes death is the end of a playthrough, and that can be very frustrating.

I know im a year late but i just want to mention im super excited to see Sundered mentioned. Its a pretty unknown game as far as im aware, but was such a joy to play.

Another great video, keep it up!

Sundered seemed so interesting I instantly bought it.

20XX does similar stuff to Sundered. It is a indie rogue-lite Megaman X influenced game. You can collect unique currencies during your runs which can only be spent in the hub after you die. Other pros of this game: great soundtrack and multiplayer.

Love this video!

I was confused about why he was playing "Desu Desu Desu" in the background like as if they didn't just put anime clips over the top of an actual song.

Another fantastic video! I'm curious, what's your opinion on giving the player more power as a failure mechanic? For example, your character gets stronger, but also corrupted the more you die. While getting weaker after not dying for some time. This could also be measured in enemies defeated instead of time. Finishing the game having played most of it corrupted leads to a bad ending, while playing most of it in a non corrupted state gives you the good ending while also being more challenging in trying not to die, but also having to defeat more enemies after death. I don't believe I've experienced this in a game, but I wanted to know your thoughts on it. Sorry for the butchered explanation haha. Have a fantastic day!

@ArchitectofGames

6 жыл бұрын

I think that's the kind of idea that sounds really cool on paper, but would be really hard to actually pull off. There's a lot of things you need to consider, for example rewarding players (at least in the short term) for dying means some will just kill themselves over and over again until they can trivialise the whole game, and you'd need to make sure the no death run is appropriately challenging and not just something that takes longer because you have low stats or something. You'd need to build the whole game around it that's for sure.

@SneakySnorunt

6 жыл бұрын

Adam Millard - The Architect of Games I agree, it definitely would be hard to balance. If someone manages to pull it off well it would be interesting. Thanks for the reply!

@Resistant396

5 жыл бұрын

A bit late, but if you can only get the good ending by being a skilled player, you're eliminating casual players from getting the best experience from your game. There's no rule saying you can't, there are obviously lots of games that try to do just that. But it's worth thinking about if you want people to enjoy the game.

@aFewBitsShort

5 жыл бұрын

If there's no carrot then what's the point of playing?

Interesting thoughts, always been more of a rager/safe player, I'll think about this

Planescape: Torment had a cool way of dealing with character deaths. Deaths for your character are completely meaningless. You just wake up and continue on your way, having lost nothing. The game actually incentivizes you to kill your character at certain points as a way to solve certain puzzles. You learn later in the game, though, that there was a hidden cost. Its spiritual successor, Torment: Tides of Numenera, has a similar mechanic. Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty also has a very memorable mission that makes it clear that it's just a matter of time until you lose. It's a unique challenge to see how skillfully you can play and how long you can hold out until you're completely overrun.

The first thing I thought of when I read this title was the game Hades. Since it's a roguelite, you die a lot. But since you're the son of the god of death, dying means rather little and the game centers its theme around death. I actually found it fun to die because in addition to getting use your resources for upgrades, it also pushed the story along. Characters would talk to you when you returned to the house of Hades so it actually made dying fun. Plus, Hypnos' "advice" can be pretty amusing.

I love collecting lives in mania on new playthroughs. Getting over 20 lives and the chaos emeralds is satisfying to look at.

This is a great video, but one thing that stood out as weird was the claim that death is low intensity in roguelikes and doesn't really matter? To me it's the absolute reverse; few games have as severe penalty of death as roguelikes, it's kind of one of the defining features? The most frustrating deaths I've experienced have been in e.g. ADOM or ToME after dozens or hundreds of hours of gameplay, undoing everything I've worked for.

@TheCashiron

4 жыл бұрын

Ancient Domains for the win!

7:10 Ziggurat reallly annoyed me with this, because inevitably the vast majority of unlocks would seem worse than what I had available, and would dilute my pool of perceived good options with stuff that seemed like garbage.

I am honestly surprised that not once you mentioned Dwarf Fortress

i feel the crusader kings series is another game that succeed real good at making it fun to lose (would argue its more fun to lose then to win honestly, providing you don´t activily try to lose that is). Its generaly easy to see why you lost, helping you to learn from you´re mistakes and ontop of that you losing is usually from some absurd thing like you´re doughter getting possesed by a demon and killing you´re entire family becouse you where so intent on getting that necronomicon so you could learn the "truth" of the world. Its fun to lose in Crusader kings becouse its a spectecle

Interesting content, i'll make sure to check other pieces of your work.. I'm surprised you didn't mention fighting games, as they have a very different approach to losing. On a personal note, sunless sea has my favorite failure implementation

End music is from Mutant Muds. Still have the demo on my 3DS from like 6 or so years ago

Another great video!

Once, in Streets of Rogue... I was playing the Werewolf class and got to the industrial area, which is the second world of the game. I went beast mode and killed a bunch of fools in one of the factories, but then I ran out of werewolf charge and turned back to a human after punching an overclocked generator. It was counting down to it's huge explosion and by the time I got out of my crazy-dizzy state I tried to run away in vain. There wasn't enough time to run, so a huge portion of the factory building and a bit of the outside got blown to bits. That... Was the end of my run. And looking back on it it's actually kind of funny.

That's why I always play Mario really carefree, taking tons of unnecessary risks and going for impossible jumps, even if it's not faster. I still love just messing around in SM64 with no real goal.

I really need to work on the "giving less of a fuck" one. Death is almost a deterrent for me, like once I've failed a few times I feel like playing something else... and often rarely come back until a few months or even years later... if ever.

Nothing like dying a dozen times to a boss and then jumping right back into the fight to try again. And die again, but that makes the eventual victory oh so sweet.

I'm surprised Hotline Miami wasn't discussed in some way. It's often referred to as a "rage" game because you're killed and reset a lot.

Horror Tabletop RPG's are my favorite because of the expectation of failure. If you do survive a game of Arkham horror you always have a good story. If you die you probably still get a silly story or two.

The most fun I ever had when I played Stellaris was when I played ironman mode and accidentally opened up the L-Gate early. Thus unleashing super powerful hoards to ravage the entire galaxy. RIP every single curator. I had also upped the end game crisis's difficulty so fighting the prethorian scurge when I was clearly weaker was a ton of fun. Developing the tactics to take advantage of their dump AI and trying to single out fleets to thin out the hoard.

I constantly try to find fun in living, thanks for the video

You know what's not fun? You not picking up that _one single geo._ Completely traumatizing, a lot more so than death.

In Killing Floor 2 you get a long time to think about each loss because you've either A. Gotten yourself surrounded and literally can't move B. Made some huge mistake in armor, ammo, or(/and) positioning that you and your friends have spent the whole round paying the price for

Nice video as always. What's your thoughts on how the continue fits in with this alongside things like lives?

@ArchitectofGames

6 жыл бұрын

Continues are really a relic of the arcade days if you ask me. I've always seen them as a "do over" you used to pay money for, the fact that they exist and were used alongside very Intense failure states was really just a way to milk money out of people. Nowadays, in games without microtransactions at least, they kind of function like a secondary lives system that's more punishing, but doesn't happen as often. Not a fan myself but I can see how they could be used as a saftey net of sorts, to let players know they lost and weren't good enough, but to still let them keep playing.

the problem with the corpse run is that it only works on the first failure. if you fail again you have nothing to lose anymore (which admittedly is pretty to the theme of hollow knight). the problem with rimworld is player expectations. it seems like a simulation game, games which typically test how efficiently you can use the games' systems, but it is actually, as you described, just a lot of crazy shit happening all the time meant to simulate the cruel indifference of life or whatever. the game is actually programmed to not let you progress past a certain point unless you build the escape ship, too.

By watching ur vids i am making my way back into enjoying videogames

Shovel Knight does this as well. Pretty good video!

The third one should have been Ferocity my dude.

@HMJ66

3 жыл бұрын

I was thinking Furiosity, but Ferocity is way better

So... Sundered. True, dying sends you back to the hub, but you can go there at any time to spend your points and stuff. You phrased it weird.

This reminds me of X-COM, or rather the second one to the remake. When I first started, I would play as safe as one could manage in that game, barely moving and acting as if my soldiers were some sort of immovable fortress. But, this tactic would constantly get someone killed, which would eventually lead to me only having about four people left. That's when I threw all my safety tactics away and tossed my infantry into the most precarious mission there could be with little care for the outcome; hell, I was gonna lose anyway! Somehow, despite me maneuvering my soldiers in what I thought was the worst way possible, I came out of that mission with a flawless score. I restarted again, tried the same tactics from that risky mission, and I beat the aliens into a pulp. Failure's great: it made me not care, which taught me how the game should be played.

You had me sold on Frazzles, we need more Frazzles in our games. I think rogue-likes are would classify themselves as either Monster Munch or Pork Scratchings; Mario would be more like Skips... Hmm, I'm suddenly quite hungry.

Pretty sure Shadow of War and Shadow of Mordor are two games that nailed making death a feature.

20h for KZread to send me the notification of the video...Great joy YT, great job.

@Tordek

6 жыл бұрын

But... it was posted like an hour ago?

@Madhattersinjeans

6 жыл бұрын

NANI

dig your videos. Would love to hear you talk about Rust in some form. I might be a bit of a fanboy but I think it offers many avenues of discussion.

*[insert obligatory Dark Souls reference]*

Glad someone apreciates Sundered not just for its art style. I also believe the death system makes the game quite interesting and unique.

you forgot dead space, Issac's death had so many different animations that people would die just to see them XD.

This vid makes a lot of sense. And it convinced me to buy rimworld back when I first watched it. And while I agree with playing risky, I do have a lot of fun just kinda preparing. It's all the inbetween stuff for me. Raids are fun, but they can be stressful. But the reward makes it all worth it.

I enjoyed, in particular, the RimWorld description. This game has a huge, borderline fanatic, following. There was only one thing you said that I disagreed with: "... learning to give less of a fuck". This game is, weirdly enough, great for its storytelling. It's not that the players don't "give a fuck" but that we learn to cope with it and rebuild. We know that failure is an integral part of it, as you said, but further more: "it's how you learn to play". Some of the most despairing but interesting and weirdly fun moments for me, personally, were the catastrophes that caused the loss of my playthrough's favourite pawns (or even the entire colony, because I ignored that "space heroine"). The game even provides a "second chance" with the MIB, even if you're dying from not stocking up for that extended Toxic Fallout and Cold Snap combo... Well, if you "took risks", you can always eat what you captured, just make sure you take some valuable organs first and give your pawns a good bedroom...

I have a few things to say about fun failures and frustrating failures, the most frustrating failures are serious games, with drawn out deaths, limited tries, long loading times, characters complaining at you failing and you failing for actually complete bullshit reasons. then you have more ballanced ones where failing just means trying again but knowing better, and the fun failures to me are the ones that aren't finale, can be hopped off at any moment, replayed from different angles and have mechanics based around making it goofy, because why make your character die, crying in pain, with depressing music, and seriously dredfull outcome when you can make the failure the goal and try to make your character ragdoll do the most backflips possible and freak out the most pedestrians possible, like, you can do parkour, but if you click on that one bouton, it will make your parkour move fail, let's try to fail the most spectacularly possible.

Frequency, flexibility, and force of failure. Come on man, it's a synonym for intensity.