Raptr and Mirror’s Edge

So, I had a friend heckle me yesterday about my Raptr updates. Specifically, Raptr was updating my Facebook status with information about the game I was currently playing. It’s what I thought I wanted out of the service.

But, as it turns out, what I actually want is for Raptr to send updates via the Raptr application so that friends can “hide this application” if they don’t want to be spammed with what I’m gaming.

Until Raptr plays nicely with my Facebook status feed I’m going to have to disable the real time updates. Well, sort of. I’m sending real time updates to my Twitter account and will try nightly one-time status summary updates to my Facebook account.

This actually ties directly into Mirror’s Edge because the specific friend who heckled me was wondering what kind of masochist I was to have put so much time into the game.

I was profoundly affected by the question because normally I stop playing games that I don’t consider engaging and fun (unless I’m doing research on a competitor – which I’m not in this case). And I really was not enjoying Mirror’s Edge despite being 75% of the way through the single player campaign.

Several key issues emerge. I feel kind of weird talking about this game so long after its release. And I feel kind of weird making some of the exact same comments that I’m sure others have made.

The main issue is that I never once, not even for a brief minute, actually felt like I was engaging in cool and flowing parkour. Even after hours of playing I felt like:

• Every hop, jump, and roll was activated by an uncomfortable controller input motion.
• Every free run sequence felt like it had to be replayed dozens of times because of blind leaps to my death.
• Every combat encounter (even after ratcheting down the difficulty to “easy”) made me feel incompetent.

The two experiments that I (and I’m sure lots of other folks) would like to do are:

• Compare two sets of controls. The current set (where Triggers and Shoulder Buttons performed key actions) and an alternate set where Face Buttons performed key actions.
• Compare two cameras. The current camera (first person) and an alternate third person camera.

That said, I do not think that the core of the problem is either controls or camera.

I think it is one of progression. The level of mastery required to make the game “fun” to play was unsupported by level design and progression goals. I’m absolutely convinced that this is the kind of game that shows extremely well when experienced players demonstrate cool ways to navigate the world and complete objectives.

Unfortunately for the new player, the game did not have a default path that encouraged the player to progress, grow, and master core skills in order to complete new challenges.

• There were no real opportunities to just “free explore” levels in order to get a sense of the lay of the land and what kinds of ingress and egress routes were available.
• There were “skill challenges” that encouraged players to try to solve a range of basic and advanced problems like a skateboarding game would.
• Combat opportunities were too spaced out at the beginning of the game for players to understand and master it. Yes, you mostly could avoid combat – but combat was required at certain points in the game and the experience was frustrating (even on easy difficulty).

Ideally, default mission flow would have encouraged players to familiarize themselves with the world, learn new tricks and techniques, and advance their martial ability using a progression of: Problem introduction, practice with feedback (and non-penalizing failure conditions), technique mastery, and then task discrimination (learning when to use this versus other techniques).

Less ideally, there would have been additional game modes included that provided players with fun and increasingly challenging ways to practice and master techniques and learn about the environment. The Time Trial mode did not fit this bill.

In the end, I really wanted to like both Mirror’s Edge and Assassin’s Creed precisely because I love the fantasy of performing parkour moves in a video game. Yet neither of these games provided me with the same level of enjoyment of other action-adventure/platform games as Tomb Raider, Drake’s Fortune, or Ratchet & Clank.

The common denominator in my mind seems to be suboptimal controls (I found both Assassin’s Creed and Mirror’s Edge control schemes to be overly complex and unintuitive), frustrating combat (unforgiving one vs. one dueling in AC and ME), and in-game progression schemes that allow me to go off the rails and try to advance before I had mastered the core components.

In some ways, I’m just not good at dealing with crushing failure. I don’t like to try the same thing over and over again and I don’t get the hint that the game is sometimes just trying to tell me “go do something else for a while – you’re not supposed to be here yet”. I’m sure this is why I tend to prefer scripted, story based games in general over sandbox endeavors.

Some fun with Tag: The Power of Paint (student game)

I found Tag: The Power of Paint while trolling for student games. It is representative of many of the polished, enjoyable games coming from student game developers these days. As a 3-d puzzler, I enjoyed playing the game for about an hour or so and have a few comments about what I liked and some of the things I'd love to see improved.

As far as setting and theme go, I loved it. It has the parkour feel of Mirror's Edge both in terms of art direction (desaturated world highlighted by colorful points of interest) and level design (dashing around rooftops, making impossible jumps). It also uses conventions from great games like Portal and Braid by having text/story/icons/graffiti be both "in world" (as advertising signs and graffiti messages) and helpful to mission progression (the slogans are actually helpful hints).

The very initial experience (first few minutes) were really nice in that you were dropped in the world and left to explore in safety. Initial hint billboards were non-modal and stayed onscreen, but unobtrusively so, until you had learned the basics (how to move, look, and step in paint).

The mid initial experience (next 15 or so minutes) were a little more uneven -- I'll detail some of my complaints below. But the "core game" (which I consider to be the level just before the first subway train) was quite enjoyable. The world became an interesting street puzzle that I needed to solve using my brain and my spray paint cans.

My main complaints are mostly about reducing the cost of failure when learning a new trick and a couple of camera/controls issues.

• The camera felt too low to the ground (about knee level). This actually made me feel queasy -- which never happens to me in FPS games (well, maybe a bit in Halflife when I peer over a cliff edge). This felt extra disorienting to me before I picked up the paint gun (there was no onscreen representation of my character -- not even a bare hand).
• Some of the initial puzzles may have been too challenging for people not as familiar with FPS controls or who have not played many 3d platformers before. I'm thinking specifically about the wall jump puzzles (which also require figuring out how to time the W and D button presses to use your inertial force).
• The blue paint ("Stick") was initially very disorienting because I ran into the fire hydrant and got stuck to it. This led to my character to being flipped on his back, which totally confused me. The "ground point" arrow might help a bit in terms of orienting me to where the ground (and thus gravitational pull) is, but there might be better environmental cues to use than this like lighting, decals, dust particles, etc. Finally, I wonder if there needs to be some sort of sound/visual cue and FX when I switch to "Stick" mode. If I were playing on a console with a vibrational controller, I would expect a bit of rumble and maybe some camera movement as well.
• There probably needed to be one or two additional checkpoints (or some level redesign) near the first vertical wall and first lateral wall ricochet puzzles. I, personally, needed to retry these puzzles several times to get them right which meant I needed to replay a big chunk of the level each time I failed.
• More of a polish thing: Hitting the "Full Screen" button from the main menu was very disorienting. Without warning my screen blinked and fluttered for several long seconds. Then the game appeared in windowed mode, but I was unable to mouse outside the window so I could not reposition it in order to quickly move between my notepad and the app. I know it's a tough call whether to lock the mouse pointer inside the window (to prevent errant mouse movements from deselecting the game) or allow the user to click outside the game window, but I expect my windows to behave like windows -- and this means I can mouse and click outside of them (and move them around).

Perhaps the most important missing element, to me, was a sense of story and how my character fit into this world. When I think of two relevant competitors (Braid and Portal), both of them have set the expectation that even simple puzzler/platformers should have some sort of story line that pulls me in. What is my motivation? Do I have a crew that I'm trying to impress? I enjoy the flow and puzzle solving, but I really expect more depth from a game like this. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do.

I was also left to wonder whether there were any plans for social play (coop or competitive). It seems like this would be a logical direction to take this game.

Finally, I realize that this was a student project and that they may have just run out of time/energy, but it seems like there should be some support for a community of level creators. I have to believe that games like Armadillo Run and Crayon Physics succeed in many ways because they facilitate user generated content creation and distribution.

Mirror's Edge Demo: Too short, man... too short....

So, I had a quick play of the Mirror's Edge demo. Just as things started to flow, the demo ended. Although the demo had an overall feel of polish and a nice arc from start to finish, I can't help but feel that it missed a real opportunity to sell me on the game.

The visual style is unique and refreshing. The controls feel a little wonky to start with (LB and LT as your primary controls) but might end up working. The problem is that I only had a very short tutorial and then a quick linear mission. This game begs for freestyling yet there was no sandbox opportunity for me to just play around in.

As far as visceral feel goes, the game hovers between good and great. I'd need to replay the demo and pay more attention to the sound, vibration, and camera movement to break it down in greater detail, but my initial thoughts are:

• The first person feel kind of works (I didn't expect it to at all). That said, there should be opportunities for me to watch myself do cool things -- especially when I'm essentially waiting for a long animation to play (like hauling myself up a ledge or hurtling through the air or rolling on the ground). Maybe it would be disorienting, but I'd like to at least see what something like this would be like. I'd really like to admire my character as I get to do in games like God of War and Tomb Raider.
• The "door crash" sequence is pretty good. I'd heard about this from a review. I think it could be sweetened a bit more in terms of sound/shake/vibrate, but it's pretty sweet.
• I wonder whether I'll ever like combat in this game. It makes me think of Assassin's Creed. Not in terms of the combat system, but in terms of how combat just seems so lame in comparison to exploring rooftops in over-the-top parkour game play.

This game provides a really interesting contrast to Tomb Raider: Underworld (I'll be posting about that demo next) in terms of world navigation. Mirror's Edge uses bold saturated non-realistic colors, specifically red, to indicate where to go next. Tomb Raider sacrifices a bit of the "where do I go next" for environmental realism. This makes sense given the emphasis on quick athletic running in the former and slower methodical exploration in the latter.

In the end, I really want to like Mirror's Edge. What I hope is that the retail version is well paced and that combat isn't too painful. If the demo had wowed me, I might have considered buying it. But for now, especially given my current backlog of games, it's a rental.