Chris

Idle Thumbs 257: "Some Kind of Drifter" or "Rigid Body Rat King"

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Idle Thumbs 257:

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"Some Kind of Drifter" or "Rigid Body Rat King"

Outer space is burning, ravaged by the never-ending military-corporate conflict factory that is EVE Online. While reports are still coming in from deep space, we can confirm that just like real wars, Spacemonkey's Alliance is involved, as is Killah Bee, 1ronBank, and the Moneybadgers. If this is all too much for you, know that IKEA has released a piece of VR software that lets you chill out in a perfectly clean, virtual kitchen forever.

Discussed: EVE Online, IKEA VR Experience, Hyper Light Drifter, Hitman (2016), Bombmeister, NBA 2K16

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Great discussion on the different types of difficulties that exist in games with regard to Hyper Light Drifter.

 

I didn't have nearly as much trouble with HLD as it seems to be causing a lot of people, and I was trying to figure out why, because I'm actually awful at twitchy type games. There are a lot of platformers that I can't play. When people would watch me play Spelunky I received a lot of comments about how I played in this super-conservative, cautious style. That wasn't by choice, it was literally the only way I was capable of engaging with the game. I remember seeing some stuff Chris would do in his stream, and realizing that he could do stuff that I could never hope to replicate. There are some side levels in Spelunky like the alien ship that I've never gotten through because they seem to require a degree of twitch skill that is beyond me. I mostly play strategy games, but I never got good at anything like SC 2, and I've never been good at mutliplayer shooters.

 

So knowing all that, I figured there had to be some other wall people were hitting. And after watching a couple of people streaming the game, and playing on youtube, I noticed that there are a couple of rules that people are assuming about the game that aren't actually true, and that is making their experience playing the game much more difficult then it actually is.

 

The most common thing I've seen is people moving and positioning themselves in a way where they are trying to avoid making contact with enemies. Presumably that's because in something like old Zelda games you take damage that way. But in HLD that's not the case, you only take damage from attack animations, and enemies always signal when an attack animation is about to happen. That means there's a lot of information people aren't taking advantage of.

 

So that's an interesting example of how subtle design decisions can impact how a player experiences a game. Because the game looks like these other games where the rules work differently, and there isn't anything in the game explicitly explaining to you that this is how the mechanics work, you just kind of have to observe it for yourself, and if you don't pick up on these cues the game is transmitting then it is easy to feel frustrated.

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Great discussion on the different types of difficulties that exist in games with regard to Hyper Light Drifter.

 

I didn't have nearly as much trouble with HLD as it seems to be causing a lot of people, and I was trying to figure out why, because I'm actually awful at twitchy type games. There are a lot of platformers that I can't play. When people would watch me play Spelunky I received a lot of comments about how I played in this super-conservative, cautious style. That wasn't by choice, it was literally the only way I was capable of engaging with the game. I remember seeing some stuff Chris would do in his stream, and realizing that he could do stuff that I could never hope to replicate. There are some side levels in Spelunky like the alien ship that I've never gotten through because they seem to require a degree of twitch skill that is beyond me. I mostly play strategy games, but I never got good at anything like SC 2, and I've never been good at mutliplayer shooters.

 

So knowing all that, I figured there had to be some other wall people were hitting. And after watching a couple of people streaming the game, and playing on youtube, I noticed that there are a couple of rules that people are assuming about the game that aren't actually true, and that is making their experience playing the game much more difficult then it actually is.

 

The most common thing I've seen is people moving and positioning themselves in a way where they are trying to avoid making contact with enemies. Presumably that's because in something like old Zelda games you take damage that way. But in HLD that's not the case, you only take damage from attack animations, and enemies always signal when an attack animation is about to happen. That means there's a lot of information people aren't taking advantage of.

 

So that's an interesting example of how subtle design decisions can impact how a player experiences a game. Because the game looks like these other games where the rules work differently, and there isn't anything in the game explicitly explaining to you that this is how the mechanics work, you just kind of have to observe it for yourself, and if you don't pick up on these cues the game is transmitting then it is easy to feel frustrated.

Good observation! I think I'm doubly poor at this because I'm just not very good at picking up on things like attack signaling by enemies--especially in a low-resolution game like this where the sprite animation is very low-fidelity. (Not a bad thing, just the game's style.) I'm already bad enough at it in really detailed fighting games, but in a game like this I think I'm basically not even aware of it. I'm totally at ease in a game like Spelunky where I know that AT ANY TIME a given enemy could do a certain thing, so I know how much distance to keep or not to keep, or how to react in a tiny split-second if something suddenly goes from zero to Happening, but the idea of getting right up in an enemy's face and being aware of an oncoming attack signal is just totally intimidating to me.

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Like Nick, I'm still playing NBA 2K16 on and off. Unlike Nick, I discovered The Wizard right at the start of my playthrough. When the game asks you to enter your name at the start, because my surname is Thatcher, I started typing 'TH'. Thatcher wasn't one of the suggested names that came up, so I assumed this meant that they hadn't recorded any dialogue for it. I did however notice that one of the suggestions was 'The Wizard', so of course I chose that. Throughout the story section of the career, the commentators went back and forth between calling me Freq and calling me The Wizard, which was a bit odd. After the first season, I tried to get transferred to the Washington Wizards, but they weren't interested in me.

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So that's an interesting example of how subtle design decisions can impact how a player experiences a game. Because the game looks like these other games where the rules work differently, and there isn't anything in the game explicitly explaining to you that this is how the mechanics work, you just kind of have to observe it for yourself, and if you don't pick up on these cues the game is transmitting then it is easy to feel frustrated.

That's interesting because what HLD reminded me of up front was Dark Souls, so I approached the combat as similar to Dark Souls philosophically. That meant that while I didn't expect to take contact damage, I did expect to have invincibility during my dashes. Because rolling forwards under an attack and then countering is usually a very strong tactic vs Dark Souls bosses, I found myself very frequently blundering right into attacks with a dash timed perfectly to slam my face right into their attack.

 

It's actually really interesting how the first impression someone has of a game like HLD, particularly in reference to other games, can influence their experience so thoroughly.

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I've been enjoying HLD a lot and I've been semi following it since I first heard about it around 2012/2013. One of the things that struck me about your discussion of it was the point that the game doesn't compromise it's accessibility given it's possibly niche visual style and it got me thinking about a fact I picked up from a while back (I think it was a very old RPS interview and re-reading it now I'm thinking that because of the one of (?) the lead developer's the game is very uncompromising for the vision of the scope and style of story it would tell.

 

How A Lifetime Of Heart Disease Birthed Hyper Light Drifter

 

Essentially the creator was a freelance artist at the time with a style that was described as very insular. Anyway a few years ago he finally picked up the threads of the game that have been in his head for a long time and decided to make the game he's always wanted to I guess.

 

Anyway I'm loving the game. I've never actually played a Zelda like game and I was partially drawn to this on the idea that it was a Zelda style game for PC. I was definitely taken by the sound design and art first though. 

For some reason when I think of games to compare this gameplay to what immediately comes up is Devil May Cry and Hotline Miami and I'm not quite sure why. HM is obviously a vibrant puzzle/twitch style game But I'm sure there are closer comparisons with other games.

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The Hyper Light Drifter discussion was really interesting because I'm "bad at video games" and found HLD challenging but completely fine (aside from some super hard extra collectible stuff). I think the challenge of the game, at least personally, comes from survival skills more than reading the enemies well. I played Dark Souls very cautiously, but in a way that didn't work in the game. I eventually got to a point where I'd fire arrows at enemies and then run away from them, but the game pushed back on me playing it 'wrong'.

 

In some ways I think it's that I'm better in 2D, but I also think it's because the survival aspect is more important to HLD (thematically too). I look forward to deep dives on it from smarter, more observant people.

 

 

Also you guys started on the path to our dystopian kitchen future but didn't bring it to the natural conclusion. Obviously after everyone starts wearing VR helmets to make their kitchen nicer, they don't need to worry about having their actual furniture be good. It's just more convenient to VR in what you want, plus you can do it at a friend's house too! So of course, that's when IKEA just starts selling licences to their furniture designs. Forget about owning future, you can just get a licence for a really nice looking VR skin for your shitty kitchen instead.

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I know it's boring to compare every video game to Dark Souls... but:

 

I think I'd also find HLD extremely frustrating if it hadn't played hundreds of hours of souls games. Not that the muscle memory is 1:1, more that the mentality of observing, sticking and moving and lots of dodging around.

 

Similarly, I find myself pushing up against all the barriers and attacking objects that are in any way suspicious as you would in a Souls game. Weirdly, there are some issues with the readability of the level design so that it can be difficult to know how you leave a space. A couple times i've found hidden hallways that lead me to upgrade items and secret messages, while completely missing the exit and just assuming I'd either hit a dead end or that I haven't flipped a necessary switch somewhere.

 

Also, Chris (and I'm just going to assume you haven't already been deluged with this information), when you find 4 of those yellow glowing pick-ups, they turn into an upgrade coin which can be spent in the shops in town. Most upgrades take 2 - 4 completed coins. I recommend the bullet reflecting sword attack in the shop with the sword and the chain charge in the shop with the arrows on the sign. These skills opened up the game the most for me. 

 

Regarding the A/B testing chat. 

 

Everyone else heard Nick say they were getting the 'A' version, right? 

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Like Nick, I'm still playing NBA 2K16 on and off. Unlike Nick, I discovered The Wizard right at the start of my playthrough. When the game asks you to enter your name at the start, because my surname is Thatcher, I started typing 'TH'. Thatcher wasn't one of the suggested names that came up, so I assumed this meant that they hadn't recorded any dialogue for it. I did however notice that one of the suggestions was 'The Wizard', so of course I chose that. Throughout the story section of the career, the commentators went back and forth between calling me Freq and calling me The Wizard, which was a bit odd. After the first season, I tried to get transferred to the Washington Wizards, but they weren't interested in me.

 

I'm 100% sure I chose some goofy nickname at the start of my career, but everyone in the game will only call me Freq. I wish there was a way to change that after starting it.

 

(I'm still playing as well, but I'm a maniac that plays all games with 12-min quarters, so I'm still halfway through my second season, that is actually my first full one)

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I'm 100% sure I chose some goofy nickname at the start of my career, but everyone in the game will only call me Freq. I wish there was a way to change that after starting it.

 

There is! The option is just hidden away in a menu that you wouldn't think to look in. I think one of the general "gameplay options" menus? 

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There is! The option is just hidden away in a menu that you wouldn't think to look in. I think one of the general "gameplay options" menus?

Haha wtf, why does this work this way??

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Yeah, the UI in NBA 2K games have been horrible in my experience. I did not know that I can choose a nickname that the commentators would actually use. I don't even know what Frequency Vibrations is supposed to mean. Periodic frequency fluctuations?

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I think the real kicker will be the Ikea Experience game for the Holo Lens. So you can actually be in your living room, kitchen, bedroom whatever and decorate the entire place with the full Ikea catalogue at your disposal. It's probably the first thing I thought of when the Holo Lens was announced. 

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Empires of EVE came out this week! Possibly even on the day you guys recorded this. I've been wanting to read it since the Polygon Backstory episode about it. Hearing about this crazy shit is great.

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Empires of EVE came out this week! Possibly even on the day you guys recorded this. I've been wanting to read it since the Polygon Backstory episode about it. Hearing about this crazy shit is great.

 

Sweet, thanks for letting me know.

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All of the news of Hyper Light Drifter's frustrating difficulty makes me really sad. I was looking forward to this game since it's announcement on kickstarter, but I held off on buying it until I had read enough reviews, and I'm pretty glad. It seems like a lot of people are really finding it a challenge, and the response by much of the community is like "oh it's only really hard if you don't know what you're doing" or "I didn't find it that hard" - I don't really have the patience to play games that require one bajillion hours of failure in order to make my way through it. I really enjoyed Spelunky, but I think that was simple enough, and designed well enough, that playing it and failing didn't feel like the end of the world. Watching videos of Hyper Light Drifter, and hearing about it on the cast, it sounds like a nightmare to play if you have very little patience for failure. Chris' description of having to replay the same room over and over again while being perfect does not sound like a fun way to spend time, at least for me. Tying this into discussion on the podcast from the last month, I wonder how the developer feels about the fact that I bet a lot of people are not going to make it very far due to this difficulty. Like, Chris and Nick talked about how the developer maybe doesn't care about me as a gamer (into the aesthetics, not really into the difficulty) because there may be a new audience who is drawn to playing a game this hard, but I wonder what the actual statistics are on this. 

 

It seems like, from reading the internet, all video gamers are completely nuts for the Souls games, and for fiendishly difficult games these days. Is this true? Or is this just a vocal group of game players? The Souls games have sold really well, but how many people who bought the game really made it very far into the game? Why do some (again, vocal) video gamers get annoyed that some people who play games would rather have a more straightforward challenge, because of their limited time or patience (this is the "get gud" or Nick Breckon's "baby" argument)? 

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I think it's just that people who wanted challenge from their games were really starved for a while, and it's now become clear that there is an audience that wants the game they play to push back when they push. Realistically, you can't make a design that's going to appeal to everyone: Whether it's too easy to be interesting or too hard to be accessible, you're going to lose someone who would otherwise be interested in your game. Best to just make the game that you want to play and hope it resonates.

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I think that for a while around the mid-late 2000's, the trend was to design games that looked like you were doing difficult and amazing things but which weren't actually very challenging, and this left a whole lot of people dissatisfied. These dissatisfied groups have now split into two camps: One said "well, if we're not going to be challenging the player anyway, why don't we try to do something really interesting with the story and the world?" and made the 'walking sim', and the other said "if we're going to present the player with huge monsters and harrowing situations, we're going to make gameplay that actually lives up to that presentational challenge" and created games like Dark Souls. That's a gross oversimplification, but I think there's some truth to it.

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All of the news of Hyper Light Drifter's frustrating difficulty makes me really sad. I was looking forward to this game since it's announcement on kickstarter, but I held off on buying it until I had read enough reviews, and I'm pretty glad. It seems like a lot of people are really finding it a challenge, and the response by much of the community is like "oh it's only really hard if you don't know what you're doing" or "I didn't find it that hard" - I don't really have the patience to play games that require one bajillion hours of failure in order to make my way through it. 

For me it took about an hour before the game clicked with me, but once it did I started to enjoy it quite a lot. I understand not having the patience for learning a game, but this isn't like dota or something where you have to spend dozens of hours practicing before you can even properly play the game. I think that another part of the problem, and this is somewhat the games fault, is that the bosses are significantly more difficult that the areas they're in, especially if you have no upgrades. But the game does nothing to clue you in to the fact that you should probably warp back to town and buy the chain dash or the bullet reflector before fighting your first boss. In fact the game doesn't do a good job of letting you know you can even upgrade you character, it sounded on the cast like Chris didn't know what the gold squares were for (they let you buy upgrades in town).

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I think a lot of the rooms in HLD were designed with the player having one or two upgrades in mind which makes it for me at least a game that is much harder at the start especially if you (like me) didn't notice the game signposting you to one area in the map through a diagram found in the apartment in town.

I've been two other locations than that place and both were really challenging. But each place was made a lot easier with the upgrades I went on to buy.

 

I think one of the strengths of the game is that like Dark Souls if you do want to progress in the game you largely don't have to live.die.repeat on one boss. Unlike Souls your alternative as an underpowered character isn't to go farm Undead Berg but to go make observable progress in another area of the map.

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There is! The option is just hidden away in a menu that you wouldn't think to look in. I think one of the general "gameplay options" menus? 

 

 

You were 100% right! It's in one of the "gameplay options". Thanks, 2K!

 

(I've promptly changed my nickname to Big Dog)

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I think a lot of the rooms in HLD were designed with the player having one or two upgrades in mind which makes it for me at least a game that is much harder at the start especially if you (like me) didn't notice the game signposting you to one area in the map through a diagram found in the apartment in town.

I've been two other locations that that place and both were really challenging. But each place was made a lot easier with the upgrades I went on to buy.

I think one of the strengths of the game is that like Dark Souls if you do want to progress in the game you largely don't have to live.die.repeat on one boss. Unlike Souls your alternative as an underpowered character isn't to go farm Undead Berg but to go make observable progress in another area of the map.

What direction is that map signposting me to? It just looks like a map!

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I went north first because this little graphic used the north most gem thing VnSqgx4.jpg

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I went north first because this little graphic used the north most gem thing VnSqgx4.jpg

I saw that and thought the same thing at first, but I now I feel it was just trying to tell me what I needed to do.

It's certainly a good example of how difficult it can be trying to communicate something to people without using any language. I didn't really understand it until I found one of those blue diamond shaped tiles out in the wild.

Once I got outside and found that shape in the middle of town, I ended up going East instead, because I was following a dog to see where he was going and suddenly found myself outside the town.

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