Design like this is how games optimise the fun out of playing.
Forcing players to meticulously search every last nook and cranny through fear of “missing out” is cruel, and I appreciate games that telegraph to players they don’t need to do it.
(Exceptions apply of course for games where the entire point is searching, like finite-resource survival games.)
It’s nice to have some reward for looking in the nooks and crannies, without feeling like you have to search in every nook and cranny. What is the best way to achieve this? One way could be if you had interesting items each of which could be found in several places, and when you’ve found it in one place you won’t find it in another.
Metroid games have things like the missile and health expansions where you don’t need even close to all of them but they’re a nice reward when you do find them
There are obviously thousands of games which don’t suffer this problem because they just aren’t of a genre which even has any concept of items or searching.
Where it gets interesting is examples where games could suffer it but don’t.
I looked through my steam list for an example and one which jumped out is Prey, a first-person RPG shooter.
Prey does have lots of secrets and things to find, but the game also makes it very clear early on that you can always travel back and forth between any area on Talos 1, the space station where the game takes place.
By virtue of this design choice, you don’t feel compelled to be absolutely meticulous in your searching because you know you can always return to look again, and cannot permanently miss anything.
Design like this is how games optimise the fun out of playing.
Forcing players to meticulously search every last nook and cranny through fear of “missing out” is cruel, and I appreciate games that telegraph to players they don’t need to do it.
(Exceptions apply of course for games where the entire point is searching, like finite-resource survival games.)
It’s nice to have some reward for looking in the nooks and crannies, without feeling like you have to search in every nook and cranny. What is the best way to achieve this? One way could be if you had interesting items each of which could be found in several places, and when you’ve found it in one place you won’t find it in another.
Metroid games have things like the missile and health expansions where you don’t need even close to all of them but they’re a nice reward when you do find them
Do you have any examples of games that do that kind of telegraphing well? I also love the kind of game that just lets me enjoy the ride.
Difficult question.
There are obviously thousands of games which don’t suffer this problem because they just aren’t of a genre which even has any concept of items or searching.
Where it gets interesting is examples where games could suffer it but don’t.
I looked through my steam list for an example and one which jumped out is Prey, a first-person RPG shooter.
Prey does have lots of secrets and things to find, but the game also makes it very clear early on that you can always travel back and forth between any area on Talos 1, the space station where the game takes place.
By virtue of this design choice, you don’t feel compelled to be absolutely meticulous in your searching because you know you can always return to look again, and cannot permanently miss anything.