I’ve got perhaps an unusual one - 99% of the time I play games with the music turned off. I just find it much more immersive and I enjoy, for example, not knowing that combat is about to start because the music’s just changed.
There are plenty of games where you can’t turn the music off. I’m not a fan of that, but I get it. The devs want you to play their game in a certain way, and turning the music off isn’t part of that. No complaints.
But then there are games which allow you to turn the music off, but all the rest of the sound has been made under the assumption that the music will be playing. The music often covers up a litany of jankiness like background sound effects not looping well. And sometimes the atmosphere sounds (say the drone of an engine in a spaceship) are also controlled by the music slider.
So, if you’re going to give the option to turn the music off, make sure that the game still sounds good without the music.
I’m a muted game player as well. Music is the first thing I turn down to negligible, followed environmental sounds. If I can’t control those, buhbye all sounds.
In the murder hobo games, I don’t really need to listen to that anyways.
Quests that demand that the player finds X of an unimportant item in a world which has exactly X instances of said item. Thankfully most games nowadays will offer up more of said item than needed to complete the quest, so that one doesn’t end up scouring the map over and over again, in search of that elusive last bottle/scroll/pigeon, because nobody got time for that. And not even talking about optional collectathon quests for those who want that sort of thing, some games would have this sort of quest in the main storyline.
To add, give me some way of tracking these collectables.
If I’ve collected all of the trinkets in a given area, mark that area in some way. If there are 100 trinkets, number them and give me a list. Give me a map, hints, thing that beeps, something.
I don’t need any of the above to be unlocked from the start. You can add it in the post game or after I’ve collected some percentage of them or make it a side quest.
It’s annoying going online and someone has posted “I found 99 of 100 things, where else to look?” and basically no one can help them. It’s annoying being that person, to be so close and yet so far.
Multiple un-skippable product and company credits at the start. Show a blinking “Loading…” if that is what is going on but let me skip this stuff on the second start onward.
Excessive reliance on audio recordings and written text for storytelling / world building. Oh look another game where I’m alone in this world and I have to listen to a ton of audio recordings or collect snippets of text throughout the entire game to learn anything about this world and what happened to it!
If anything, let it be audio, not text, I’m tired of reading through often very subpar writing, I just glaze over it. Better yet, have actual (skippable) voice actors read any text out loud. Ideally, weave all that info into the game’s main storyline or side quests, and have it communicated to the player via interesting NPCs. Also, use environmental storytelling more than info-dumps. Show, don’t tell.
Text/in-world notes/memos/books and found audio recordings have a place but don’t let that be the main way of learning about the world or my place in it.
I understand it’s also a budget issue, so I’ll cut indie games some slack.
I agree on everything except the audio over text bit. If it has to be anything, let it be text. Let me be able to skim it if I want, don’t make me sit through an audio file to get background lore.
If it isn’t gonna be presented through the actual storytelling of the gameplay, put it in a text file.
Yeah I get it, but I like having the option of having a voice actor narrate the text to me rather than having to read everything. Especially as I mostly game on a TV that was not meant for reading.
Not really. It’s less to do with hearing/perception and more how the human brain processes regular speech; neurodivergent people, like those with ADHD and/or autism like myself, process these things differently.
The brain processes singing differently than regular speech and the issue with audio processing disorder is that how we process regular speech makes it hard for us to hold conversation. Like I need people to repeat things a few times occasionally and if I’m not paying direct attention to the person speaking then voices are basically like “whomp-whomp” from Peanuts, so if someone calls for me while I’m doing something I straight up won’t know I’m being called for.
So needing to listen to an audio log takes forever cause I need to replay it a few times to fully process the words being spoken. Especially if they have audio effects like distortion added over the voice.
That’s normal. The brain isn’t able to process multiple sources at the same time, it has to bounce around and eventually too many inputs means nothing gets processed.
For those with APD, even a single input is a struggle.
I see. Happens to me too that I lose focus while listening to an audio recording. But not to the extent you describe. Have always had difficulty separating voices from background noise though, like when a few people talk in parallel or when loud music is playing in the background. I don’t remember what that’s called, but I remember a long time ago reading that it’s a thing. Doesn’t affect my gaming much though if at all. Anyway I’m always interested in things having to do with auditory perception, thanks for sharing.
I’d prefer text over audio, so long as I can skip the text when I am done reading. (Grr argh to the games that have both, but won’t let me skip because the NPC isn’t done speaking.)
Being able to choose either as the primary information delivery would be fantastic.
True, reading is faster. Narrating I find more pleasant, more engaging if done well. But that’s personal opinion. So having an option would be great. And yes to making dialogues or narration skippable. I think most games do that nowadays. To be honest, if I am really immersed and interested and the voice acting is top notch I may not skip at all. But that should be left to the player to decide.
100% one of my favorites of all time. Newer Mario Kart iterations never quite hit that same vein of fun, though I could never figure out why. Probably something to do with it being a formative part of my childhood?
Also, my best racer was always Bowser: slow acceleration, but could make everyone spin out at a glancing blow was my way of winning 😂
I think Mario Kart 64 is honestly just very foundational of a Mario Kart. Besides the controls being iffy, it really just plays well, has solid all around courses, music, and a nice selection of characters. Plus it’s where we see a lot of the modern powerups i think
Heal-over-time systems in CoD-like shooters lack feedback and are unreliable in terms of measuring difficulty of a task and feeling like you did something special. Everything becomes boringly average.
I thought Halo CE’s system of shields plus health was a neat innovation. Shields regenerate, health does not. Health is basically a buffer for survivability when shields go down, but you can survive combat at low health as long as you’re watching your shields.
The sound cues for shields low/down/regenerating provide a lot more feedback, too.
I’ve not played a newer or older Mario Kart game with better fundamentals. I’d like more tracks for it but other than that it’s perfect. The newer ones are pretty but there’s too much going on in many of the tracks (and I’m really not fond of the flying/water thing they do either).
Spaghetti Kart (The Recompilation I play on) has a Track Maker i think and i believe you can share tracks between players, but i’m not sure how good any of the custom tracks are.
The newer ones are pretty but there’s too much going on in many of the tracks (and I’m really not fond of the flying/water thing they do either).
I do agree though about the newer ones, it has way too much going on in the courses. Furthermore, Me and My friends are in disagreement but i think the roster is too big and there’s too many tracks
When rebinding the keys, the game wont let me save the changes unless everything has something assigned.
During character creation the lightning on the model is completely different what you will see in game and I end up with an ugly character (Dragon’s Dogma, Saints Row 3 remaster, etc.)
Indepth tutorials told by dialogue boxes. Run 5 steps.
[Hey player!]
[You know some boxes can be moved right?]
[Just walk up to the box]
camera pans 3 feet to the left to show the box in the centre of the screen
[Press X to grab it]
[And when youre done press X to let go]
[Im sure youll find many uses for this during your adventure]
[Why not try it on that box over there?]
<hmmmm. Seems like im going to need to move that box if I want to get anywhere>
When you get near the box a massive X symbol flashes madly and unmissably above your head, and theres lines on the floor showing where it needs to be pushed to, which is also the only way its programmed to move, literally impossible to do wrong, and you push it like 5 feet.
[Wow! You did it! Looks like you can get to the next area now!]
<I should probably remember that, it could be useful in the future>.
You’re now free to play the game, all the way to the next room, where you’ll spend way longer than necessary learning something a fucking 4 year old could figure out, and you dont even need figured out because its been a staple of games since before you were even born.
I know there are folks out there who are profoundly bad at games, and that’s who these things are made for. I’m reminded of that one gaming journalist who gave Cuphead a bad review because he couldn’t figure out how to double jump and never got out of the tutorial.
But just make it a quick selection when starting a new game. “I’m new here, show me guides” and “I’m an expert, skip tutorial content”. Or even just make the tutorials an optional object interaction in the game that you don’t have to touch if you’ve already figured it out.
But the best games are the ones that teach players how to play organically. Level 1-1 in Super Mario Bros is the common example. Setting the camera controls in the older Halo games was also a work of genius. Newer games are a bit too dense to be able to cover everything quite as quickly and organically as Mario, but you can still offer some similar diegetic hints and just add a little “Help” button for anyone who can’t figure it out on their own.
Yep. Not to say that people who struggle with games aren’t valid or there shouldn’t be accessibility options to cater to them, but when writing professionally about games, you should be a near-expert in how to play those kinds of games, at least at their baseline difficulty.
It’s fine to say “I don’t quite get this game, but I’m sure there are people who do and who enjoy it.” But that can’t be a “review.” When you’re a reviewer, you’re supposed to be an authority. If you admit to not being an authority, then you’re not quite qualified to review it.
It shouldn’t honestly matter, but knowing how many publishers tie aggregated review metrics to their developers’ wages/bonuses/raises (or even if anyone gets to keep their jobs at all), it’s crazy for a publication to have journalists who don’t actually know how to play games just reviewing them on vibes alone. It’s too easy to run the risk of not understanding a core part of the gameplay and just assume it’s the game that’s wrong instead of me (because I want to continue getting paid to review games). So I assign it a negative score because my lack of understanding made the game feel bad, and then a level designer somewhere loses their bonus because the aggregate score was half a point lower than the total stipulated in their contract.
bin.pol.social
Najnowsze