Is this the best we can do?

by George on Nov.10, 2009, under Game Design, Reviews, Uncategorized

Perhaps I expect too much?

I was playing the demo of Torchlight the other day. It’s a beautiful game – art and game play honed to near perfection. So why after a couple of hours of playing did I feel hollow inside? What was I doing? Why? Was this even fun? I love this sort of game – I lost vast quantities of time to Diablo, and enjoyed it.

So what’s the difference here? Here I was, avidly collecting loot, leveling up and so on, flying through enemies with happy abandon. I think that ultimately that’s all there was to it. Fight / loot / fight / loot. Where was my motivation and back story? Where was the momentary pause to plan my attacks before diving through a door to tackle the nasty boss monster? Half the time I didn’t even register that I was fighting a boss until I was picking over his corpse. What level was I on? What made this one stand out from all the others?

I’ve felt this way before, playing Bunni Bunni, designed by Danc, who’s blog is an inspiration and well worth reading. I found myself playing it to completion, but was left with nothing of value to take away from the experience. It’s a carefully constructed task / reward structure, tuned to the point where conscious thought dissappears. It’s akin to grind in MMO’s. Don’t even get me started there.

When designing games, we talk about addiction as if it’s a good thing – the ultimate goal. If that’s the best we can do, I need to find another hobby. Fortunately, there’s still plenty of scope for story telling (Dragon Age), exploration (Small Worlds) and deep strategy (Galactic Civilisations II) and simple beauty (Braid, Aquaria).

I guess what I’m saying is that with a family and work, my spare moments playing games are precious to me. Playing a game ‘just to fill in time’ is pointless. I want to have an experience, one that I’ll reflect on later as worthwhile. I really wanted to like Torchlight, but I just can’t.

Or is it just me? Let me know what you think…

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5 Comments for this entry

Bayard Randel
November 16th, 2009 on 10:00 am
Hey George! I just recently started playing Torchlight myself – managed to get it running under mac os x in wine, which was something of a mission.

It’s certainly a pretty, well made game, but I would have to agree that it’s ultimately a bit empty. Had they included a co-op feature the game would be significantly more enjoyable – my wife and I would have enjoyed playing this together, despite it’s relative lack of depth.

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George
November 16th, 2009 on 10:06 am
Hey Kit, good to hear from you.

I keep wondering if I’m being too harsh on Torchlight, but then I remember the feeling I had playing it. I think the kicker for me is that game playing time is a scarce commodity, so rather than a longer experience, I want a better one.

I’ve just started playing Dragon Age though, so I’m getting longer *and* better

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Jasmine
November 17th, 2009 on 12:06 pm
Hey there, I agree entirely! This sentiment has been on my mind as of late. I beat Bunni Bunni from 1 to about 5 am this morning – I just couldn’t stop. The ending felt oddly unsatisfying. When I was saving up for the Church (I actually opened another tab and watched an episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia at this point (had a self-sustaining economy spanning the whole map)) I remember having the EXACT feeling as you described: an MMO grind. I was just running back and forth to shake trees for those damn gems.

It WAS beautiful, a very slick playing experience. Although my first run was bugged and I was never allowed off the first island. Aside from that, with even its cute premise and quirky humor at times, it quickly fell flat.

Torchlight was a similar experience. After beating the ‘last boss’ I had to text my friend who introduced me to it to see if that was really the end, and I remember it was so disheartening when he said “Yup”.

I haven’t tried Dragon Age yet, but I think this is definitely a major point that I think is going to start making itself even more evident if games continue in this trend. I wish I had some constructive advice on how to prevent it, but I don’t. I can try though:

Speaking mainly about Diablo II here, I think the story WAS Diablo. The gameplay was just the glue that held it together. The cutscenes were pretty, but that wasn’t the point. They helped immerse you and really give you a sense that instead of kill/loot, there was this event happening, something real and tangible. I remember actually being a little confused at the cutscenes not really matching the gameplay (what was my character’s relation to the wanderer and the narrator exactly?) but it did its job fine regardless. At any point it got tedious, the underlying plot(s) helped further the pace.

Torchlight FELT algorithmic. It didn’t try to hide the fact that it was just floor ###. Instead of being in some jungle zealot’s dungeon as compared to a desert crypt, with the connecting environments and story to get there, you just kept descending floor by floor and the world just started changing as you went lower. It sort of made zero sense: So this monster just shook the shit out of everything climbing up a pole, I killed it, and now I go down another floor and I’m in a new art template? Sweet.

I think they nailed it perfect on everything BUT the connections. There was no real difference in Forbidden wasteland and Captain Dave’s Super End Dungeon except art. You just killed/looted/clicked to descend/kill/looted/clicked to descend/town/sell/portal/kill/loot/descend/kill/loot/win.

Making us run in circles unnecessarily like they are so fond of doing in MMORPGs definitely isn’t the answer. I think that’s the opposite extreme. But like anything, there’s a balance that needs to be met. Torchlight is supposed to extremely moddable, so I hope this includes being able to mod new levels other than just a long chain of different looking descending dungeons.

I think I’m digressing. If Mario was the original 2-player multiplayer, but with one person, it would get old fast. There would be no real point, nothing special. You are just running around bopping things until you mess up and die. Likewise, save the girl is about the most generic, standard plot there is. It’s only when you pair the two, the nice 2d jumping/running mechanic with the story that anything worth one’s time comes out of. I feel like this is the same lesson we have been trying to learn/master so I’m prolly not adding anything useful to this and I’ve typed waaay too much already. Just wanted you to know I share the sentiment as well! =D

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George
November 17th, 2009 on 12:34 pm
Hi Jasmine, thanks for your thoughts!

I think Torchlight is very close to being a great game, it’s just needs something to motivate the action, like you say.

As for Dragon Age, it’s very much a Bioware game, so you could call it formulaic, but I’m enjoying it, and I guess for any player that’s what counts.

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mireille
March 14th, 2010 on 9:25 am
quelle bonne info, merci pour ce post .

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