Comments on: Gaming Grammatically

By: Ceny Aut

Ceny Aut — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:34:26 +0000

There's always hope

By: @LJFippard

@LJFippard — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:17:24 +0000

As both a gamer and a games designer, this was an amazing read.
I agree totally that the way to get new gamers feeling like they can do things is not to oversimplify everything and remove all complexity (creating a firm divide between "casual" games and "hardcore gamer" games) but to instead make the games produced accessible to users who haven't learnt all their skills yet as well as advanced users.
A games design basic rule is; "make controls easy to learn, difficult to master", but if you don't teach your student very well, they won't learn everything they should have, and without all the skills they need to continue it will be very likely that they'll want to give up before the first hurdle with that feeling of "I must just be bad at video games, I did the thing it told me but it doesn't work at all".
Like with most things, I suspect that having friends or family in the room to guide your hands would be the most beneficial way to learn, but for people who have nobody about to suss out these little nuances (hand positioning, for example), there may be no way of knowing why they're finding a task so difficult. Getting a progression hint is useless when the hint is just "do this thing you've already been trying to do". Games users have a great ability to keep at something until the breakthrough, but I think putting in clear, non-patronizing instructions that cover ALL the basics could only be a good thing. Seasoned gamers could always skip past all of that dialogue anyway.

So, I'll keep this in mind when designing – just a little more effort put into a tutorial level, or even an instructional video with a real person holding the controller, could make all the difference for new players

By: Sandbox

Sandbox — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 18:35:26 +0000

As a sandboxer (someone who grew up mostly playing simulations, 'software toys' and virtual worlds) I never thought I'd be very good with challenging strategy, hand/eye skill or fighting games. I would be pretty intimidated by them, up to the point of intentionally spectacularly failing at games like Guitar Hero or Soul Caliber. I'd be okay at games like Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros, but never really venture deeper. Enter Spelunky. I grew obsessed with it. I've died over a thousand times but hot damn. I'm at a similar point, my fingers meld with my keyboard and whenever people watch me play and ask how I do those daring jumps or wicked kills… I d even k. Teaching people those tricks is great though. It's like dance. When I get it on Xbox I'm curious to see how my keyboard conditioning translates to console controls. I'm getting really good with Super Hexagon now, and I plan on emulating and trying out something like Twinbee or any other shoot em up.

Anyway. Long winded response but I'm usually a lurker (probably because I grew up sandboxing, I fell sort of alienated from the majority of gamers) This post really resonated with me. If I had only known 16 years ago that the dance of fingerpads was no true hurdle.

By: mum

mum — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:58:05 +0000

Great read, I love the picture book analogy – this is true in so many 'difficult' situations that we come across when attempting anything out of our comfort zone. So according to your article there is hope for me yet … right?

By: Hank Tian

Hank Tian — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:46:47 +0000

Honestly, this article completely blew my mind.

I never really thought about how I held the controller and how I had learned to do that over time so that I could get all the face buttons quickly and easily. However, now that I think about it, most TV commercials and shows show people using the controller the way you describe your friend doing: Tapping specific buttons with the tip of your thumb instead of using the pad and sort of rolling it onto the button. This sort of portrayal may also have lead to your friend's plight: He's doing it the way he sees it all the time on TV.

I felt that "holding jump = higher" was pretty intuitive to me, though. The harder and longer I pressed, the higher I jumped! Either I made that connection myself or I read it in a manual when I was a kid and forgot.

By: @BRKeogh

@BRKeogh — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:57:38 +0000

Thanks Scott!

You're absolutely right. There certainly isn't anything inherently 'wrong' with gesture controls, just as there is nothing inherently wrong with picture books. Both are capable of doing wondrous things in their own right. It's when gesture controls are deployed with the sole/primary intention of making something easier (rather than easier to learn, perhaps) that I think it starts to affect quality.

By: @Scott_Common

@Scott_Common — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:42:31 +0000

That's a great read. I couldn't agree more with the not needing, "…dumbed-down games for simplistic, gesture-based input devices…" – it's not that I'm against motion based controls, just that there seems to be a perception (usually by developers) that motion controls need to be simplified versions of real world actions.

The most fun I've had with motion controls was in Red Steel 2 – simply because it allowed me to use my experience in swordsmanship in parallel to my experience with game interfaces. Sure the controls were somewhat simplified but there was a real joy in being reacquainted with the (to use your terminology) grammar of swordsmanship – and the game certainly rewarded me for having that knowledge (other, non sword educated friends seemed to struggle more with the combination of interfaces). Being rewarded, in the game, for my physical experience was quite visceral – and while I understand that the controls wouldn't draw in a wider range of players I built a real connection with the game because it recognised that I knew what I was doing – it was the complexity which appealed to me.

Now I'm just rambling though – either way that was a great read…