Comments on: How Megaman 9 Resembles…Real Life?

By: Thais Weiller

Thais Weiller — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 01:29:45 +0000

Great article. Since you seems to enjoy academic theories realated to video games, let me add another one. Your descripition of playing Megamen 9 resambles the concept of Flow created by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; a chalenging activity that “makes” the individual to continue by pleasure.

By the way, Csikszentmihalyi was Nintendo consultant for a while… ahahah

By: Remy77077

Remy77077 — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:52:12 +0000

Just thought I’d let you know I loved this article and referenced this in my own article along similar lines about Splosion Man… another “old school” design platformer in a way. :)

http://agoners.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/is-splosion-man-challenging-or-punishing/

By: Is ‘Splosion Man Challenging or Punishing? « Agoners

Is ‘Splosion Man Challenging or Punishing? « Agoners — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:08:00 +0000

[...] for me, and the cost in time and patience can actually make the payoffs even higher. Here’s a great article about someone experiencing this with another, even harder “old school design” game [...]

By: Brice

Brice — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:20:53 +0000

@Andrew – I haven’t played Demon Souls, but it seems to be a much more hardcore version of this same concept.

By: Andrew J

Andrew J — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 03:30:18 +0000

I’m 23 and for a while I’ve been puzzled about why I now prefer games that didn’t take 60 hours to beat, games without dauntingly hard tasks, games without tons of management involved. When I was younger I was always playing the same starting levels in Mario, Sonic, Megaman, and Ninja Gaiden and it wasn’t a problem to me. It was never about finishing the game like it is when I play games nowadays. This article has shed some light in a possible explanation to this phenomenon.

I’m curious of what you think about Demon Soul’s for the PS3. I watched my friend play that game for hours on end into the wee hours of the night only to have never beaten a single level or even advance to any sort of checkpoint. He fought the same couple monsters over and over again, progressively getting better but never getting far enough to get positive feedback from the game.

By: Brice

Brice — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:51:49 +0000

Matt, very true! It is interesting how challenges of persistence can show up anywhere. It’s good that you’ve been able to apply it to other areas of your life; thanks for sharing!

By: Matt S.

Matt S. — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:17:05 +0000

wow…so enlightening. i’m 29, been married for three years, no kids, and play video games almost everyday. i have friends who have children and they say that video games make children more anti-social, but i always counter that growing up playing difficult nes games has made me more tenacious and diligent. hard work certainly is rewarding whether you apply it to gaming or studying for an exam. never give up.

years ago when i was dating my wife during college, she lost her cell phone in the a huge snow storm. she desperately looked for it, but gave up quickly because the piles of snow was so daunting. she came to me and i used my cell phone to call hers, but all it would do it keep ringing. she said it was pointless, yet i reasoned that because it was still ringing, it was not dead, and if someone had stolen it, they would have turned it off. so it must still be in the snow. she reluctantly followed me and we retraced her steps for about three blocks before we heard her ring tone. it so happens that her friend had tackled her in the snow and her phone came out of her pocket. she was so happy, and i got bonus points for being so loving.

the point of my story is that i didn’t give up because of my “never give up” attitude that i’ve gained from years of gaming.

By: James

James — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:06:10 +0000

The original Zuma had a terribly sharp difficulty curve. It probably looked something like an unbound exponential function.

Before Zuma, games from PopCap were endless. Infinite levels that also had exponential difficulty curves. Zuma levels couldn’t be randomly generated, so the difficulty was generated in such a way to mimic the previous design paradigm. It’s estimated that less than 10% of people who bought Zuma actually beat the game!

Now, fast forward 7 years or so and you have an evolution in game design. There’s no infinitely hard level progression: people play to beat the game. Consequently, Zuma’s Revenge has a lot more forgiving difficulty curve on the story mode. What about the hard core players? Hero Mode! Those 10% of people from the first game? Iron Frog!

What’s that? You want replay value without a sharp difficulty curve? Try the Challenges!

There are a lot more ways to add replay value to a game compared to 10 years ago.

MegaMan (and Sonic) are from an era where video games could be at max 4 hours long. The cartridge limited the game! How do you add replay value? Ramp up the difficulty!

By: Max

Max — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:59:04 +0000

I totally cried a little bit reading this article.