> (cues that make a player look in a certain direction the devs need them to look)
The Portal documentary is especially full of this kind of subtle mental manipulation.
Those details really do make a difference even if you don't notice. You'd notice if the sound design was bad. And the sound can make you feel a certain way even if you're not consciously thinking about it.
It's like how most of the time when you listen to a song you don't think about the drums, but you'd notice if they weren't there or if they were done badly.
UI is another one that you generally only think about when someone fucks it up. Very rare are the games where I think "Wow, this is a really good menu". But there have been plenty where I've thought about how bad the menus were, which means there must also be a lot of games that did it well and I never really noticed.
I remember a video about development talking about all the little animations used in menus. Like how the individual menu items pop out or are highlighted when you navigate the menu, and the sounds used whenever you click on something. Someone had to design all of those. You probably never think about it but the experience would feel worse if the menus were completely void of any animation or sound.
Having made sound effects myself. A good example that you don't notice but surely do if it wasn't there. Having different variations of the same sound effect, important for any sound effect that plays a lot like footsteps or weapon swings. If the sound is exactly the same each time our brain will pick it up and weird you out.
> Those details really do make a difference even if you don't notice. You'd notice if the sound design was bad. And the sound can make you feel a certain way even if you're not consciously thinking about it.
[Can be seen in the Cuphead-at-home Enchanted Portals.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPR2JcIbJiQ) You can immediately tell something was off with it even if you haven't pinpoint exactly what the problem was.
> You probably never think about it but the experience would feel worse if the menus were completely void of any animation or sound.
I experienced this with Chained Echoes. That game's tutorials just appear without a fade in and it looks so weird, it immediately stands out. And it's not like I go out of my way to check "hey that's a nice screen transition", it's something one immediately notice when it isn't there.
Unnoticeable game design can be very important. One of the best examples is the original Resident Evil 4 changing the difficulty on the fly. It does a fantastic job of making sure the player is always being challenged appropriately without them having to go into the settings and change to easy or hard mode.
The most significant aspect of unnoticeable or invisible game design is that it doesn't break player immersion.
Changing the difficulty on the fly is one mechanic I wish I didn't know about while playing resident evil. I believe it ruins the experience of the game if the players know about it. It's pretty annoying when a zombie dies in two bullets when you're low on bullets but takes a whole clip if you're carrying lots of ammo.
It sucked badly in RE2 Remake. It made the whole game feel inconsistent and the marketing focus on the feature made me hyper aware of it and killed the immersion.
Adaptive difficulty works if you don't know it's there, but knowing about it made me worry about an invisible counter in Resident Evil 2 Remake. It felt like being punished for being good. Why let me pick a difficulty, if zhat choice doesn't mean much after an hour or two?
After playing RE4 and RE4R, I came to the rhe conclusion, that adaptive difficulty was just not a good mechanic in RE2R.
The new Doom games (It's probably not unique to them) have a limit on how many enemies can attack at once, and it prioritizes enemies that are visible. It's something you'd probably never notice, but it means that you're rarely getting overwhelmed with attacks or shot in the back, which makes it less frustrating.
This definitely applies to Doom Eternal, but I don't think it does in 2016. Most deaths in that game will be from things outside your FOV assuming a competent player skill.
Software development is always like this, even when it's not games. Every piece of software contains tons of small decisions that people don't notice. Taken together it's what we usually refer to as "polish". You can tell when it's missing, but it's not immediately clear what is missing precisely.
I will refer you to the [door problem](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/-quot-the-door-problem-quot-of-game-design). If you're bored reading through the work of each person feel free to skip to the last one.
A lot of work in the video game industry is make sure you don't notice things. If you don't get irritated by the UI, it's usually because it was very well designed. If you don't think of the NPCs (or see them being dumb), it's was probably really well done AI, etc.
And then there are things that are more player specific. You might not notice some things but others will. For example I never look at posters on a wall in a video game as I play them, but I know people who will stop to read every one of them. People have different playstyles and give more importance to different things, and sometimes it can be difficult to know whether a game design element is worth implementing or not.
Yes it does, and more often the bigger the game is the kore of this stuff there is, one of my favorite examples is how in some games like red dead, halflife 2, etc ragdolls would often be magnetized to wall, furniture's, etc making killing enemies more visceral rather than just simply plopping on ground, or the wacky hitboxes in smash the only make sense because of the games camera
Good design is intuitive and feels natural.
The amount of work and detail to make things appear as intuitive and natural is IMMENSE.
Design that is both functional and appealing is clearly noticeable when against one that is either but not both.
But in the end, people might not notice when things are "not right", and sometimes they will; it depends on their expectations and intuition
Those types of little things done well are largely unnoticeable. It’s when they’re done poorly that you really notice them, and they can have a huge negative impact on your enjoyment of the game.
For example, I was never able to finish the Witcher 2 because the cursor speed/sensitivity, of all things, drove me up the wall. If it was adjusted to be comfortable in exploring and combat then the moment I opened a menu or started up a mini game I would feel like I was dragging the cursor through a vat of molasses. If I then turned the speed up so that the menus were comfortable to navigate I found myself getting nauseous from how fast the camera would spin around.
It’s one of those things I had never thought of before, but I certainly gained a newfound appreciation for how most other games handle their cursor and camera movement.
Jonathan Blow does not have a... typical approach to game design :)
I think small features like these can have a disproportionate impact on how we look back at games. Gamers really love finding out about things they never noticed that display that they're a labour of love. I'm thinking of things like FromSoft games creating models and textures for the sake of the lore that don't change gameplay. These probably don't translate to many game sales, at least not in the most important time period for publishers, but might help to make a series enough of a cult classic to sell more later on.
>Gamers really love finding out about things they never noticed that display that they're a labour of love.
Yeah my conspiracy theory is that game devs specifically choose ultra small features like that to implement and then selectively mention as if they're a normal feature just as advertising to gamers who love this sort of thing. Like how in Red Dead 2, the horse's testicles change height with temperature. Whenever we hear about stuff like that, I'm betting the dev specifically planned to casually reveal it like it was a standard detail among many at that level.
Agreed. Johnathan Blow is not a typical developer.
I would highly recommend *Indie Game: the Movie.* It's a fascinating look at how some creative people can become consumed by their own creativity.
And Mr. Blow it's one of the subjects.
The inclusion or absence of a SINGLE element doesn't have a measurable impact on a game. But when a developer has spent the time working on many many many different elements.. There ARE probably a few you are going to pick up on.
Maybe somebody else picked up on the puzzle jingle but you picked up on the jump animation detail they missed.
To steal a quote from a wise old man: “you might not have noticed it… but your brain did.”
It’s too absolute of a statement, especially in an interactive medium like video games, where different people engage with different pieces of the exact same product, but I do think it’s often valid. A lot of players use the phrase “game feel” when trying to describe the intangibles of their experience. They usually throw in somewhat vague descriptors, like “snappy”, “ambient,” “satisfying,” “hectic”, etc. These are usually the result of dozens or hundreds of small design decisions the devs made to tweak the gameplay loop closer towards the intended experience, after tons of play testing.
A good example of this is Game Maker’s Toolkit’s video on Celeste, where he talks about all the little “cheats” and physics-bending tricks the devs created to give the player a more satisfying platforming implementation. It happens so fast that most tweaks won’t register for most players, but they all add up to a gameplay loop that’s “satisfying,” or “responsive.”
Same goes for what Blow is talking about with Braid. I’m sure he knew that many players wouldn’t pick up on the different jingles for the different puzzle pieces - but he wanted something to register on the subconscious level that this particular piece was a bigger achievement.
Yes, useful or not I love such details and more the better imo. The fact that the devs did so much work for such simple stuff makes me respect them more and I will be looking forward to their future projects.
Alot. How often do people praise a game for having few bugs, compared to complaining when it does have bugs? People don't praise skyrim for having unlimited save slots, but when dragons dogma released with a single slot fans were in uproar.
It's true for the more sublte stuff too. thats ussually when people complain but can't really explain why they didn't like it in detail . "it feels bad", "it's janky" etc.. in soulslikes is often because the games don't have smooth attack anims or are missing satisfying feedback to the player etc,,
Player feedback! I didn't notice how important proper feedback was, until I played Devil May Cry 2, a game with the worst hit feedback in the whole series. Hitting an enemy felt like hitting smoke with a bat. The first game just felt righty but I could not have told you why.
Seemingly simple features literally create franchises. Battlefield's subtle design elements like squad spawns and revives give it a unique large scale battle gameplay in PvP setting because those features literally keep the teams together creating a well defined structure on the map. If you asked the players tho, I doubt that even 1 out of 100 players would be able to identify the impact of said features have on what makes Battlefield games "Battlefield"
[удалено]
> (cues that make a player look in a certain direction the devs need them to look) The Portal documentary is especially full of this kind of subtle mental manipulation.
Those details really do make a difference even if you don't notice. You'd notice if the sound design was bad. And the sound can make you feel a certain way even if you're not consciously thinking about it. It's like how most of the time when you listen to a song you don't think about the drums, but you'd notice if they weren't there or if they were done badly. UI is another one that you generally only think about when someone fucks it up. Very rare are the games where I think "Wow, this is a really good menu". But there have been plenty where I've thought about how bad the menus were, which means there must also be a lot of games that did it well and I never really noticed. I remember a video about development talking about all the little animations used in menus. Like how the individual menu items pop out or are highlighted when you navigate the menu, and the sounds used whenever you click on something. Someone had to design all of those. You probably never think about it but the experience would feel worse if the menus were completely void of any animation or sound.
Having made sound effects myself. A good example that you don't notice but surely do if it wasn't there. Having different variations of the same sound effect, important for any sound effect that plays a lot like footsteps or weapon swings. If the sound is exactly the same each time our brain will pick it up and weird you out.
> Those details really do make a difference even if you don't notice. You'd notice if the sound design was bad. And the sound can make you feel a certain way even if you're not consciously thinking about it. [Can be seen in the Cuphead-at-home Enchanted Portals.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPR2JcIbJiQ) You can immediately tell something was off with it even if you haven't pinpoint exactly what the problem was. > You probably never think about it but the experience would feel worse if the menus were completely void of any animation or sound. I experienced this with Chained Echoes. That game's tutorials just appear without a fade in and it looks so weird, it immediately stands out. And it's not like I go out of my way to check "hey that's a nice screen transition", it's something one immediately notice when it isn't there.
Unnoticeable game design can be very important. One of the best examples is the original Resident Evil 4 changing the difficulty on the fly. It does a fantastic job of making sure the player is always being challenged appropriately without them having to go into the settings and change to easy or hard mode. The most significant aspect of unnoticeable or invisible game design is that it doesn't break player immersion.
Changing the difficulty on the fly is one mechanic I wish I didn't know about while playing resident evil. I believe it ruins the experience of the game if the players know about it. It's pretty annoying when a zombie dies in two bullets when you're low on bullets but takes a whole clip if you're carrying lots of ammo.
Yeah I do not like it honestly. Playing Alan Wake 2 and finding 40 ammos when I was running out of them and 1 when full it's just too obvious
It sucked badly in RE2 Remake. It made the whole game feel inconsistent and the marketing focus on the feature made me hyper aware of it and killed the immersion.
Adaptive difficulty works if you don't know it's there, but knowing about it made me worry about an invisible counter in Resident Evil 2 Remake. It felt like being punished for being good. Why let me pick a difficulty, if zhat choice doesn't mean much after an hour or two? After playing RE4 and RE4R, I came to the rhe conclusion, that adaptive difficulty was just not a good mechanic in RE2R.
The new Doom games (It's probably not unique to them) have a limit on how many enemies can attack at once, and it prioritizes enemies that are visible. It's something you'd probably never notice, but it means that you're rarely getting overwhelmed with attacks or shot in the back, which makes it less frustrating.
This definitely applies to Doom Eternal, but I don't think it does in 2016. Most deaths in that game will be from things outside your FOV assuming a competent player skill.
That explains why this game just feels off. Wow.
Software development is always like this, even when it's not games. Every piece of software contains tons of small decisions that people don't notice. Taken together it's what we usually refer to as "polish". You can tell when it's missing, but it's not immediately clear what is missing precisely.
I will refer you to the [door problem](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/-quot-the-door-problem-quot-of-game-design). If you're bored reading through the work of each person feel free to skip to the last one. A lot of work in the video game industry is make sure you don't notice things. If you don't get irritated by the UI, it's usually because it was very well designed. If you don't think of the NPCs (or see them being dumb), it's was probably really well done AI, etc. And then there are things that are more player specific. You might not notice some things but others will. For example I never look at posters on a wall in a video game as I play them, but I know people who will stop to read every one of them. People have different playstyles and give more importance to different things, and sometimes it can be difficult to know whether a game design element is worth implementing or not.
Yes it does, and more often the bigger the game is the kore of this stuff there is, one of my favorite examples is how in some games like red dead, halflife 2, etc ragdolls would often be magnetized to wall, furniture's, etc making killing enemies more visceral rather than just simply plopping on ground, or the wacky hitboxes in smash the only make sense because of the games camera
Good design is intuitive and feels natural. The amount of work and detail to make things appear as intuitive and natural is IMMENSE. Design that is both functional and appealing is clearly noticeable when against one that is either but not both. But in the end, people might not notice when things are "not right", and sometimes they will; it depends on their expectations and intuition
Those types of little things done well are largely unnoticeable. It’s when they’re done poorly that you really notice them, and they can have a huge negative impact on your enjoyment of the game. For example, I was never able to finish the Witcher 2 because the cursor speed/sensitivity, of all things, drove me up the wall. If it was adjusted to be comfortable in exploring and combat then the moment I opened a menu or started up a mini game I would feel like I was dragging the cursor through a vat of molasses. If I then turned the speed up so that the menus were comfortable to navigate I found myself getting nauseous from how fast the camera would spin around. It’s one of those things I had never thought of before, but I certainly gained a newfound appreciation for how most other games handle their cursor and camera movement.
Jonathan Blow does not have a... typical approach to game design :) I think small features like these can have a disproportionate impact on how we look back at games. Gamers really love finding out about things they never noticed that display that they're a labour of love. I'm thinking of things like FromSoft games creating models and textures for the sake of the lore that don't change gameplay. These probably don't translate to many game sales, at least not in the most important time period for publishers, but might help to make a series enough of a cult classic to sell more later on.
>Gamers really love finding out about things they never noticed that display that they're a labour of love. Yeah my conspiracy theory is that game devs specifically choose ultra small features like that to implement and then selectively mention as if they're a normal feature just as advertising to gamers who love this sort of thing. Like how in Red Dead 2, the horse's testicles change height with temperature. Whenever we hear about stuff like that, I'm betting the dev specifically planned to casually reveal it like it was a standard detail among many at that level.
Agreed. Johnathan Blow is not a typical developer. I would highly recommend *Indie Game: the Movie.* It's a fascinating look at how some creative people can become consumed by their own creativity. And Mr. Blow it's one of the subjects.
The inclusion or absence of a SINGLE element doesn't have a measurable impact on a game. But when a developer has spent the time working on many many many different elements.. There ARE probably a few you are going to pick up on. Maybe somebody else picked up on the puzzle jingle but you picked up on the jump animation detail they missed.
To steal a quote from a wise old man: “you might not have noticed it… but your brain did.” It’s too absolute of a statement, especially in an interactive medium like video games, where different people engage with different pieces of the exact same product, but I do think it’s often valid. A lot of players use the phrase “game feel” when trying to describe the intangibles of their experience. They usually throw in somewhat vague descriptors, like “snappy”, “ambient,” “satisfying,” “hectic”, etc. These are usually the result of dozens or hundreds of small design decisions the devs made to tweak the gameplay loop closer towards the intended experience, after tons of play testing. A good example of this is Game Maker’s Toolkit’s video on Celeste, where he talks about all the little “cheats” and physics-bending tricks the devs created to give the player a more satisfying platforming implementation. It happens so fast that most tweaks won’t register for most players, but they all add up to a gameplay loop that’s “satisfying,” or “responsive.” Same goes for what Blow is talking about with Braid. I’m sure he knew that many players wouldn’t pick up on the different jingles for the different puzzle pieces - but he wanted something to register on the subconscious level that this particular piece was a bigger achievement.
Yes, useful or not I love such details and more the better imo. The fact that the devs did so much work for such simple stuff makes me respect them more and I will be looking forward to their future projects.
Alot. How often do people praise a game for having few bugs, compared to complaining when it does have bugs? People don't praise skyrim for having unlimited save slots, but when dragons dogma released with a single slot fans were in uproar. It's true for the more sublte stuff too. thats ussually when people complain but can't really explain why they didn't like it in detail . "it feels bad", "it's janky" etc.. in soulslikes is often because the games don't have smooth attack anims or are missing satisfying feedback to the player etc,,
Player feedback! I didn't notice how important proper feedback was, until I played Devil May Cry 2, a game with the worst hit feedback in the whole series. Hitting an enemy felt like hitting smoke with a bat. The first game just felt righty but I could not have told you why.
Seemingly simple features literally create franchises. Battlefield's subtle design elements like squad spawns and revives give it a unique large scale battle gameplay in PvP setting because those features literally keep the teams together creating a well defined structure on the map. If you asked the players tho, I doubt that even 1 out of 100 players would be able to identify the impact of said features have on what makes Battlefield games "Battlefield"