droqen's forum-shaped notebook

DevLogs => Vessels & Memories & Deep Feelings => Feelings of Play => Topic started by: droqen on February 26, 2023, 10:58:08 AM

Title: Play feeling #4 - Ducking and weaving through a living pattern
Post by: droqen on February 26, 2023, 10:58:08 AM
I've made a secret gameplay demo that really excites me along these lines, but I won't go into great detail yet.

The common version of this feeling is given by bullet hell games and games like... Geometry Wars, Vampire Survivor, things like that. There is a shifting mass of things which you are trying to avoid, and so you move to try and avoid them.

See also games with interesting movement mechanics and momentum, e.g. Superflight, where the obstacles are static but your movement produces a living, shifting relationship to that static obstacle-space.
Title: Re: Play feeling #4 - Ducking and weaving through a living pattern
Post by: droqen on February 26, 2023, 10:59:07 AM
DESIGN NOTE-
Some games (Superflight is one of them) give a reward for close calls, encouraging a risk-reward style of gameplay. I think this explicit extrinsic reward of close calls is a very bad thing to do; close calls are inherently exciting but as with everything it's better when that feel-reward is allowed to remain intrinsic rather than being overridden by the extrinsic. (I enjoy Superflight, and close calls in Superflight, significantly more with the score display toggled off/hidden.)
Title: Re: Play feeling #4 - Ducking and weaving through a living pattern
Post by: droqen on February 26, 2023, 11:01:46 AM
OTHER GAMES-
* Frogger
* Probability 0
* DYAD?
* Counterclockwise (originally found on 16x16 dot org but site is defunct, archive.org link here (https://archive.org/details/ccw_1_0))
* N, N+, N++
* many bullet hell games (not a genre i love personally, perhaps because the pattern is too interested in the player and not interested enough in itself? not sure)