In this (very long) follow up to last week’s essay, I look at the last three games in the Devil May Cry franchise and ask a core question: how effectively do these games turn brand new players into experts? Because these games rely so heavily on high-level play for their fun factor, how well a game can get players from just starting out to that high-level play is an important facet of the game’s design.
Tag Archives: retrospective
Retrospective: Devil May Cry, Part 1
A recent foray into the Devil May Cry series has left me with a lot of thoughts. Thoughts in particular about “expert play,” and how games turn new players into experts. As well as how games sometimes stumble in that regard. This two-part retrospective essay will have us following the DMC series as it slowly settles into its niche and figures out the problem of how to effectively encourage players to both learn and *want* to learn.
Abstracting Games 