"But if you avoid the first Goomba and then jump and hit a block above you, a mushroom will spring out and you'll get a shock. But then you'll see that it's going to the right so you'll think: "I'm safe! Something strange appeared but I'm okay!" But of course when it goes against a pipe up ahead, the mushroom will come back! (laughs)" ... "At that point, even if you panic and try to jump out of the way, you'll hit the block above you. Then just at the instant where you accept that you're done for, Mario will suddenly shake and grow bigger!"
It turns out they panned it so you cannot avoid picking up that first mushroom that makes you big. They expected the first players to see it as an enemy, so they wanted to trap you into picking it up and then showing you that it made you more powerful.
Barely anyone notices that this was forced, but now everyone takes it for granted that the the mushrooms are good!
the big question of level design - and i mean that every level design lesson i ever write will be a response to this question - is: how do i teach the player these rules? an unfortunate trend in contemporary games is to spell out every detail in a hand-holding “tutorial” session at the outset of a game - unfortunate because it shows both a great deal of contempt for the player’s intuition and a lack of confidence in the designer’s own design. but more than that, it’s a design failure because it tells the player the rules instead of allowing her to learn them.
what if the first level of the game were laid out in such a way that the player could learn the rules simply by playing through it, without needing to be told them outright?
</quote>
The article's a critique of World 1-1 being the perfect tutorial level for Super Mario Bros. Go read it.
As wonderful as World 1-1 is for teaching Mario, I think that "Tell the player what you want them to do, allow them to see it succeed, then let them apply it" will crush "Let the player explore the 'physics' of your world, hope they proceed" in terms of task success. And these days, we can measure that intuition.
Artistic intuitions of game designers have been measured in the crucible of conversion rates and been found wanting.
Does anyone here sell applications? Play the first five minutes of WoW. Notice how they guide you along by the nose and make it easy for you to succeed and feel awesome doing it. All applications should do that.
The spelled out tutorials are a necessary consequence of a free-to-play model with lots of competition. If I pay $50-100 for a game, I will spend the time to learn it. If a free game on facebook is complicated or confusing there are 100s of others that will immediately satisfy with no learning curve.
He forgot the store where you can buy stuff at that all games are required to have now. And how come you can't send mushrooms to your friends to help them out?
May Mayhem! Buy the Wario Hat and 5 Extra Lives and get a 500 Nintendo Points(tm) discount! Remember to enter "mayhem" in the Nintendo Store coupon field. (Offer valid until the end of May.)
Facebook and all of this "achievements" bullshit spell the ruin of game design, which began its slouch toward infantilism in the big-budget 3-D era ("look, shiny!") and has been forced down our throats over the past few years ("Shove in the Time of Facebook").
Go is a game. Bridge is a game. Chess is a game. Poker is a game (despite the embarrassing flood of idiots into Texas Hold 'em who play only that and have no curiosity about other poker games). Ambition is a game. Settlers of Catan is a game. Tigris and Euphrates is a game. Apples to Apples is a game. Chrono Trigger is a game. Final Fantasy 6 is a game. World of Warcraft is a game.
"[Your roommate at bandcamp] Just Ate a Sandwich" is not a game.
Sloppy non-design. Blatant idiocy. Shitty ideas. Infantilism. Let the real game designers do the work and let's ignore these "social [X]" charlatans, ok?
I'm not really sure what you find objectionable in this post? It deals with tech, and it's a critique of trends in user-interface design (specifically in games), even if it dos so in a rather 'fun' format. And not just any part of the interface, but the all-critical "first impression". I rather suspect that many of us here have had to think long and hard about conveying the rules of the systems we are creating to the users in an unobtrusive yet effective manner.
[+] [-] dagheti|16 years ago|reply
http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/nsmb/vol1_page4.jsp
"But if you avoid the first Goomba and then jump and hit a block above you, a mushroom will spring out and you'll get a shock. But then you'll see that it's going to the right so you'll think: "I'm safe! Something strange appeared but I'm okay!" But of course when it goes against a pipe up ahead, the mushroom will come back! (laughs)" ... "At that point, even if you panic and try to jump out of the way, you'll hit the block above you. Then just at the instant where you accept that you're done for, Mario will suddenly shake and grow bigger!"
It turns out they panned it so you cannot avoid picking up that first mushroom that makes you big. They expected the first players to see it as an enemy, so they wanted to trap you into picking it up and then showing you that it made you more powerful.
Barely anyone notices that this was forced, but now everyone takes it for granted that the the mushrooms are good!
[+] [-] Sukotto|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|16 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jcl|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|16 years ago|reply
Especially on college campuses.
[+] [-] scottjackson|16 years ago|reply
I love having any excuse to share this link.
<quote>
the big question of level design - and i mean that every level design lesson i ever write will be a response to this question - is: how do i teach the player these rules? an unfortunate trend in contemporary games is to spell out every detail in a hand-holding “tutorial” session at the outset of a game - unfortunate because it shows both a great deal of contempt for the player’s intuition and a lack of confidence in the designer’s own design. but more than that, it’s a design failure because it tells the player the rules instead of allowing her to learn them.
what if the first level of the game were laid out in such a way that the player could learn the rules simply by playing through it, without needing to be told them outright?
</quote>
The article's a critique of World 1-1 being the perfect tutorial level for Super Mario Bros. Go read it.
[+] [-] patio11|16 years ago|reply
Artistic intuitions of game designers have been measured in the crucible of conversion rates and been found wanting.
Does anyone here sell applications? Play the first five minutes of WoW. Notice how they guide you along by the nose and make it easy for you to succeed and feel awesome doing it. All applications should do that.
[+] [-] far33d|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lenni|16 years ago|reply
Don't get your hopes up though. Only mildy funny.
[+] [-] philk|16 years ago|reply
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/6/
[+] [-] badave|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Deestan|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madssj|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheBranca18|16 years ago|reply
If Sony or Microsoft actually designed Mario the character would be overly muscled and bald like Gears of War or Infamous.
[+] [-] dmn001|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pw0ncakes|16 years ago|reply
Facebook and all of this "achievements" bullshit spell the ruin of game design, which began its slouch toward infantilism in the big-budget 3-D era ("look, shiny!") and has been forced down our throats over the past few years ("Shove in the Time of Facebook").
Go is a game. Bridge is a game. Chess is a game. Poker is a game (despite the embarrassing flood of idiots into Texas Hold 'em who play only that and have no curiosity about other poker games). Ambition is a game. Settlers of Catan is a game. Tigris and Euphrates is a game. Apples to Apples is a game. Chrono Trigger is a game. Final Fantasy 6 is a game. World of Warcraft is a game.
"[Your roommate at bandcamp] Just Ate a Sandwich" is not a game.
Sloppy non-design. Blatant idiocy. Shitty ideas. Infantilism. Let the real game designers do the work and let's ignore these "social [X]" charlatans, ok?
[+] [-] est|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] demallien|16 years ago|reply
How wouldn't it be considered Hacker News?
[+] [-] philk|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OoTheNigerian|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badave|16 years ago|reply