Cool article.

[Thrik]

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_platformsecrets.htm

The same site has a bunch of other articles looking at older platform games too. They're really entertaing. It's so true too, that DK coin was both a masterpiece and a bastard in one.

It's pretty old and such, but it seems like a fairly little known site to me without one of the better designd around, and it wouldn't surprise me if most people have never come across it and read its fruits before.

[baconian]

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_platformsecrets.htm

The same site has a bunch of other articles looking at older platform games too. They're really entertaing. It's so true too, that DK coin was both a masterpiece and a bastard in one.

It's pretty old and such, but it seems like a fairly little known site to me without one of the better designd around, and it wouldn't surprise me if most people have never come across it and read its fruits before.

This is a great site. thanks.

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart3.htm

This article's predecessors (part 1 and two) advocate that playing a game with the sole purpose of winning is the way to get better at that game. In this, part 3, he goes back on this and shows that playing for fun can help find out more about the game.

In The Secret of Monkey Island, the insult swordfighting is a great example of a game in which, by design, you learn more and become a better player by playing to lose.

I can't think of any other games specifically designed like this. It struck me as odd at the time, when I was 14 or so, but now I think about it, I can't remember any other games designed like this. It's not exactly trial and error, although you could think about it from a point of view where it looks like trial and error.

[Udvarnoky]

Take Majora's Mask in the Zelda series. Ocarina wasn't so tough on finding secrets, but Majora's Mask had the whole time sequences going on to block you from easily getting everything. It made the game about 5 times harder than Ocarina of Time, which I already found hard enough, and way more frustrating.

I really don't see how the time structure "blocked" you from doing anything. I mean, you still had just as much freedom as you did in the other Zelda games to do what you want.

[baconian]

I think Aonoma(SP?)'s work in Majora's mask was great. He expanded the format to include an optional trip into other character's stories. The villager's quests and problems were interesting in themselves. The masks you were rewarded with helped in the game alright, but I reckon that's ancilliary to what he was trying to do.

Deciding whether you were willing to do copiously more time travelling than you needed to do, in order to sort out various people's problems, was a big decision in playing the game. I did a few of them, but realised there was a lot more depth involved when I read a walkthrough later out of curiosity.

[Udvarnoky]

Yes, there is a lot of depth in MM. I think it's the closest to an adventure game the Zelda series has gotten so far.