NEVER ACCEPT AN ARBITRARY PREMISE (WITHOUT FEELING) - NO TESTS OF SKILL

[droqen]

In my game Awake, the player is presented with a singular challenge.

Its goal, as a work, was to reproduce an emotional / memorable experience. A memory. This is the form of a premise which I consider to be justifiable.

A vast majority of games appear to be designed with tests and challenges and, more broadly speaking, game-structure, in place for "bad" reasons, dead reasons.

In the case of Awake, a second level was requested by a friendly player, which was a request I was honoured to receive, but also one that I rejected.


...

[droqen]

One of the patterns I get hung up on in games is TESTS OF SKILL.

I think there are a few reasons why.

1. Games introduce tests of skill almost ubiquitously. They are everywhere in games, and I don't think people afford the idea of "why" enough thought. Why include a test of skill at all? What are you trying to deliver? I am still investigating responses to this -- what do people actually say?

My guesses at responses i will get :
- tests of skill are a thing that games must have in order to be games, so of course I have them (BAD: following a template without proper justification)
- without tests of skill how would i access this other design space (BAD: a dead transformation in order to create future transformation space, thinking downstream instead of upstream)
- it is part of the genre, how else would i make [genre] game (BAD: following a template without proper justification)
- it has to be hard to create a feeling of satisfaction when you achieve it (BAD--but i admit i don't have a reason for this just yet, maybe it has the "downstream" problem too?)

2. Tests of skill are annoying, in that they actively get in the way of my ability to appreciate other aspects of a work. At the point when I encounter an unnecessary test of skill, that's bad enough -- a red flag of a thing's lack of life. But even worse is that I am *forced* to engage with something dead in order to proceed. At this point it is not a difficult choice to disengage. The work is dead, and moreover is intent on wasting my time to satisfy its own dead logic.

[droqen]

Note that re:2, the issue is not so much being forced to do something or even to do something *hard* as it is being forced to engage with a thing that exists for a bad reason. bad enough that it exists, even worse that it is inescapable. compound badness.

[droqen]

~sylvie linked this page!
doc article
bleetskeet

[droqen]

had a long chat with Linker & sylvie on blue sky about this topic, no quotes (you can hunt down our exchange under the bleetskeet link above)

SHARING DEFENSELESSLY... i have had this thought bubble up a few times, that game designers can be quite defensive not only of their work but in the work itself... sometimes tests of skill feel "defensive" to me, attempting to increase playtime, or create better 'fit' within a genre.

when it comes to the titular "TESTS OF SKILL" let's not get caught up in that actual concept as though it is bad or good! the issue is that i do not understand the motivation for their inclusion.

one thing that sylvie says that i relate to v much is...

oops i fell asleep before writing what i relate to and now i don't remember. well--this looks to me more like a Reply than an elaboration on my Procedure anyway, so i'll go to that other subforum and link it here.

[droqen]

(reply to) sylvie's Tests of Skill & related Bluesky conversation