this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2024
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I personally always dislike it, too.

There are two reasons you might want to do this as a dev, of course. One of them I feel kinda half-asses your design, if you don't want to get a threat or failure during gameplay to get into the way of your storypacing, just make a visual novel. Or at least something like SOMA, Amnesia or Still Wakes The Deep.
Or alternatively, if you want to make a game explicitly made for children that's okay, but then also do the marketing a bit more kid-centric IMO. I dunno, maybe this one is actually genuinely meant for children, but some of the humor and writing doesn't feel that way if I'm honest. Princess Peach does this more thoroughly: It is the same "handholding 100% of the time", but it's also very obviously meant to be played primarily by relatively small children!

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[–] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

This is less a sign of "the devs don't trust the player" and more just plain out bad game design. Maybe the game itself is very obvious (I don't know, i haven't played nor do I intend to), but this kind of thing is usually done when the game is obtuse and the developer wants a quickfix instead of actually reworking the entire thing. Then again, if your game is for little children and they can't figure out how to play it, then there's something fundamentally wrong with it and maybe you should go back to the drawing board.

[–] hate2bme@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Either a shit article or shit website. The article gives a summary of the game then says the developers don't trust their customers. That's it. No reasons given. Am I missing something?

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

There is a "continue reading" link buried several pages down, past a bunch of ads. Took me way to long to find it.

Looks like this:

[–] hate2bme@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago

I seen them but I seen a bunch of them and didn't know which one was for the article I was reading. Lol

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's a section under the "read more" split where it complains about over-tutorialization. The game hits you over the head with puzzle solutions and intended routes and leaves nothing for the player to figure out.

[–] hate2bme@lemmy.world 15 points 17 hours ago

So trash website, got it.

[–] PunchingWood@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (4 children)

All a game like this would need is the ability to disable the feature.

It's like developers are so obsessed and occupied with making it as accessible to everyone, that they seem to forget that there is also an entire playerbase out there not looking to be handheld through everything (including children). I'd get a bigger sense of achievement if I managed to do it on my own.

I remember playing Mario on the NES and it was completely unforgiving as a child, like insta-deaths, limited amount of lives, no save games, hidden secrets, etc. But it was pure bliss when I finally beat the game.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 hours ago

In the early 2000s you pirated nintendo games, had no manual ( or bought it legit but couldnt read it properly to understand) and just figured out the manuals.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

I remember playing Legacy of Kain: Defiance for the first time when I was a kid.

I spent actual hours coming through the damn mansion level looking for the proper route and I was so frustrated. I finally broke down and looked it up on the computer (which I was grounded from at the time) so I could see if I could find a solution.

[–] imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

no hidden secrets

This bitch doesn't even know about warp pipes lul

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't listen to the haters. The original sentence was ambiguous.

[–] MagisterSieran@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I’m a “hater” for pointing out they misread the comment? Okay.

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

No, I meant the person who said, "Media literacy skill: 0"

[–] MagisterSieran@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That is not what they said.

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You gotta admit it's confusing and abnormal to put a single "no" entry in the middle of a comma-delimited list of "yes" entries. Normally you'd say,

It has this, that, and the other thing, and no bad things, malthings, or blahs.

Sometimes the "and" and "or" are left out.

It has this, that, the other thing, and no bad things, malthings, blahs.

The original commenter took this format, and mixed it all up like

It has this, no bad thing, other thing

Is that no other thing or yes other thing? Who can tell? Only people who didn't need to be told these things in the first place.

[–] imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee -1 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Thanks but I never need someone else entirely to tell me that their interpretation of SOMEONE ELSE'S sentence is more correct than mine. If he wants to correct me he can

[–] shani66@ani.social 3 points 14 hours ago

But some interpretations are more correct

[–] MagisterSieran@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 15 hours ago

Fair enough, but you also never need to call someone a bitch.

[–] Adm_Drummer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Media literacy skill: 0

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

19 and still can't beat the original Mario bros 😭

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago

It's not an easy game, that's ok. The reason most of us beat it in the 80's is because we only had one or two games at a time to play until Xmas/birthday every year.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hold Start and press A when continuing to continue from the current level.

I know 😭😭😭

[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 37 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yeah this game is really annoying to play, which is a shame because it is cute as hell. It continually prompts you to do the thing. It's like playing Mario and having someone tell you to walk right and jump all through the game. What makes it much worse is that the game fully comes to a stop to do so. Everything just pauses and the game explains what to do. Even when there is a puzzle, the game basically gives you the answer.

The approach Astro Bot uses is much better. It let's you struggle for a bit and then gives an animation with the move you need and which button it is. Which is really handy because even if you know what move you want it's easy to forget the right button combination for it. It's very non intrusive and if you know the move the animation won't even pop up. An experienced player won't notice the mechanic at all. If you come back from not playing for a bit, the reminder about the buttons is useful. For kids who genuinely get stuck, the help prevents them from giving up.

Games that were infuriating with these kinds of mechanics were the new God of War games. At every fucking puzzle when you take 10 secs just to get oriented and look at what you need to do, some NPC (usually Boi of War) just tells you the answer. There is no way to turn this off and it made me turn off the game multiple times. If you want to put puzzles in the game, put puzzles in your game and let me figure it out. If you are going to give the answer, why are there puzzles to begin with? It doesn't help Atreus is one of the worse characters ever written especially in the last game.

[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How hard is it to have a tutorial on/off option at game start?

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Then you have to make sure it's reasonably straightforward to figure everything out without the tutorial, so then why bother with the tutorial at all? As a player I'd hate to get stuck because I missed something that's clearly spelled out in a tutorial I skipped.

[–] PumpkinEscobar@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

I like the game, but agree with the over-tutorialed complaints. They have two difficulty modes, I wish only story mode got all the handholding. I think there’s enough obvious indicators to get you through all the game mechanics.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee -4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

That’s kind of the definition of a video game: a game in which the rules are enforced by an unconsciously intelligent mechanism.

A normal game requires trusting the players; a video game does not.

[–] kaffiene@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago

Pretty sure you misunderstood the point being made.

[–] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

It looks so cool but I can't play it if it's not challenging.