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.
Tag Archives: video games
Review Scores and Social Context
Even if we agree that review scores are worthless, they wield an incredible power of video games. They still get treated as important, and people still use them as a basis for attacking others. In this essay I explore some ways in which these scores are applied maliciously, and why they suggest the best course of action is to just remove review scores entirely.
The Meaning of Review Scores
Most of us who consume games media are familiar with reviews, and as a consequence review scores. The numbers attached to a game tell us both a lot and not very much about that game. And yet people can often put a lot of stock into those scores, especially getting angry if a beloved game doesn’t get a stellar score from every reviewer. In this essay I explore review scores and how they are ultimately meaningless – they don’t really convey the information that they claim to.
On Storytelling: The Lorebook
Video games love lore. It allows for rich worldbuilding that is hard to get from brief glimpses of the environment or snippets of dialogue. But one conundrum is how lore is incorporated: the big book of lore that you can access from the menu. This essay explores the issue of reading in games and ways in which games can fail and succeed at getting players to want to do that reading.
Tears of the Kingdom: Push and Pull, Part 3
In this final installment of analyzing some of the changes to Tears of the Kingdom, I look at the abilities you get from completing the main dungeons. This essay explains the mechanics of those abilities and shows how the nature of those abilities and how they are activated can cause a lot of friction for the player, leading to the solution that the player may as well not bother using them at all.
Tears of the Kingdom: Push and Pull, Part 2
Following up on the last week’s post about weapon degradation, this essay examines another way in which game systems can cause conflicts with themselves. Using Tears of the Kingdom’s exploration and one of the major additions, I analyze the reasons why players might be incentivized to just ignore everything else and run around the game world.
Tears of the Kingdom: Push and Pull, Part 1
Being recently immersed in playing Tears of the Kingdom has led to some frustrations here and there. In an attempt to make those frustrations more than mere feelings, I begin a brief series of essays on a few ways in which certain systems conflict with each other. The first of these essays will focus on the weapon system and how the game and the player can have different aims about how the player is supposed to treat their weapons.
Talking to Yourself
With the rise of playing video games for an audience, we have been introduced to various kinds of commentary. Most of this is just for the entertainment of those watching. But I explore in this essay how a very specific form of self-conversation can help us process information that the game is providing to us, and thus help us learn more about the game.
Take Note of This
Much as we tend to rely on games to provide us with everything we need, there is value is augmenting that experience. Adding something to the process outside of the game itself. In this essay I will explain ways in which notetaking – the mere addition of pen and paper – can contribute to a better gaming experience.
The Game against the Story
Have you ever played a game where an important and valuable item was taken away…only to be immediately given back? At first glance, it may seem weird for a narrative to effectively mess with you in this way. And yet, the cause of this scene – and anything similar – can be understood as part of a more fundamental problem of design. One which creates a tension between creating a sense of impact for the story, while making sure a game remains fun for the player.
Abstracting Games 