When Difficult Is Fun - Challenging vs. Punishing Games - Extra Credits

Classic arcade games offered maddening yet deeply replayable levels of difficulty, and we see few like them today. More games can challenge players by studying what makes difficult games fun.

(Original air date: June 19, 2013)

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#ExtraCredits #Gaming #GameDesign

[blindbeholder]

The job of the game designer is the same as the job of a DM. You're not the enemy of the player, you are there to test them, and to tell their story.

[ewegenia]

To put it short: Make it so that when the player(s) die, it's *their* fault, not the game's.

[OyeBeto]

"If you demand that the player wait through minutes of content they already mastered just to get another chance at the thing they failed at, you have created a game which is punishing, not difficult."

Like walking from a bonfire to a boss in Dark Souls?

I love Dark Souls but it's definitely both difficult and punishing.

[sheepertheclassical]

"Your not trying to defeat your player, you want them to overcome the challenge." Something every SINGLE person who plays mario maker should live by.

[nstrisower]

"You have failed as a designer" should be a meme.

[toddvogel]

I actually use Punishing as the good term, and the other is Unfair. Unfair is like what you described, enemies appearing behind you because reasons, that is unfair and not ok, but in Dark Souls if i forgot to raise my shield, i get Punished. Punishing to me means it punishes you for making a mistake, it makes you try again and see if you can do it this time without making too many mistakes, while Unfair is something like a 3 frame instant death attack and then your back to the start of a 30 minute boss fight. A lot of rage games on the internet are Unfair, you couldn't know that spot was a trap until you stepped on it, while punishing would be where the spot had a visible sign that it is gonna kill you but you stepped on it anyway and now your dead. Punishing the player means the player had to do something wrong, unfair means you could smack the player just because you want to. A lot of RTS games will pull some Unfair moments, sometimes it'll be this mission has a unique unit you can use that is really good for this level, but right before the end of the level every one of those units suddenly switches sides and you lost your entire army and you have no time to respond, or you have an ally for the mission until you complete the objective, then without warning they turn on you and their base was right next to yours so now your base is being destroyed and your army is on the other side of the map.

[deadmagikarp]

Well cuphead and his pal, mugman, they like to roll dice...

[fatal_error]

Sadly many games reduce difficulty to "only requiring hyper-fast reflexes". A very cheap way to create a challenge.

[Maplestarknight]

I tried pressing shift, control, w, and e, to try and see how that was difficult.
Damn you.

[shadowofchaos]

I honestly found it funny that the Fire Emblem: Awakening segment referred to the thing that people have been complaining about for years in the FE community. The "Ambush Spawns", which also give players the most dread in Lunatic and Lunatic+ difficulties.

Great episode as always! :D

[Matticitt]

I hate difficulty spikes. I remember this moment in Mass Effect. I played through half the game without dying once. But then, after you save a particular character, you go into an elevator and on the top floor enemies attack you. Not only is it unfair, because there's no time, no covers, and multiple enemies constantly shooting so I ended up dying 30 times, but also the save point is just BEFORE you enter the elevator so every time you restart you have to wait like 2 minutes doing absolutely nothing while the elevator goes up. I recently wanted to replay the entire Mass Effect trilogy and I stopped playing the fucking game after that moment.

[MrTombombodil]

The first time I watched this episode I hadn't played Dark Souls so I thought Anor Londo was like, a city in California where they were gonna be at a convention or something.

[KayoMichiels]

Talk about challenging games... Kerbal Space Program: it's challenging, but so rewarding when you do get it right!.

[spencerj]

DO NOT PRESS CTRL + SHIFT + W IN CHROME! The sliding spin dash also happens to be a close browser macro

[orangy]

I tried Shift+CTRL+W+E... My browser closed.

[AmeraldFang]

Yet, here we are in 2017 with "Getting over it"

[km_studios]

Great vid!
I've heard a lot of people complain that games shouldn't be criticized for being too difficult, but the reality is that difficulty is only a good thing if the game is hard FOR THE RIGHT REASONS. Criticizing a game for being hard for the wrong reasons is totally valid. And I think you did a great job of outlining all (or at least many) of the requirements for making a LEGITIMATELY difficult (but totally fair) game.

[angelo]

the reason i play difficult games is because it feels so good every time you beat a level or kill a boss well you know what i mean

[mechanoidk]

I thought the illustration of evolution was awesome and hilarious.
Ataripithecus Pitfallis
Missing Link
Homo Fordus
Croft-Magnon
Nathanderthal

That'ts actually quite brilliant.

[ryanr]

I was watching this thinking “when are they gonna talk about celeste?” Until I realized: this video is from 2013