This is less a sign of “the devs don’t trust the player” and more just plain out bad game design. Maybe the game itself is very obvious (I don’t know, i haven’t played nor do I intend to), but this kind of thing is usually done when the game is obtuse and the developer wants a quickfix instead of actually reworking the entire thing. Then again, if your game is for little children and they can’t figure out how to play it, then there’s something fundamentally wrong with it and maybe you should go back to the drawing board.
I would say that if you non-jokingly talk like that, you got bigger issues than any specific gaming sites or which consultants are brought in to work on which game.
I played through it yesterday. It was interesting, and there were fun story beats, but it was very easy. With all the accessibility features and tutorials, it’s probably a great game to get people who don’t play games interested in platforming games and maybe even some RPGs.
Either a shit article or shit website. The article gives a summary of the game then says the developers don’t trust their customers. That’s it. No reasons given. Am I missing something?
There’s a section under the “read more” split where it complains about over-tutorialization. The game hits you over the head with puzzle solutions and intended routes and leaves nothing for the player to figure out.
I don’t think their implementation is the way to go. It reeks of bad UI, like Clippy in Microsoft Word.
Mario games are so accessible without the heavy handed videos/stops, because their designers think about how to best teach the player through play.
It’s like teaching by giving people a hour long lecture vs hands-on experience - there’s usecases for both, but in a interactive medium like gaming, one is superior than the other.
Ideally, it would be an optional thing, but oh well.
Yeah tons of games ask you at the start of the game, like “have you played this kind of game before?” Def seems clumsy for a game that otherwise seems pretty well thought out.
I have seen people (in person and on the Internet) click tutorials away, proceed to utterly fail at the most basic tasks only to then blame the game and the developers, including in reviews. I don’t blame developers for trying to prevent this from happening.
Idk if that’s a useful example case. Streamers are under pressure from their audience to be entertaining, so they will frequently skip tutorials against their better judgment bc tutorials aren’t fun to watch. I can’t speak to your irl examples, but it’s possible that there was a similar dynamic happening there. At least, I can say that I have personally felt a similar pressure when playing games while other people are watching me.
Edit: user reviews are good example, though. I could see a dev over-tutorializing bc they are anxious about negative user reviews.
Started playing It Takes Two recently. The game introduces basic controls, and that’s that, no additional tutorials, no hints how to solve puzzles, no characters telling you what to do next when you are “stuck” (many games have these annoying verbal hints when you do nothing for a minute, this one respects its players). It has a lot of places where players can simply play around with mechanics and see what happens, just for the joy of exploration and not some immediate gain.
And it reminded me of playing Spyro back in my childhood days, a feeling I didn’t think I’d ever get from any game again. The only downside is that the characters are surprisingly cruel at times, the game’s creators certainly lack empathy.
I feel like the point of that in it takes two is communication. It’s pretty heavy-handed in the whole “sort out your shit amongst yourselves” theme, and it’s sort of meant as a way for a gamer to get a non-gamer into gaming, so you’d have one person with the skillz leading the other through challenges.
Or at least that’s how it played out with me. The person I was playing with is also a gamer but not really environmental/puzzle games (and easily frustrated) so it was sort of playing around with what to do and walking each other through - calling out timing and stuff, etc.
It’s a very interesting take on co-op, imho.
If you like small people in huge environments, exploring, and not being super hand-held, tinykin is a cute game, not super long, it does sort of a bit guide you through some major things but not in a particularly obnoxious way. Mostly just exploring on your own. :)
Our experience’s different. I’m playing with my husband, and he’s generally better at aiming and shooting, while I’m better at platformer aspects, and the characters we ended up playing are sort of wired in the right way for us, haha. Co-op is definitely super enjoyable in this game.
This games been getting a lot of press for some reason, but it really doesn’t look appealing to me. But the tutorial stuff really seals the deal for me.
It just came out (on Switch no less) and it’s visually interesting. I didn’t buy it yet. I’ve bookmarked it to see if a future update removes all this.
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