Currently Playing in 2020...

ITSMILNER wrote:Started playing Swords of Ditto: Mormo’s Curse I never played it when it originally released but from what I understand they gave it a massive overhaul in the way it works. It feels like a top down Zelda but has an art style that reminds me of Cartoon Network shows (Think Adventure Time) and the basic idea is you have to beat Mormo and you can either go straight for her or find dungeons and find items to make her weaker before you try taking her down.

I like it so far, only put about an hour into it so far so we’ll see how it develops as I go.

Corazon de Leon wrote:Finished Jet Force Gemini. Apparently only 0.09% of people have finished off Mizar and only 0.06% of people have done all the ridiculous Floyd missions - I'm not surprised.

Seven wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:Finished Jet Force Gemini. Apparently only 0.09% of people have finished off Mizar and only 0.06% of people have done all the ridiculous Floyd missions - I'm not surprised.

Huh, that low? I felt with improved controls the game was lot easier than it was on N64!
It's still def. difficult but I assume more people would've done it.

(Ffloyd missions though ugggh)

Seven wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:Finished Jet Force Gemini. Apparently only 0.09% of people have finished off Mizar and only 0.06% of people have done all the ridiculous Floyd missions - I'm not surprised.

Huh, that low? I felt with improved controls the game was lot easier than it was on N64!
It's still def. difficult but I assume more people would've done it.

(Ffloyd missions though ugggh)

PsychicSykes wrote:I was playing some Hollow Knight. The platforming and combat feels really precise and I like the visual style more than I thought I would. However, the map system seems engineered to annoy me and I'm not a fan of how much wandering about blindly. I spent about 45 minutes yesterday and today stumbling from room to room looking for some hint of where I should be going next. As far as I could tell every possible route was blocked off to me due to lacking an ability of some kind.

I looked it up and it turns out I should've been doing a down attack on some mushrooms to gain height, which was fun, considering there's no indication of this and that the game just assumed I'd know such an attack existed.

I don't know if I want to play anymore.

PsychicSykes wrote:I was playing some Hollow Knight. The platforming and combat feels really precise and I like the visual style more than I thought I would. However, the map system seems engineered to annoy me and I'm not a fan of how much wandering about blindly. I spent about 45 minutes yesterday and today stumbling from room to room looking for some hint of where I should be going next. As far as I could tell every possible route was blocked off to me due to lacking an ability of some kind.

I looked it up and it turns out I should've been doing a down attack on some mushrooms to gain height, which was fun, considering there's no indication of this and that the game just assumed I'd know such an attack existed.

I don't know if I want to play anymore.

PsychicSykes wrote:I was playing some Hollow Knight. The platforming and combat feels really precise and I like the visual style more than I thought I would. However, the map system seems engineered to annoy me and I'm not a fan of how much wandering about blindly. I spent about 45 minutes yesterday and today stumbling from room to room looking for some hint of where I should be going next. As far as I could tell every possible route was blocked off to me due to lacking an ability of some kind.

I looked it up and it turns out I should've been doing a down attack on some mushrooms to gain height, which was fun, considering there's no indication of this and that the game just assumed I'd know such an attack existed.

I don't know if I want to play anymore.

Hime wrote:

PsychicSykes wrote:I was playing some Hollow Knight. The platforming and combat feels really precise and I like the visual style more than I thought I would. However, the map system seems engineered to annoy me and I'm not a fan of how much wandering about blindly. I spent about 45 minutes yesterday and today stumbling from room to room looking for some hint of where I should be going next. As far as I could tell every possible route was blocked off to me due to lacking an ability of some kind.

I looked it up and it turns out I should've been doing a down attack on some mushrooms to gain height, which was fun, considering there's no indication of this and that the game just assumed I'd know such an attack existed.

I don't know if I want to play anymore.

Thank you for making me not feel like an idiot, that was almost the end for me too. I actively hated the game for a while but eventually it got it's hooks in and is one of my favourite games. Don't give up yet.

I'm playing The Witcher 3 and I don't know if I've done something wrong, I did everything I could possibly do in the starting area yet I'm only level 5 and feel massively unpowered for every quest, landmark, contract, etc in the next area.

PsychicSykes wrote:I was playing some Hollow Knight. The platforming and combat feels really precise and I like the visual style more than I thought I would. However, the map system seems engineered to annoy me and I'm not a fan of how much wandering about blindly. I spent about 45 minutes yesterday and today stumbling from room to room looking for some hint of where I should be going next. As far as I could tell every possible route was blocked off to me due to lacking an ability of some kind.

I looked it up and it turns out I should've been doing a down attack on some mushrooms to gain height, which was fun, considering there's no indication of this and that the game just assumed I'd know such an attack existed.

I don't know if I want to play anymore.

OrangeRKN wrote:

I thought this was well designed to be intuitive as to what the player needs to do, and I have screenshots to prove it!

This is the room as it looks when you enter. You drop down from above so you're always coming in from this direction.



See how there are some mushrooms on the floor just below the ledge you start on? These are perfectly positioned for you to fall onto when you run off the edge. And what happens when you drop onto them? You bounce!



When you try to move further right there is this obvious pillar that is far too high to jump over, but you can also see past it on the screen and see that this is a way to go - and on either side there are more mushrooms at half the height of the pillar.



The player may well have figured out what to do already, but more hints are to be found if necessary. These mushrooms are new and the player is quite likely to try attacking them (especially as there are other breakable scenery mushrooms surrounding them). Hit the ones on the ground from the side and you'll be sent skidding backwards - a direct demonstration that attacking the mushrooms bounces you off further than just colliding with them.

It is left to the player to fill in the final piece of the puzzle, that you have to do a downwards attack on the mushrooms to gain the height you need - but I think the game does a very good job of guiding the player towards the solution without telling them. Revisiting it I actually think it's a good example of how well the game is designed!

Corazon de Leon wrote:I strawberry floating hate games that do things like that.

Hime wrote:Thank you for making me not feel like an idiot, that was almost the end for me too.

OrangeRKN wrote:*finds old post*

OrangeRKN wrote:

I thought this was well designed to be intuitive as to what the player needs to do, and I have screenshots to prove it!

This is the room as it looks when you enter. You drop down from above so you're always coming in from this direction.



See how there are some mushrooms on the floor just below the ledge you start on? These are perfectly positioned for you to fall onto when you run off the edge. And what happens when you drop onto them? You bounce!



When you try to move further right there is this obvious pillar that is far too high to jump over, but you can also see past it on the screen and see that this is a way to go - and on either side there are more mushrooms at half the height of the pillar.



The player may well have figured out what to do already, but more hints are to be found if necessary. These mushrooms are new and the player is quite likely to try attacking them (especially as there are other breakable scenery mushrooms surrounding them). Hit the ones on the ground from the side and you'll be sent skidding backwards - a direct demonstration that attacking the mushrooms bounces you off further than just colliding with them.

It is left to the player to fill in the final piece of the puzzle, that you have to do a downwards attack on the mushrooms to gain the height you need - but I think the game does a very good job of guiding the player towards the solution without telling them. Revisiting it I actually think it's a good example of how well the game is designed!

That said (again), evidence increasingly suggests it's not so intuitive! I wonder what differently the game could do to make it easier to discover, without straight-up tutorialising it? Maybe if the room you dropped into couldn't be escaped without performing the bounce move? A brief cutscene of an NPC (like Hornet) performing the move would work as a demonstration, but that's getting closer to making it a tutorial. Making the fall onto the mushrooms unmissable would probably help a little, if people were avoiding it.

PsychicSykes wrote:I was playing some Hollow Knight. The platforming and combat feels really precise and I like the visual style more than I thought I would. However, the map system seems engineered to annoy me and I'm not a fan of how much wandering about blindly. I spent about 45 minutes yesterday and today stumbling from room to room looking for some hint of where I should be going next. As far as I could tell every possible route was blocked off to me due to lacking an ability of some kind.

I looked it up and it turns out I should've been doing a down attack on some mushrooms to gain height, which was fun, considering there's no indication of this and that the game just assumed I'd know such an attack existed.

I don't know if I want to play anymore.