Nintendo is way ahead of these guys. The last few mario games let you pick a character that can’t be hurt or killed. And if that’s too hard for you, they’ll even show you exactly how to play the level.
My nephew picks that up in 3D world and it drives me crazy! What’s the point of playing if you’re immune to everything and can’t be damaged!? I should point out, we were playing cooperatively, so it wasn’t like he was just messing around by himself. And he’s 11 and can definitely play it normally…
The real problem with the “improved” SMB from the post is not that it has ways of making the game easier, it’s that the “fixes” amount to a microtransaction hellhole, complete with intrusive prompts.
I’m all for games with configurable difficulty. Nobody thinks less of Doom for having difficulty settings. But everybody does think less of games that pair frustrating mechanics (like difficulty spikes or countdown timers) with bypass MTX.
To use the default controversial genre, I think that a soulslike with difficulty settings would work just fine. But a soulslike where your healing flask only restores one charge every ten minutes unless you buy more charges from the store (but store-bought ones can exceed the normal maximum) or where game-breakingly OP equipment is available as MTX would not go over well.
I can at least support baby mode for, like, extremely small kids and maybe co-op with that one person who’s never touched a video game in their life but wants to play along with the other three. You know, the kids are over at grandpa’s, and he wants to feel like he’s playing and having fun with them instead of just setting and forgetting them on the magic dopamine box, but he’s no good at it, so he takes the invincible character. I think that’s reasonable, inclusive game design.
What I take issue with is when baby mode drags down the difficulty of the rest of the game modes. For example, you as a game designer benchmark “normal mode” against “being literally invulnerable”, and so you now have to play hard mode to even vaguely feel any sort of tension.
That is just bad game design, and nothing inherently to do with having easier modes. There is a long, long, history of games having easy modes, and still being some of the most challenging games made, when you select the harder ones.
The way it works is this: The people catch hold of something, and make magic. It makes a ton of money, because people can recognize magic. Then other people with investment money get involved. Gradually, the magic oriented people are outnumbered, the fun of their average working day declines, and they leave or simply get shouldered into some niche somewhere by the unimaginable torrent of motivated people who have something else on their mind.
No one involved in Mario, Zelda, Metroid, or Contra has been anywhere near the design team at Nintendo for decades. These guys own the rights to call it “Mario,” but if they weren’t making games where you can turn Mario into an elephant, they could be just as happy making sweat pants with writing on the ass. And the magic is off somewhere else, doing its thing.
These guys own the rights to call it “Mario,” but if they weren’t making games where you can turn Mario into an elephant, they could be just as [miserable] making sweat pants with writing on the ass.
FTFY. But also nice one, I loled. And you’re absolutely spot on with what you’re saying too.
I’m not sure if I’m missing sarcasm here, but Super Mario Bros. Wonder is freaking amazing. There’s so much creativity packed into that game, that almost every level they introduce a new mechanic that could easily be it’s whole entire game.
Oh, I dunno about any of the newer Mario games, I was just taking people’s word for it.
I was agreeing with the way that successful brands/IP tend to get milked to death by business types long after the creative types have moved on. But tbf I think Nintendo is one of the few corporations where they have been able to maintain the creative vitality of their franchises for 30+ years, they may be an exception to that rule. Especially with Mario and Zelda, they continued to make great games long after the original creative teams were gone.
But still, all it takes is a few dumbass MBAs to ruin great things by driving away the people who make the magic happen.
Yeah, I agree in general, IP milking is pretty bad right now (always been bad, but gotten even worse), but Nintendo is an exception. If they release a game at all, it at least has some merit to justify its existence. Except of course, Pokemon…
Nintendo is way ahead of these guys. The last few mario games let you pick a character that can’t be hurt or killed. And if that’s too hard for you, they’ll even show you exactly how to play the level.
My nephew picks that up in 3D world and it drives me crazy! What’s the point of playing if you’re immune to everything and can’t be damaged!? I should point out, we were playing cooperatively, so it wasn’t like he was just messing around by himself. And he’s 11 and can definitely play it normally…
Mario Wonder both had a “baby mode” mechanic and yet also had some genuinely interesting and challenging levels.
Celeste is extremely difficult yet also has a baby mode feature.
Many games have a “tell me a story” difficulty level which is more or less the same idea.
Games having an easy difficulty without detracting from the game’s main challenge and balance is not a problem IMO.
The real problem with the “improved” SMB from the post is not that it has ways of making the game easier, it’s that the “fixes” amount to a microtransaction hellhole, complete with intrusive prompts.
I’m all for games with configurable difficulty. Nobody thinks less of Doom for having difficulty settings. But everybody does think less of games that pair frustrating mechanics (like difficulty spikes or countdown timers) with bypass MTX.
To use the default controversial genre, I think that a soulslike with difficulty settings would work just fine. But a soulslike where your healing flask only restores one charge every ten minutes unless you buy more charges from the store (but store-bought ones can exceed the normal maximum) or where game-breakingly OP equipment is available as MTX would not go over well.
I can at least support baby mode for, like, extremely small kids and maybe co-op with that one person who’s never touched a video game in their life but wants to play along with the other three. You know, the kids are over at grandpa’s, and he wants to feel like he’s playing and having fun with them instead of just setting and forgetting them on the magic dopamine box, but he’s no good at it, so he takes the invincible character. I think that’s reasonable, inclusive game design.
What I take issue with is when baby mode drags down the difficulty of the rest of the game modes. For example, you as a game designer benchmark “normal mode” against “being literally invulnerable”, and so you now have to play hard mode to even vaguely feel any sort of tension.
That is just bad game design, and nothing inherently to do with having easier modes. There is a long, long, history of games having easy modes, and still being some of the most challenging games made, when you select the harder ones.
I agree completely. Idk why they do it. They got filthy rich off kids 5-10 playing the shit out of NES games.
The way it works is this: The people catch hold of something, and make magic. It makes a ton of money, because people can recognize magic. Then other people with investment money get involved. Gradually, the magic oriented people are outnumbered, the fun of their average working day declines, and they leave or simply get shouldered into some niche somewhere by the unimaginable torrent of motivated people who have something else on their mind.
No one involved in Mario, Zelda, Metroid, or Contra has been anywhere near the design team at Nintendo for decades. These guys own the rights to call it “Mario,” but if they weren’t making games where you can turn Mario into an elephant, they could be just as happy making sweat pants with writing on the ass. And the magic is off somewhere else, doing its thing.
FTFY. But also nice one, I loled. And you’re absolutely spot on with what you’re saying too.
I’m not sure if I’m missing sarcasm here, but Super Mario Bros. Wonder is freaking amazing. There’s so much creativity packed into that game, that almost every level they introduce a new mechanic that could easily be it’s whole entire game.
Oh, I dunno about any of the newer Mario games, I was just taking people’s word for it.
I was agreeing with the way that successful brands/IP tend to get milked to death by business types long after the creative types have moved on. But tbf I think Nintendo is one of the few corporations where they have been able to maintain the creative vitality of their franchises for 30+ years, they may be an exception to that rule. Especially with Mario and Zelda, they continued to make great games long after the original creative teams were gone.
But still, all it takes is a few dumbass MBAs to ruin great things by driving away the people who make the magic happen.
Yeah, I agree in general, IP milking is pretty bad right now (always been bad, but gotten even worse), but Nintendo is an exception. If they release a game at all, it at least has some merit to justify its existence. Except of course, Pokemon…
Difficulty is hardly the point of the post.
OMG I added to the conversation, how horrible of me!