Games That Just Dump You in the World.

[Kriven]

What the hell kind of piss game do you have to play twice to make it fun?

[Alpha Six]

You said "so that by the end when I'm more familiar with the terrain, it's more explorable." This doesn't make sense. Once you go through the area, you have already "explored it." There's no more exploration to be had, other than to look behind the rock you couldn't get to before, for example.

actually, that only works for games like minecraft, in which the designer has actually put no effort into the world they've constructed, and the only encouragement for exploration is the fact that levels are generated randomly. if that's cool with you then whatever but that's not the actual definition of a "good exploring game"

most exploration games are actually smart, like the games you gave as an example. in Zelda games, you can explore as much as you want, and as you progress through the game, the areas you can explore increase. you can go into areas in Hyrule Field that you couldn't go before because now you have the item/equipment for it.

rarely can you ever just "walk around" and suddenly stumble onto a cool thing. if you do walk around and stumble upon a cool thing, it's because you probably finally have the equipment for it and you didn't realize it was there in the first place, which is what makes exploring Zelda games so much fun compared to others.

the world is DESIGNED so that you can't explore every nook and cranny immediately, and that is one of the reasons it's both a successful franchise and a fan favorite across video game likers everywhere. the fact that it's become more accessible with "real" dialogue systems ever since the first game has helped the series grow into the behemoth it is today.



onto the actual topic subject-- i don't like being dumped into a world where i'm basically supposed to just "Go With The Flow" because that doesn't really show any effort in a game's actual design. there has to be some sort of objective, and you generally should know what the objective is pretty quickly. there are lots of great games in the world that have vague starts, but too vague can be detrimental to the player unless the game is meant to curve to a specific niche (a good example being Dark Souls, which most people Hate or Love because of the way it's designed as a whole) or if the game is simple enough where you don't need to know exactly what's going on (but there should still be some sort of direction)


edit:
make a zelda game but you can turn off anything that could potentially even slightly hint you towards where you're supposed to go. congratulations you just made an exploration game that caters to both the guided and the un-guided player. give me your money

[Davy Jones]

I never liked Metroid, no idea where to go and what to find.

But then there are games like Gothic 2, which gives you a short introduction with Xardas and then dumps you into the world with a brief order what to do next. Rest is up to you, the world is enormous and as far as I know, you can go everywhere you want. The only "barrier" are wild monsters and some bandits which kill everything in their way.

[Mutsukki]

do dark souls and demon souls count
after pretty brief introductory sequences to teach you the mechanics in a controlled environment, you're very much allowed to go wherever you want (or get owned at anor londo)

I think that's just the case of a shit tutorial/poor game design. (And before "omg you just don't get Demon Souls" I went through it twice (as the first time is apparently not meant to be that great) and thought it was crap).

Your explanation pretty much says that you really didn't get Demon Souls. Demon Souls is the only actual frustrating game where I didn't feel ever cheated by the game (unlike Dark Souls for me, but then again, I think I'll give it another chance), most of the deaths are the player's own fault. And even stuff that isn't (suddenly boulder down the stairs), rarely kills you.

What the hell kind of piss game do you have to play twice to make it fun?

People mean that the first run you'll just get very frustrated, because you're going to die a lot. But, that's basically the game's premise and has always been, an unforgiving game, so if you buy it, you had to know what you were getting into.

[SKELTON S. SKELETON]

do dark souls and demon souls count
after pretty brief introductory sequences to teach you the mechanics in a controlled environment, you're very much allowed to go wherever you want (or get owned at anor londo)

I think that's just the case of a shit tutorial/poor game design. (And before "omg you just don't get Demon Souls" I went through it twice (as the first time is apparently not meant to be that great) and thought it was crap).

wow, this actually required me to hit the "Add Reply" button, and not quick reply so feel good about that gomear, so

when i read your post, this is what it made me do

i even had the outfit on at the time dude come on
all that post says is "i didn't understand demons souls" and "someone else who didn't understand demons souls told me how to enjoy the game"

Demon's Souls (デモンズソウル Demonzu Sōru) is an action role-playing game video game developed primarily by From Software (with assistance from SCE Japan Studio) exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

The Tutorial™ in Demons Souls primarily exists for two reasons.
1. To introduce you to the most important game elements
2. To introduce you to the most important mechanics of the world

Why are "Game Elements" and "Mechanics" separated? let's think about the elements as if it was the difficulty of the game, distilled and desperate from it's design.
Demons Souls is not a "brutally hard crap ass game" (thanks metacritic, no really)
What Demons Souls is, is a game that has actual design behind it's difficulty.
That difficulty comes from the fact that the game punishes you or rewards you for every single action in the entire game, made by the player.

In the situation where you charge blindly into a room and are met with receiving damage from an enemy laying wait in the darkness, you were punished for acting stupidly. If you approached that same situation later, and defeat the enemy quickly before you are ambushed, the reward trickles down from Advancement --> Physical Reward. You either advance towards the stage goal/or/and are rewarded with an item.

You see, the tutorial has a number of enemies around blind corners or in groups. It's purpose is to teach you how to deal with and assess threats before properly encountering them. That's Number One (of our reasons(on the list(it's up there, dude, you still following??)))
The second is of course introduction to the mechanics. Things like how your burden affects your movement rate, combat, parrying, stamina, HP and item management. These are the out and front "Game" elements that people are talking about when they say "gameplay"
The tutorial is there because Demon Souls has no super-mario esque "world 1-1" (it has an actual, numbered world 1-1 though crazy huh??) None of the worlds afterwards hold your hand in any tangible way, they weren't "designed" to serve as a tutorial, and would've made poor introductory sequences to the game


And Now You Understand Tutorials, But If You Think Demons Souls Was A Bad Game, You Might Just Have Bad Taste
now sit back, have a glassa (anything) and "enjoy" that game you "understand" dude

[Goemar]

I didn't find Demon Souls hard (and I like hard games so even if I did I wouldn't care). I just found it very very unpolished. It felt like some unfinished old PC game. It was also REALLY easy to abuse thanks to the terribly stiff and poor AI (for example killing the red eye knight in the first area when you're a low level, the spider boss, the dragon on the bridge run, every skeleton enemy). Everything moved so unnaturally, you could pretty much see the numbers working. If the story was stiff coding and maths had brought a world to life it would have made more sense.

The lack of given direction just made it feel clumsy and thrown together. It never felt like one big world but just a mess of places. At the end of the day I just found it boring. I never had that "man I want to play some more feeling!" I simply played it because I was pretty hyped about it before hand and shelled out on the big ass box edition.

And when I meant tutorial I meant more with equipment, magic and all that kind of stuff. You just had a guy tell you about it. Yes it was fun to buy some magic and try it out yourself and all that but it just seemed like something was missing.

It wasn't a terrible game, though is one of the only games I've ever traded in (the other 2 being Folklore and GTA 4), but I think it gets a more praise then it deserves because people who enjoy it get to act snooty, sip some sherry or port and chuckle how those whom don't "get it" are just rather silly. I've done it, I think we've all done it with a game we really like, it's pretty much internet-lore now days.

So in short: Demon Souls, not for me.

[SKELTON S. SKELETON]

Everything about my post stands to reason; so it doesn't matter. Things like "killing the red eyes knight" at an early level aren't things that detract to the game, they just drive home the fact that the player is given the tools to surmount any situation that much harder, which means that the game world isn't limited by level or items, but merely on how skillful the player is.

[Goemar]

I can see why people like it, don't get me wrong. But it just wasn't organic enough for me. It was just too stiff. That was the main issue I had with it and it's a big enough issue for me to not find it enjoyable. Pac-man's ghost AI is better hidden than Dark Soul's enemies.

Also hitting red eyes, running away to where he stops chasing you because his AI is crap, waiting for him to go back to where he was because his AI is crap, and hitting him again etc, is not player skill, it's just poor AI. Hiding in a little hole in the wall to kill the spider boss because it can't hit you there is also poor AI. It's not like these are things that you even have to go out your way to do. You're naturally going to attack red eyes and then run away like hell and panicking and hiding in a hole is a pretty normal response for when giant spider things attack you.

[Koh]

I can see why people like it, don't get me wrong. But it just wasn't organic enough for me. It was just too stiff. That was the main issue I had with it and it's a big enough issue for me to not find it enjoyable. Pac-man's ghost AI is better hidden than Dark Soul's enemies.

Also hitting red eyes, running away to where he stops chasing you because his AI is crap, waiting for him to go back to where he was because his AI is crap, and hitting him again etc, is not player skill, it's just poor AI. Hiding in a little hole in the wall to kill the spider boss because it can't hit you there is also poor AI. It's not like these are things that you even have to go out your way to do. You're naturally going to attack red eyes and then run away like hell and panicking and hiding in a hole is a pretty normal response for when giant spider things attack you.

But isn't that something that would set it apart from other games? Because it actually uses the natural stimulus? Normally you'd expect otherwise, and so you usually don't do the immediate first thing that comes to mind. Like for example, a boss appears, and "shit just got real" music starts to play. The first stimulus is naturally to run away, because it seems like it's going to get extremely hard, but since it's a game, you know you likely can't do that, so you don't and go through with the fight. But if you later find out you are actually SUPPOSED to run, then the game does it's job at not being predictable .

[Goemar]

Hiding in a hole while something that should obviously be able to hit you flails around uselessly as you kill it is not natural in anyway.
Not to mention it's "natural response" would be to move away. I know of few things that stand still (or dance on the spot) and allow you to slowly kill them.
Anyway, enough about Demon Souls...

[Kriven]

You just don't understand the genius about this thing I like!

[Gors]

Hey Kriven, this is over. Let's stop with all this needless posts, shall we?

[alexmach1]

riven, the game that literally dumps you into the world

intuitive puzzles, subtle storyline, amazing pre-rendered scenes, massive world to explore at your leisure, 3 different endings. one of my favorite puzzle games.

[Gwen]

I played that once when I was 10 and hated it because I didn't understand it lol. I might need to give it another try.

[Dazz]

Does Myst just dump you into the game? I forget, since it's been a fair number of years since I played it. I seem to recall that being the one thing that I didn't like about the game, as it made the game impossibly difficult to understand from an early age; I got it at the same time as Broken Sword, which gave a very good introduction to the story. As such I became far more attached to Broken Sword than I did with Myst.

I got them in a compilation of games that were said to have the most phonecalls for advice on how to proceed. Oh how times change.