Yeah, he looks a bit older. Always thought he's around 60. I wonder how long he will be working - maybe until he's actually 60? 2019 Queen's Wish, 2021 Geneforge, 2022 Queen's Wish 2, 2024 Geneforge 2, 2025 Queen's Wish 3 and then the rest of the Geneforge games. Did he say something about other games he wants to remake?
Although he's critized widely on the codex as a developer without flashy graphics he always gave me hope! Still impressed how long his studio has been going.
The US Deparment of Defense are looking into using it as an advanced interrogation technique.
You're asking too late I'm afraid. It has been a while since I read it and I can't recall where it was anymore.
The ultimate phase is to release the remakes first.
Video Game Thoughts Bonus Bag #1
A lot of fun little things.
Trailer and official announcement coming soon.
Alas, it has been a long time since I updated this blog. This is mainly because of doing a huge amount of development, bug fixing, and PR for our next game, Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor.
Elden Ring hasn't helped much either.
I'll get into writing again soon, but for now a few stray thoughts.
1. Elden Ring is Undeniable
Elden Ring is a huge success. It's sold a bajillion copies. It got good reviews. (Meaningless!) Based on Steam achievement percentages, players are engaging with this game to an wild extent. (Not meaningless!) It's big news.
I'll write a big thing about it eventually, because how can you not?
A title like Elden Ring is very useful for people who care about video games because it's a valuable reality check. Nobody has worse ideas about video game design than fussy video game designers (myself included), and people who write about games are generally free to say all kinds of nonsense without fear of contradiction.
A massive success like Elden Ring gives a reality check. It should what people actually want and what actually works out in the wild.
Turns out, people want to be made to throw themselves off a cliff to enter the tutorial. Who knew?
I'll say a lot more about this once I've finished the game. All I'll say for now is that we have all been given a brief, blissful respite from "Sure, video games are an art and artists are free to express themselves however they want, but if your game doesn't have an Easy difficulty setting you are a Bad Person!" discourse.
Just beat this boss. All I needed to do was be overleveled and use every broken ability available to me. I am old and bad at games.
2. Inscryption is Terrific
There's this indie game called Inscryption. It's a roguelike deck builder, like Slay the Spire. At least, it starts like that, and then it becomes something totally wild. It won a bunch of awards recently.
I recommend it very highly. Go into it as blind as possible.
It is a truly individual work, clearly the the product of a strong artistic voice voice. Games like this are where indie games shine brightest.
3. Writing About Gloom and Despair
I'm spending a lot of time thinking about these questions:
Suppose a young person wants to write video games for a living. When is it good to encourage him or her?
Someone wants to quit a job to write indie games for a living. How do you tell when this is a good idea?
You've been trying to make art for a living for a while and not getting anywhere. How do you know when it's time to quit?
People don't talk about these questions very often. You can kind of see why. It's a bummer. GDC will never, ever accept a talk on these topics. And yet, they are important questions. A life in art isn't for everyone.
I said a few things recently that got other developers a bit riled up. A worrying number of people told me recently that the answer is always to make games, more games, more more games, don't think about it, just make games, and I don't agree with this.
The thing is, the world right now is in a period of undeniable economic disruption. Our luxury entertainment good industry is overproducing and overextended. The time to be thinking about these questions is now. I’m not asking them about you. I’m asking them about MYSELF.
If writing games in your spare time helps you get through the day, go for it, but don't pretend there's unmet demand. I loved Inscryption, but if it never existed there'd still be 50000 other games to play.
I haven't written a blog post about it yet, because it's a hard question. I'm just saying for not that it IS a question, and you shouldn't be ashamed of thinking about it.
I still have my copy of this I got in 1980. Ran it for my friends. Peak geek experience.
4. Old-School D&D
I've spent a while helping run a 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign, like D&D from the 1980s. I really love it. Two thoughts about it:
First. Once you get good and are used to the THAC0 system, the game goes very fast. It's easy to do 10 or 12 fights in a night if people pay attention. For me, newer D&D plays very slowly.
Second. In old D&D, it was expected that characters die a lot. In the old days, we lost characters and rolled new ones all the time. I really prefer it. It keeps the game fresh, it adds excitement, and, as Game of Thrones taught us, unexpected death leads to interesting storytelling.
Yet, I think I'm out of date on this one. New D&D (5th edition) makes death rare and difficult, and this edition is very popular. I think this is just a way in which I've been left behind. Still, being able to sit around the table and eat pizza and rock it like I did as a teenager has been terrific.
"Very popular"
"Very popular"
When I was a wee lad, the recommended player size for many tabletop modules was typically somewhere between 8 and 10, with some going up to 15 players recommended. Before my time, modules typically didn't have any recommended size -- instead the rules recommended 1 DM per 20 players! Now it's 2-5, despite it being played largely online.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Elden Ring Is Fair and Just, Except When It Isn't
Making good rules for how to make good rules.
When you get stuck on a boss, you can summon naked weirdos to kill it for you. Really, how hard a game can it be?
Elden Ring, by From Software, is a pretty big deal, so I had to play it. I just can’t sit back while everyone else grabs all the good Hot Takes.
My Scorching Hot, Muy Caliente Take: It’s good.
I beat it in 100 hours, killing all major bosses. I relied on Google to learn how to do things well. I used every possible advantage the game gave me. I used the most overpowered weapons and was helped by the most powerful summons.
I had to do it this way. I am old and slow. Thanks to all the help, I managed to drag my carcass across the finish line. It was very, very fun.
This game is a phenomenon, with the wild sales, huge engagement, and memes to prove it. It's also hard to criticize, since From Software games tend to be mean and confusing and sadistic on purpose, so anything that makes you mad was probably put there intentionally.
But since I can't resist writing about the thing, I want to start with the key question: Why do people love these games so much, despite the sadism.
I don’t care how many hints the game gives. That doesn’t change the fact that, to get the tutorial, you had to THROW YOURSELF OFF A CLIFF.
The Sadism
Let's start with the obvious. These games are tricky for anyone with normal skills. The bosses get very hard to beat, requiring lots of practice to learn their moves and how to respond. The trash in the halls is also nasty, and even weenie pests can kill you quickly if you aren't paying attention.
The storyline is abstract to the point of incomprehensibility. I completed several quest lines, and I still don't know who I was helping, why I was helping them, what they wanted, or what the results of my efforts were.
Die too quickly, and you can lose all your unspent experience/money. Only one difficulty setting.
THERE IS NO PAUSE BUTTON.
Almost none of the game systems are explained. This is intentional. It is explicitly to force a community to form outside your game. However, this is a real risk for a developer to take. If said community doesn't form to write online guides and wikis, all you have is an incomprehensible game that scares players off forever.
There are many ambushes and insta-death traps. To help, players can leave comments for each other, written on the floor. (To get the full experience, you need to play these games in online mode.) Sometimes, these comments warn you about upcoming dangers. Sometimes, they lie to you to get you killed. There is a voting system for comments, but a really good troll is guaranteed to get lots of upvotes.
My single favorite example of how nuts this game is: At the beginning, you get a choice. Walk through a door out into the sunlight, of throw yourself off a cliff. You have to throw yourself off the cliff to get the TUTORIAL. (In my house, 3 out of 3 players missed the tutorial. I understand this has been patched to make things clearer.)
I mean, seriously. I've been trying to get good at game design for almost 30 years. I'm bloated with lessons about usability and empathy for the player, and then the biggest megahit of the year trolls you with the tutorial. What have I even been doing with my life?
There’s a nice lady who just wants a hug. When she hugs you, you get a hidden health debuff. I love this game so much.
And Yet.
From Software knows what they are doing. They write beloved hits, one after another. How do they keep getting away with it?
Whenever someone writes about these games, the inevitable response is, "Why would I play a game that is mean to me?" It's hard to explain. Yet, once you get into the headspace and learn to roll with it, these titles are insanely fun. Sales figures and the insanely high engagement don't lie.
Some might say that gamers just like abuse. Yet, this is not true. Gamers, like all humans, hate being annoyed, hate being jerked around, and hate having their time wasted.
I don't think the millions who play these games like all the mean elements. They may be OK with having to go to a wiki to learn what their stats do, but EVERYONE wants a pause button.
So why does From Software get away with it? If we define things that leave a player angry and frustrated are "wrong", what do the games do "right"?
And then this oddball, out of nowhere, tells you that you’re “maidenless”. That’s hitting below the belt, buddy.
The Rule That Makes It All Work
When designing these games, there is one overall rule the designers must obey. One rules that ties everything together and makes everything work and keeps people coming back. From Software doesn't always succeed in following the rule, but lapses are rare. The rule:
Whenever an enemy attacks you, no matter what your character build, you have a reasonable chance of being able to evade the attack.
In other words, yes, the game will troll you. The game will trick you and hide things and be confusing and unfair. Yet, when it matters, when you're in the fights, the meat of the game, you always have a fair chance.
If you are naked, you can still win. If you are level 1000 with all the best gear, you can still lose. Gaining power just increases your safety margin.
One of the jokes about these games is that, when someone complains about difficulty, the inevitable response is "Get good." (or "git gud") This is not an insult. This is the only answer! When you are dying, a solution ALWAYS exists. It just takes observation and practice.
This is why Elden Ring, in the end, is fair. It is why you died to Margit, the Fell Omen 50 times, and yet Twitch streamers are speedrunning the game with a level 1 naked dude armed with a stick.
So that's the golden rule, that makes the whole system work. And Elden Ring totally follows it. Until it totally doesn't.
I’ve used this Malenia image before, and I’m using it again. Her wings are made of evil butterflies.
It's Your Game. You Can Break Your Own Rules.
Of course, a game this big and full of so much mischief has room to break its own rules. The difference between craft and art is learning when the rules should be broken.
In Elden Ring, there is a boss called Malenia, Blade of Miquella.
She is the hardest to reach, most difficult, more memed boss in the game. She is at the far end of a very difficult secret dungeon that is almost impossible to find without a walkthrough. One guy became an internet celebrity just by being able to beat her reliably.
It is a very cool fight with very cool design. It's so pretty! That so much craft and care went into content this far in shows admirable dedication on the part of the developers.
This is the best known, most-feared fight in the game because it breaks the rules. In the video I linked, jump to 2:40 and check out the insane anime sword combo she uses (called waterfowl dance).
This attack has five phases. It does an insane amount of damage. Most importantly, the first two waves are very, VERY difficult to dodge. In other words, if the ability goes off when you are next to her (like most melee characters) and you don’t have godly speedrunner reflexes, you are dead.
There are ways around it. If you rely on distance attacks (like me), you have to be extra-cautious. If you are a melee player, you have to keep as much distance as possible to bait out the attack so that you can safely close in on her for a while. Still, it is pretty bullshit. I've watched very good streamers with good builds spend hours dying to her.
Not fair. Breaks the rules.
And yet, by breaking them, it became the game's trademark fight. It lets you, as a player, say, "I am so good at this game that I can even beat it when it cheats." These games love to troll you. You get used to it. Then you find a way to win.
Maybe Every Game Should Have Three "Bad" Design Choices
One of my main problems with game design these days (which I too often fall victim to) is a design to shave off the rough edges. To make everything precise and perfectly balanced and meticulously explained. To make sure the numbers line up perfectly and nothing is broken. To always be fair and never be frustrating.
This flaw can be taken to comical extremes. Like games that tell you the solution to a puzzle a few seconds after you reach it. Or World of Warcraft, where your equipment is reduced to nothing but a clot of numbers. ("I had a 351 point sword. But now I upgraded to a 356 point sword. yay") I tried Horizon Zero Dawn after Elden Ring, and I had to quit. It just felt like a Disney ride.
These are games! Playthings, meant to provide fun, surprise, and the ability to challenge your wits and reflexes. They should have mischief! You should troll your players every once in a while, to keep them on their toes.
In my earliest games, I included a spell called Quickfire that made magic fire that spread uncontrollably. You could enter a dungeon, throw quickfire to kill everyone, and just leave. It was terrible design, and I could never bring myself to do this again. Players loved it. There is a reason why my old games will always be more popular than my new games.
I think just about every game would be better if the designers added three rough edges. A plot or design element that is never explained. An encounter that is a bit too hard. An item or ability that is way too good. Something that's just silly or with a completely different tone than the rest of the game. Most importantly, something that gives a surprise.
It’s a game. Be playful. Maybe it’s OK to troll your players, as long as they can sense your joy in it. Joy is contagious.
The Last Pile of Thoughts About Elden Ring, Promise
Sometimes, a game is undeniable.
Yes, I am going back to this well one more time.
I've already written about Elden Ring. It's such a big, unique, popular game that not picking it apart a bit is game-writer malpractice.
Even if you hate From Software games, and many do, if you care about game design as an art, it's worth a good look. It's such a big, successful title, with so much strangeness, that there's a lot to learn. Even its mistakes are fascinating.
Elden Ring Is Undeniable
Elden Ring has had massive sales.
The people who bought it liked it. The retention rate for this game is incredibly good. Almost 40% of players beat Malenia, the toughest boss in the game, who is way in the back in a secret dungeon. Normally, a game is considered amazing if 40% of players play it for more than a few hours.
It also got good reviews, for what that's worth.
It's a strange, jagged, extremely challenging game, but masses of people bought it and loved it. That means that Elden Ring is undeniable. A huge segment of the gaming public is saying, "This is weird, but we LIKE it."
Games like this are a treasure, because they are a valuable reality check. It's all great for writers to blog and tweet and proclaim what the "True meaning of vidya gaems" is, but Elden Ring is a chance to compare our musings with actual, you know, reality.
NOTE: The lessons to be learned are positive ones. As in, it says that developers are ALLOWED to do a certain thing, not that they HAVE to do it. So if you don't like this sort of game, you're safe. The huge success of titles like this helps expand the window of what can be considered.
“Yeah, that’s all great and whatever, but does it have waifus?” Yes. it has waifus.
Settling the Difficulty Debate For, Like, 8 Seconds
One of the unending, tiresome debates on the Extremely Online end of the gamer spectrum is whether games should always have an easy difficulty. Accessibility is a word that gets thrown a lot, as if a work of art is obligated to try to appeal to everyone.
(Everyone loves to boss around artists.)
And hey, most games should have a casual difficulty. Mine certainly do. However, there are reasons to have one difficulty level, and it kind of gripes me when people pick on my fellow artists for trying to create the experience they really want to.
If Elden Ring does nothing else for humanity, it quieted this interminable debate for like a minute. If you play the game and look at the way people engage with it and talk about it, I think it really shows the value of its approach to difficulty.
The Value of a Communal Experience
In our infinitely fractured culture, it is very hard to share a mass experience. The advantage of Elden Ring having one difficulty level is that we can share the experience.
This is a game where the first boss you meet, the Tree Sentinel, is walking lazily down a road right by where you start. It's optional and easy to sneak around. If you get close, though, unless you are an amazing player, it will melt you. The first major boss, Margit, is a half hour down the road. Again, when you stumble into it, it will likely be WAY too hard for you.
When someone says, "What's the deal with the Tree Sentinel?" or "I was stuck at Margit but I beat my head against him for hours and I won!" then I know exactly what experience they had. They fell into the same traps, had to figure out their way around the same attacks. It’s silly that this makes me feel part of a group, but it does.
Combined with the fact that you'll need to consult a wiki 87 times to figure out the game systems and find the hidden bosses, and From Software games are great at creating community. Sharing knowledge, to overcome a shared experience. It is very, very cool.
And if Elden Ring is unplayable for you, for whatever reason? You certainly have my sympathy, but 90000 video games came out last month. Try Horizon Forbidden West! It came out the same time, I hear it's good, and I think you can ride a robot horse.
There really is no reason to punish yourself. Your robot horse is waiting for you over there.
A Word About Production Values
As a work of visual art, this game is very, very, very pretty. How’s that for game criticism?
But a Lot of Pretty Things get Repeated
While Elden Ring is enormous, a lot of that length comes from repeated content. Some bosses show up, lightly reskinned, four times or more. The mines and crypts are all mostly the same (though the later crypts have a few very clever changes).
Fortunately, when you get tired of a certain sort of content, you can skip it. But this is the sort of thing that tends to annoy a certain sort of player. Fortunately, as long as the rest of the game is good, people will only complain. They’ll still give you their money.
As for me, when I found it starting to get repetitive, I just skipped stuff. The game is already huge.
And honestly? Fighting the same boss a few times is ok if the game is fun. I mean, when I was a kid I played a ton of Pac-Man, and we never complained that the four ghosts were the same every time.
And this is all without even discussion this game’s insane speedrunning situation.
Balancing One Game Is Hard. Balancing Two Games At a Time Is Impossible
Allegedly, Elden Ring doesn't have different difficulty levels. In reality, it has two.
You can choose to summon friends to help you with bosses. Either NPC characters, ghost monsters, or actual human players. In RPGs, summoning help tends to be one of the most effective, satisfying abilities you get. I beat almost every boss with the help of summoned friends, and it makes the game WAY easier. With this weapon at your disposal, the difficulty of Elden Ring is exaggerated.
However, old-school Souls players want the old-school experience. Which means fighting the enemies toe to toe with no help. In Elden Ring, this is very difficult, because the encounters are balanced to be tough when you have a friend.
So Elden Ring had to be balanced in two ways simultaneously, for groups and for solos. This is pretty much impossible. They ended up with bosses that can often be too easy (with summons) or crushingly difficult and demanding (without).
Hardcore players like to play solo because they get the full, tense adrenaline challenge. The funny thing is, not only do I understand this feeling, I started to share it. Even though I suck at games, near the end of Elden Ring I started skipping summons, just to prove to myself I had Pro Gamer Energy.
I think this is a problem. No matter who you are, Elden Ring is balanced to be unsatisfying. And yet, again, the numbers don’t lie. The game is undeniable. So it’s fine, I guess. I don’t know why, but it’s fine.
After beating a boss, hang out for a minute and watch other players get killed by it. Treat yourself.
No Game Is Immune To Criticism
When Elden Ring came out, it had problems. Some glaring balance issues. Some attacks were way too strong. Most of the spells were useless. The fact that, to get the tutorial, you had to THROW YOURSELF OFF A CLIFF.
This led, of course, to unending gamer debates. "This boss has an undodgeable ability. "Git gud, scrub!" "Most of my spells are terrible." "From Software has a plan, idiot!" "I missed the tutorial." "Why didn't you throw yourself off a cliff like a SMART PERSON!?" "Why can't I have a pause button?" "Because ... because ... Shut up!"
Since these are mischievous games with a trollish streak, superfans can excuse any fault. Something about the game is obviously broken? They can always give a reason to not fix it. The game is supposed to be mean!
Then several patches came out. Overpowered abilities got nerfed. Spells got made stronger. The path to the tutorial was clearer. Turns out, these games can have Actual Problems, and it is good to fix them.
And yet, a lot of controversial things, like uber-boss Malenia's uber-attack, are unchanged.
Which brings up the key question: How do you know what to fix and what to leave alone? How does any developer know?
The answer is ...
You Need To Know Exactly What Product You Are Selling.
When you're selling a game, you're selling a specific sort of experience. You're trying to create a specific reaction in the player's head. You need to know what that is. Then you need to remove things that keep that reaction from happening.
From Software games are selling a lot of things, but above all, they are selling awesome fights: Tense fights you have to learn and practice and master, which frustrate you and torment you and then give a huge flood of endorphins and satisfaction when you beat them.
To get that feeling, you need to know how fighting works, so you HAVE to find the tutorial. You need a wide variety of useful attacks, so that you can pick one that matches your style. You can't have any attacks be too strong, or you lose the challenge that is the key to the experience.
Patching isn't just fixing bugs. It's an art form. It is where you use tons of user feedback to perfect the experience and make your game be closer to the thing it wants to be.
You should ALWAYS listen to player complaints. You don't have to fix them. You certainly don't need to fix them in the way the player suggests (which is almost always a bad idea). But you should know how your game affects your players' brains.
Apparently, the Game of Thrones dude helped write Elden Ring’s … um … “story”?
That's It
Loved this game. You might not. Still an enormous amount for designers to learn from here. And my gosh, it sure is pretty.
