Email: About gameplay fundamentals

Hello,

As a game developer, I was intrigued when you said it was more fun for a developer to do puzzles and story than core gameplay. As a programmer I find it more fun to work on the core gameplay because I get to play my game more during the work time (because working on the core gameplay requires a lot of testing). And I do not hate playing the games I made, quite the contrary, I love playing them ! But I can imagine a programmer that worked on a modern Zelda, he must hate playing the game, he knows exactly what he has to do, it’s tedious! But a programmer that worked on a 2D Mario must love playing the game. It will be more like : “Let’s try this new level a level designer made … mmm maybe I can improve the control so this part is more fun …”.
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So why games tend to be more and more about puzzles ? My theory is that it’s because now, on big projects,  the producers have the power, not the programmers.
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Puzzle games are not fun to make, they are simple to manage in production terms. You add a new puzzle, it takes x time to be implemented and tested, and the game production advanced by one bit. But improving the core gameplay does not tick a box, even worse it may impact other levels and slow down the production for no “tangible” return (nothing to show to the executives).
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So why do the independent games (you know, the ones made of crayon and/or black and white graphics) that all the industry masturbates on are mostly puzzle games? I guess the developers that do them must want to work in the industry …

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Anyway I just finished Metroid Zero Mission because I wanted to play classic metroid. The game was not bad, easy of course, the most disappointing bit were the bosses that were very easy (a big anti climax), and the infiltration part at the end is not badly done but is out of place in a Metroid game.
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I started to play classic Metroid and yes it is very good.
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The dodging and shooting fundamentals are very strong, but what stroke me is that a lot of them are consequences of technical limitations. Two examples:

• You can not crouch and shoot, and you can only shoot up. It makes sense because that would require too many animations to be stored in memory, however it does not make sense in the game universe (if Samus can raise her canon up, she should be able to do it at 45°). Not being able to crouch may make sense, it can be an armor limitation. But all that makes the game more interesting, because you must find an alternate way to defeat enemies that are down, which makes enemies that crawl on walls very interesting. And being able to shoot straight up while running is fun (that would not be possible if you could shoot 45° up).
• The game can only display 2-3 projectiles at the same time. It does not make sense in the game universe, but it makes it more interesting to play because you can get better by shooting at the right time to defeat the enemies faster. In a modern Metroid that could be justified by an overheating mechanic.

So a lot of Metroid fundamentals are down to technical limitations, it may be because of that that Metroid did not age as well as other franchises. Adding moves actually lessen the game fundamentals. It is one of the strength of the 2D Marios, the gameplay fundamentals are rooted in the game universe.
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To finish I’d like to thank you, because of you I read “The Innovator’s Solution” and it was a very useful, interesting and enjoyable read. It helps me every day to understand why things happen as they happen in the big company I’m working in. And it will help me a lot if one day I find the courage to create my own disruptive company. Is there another book that would be interesting to read after this one ? Blue ocean strategy ?

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Anyway keep up the good work on the blog :)
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Blue Ocean Strategy is good. For disruption, just read anything on Innosight or anything written by Clayton Christensen.
.’Gameplay fundamentals’ was something to say when I couldn’t exactly express the idea. The fundamentals I am speaking of is emergent gameplay that I think games even in alpha like Minecraft are made so popular because people crave it so much. Games like the earlier Zeldas and even earlier Mario games had very rich worlds that you could explore. Emergent gameplay was the result with unexpected things surprising the reader. Today, everything feels so scripted, as if gaming is now only done in a corridor. Before, it felt like an open field. 

I want to repeat your very insightful theory:

So why games tend to be more and more about puzzles ? My theory is that it’s because now, on big projects,  the producers have the power, not the programmers.

Puzzle games are not fun to make, they are simple to manage in production terms. You add a new puzzle, it takes x time to be implemented and tested, and the game production advanced by one bit. But improving the core gameplay does not tick a box, even worse it may impact other levels and slow down the production for no “tangible” return (nothing to show to the executives).

This explains why, ever since games went production based and suddenly had to have ‘producers’, why I’ve grown disinterested, yet I remain interested in games made by ‘programmers’. It perfectly explains why games feel so linear with so many puzzles. Miyamoto also became primarily a producer with the N64 which could explain why the Nintendo ‘magic’ seemed to greatly disappear at that point forward.
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But mostly, you explain why Nintendo games and games, in general, feel so formulaic. It is because of the process of the producer having to show ‘completed stuff’. If Notch worked at Nintendo and tried to show off Minecraft, he would get rejected because the world doesn’t progress by sections but as a whole together.
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This would also explain why Nintendo hasn’t done common sense things like take Animal Crossing’s innovative gameplay and stuck that into a more interesting world like Zelda. Who wouldn’t want to turn on their Zelda game and see the world change and evolve in real time? But it would be a nightmare for the producer so they resist such an addition.