[Gaming/Design] Good and Bad Design

As much as you might think I would write about part 2 of roach patch notes, I realize that the new patch changes a bunch and therefore my old dislike against the 2 food roaches is rather out of date. Needless to say, Overseer's are super buffed and I believe will become really useful in zvt and zvz play.

I'll get back to Starcraft 2 later, but now to the actual post. One thing I noticed while playing certain games and certain websites is ineffective design. This can influence the difficulty of games as well as the effectiveness of websites, sharing information, and so on. when a game is difficult, it can be difficult because of two things:

1)The gameplay itself is difficult
2)the design of the game makes the game difficult

An example of the 1st one is a Touhou game. The game gives you the options and ability to complete the game, score high, and beat insanely tough levels. The UI doesn't take away from the game and displays information in an effective manner.



While large, the sidebar doesn't interfere with game play. Also each characters maneuverability, while different, are all able to beat each level. This means that the game play itself makes the game hard instead of the controls and design of the game. While you can argue they are essentially both designed, one is on purpose and one is coincidental.

An example of the second is Assassins Creed 2. In the game as you play you run into special puzzle dungeons where you have to clear the area using various free-running abilities that you have. While these puzzles are fun, these areas are frequently made harder by bad game design. In the game, the puzzle areas tend to force certain camera angles on you. This is to reveal and help show where you are supposed to go from a certain part, but more frequently it just causes you to mess up. One such part is shown in this video:



If you don't expect the camera to change it is very hard to recover from it. This is an example of a game being more difficult by design than by gameplay.

Of course there are anomalies of these, which I like to call Starcraft. In this game, the flaws in the design actually ADDED to the game depth instead of taking away from it. Mutalisk Stacking, worker AI, pathing, and so on added an extra challenge to the game which allowed more advanced tactics to be used as gameplay and the skill of the players evolved.


One things that games do that most education websites do not is centralize information. All the necessary information for a game can be put on one screen for easy use and browsing. Most online courses, however, fail to do so. Admittedly there is much more information in a course than in a game, but the accessibility of that information is as important in an online course as a video game. Many times schools will only use their established means and not develop effective software to make a solid or easy experience for the user.

Basically, my rant is very simple: If a player or user of a website/game has to ask them selves (assuming that this isn't part of the experience)"how do I manipulate the game to do what I want" which causes them to try and break the game, there is something wrong with the design.

I'll get back to music posts, but I haven't really been listening to anything new or different since the Circa Survive latest album. I'm sure there are plenty of fun new albums to explore, but right now I don't have time to do so.

[Rant] Various stuff

It's been a while since I posted a blog. Many reason include being busy, lazy, and not just caring. However, I finally feel like writing something so here I am.

One thing that is interesting is that I saw a food TV show about an Englishman going around the highest obesity areas in the states and trying to fix schools so that they have more healthy foods.

I feel like this is a good endeavor. There are definitely problems with the consumption or at least lack of exercise in the country. However, there are some things that disturb me. How he uses people is really annoying. When he deals with teenagers and young people I feel he does the "Mr. 'cool' guy". The weird thing with 'Mr. Cool' guys is that a) They're rarely cool and b) They try and walk over people. The way he talks to teens seems to be really steamroller. He's so 'energetic' he just doesn't allow the teens and other people to really get a word in edgewise.

The scary bit is how he talks about things. It is also the reason why I don't like the health care bill. He says one of his interviews (paraphrased) that kids need to be told what to do and what is right and wrong. My problem with this is that he is purposefully removing and controlling choices of people because "he knows better".

I'm not saying what he isn't saying is the truth, I'm just saying he is going about it the wrong way, just like the health care bill. Reformatting the lunch lines for healthier food is good, as it gives kids/teens more chances to become healthier. However, the way he's doing so is going through the parent-teacher boards and schools boards and revamping things without any permission.

If I was in his position, I would push for an upgrade in money for proper training for cooks and for healthy food, but I wouldn't go through people or remove choices. Doing so doesn't really stop the problem, it just postpones it. The main problem is poor education through the teaching and through poor teaching from parents. If you don't try and reform these areas, you're just postponing what will happen, not actually fixing the problem.
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I saw a video from a the guy who developed Spore. He said something along the lines of being able to take another 6 years of development before coming out with a game he truly thought was fully fleshed out. I actually disagree with him. My example: Starcraft.

Blizzard hasn't patched Starcraft in years, yet it is the one of the biggest e-sports in the world. It has a HUGE following and community. You would think a 12 year old game wouldn't hold as well as it does, but the fact that people keep on coming up with strategies, tactics, and so on really increase the longevity of the game. The game still has ample bugs, bad ai pathing, and so on yet those bugs ended up making the game DEEPER, not shollower. The AI pathing and so on makes the game more challenging. However, many original SC fans are complaining that SC2 doesn't have these so the game is easier. I think the game is actually more challenging, but not because of the issues with the game.

Warcraft 3 doesn't need as high APM, but it requires more thinking because of how tactics and strategies are executed. A player with a good strategy but low APM can still beat a higher APM player if they're timing and strategy is better than someone who doesn't.

For example, the warcraft 3 player Space has an average of about 150-200 apm, yet he is one of the top undead players because of his ability with timing pushes and his excellent micro in battles.

A good way to compare the two games is that SC plays you against the game and the opponent, while WAR3 allows you to focus on what your opponent is doing.

This will draw a bunch of flame from SC players but whatever.