Good Design, Bad Design X - More of the Best and Worst Graphic Design in Games
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ค. 2020
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It's the 50th episode of Design Doc, and the 10th episode of Good Design, Bad Design! Once again, we're talking about graphic design in games. Today we'll go over a very nice art game, a horrible set of branding missteps, some great UX workarounds to get a graphic style to work well, and two entries from one beloved series - one good and one bad.
Featuring:
Gris
Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack/Pokemon Puzzle League/Planet Puzzle League/I could go on, and that's the problem
The Return of The Obra Dinn
Xenoblade Chronicles X
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition
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This video was sponsored by Skillshare
#xenoblade #obradinn #puzzleleague - เกม
![ตรงที่เดิม - ฝน พรสุดา [ต้นฉบับ :เบส ขวางหวัน]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/c5YnbGEztI8/mqdefault.jpg)
The first 1000 people who click the link will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: skl.sh/designdoc10
oh?
Another great video, though a tad too lengthy per segment. I think 2-3 minutes per game is enough to explain the design concepts and keep the flow still moving, but longer than that starts to feel long winded and borders a rant style critique rather than a design concept overview.
for the next April Fools you should have a Persona 5 Royal Bad Design section
@@danytalksmusic i agree with this feedback but the rant-style was still enjoyable personally
Could you look at the megaman Battle network series it is this weird action card game with a lot of menus and icons to make out things. then their was the DS port of 5 that had this horrible styles menu it had to work with.
The entire puzzle league section was way more entertaining than it had any right to be.
"NOoOO"
I'd legit have watched that rant as its own video. I probably still would. Panel de Pon is underrated as hell over here, but I know tons of people who grew up thinking Tetris Attack or the Pokemon one were incredible and just had no idea they made more. Hell, I know about the overall franchise and still hadn't even heard of half of these ports they did.
@@Ketirz man the ONLY puzzle league game I had heard about was the Pokémon one for the 64 until very recently. I thought it was a one-shot random puzzle game made to combat the yugioh dungeon dice monster game (that child logic was SOUND) lmao
@@kblade08 I'm old enough to remember Tetris Attack demoing in a Toys R Us so I knew what I was looking at when they did it again with Pokemon, but I was a dumb kid and couldn't figure out the SNES one for shit and thus never touched the series until I was in my 20s going though ROMs on an emulator and experiencing DEEP REGRET. Whole thing deserves _so_ much better!
What a Gordian knot they managed to create. Couldn't be messier even if they had planned to sabotage the series on purpose...
what i wanna know if there are any puzzle league games for mobile, any kind of cheap ass mobile version of the game will work as long as its for my old as fuck honor 8, if you know any games
Xenoblade X is my all-time favorite game, so I was sad at first to see it in bad design... Then you talked about the text and I remembered that I had to buy a new tv just so I could read it...
It's funny, because literally just last week I was telling a friend about how Xenoblade Chronicles X's tiny text was one of the reasons I ended up getting a bigger TV :)
It was the only game I had that problem with, lol
is not bad on pc
I played the entire game on Gamepad for my second playthrough.
But yes, I love the game, but the legibility is absolutely horrible
Xenoblade X is also my favorite game and I came in really angry about it being in a bad design section haha. I get how the text can be annoying, but its still a great game.
I had to constantly switch from the TV to the game pad, just to read the menus. But I have a bigger TV now, so maybe I should get back into it
I'm surprised you didn't mention one of the biggest strenghs of Obra Din's art-style: it allows us to look at very graphic and brutal death scenes without it being too intense or disgusting. It gives enough to get a perfect mental image without the bad aspects you'd get with any other more revealing style.
Good point! It reminds me of the evolution of Mortal Kombat; I had fun as a kid with the arcade games and their explicit but very low-res pixelated gore, but a video compilation of MK10's fatalities, with modern high-fidelity graphics, made me feel squeamish... And, more concerningly, its developers were made to study real-life gore material to achieve that fidelity, to the point it took a toll on their mental health.
One more reason to prefer stylized graphics.
Well... it was kind of disturbing to me :( but I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing
Gaoh Kai It makes me wonder why people enjoy looking at that. I mean... seriously, why make that realistic? Who finds this fun?!
@@wannabehistorian371 i am in no way, shape or form eligible to give a professional or well-researched reply to this question, but i think it might be somewhat of a "reward" so to speak: if an opponent has been very tough and given you a lot of trouble, but you finally manage to beat it, you want to return the "favor" they gave you in the previous rounds you lost against them.
So aside from blood that comes from general attacks, as a way of signifying feedback to bring over to the player that one's attacks are doing something and make the fighting satisfying, something extra's in order.
On top of that, it might be just for the sake of spectacle, seeing something flashy, over-the-top or just something you'd never see in real life play out in a manner like it *could* have played out, with all the grimness and horror that comes with it.
But i must admit, i've rarely played a proper fighting game like MK and my goriest experiences range from the combat of Kya: Dark Lineage (obscure but very solid game), which is VERY light, to Darksiders, of which the gore and blood when it appears in like an Execution are to me more bearable thanks to its stylized presentation.
I can't rightly explain it, and it might just be that i've gotten more used to it/less shocked throughout the years.-- but for me that's the peak of bloody gory combat i've come across and it doesn't really affect me. Or not anymore.
But that aside, hope that however limited my knowledge on the subject is, it provides a satisfactory answer!
@@wannabehistorian371 because it looks awesome.
Honestly, Monolith Soft has had such redemption arc when it comes to UI design. Xenoblade 2 fixed a lot of issues with menu navigation and readability, especially with a more robust font size, and Xenoblade DE took those lessons and improved the original game to have, in my opinion, the best UI in the series.
As for Puzzle League, I always had in my head a game called "Puzzle League Heroes", which would feature Lip and her fairy crew, Yoshi and Pokemon, from there, future games in the series would embrace Lip as the main character in all regions, and finally give the series its much-needed does of personality back.
Agreed, Xenoblade 2 amidst all its problems really upped the standard of ui among monolith soft and their games
For Puzzle League they should just say fuck it and revert to Panel de Pon in all of it’s magical girl glory
@@pesky2119 Ha, Xenoblade 2 over corrected the font size from ridiculously small to comically large imo. Probably works well in handheld mode though, and I'd take too big text over too small text any day
@Christian O'Connell Interesting, I didn't know that.
God, that Quest tracking system though- I'm glad to see that Xenoblade DE took the good UI parts from 2 and made it even better
i think my favourite good design thing is when designers remember short-sighted people exist. There's So many games I'll never play just because the text is so small it can easily get blurry. I couldn't even read that Xenoblade X UI from my phone practically in front of my face.
In conclusion: big fonts are good
Just go into massive debt to get a SMILE surgery, did wonders for me.
@@eskreskao my doctor said i shouldnt get surgery until I'm fully grown cuz my eyesight might worsen till then (which it has before), so no dice, sadly. Good for you though.
I can relate to that, still with my glasses on I have poor eyesight and can hardly recognize rpgs with small text fond. Every time I have to stand in front of the screen, which often give me a headache because my eyes are sensitive towards light. :/
Honestly a lot of video game text could stand to be larger. I'll be sitting on my couch trying to play a game (contact lenses in because I can't see without them) and I'll still have to squint to read some things. At least give us an optional larger text version of the UI!
It's even worse in the Japanese version. It's still tiny, but now there's tiny KANJI.
tfw the only puzzle versus you are good at is the one with the most franchise design issues and hasn't had a game in over 10 years
Xenoblade X’s small type looks like a nightmare to someone with poor vision like me
@Chip Wiseman played it on a 480p TV, it read better on the Gamepad and that's sayin something
As someone with poor vision as well, I can confirm it's downright awful. It's one of the reasons I gave up on the game.
@@raulmojarro9427 I finished it and loved it but yeah, the text font size was awful
Yeah, I love the other Xenoblade games, but could never get past the tiny font in X. Hopefully it'll get a nice remaster / port soon that will fix some of those problems.
I couldn't finish the game. I have okay vision but I need glasses. Also this game made me realize I might need glasses.
If anyone is looking for the outro music, it's "Rhombus Dungeon" from CrossCode. It's a very good indie action RPG that doesn't get enough attention imo.
I was going to comment that but thanks for doing that for me. I absolutely adore Crosscode. Hopefully this outro music is a sign from Design Doc that he'll talk about the game soon?
It really deserves a lot more attention. For people that like (action) RPGs, it's easily among the best in the indie space and doesn't have to hide. Hope the DLC doesn't take too long. Would gladly play it again or continue on the NG+ (since i haven't really done much in it, besides basically starting it)
Atleast we now have it finished on steam, gamepass, switch... and i think PS4 and xboxone, but not sure on those two.
CrossCode is an excellent game! Glad he's giving it a bit of respect.
I'm waiting for my phyiscal Switch copy to play it!
@@stratoge Same here.
After seeing the bad design in the first Xenoblade, I was waiting for a version on Xenoblade X. This game is really great, but god it's hard to read
HELLO
Is this thing on?
Am I all alone?
Is there anyone here?
I need a bigger FONT
So close it's a
Voice I'm hearing
Overwhelms me
Can't stop bleeding
Show me, show me, show me, show me--
show me, show me, *bigger font*
You forgot about...
*jumps for 0.2 seconds in a skell*
dOnT WorRy BouT thE FuTuRe It's AlRigHt
@@syepieplays That song is good though.
Woah, the evolution of that Xenoblade game is really big. The devs really took the feedback they got to heart huh that’s good
Where did the faeries in Panel de Pon go? They're raining the Lip's Stick item in Smash Bros
Thanks, I couldn't remember where had I seen that character before.
I personally feel that the biggest triumph of the updates made in Xenoblade DE is that everything is done so naturally that I barely even noticed some of the changes despite having played the game twice before.
I 100% agree. With XC:DE they managed to make a game that lives up to my nostalgic, rose-tinted memory of how good the original was. It took a lot of deftly implemented good design choices, and they stuck the landing so hard.
I'm surprised just Nintendo never went with Yoshi Puzzle League for the West at any point. It builds on the SNES game (& Puzzle League branding), avoids the headache of the Pokemon Company, & gets around the Tetris name issue.
Granted a full blown series of Panel de Pon games outside Japan would be nice, but if they're not going to do that, an association with a well known Mario spin-off IP makes sense.
Not to mention it would have made the package with Dr Mario on GBA make a lot of sense. Although don't forget that Yoshi already had his own puzzle game literally called "Yoshi", so maybe they didn't want to confuse consumers (which they failed at, especially since Yoshi and Puzzle League do have similar elements like how it's about switching two items around).
Xenoblade X is an amazing game, my favorite game period, but the interface needs a lot of tweaking.
What about final Fantasy 7 remake that will win GOTY.
@@1BadAssArchAngelvs14 Not if Xenoblade DE has anything to say about it.
@@TheAbsol7448 Do you even have Multiple game consoles, Do you have a PS4.Xenoblade chronicles does not have a huge Fanbase like final fantasy 7 the Final Fantasy 7 remake is in unreal engine it broke game sales you are Delusional.GOTY depends on how huge the fan base is your outmatched. I have Pokemon sword for the crown Tundra since I made a promise to my friend that I will shiny hunt the 6 new galarian legendary pokemon to trade to him. Also, Metroid Prime 4 if it ever comes out.Xenoblade chronicles DE is a good game but I have Final Fantasy 14 MMO and it's expansions to play for the same experience but only better.
@@1BadAssArchAngelvs14 Xenoblade DOES have a huge fanbase right now. Not as big as other games, but it's definitely on the radar.
X needs a switch port it's the only Xenoblade I've never played :(
Wow, Return of the Obra Dinn sounds awesome, I didn't knew it existed, I'm gonna buy it :)
Obra Dinn is so good!!! You won't regret it!
Do it!
It’s stupid hard, I revisited it after not playing for a while which is something I highly recommend against doing. do it all in a few sittings if possible.
@@MookalH if you think a deduction game is hard, I might have some bad news for you
@@lavenzavantas in all fairness, some people are extremely difficult to pinpoint, you must use everything that the vignettes have, and I mean Everything.
Aesthetically I still love X’s design. Seeing it here makes me wanna play it again.
X definitely has my favorite aesthetic overall in the series.
My eyes were hurting watching that tiny text
I loved the sci-fi feel of it so much I pretended to be an ant during my entire playthrough so I could read the text
I always thought the Obra Dinn style was hand drawn in pencil.
Using this style means the crew and boat match the artist's drawing in your book, otherwise the crew would look different in real life vs the drawing.
Furthermore, you only really have the artist's drawing to tell you what the crew look like, so it would make sense that the main character would imagine the crew drawn in pencil.
Id like to see one of these focused in on ds and 3ds games. How different devs utilize two screens next to each other and so on. One of my personal favorites is the etrian odyssey series from atlus. The top screen is your parties view. The only ui elements on the top scresn during exploration is a circle that tells you how close you are to a random encounter and how many spaces the F.O.E.'s are from you (like mini bosses and are the only enemies you can actively see roaming about) along with a little clock that shows time of day that rotates as you explore. The bottom screen is used entirely for drawing a map in the labyrinth, as in you draw it, let's you label points of interest with icon paint the floors and draw in walls, and that is the only thing the bottom screen is used for with very little exceptions. Just typing when it's needed (naming characters or if you use a special map icon to) and a few menu related things. Otherwise while in battle or town, the bottom screen always shows the map of the most recent floor you were on before returning to town. And I love it.
IIRC in one episode they mention it on one of Legend of Zelda remake where the touch screen is used as dedicated menu
The Puzzle League situation sounds like the Puyo Puyo series at the start when it was localized, except failing to ever break away from the problems.
That's exactly the same analogy I go with regarding the two franchises.
Hell, people still stick PuyoPuyo for Mean Bean Machine or Kirby's Avalanche and those were at least 25 years ago while the series still retaining frequent releases with their source materials. The main flaw being that Puyo games rarely ever got localized until the last few years.
Now you got Panel de Pon, only 2 proper releases, 2 abandoned projects, reskins have more releases than actual Panel de Pon, even more coming out beyond when the last Panel de Pon game was released, *and* none of the games involving the fairies have been localized, ever.
Switch's SNES just recently finally released the fairies for the rest of the world to see for the very first time, but as an untranslated ROM because they couldn't release Tetris Attack instead without getting into legal issues.
SEGA did the same with Puyo 2, but they get a slight pass due to obvious signs of wanting to actually push the series' name to an international crowd. And, while legal issues still would exist with Kirby's Avalanche, they would not be as tough to deal with compared to how strict The Tetris Company is with their usage of the franchise name.
Pokemon Puzzle League was a big part of my childhood. I thought that the "League" part made since, because Pokemon itself divided its content into Leagues that had to be overcome. It was a fitting thematic nod and suited the different challenge modes you could play.
...Then I never heard of another Puzzle League game until now, and it sounds like none of the other (inconsistent) themes fit nearly as well. A real shame.
Speaking of Good Design: That thumbnail makes me smile
Currently playing Xenoblade chronicles Definitive edition so when I saw that Monado blade I just had to click
Is it good ?
@@skydiamsteam6005 definitely give it a shot
Ghostrick: Phantom Detektiv has one of the best Animation ever on the DS.
Missile uwu
@@sacredyveltal4688 BEST DOGGY
@@Zero_de_Nova Yes!
Damn right
I beated Telethia the endbringer with your video as a lucky charm I cannot believe it. After 5 years I will be able to have a 100% survey save file in xenoblade X T_T
I'm sorry to be a grammar freak but its beat. I'm sorry.
I'm so glad someone pointed out how absurd the small text size was in XenoX THANKFULLY it was on the Wii u so I could switch the the gamepad but that meant I had to switch too it constantly
The Party member system was weird too with having to find points in the hub to switch them in and out, even for a while I didn't even know I could swap my lead and thought I could only play as my avatar until way since serval times I tried to do it it wouldn't let me. I also found the mission boards difficulty stars UI weird, like missions with some big stars were way easier then missions with 3 little stars that were destroying me, like what was suppose to be what
Tiny text is something I run into a lot when playing games. I don't know for sure, but if I had to guess, it's probably because the ui was designed on a computer screen, and it probably looked fine on the computer. But it's less legible across a room on a moderate sized tv, and they never tested the game in that scenario.
I remember that being an issue with Dead RIsing back in the day when CRTs were still fairly commonplace, so the small text of that game was damn near impossible to read.
That's one of the main explanations I've heard for bad font size, and yeah, that probably would explain a lot
Looking at the clips of Xenoblade X on my 27" monitor from about a meter away I thought it looked fine. Just now realizing that people play on a TV across the room and the complaints make a lot more sense haha.
I remember seeing it on Skyrim for console. Definitely sucked to see
@@DeronHargrove yeah skyrim is a guilty one. Especially with enchantment descriptions. I've also had problems with Spiderman ps4, mortal kombat 11, red dead redemption 2, tomb raider, and there is probably more but those are at the forefront of my brain.
U should do valorant since there are many pp who try to talk shit about its graphic
I'm so glad you covered Xenoblade Definitive Edition.
I remember seeing prerelease screenshots and footage and also noticing they seemed to fix every problem you had.
Brand fix worldwide: "Panel de Pon: Puzzle League!"
simple
But just calling it Panel de Pon in Japanese and Puzzle League internationally works too. They could do a retroactive name change of the first one to "Yoshi Puzzle League"
I'd love to see Transistor featured. It's so visually stunning and stylised to the core. The art style is an exceptional richly coloured 20s/Gustav Klimt painting style. Especially with the environments.
Xenoblade X is a great game but BOY could it do with a switch remaster that fixes the tiny text.
Maybe a slight speed up on Skell combat (ᵔᴥᵔ)
It's so good to see that Gris is getting the praise it deserves!
Glad you mentioned Obra Dinn, honestly one of the best games of the last decade.
Im a relatively new game UI artist - and your videos are like the lectures i never had. Thanks and hope to see more.
"Thanks for watching" sounds crazy to me because honestly just thank you so much for your videos! I feel like I've learned so much, I've been able to look at games I've already played in new lights, and I've also been introduced to so many new games from your channel. Really thank you Design Doc for always taking the time to put out such good quality, well-researched videos!
One thing I liked about older games (specifically from around the time of the N64 and PS1) is that they always had large text. As a game designer, you could expect everyone to be using a CRT, so the only way anyone was able to read anything was if the text was large. Oh, and a related anecdote. I have a 4k monitor for my PC, but I always play games at resolutions of around 1280x720, when I could go much higher. My problem is that with so many games, the UI gets absolutely TINY when you up the resolution. I have to play on low resolutions for the UI to be at a reasonable and comfortable scale, even if it means I have to deal with stuff like aliasing that could've been reduced by playing at a higher resolution.
I love how these videos almost always end up with me finding another game to play. I just added Obra Dinn to my wishlist
I can't really argue with the small text stuff in Xenoblade X, but I played on a large TV and had no problem reading it. Also, Xenoblade X is my favorite game of all time, so I may or may not be a bit biased.
Your ad break is the first time I ever felt convinced to check out Skillshare. You actually sounds like someone who knows and likes the product.
I love graphic design but stopped due to personal reasons but, oddly, your ad presentation inspires me to revisit my love again. Have a nice day!
Congratulation on 50th video!
This channel give me many insight into a lot of game design elements that I didn't know prior. As an aspiring game designer, you teach me a lot from this (because playing the game directly takes too many times). AND I found many great gems too from this channel. That Obra Dinn is right up my alley and I wouldn't know if you never put it here.
Hope for more success and better contents in the future!
Congrats on 50 videos! This channel has really helped me put words to stuff I've been thinking about for years. I'd be interested to hear your take on Final Fantasy XIII's design. That game had such a minimalist UI compared to other JRPGs of its time, and its sequels had essentially the same menus, but with a lot of extraneous (and I think distracting) visual elements that don't affect gameplay at all.
Congrats on 50 episodes! I've learned a lot from this series
Can there be a good design bad design focused on mobile games?
The Puzzle and Xenoblade segments could've been easily separate videos, thank you for the quality and congratulations on +50 episodes!
(And just wanted to point out there's a EXP bar on XenoDE, right below the Level number!)
I waited to watch this video on purpose so I have some time for it. I love your videos! They are so interesting to watch. Congratulations on your 50 episode! Your channel is so amazing. Please continue the great work!
I had to pause the video as soon as I saw GRIS. It is one of my favourite games, and I am so, so glad that it's giving it the recognition it deserves. I always love your work, especially Good Design Bad Design, and studying games is something I've been very passionate about for a while now. Not sure you're going to read this, but thank you for the consistent quality content you keep uploading. It's always so interesting to watch.
Nice, congrats on 50 episodes!
One game I can think of that could fit in both good and bad design would be The Caligula Effect. The initial release had a pretty bad ui while the rerelease looked incredibly slick.
And another game I can think of for good design might be Crosscode.
Hey love the videos! You should add the video game title youre talking about throughout the whole time you're talking about it! I keep forgetting the name and always have to go back when a game interests me.
On top of the awesome visuals, Gris has an incredible soundtrack
Dude, I can't believe that it's already the 50th episode, keep going with the series, I absolutely love it!
Congrats on 50 episodes!! Here's to 50 more!
Xenoblade chronicles X text was so small, I could hardly read anything and I thought it was a problem with my TV resolution. After my sister told me the text was in fact very small and not super blurry, I realized I needed glasses.
It was hard for my eyes to focus, and it was something that had gone unnoticed in my life and that game was what made me go to the doctor.
Thanks XCX graphic
designers, I can see properly now.
while it could easily go into spoiler territory with how it uses the hardware, one good one for Good Design could be 999 on the DS. I don't want to go into detail in case anyone who reads this hasn't played it, but goddamn I love how they use the DS in that. Fellow Zero Escape fans know exactly what I'm talking about.
This is my new favourite channel! Have you checked out roller coaster Tycoon 3 for the switch? I was doubtful when I got it as to whether the port would work on the switch after playing so much on the PC back in the day. As a prolific tutorial skipper I was very pleased by how intuitive the controls became after only a little trial and error. The way the menus work is really good. There are a few issues, but overall most things you'll want to do are never more than a few button presses away. :)
Bad design: the symbols above the food in overcooked 2. They are so big they obscure the food on the tile behind it and its white circular design makes it look like a plate. Ive found myself trying to grab the symbols. It also makes it seem like there arw twice as many entities in the game making a cluttered game seem even more cluttered
The thumbnail with the Monado silhouette was an example of good design that successfully grabbed my attention.
You also reminded me Obra Dinn is in my library, still waiting for me.
Oh yeah, Gris is amazing! Made the decicion to get is as soon as I saw it, and that money was well spent! It has also been very inspiring for me while making my own levels in Mario Maker 2, as I like to focus on the visuals. I really recommend Gris to everyone! And thank you for the video, I'll watch the rest of it now! 🌸
please take a look at the new clubhouse games' menu. It's beautiful. as a secondary request, Overwatch would be a good game to showcase some good character design, which you mention in the intro to all these good design bad design videos, but haven't really talked about much. an example of said good character design is the trail that Tracer's chest piece thing leaves behind when she teleports, so that she can be tracked, but she doesn't have to slow down and make it feel more like a dash than a teleport.
Gris' abilities may have also been designed around a dualshock controller for the sake of having no word or letter appear in the game other than the title. Because each form you'll aquire resembles a corresponding button in the control scheme.
Imagine playing for the first time and you see a button prompt for square, you hit it and your character turns into a box.
Boom, expectations set, rules established.
Thank you all for providing so much entertainment to me during my high school years. All of the music, how to, life videos, just talking about problems, etc. It has all been a great help to keep my mind off the horrible things that are happening on the outside. Can’t imagine what I would have done without you all there distracting. I wish I could repay you all but I am just a sad jobless teenager. But now, I’m going to college to hopefully train, get a real job, and then hopefully pay it all back; somehow. For now the best that I can do is just say thank you for now and know that I hope you never stop making awesome content. I hope that youtube doesn’t screw you over too much this day and age. Look forward to bringing your content along with me to college as well. And thank you once again for keeping my mind off all the horrible things that are happening these days. Really has kept me sane all these years. Thank you all sooo much!!!
8:01 Oh my god- you’ve solved a mystery from my childhood! I’ve always wondered if I imagined that Pokémon puzzle game because I was like, 4, when my babysitter’s kids played it. I loved Pokémon at 4, so of course that’s one of the few details I remembered, besides the scrolling puzzle LOL!
I would love a video discussing the challenges of UI in something like Paradox's grand strategy titles.
3:42 This part is really cool - the game makes you jump and shows you the jump-dependent tree change at the same time.
There are also a couple places I was impressed by, consisting of a butterfly vase in front of contrasting vertical lines that hint you to go up. Those are both beautiful and helpful.
Just wanted to say thank you for the Animaniacs good/bad transition theme. Love it!
Great video as always. Just wanted to say that Gris is pronounced "Gree" as it's French for Grey and the 's' is silent.
Have you talked about Hyper Light Drifter in any of these videos? If not, I'd love to see you talk about it!
I like the choice of background music for the ad, Sims 1 furniture menu.
I have a funny story about Xenoblade X. I had just gotten a WiiU and a few games for Christmas, including X. I was incredibly excited to play it, and it was one of the first things I did after unwrapping presents. Lo and behold, as I try to create my character, I realize that the text was literally illegible. Not because I'm nearsighted (which I am) but because the font size is so tiny that on my slightly older TV it was just a mess of garbled pixels. I had never had a problem like that on any game ever before and ended up needing to buy a brand new TV in order to play the game.
How have I been a commarts major youtube addict for so long without subbing this guy
I'd never heard of/played Panel de Pon before Nintendo Switch Online. I'm really glad that you told me about Puzzle League; otherwise, I'd have never known! oh, and happy X!
I was not expecting anyone to mention puzzle league omg
Ohhhhhhhh that explains what that random game that just popped up into Nintendo Switch SNES one day was, and why it was all in Japanese.
Panel de pon is a gem. If you've never played it, do yourself a favor and try it out. 1 player vs mode is a good introduction (and one of the only things you can get to without guessing what the japanese says)
Interesting that you've talked about Panel de Pon in the video. Though one thing you should have mentioned is that the rebrands actually divided the Japanese fanbase to those who liked the fairy aesthetic. I think Nintendo has to retitle the games when they rerelease it to have a consistent brand name else they wouldn't know its the same game series, but obviously, it wouldn't fix the aesthetic overhauls the series has gotten. I do think by calling the game "Puzzle League" it actually pushed away consumers who weren't interested in Puzzle games in the first place. However, the name Panel de Pon has everything to do with the gameplay, for one those flat squares are called Panels except its called blocks in most localized games.
So yeah Lip getting to Smash Bros. is a point of discussion just to fix the branding issue.
I would love to see you talk about Valkyria Chronicles in this series. I personally think it has some really good design elements, especially on the map screen. But I would love to get your thoughts on it.
The section on Puzzle League reminded me of the Choro Q game series, which has the most bizarre naming scheme I've ever seen for a game series. Not only does the series have a habit of changing the entire name between titles, but even more strangely, US and EU swaps some names around! So you have one game in the EU with one name that in the US refers to another game entirely, and vice versa. That, coupled with using the exact same name for several different console ports of games, each which is their own completely original game.
Fixing XCX's text is one of the big reasons I hope it gets a Switch port.
I'm happy to see some love for Gris. Even though it's a short game, it's still one of my favorites of all time.
The anxiety of seeing both Xenoblade 1 and X in thumbnail and not knowing if it'll be good or bad
Also it's read as Xenoblade Cross, not X
8:49 The animation on those girls is so good tho!! Why did they have to rob one of their biggest markets of that...
I want Panel de Pon/Puzzle League to join games like Puyo Puyo and just have cute characters fighting with puzzles with a strange plot to accompany it. I want the puzzle fighting genre to have a resurgence, and we need panel de pon/puzzle league. They are a lot of fun, but most of them end up flying under the radar unless it’s paired with, like, Tetris or something.
This extreme video is extremely good. Extreme job extreme doc!
I know you don't usually cover mobile stuff on this, but I really like the UX for Cracking the Cryptic's "Thermo sudoku" app (which I think is basically the same UX as their prior apps). Full of neat little convenience features that don't help you with the _logic_ of the puzzles but do things like disabling entering 7s if you've already got all the 7s in the grid, automatically removing pencil marks if you enter a real digit that 'sees' them, etc. The implementation of the hint system is the only part of the UX I dislike in it. And maybe the way there are only three highlight colours, one of which is very similar to the cursor colour.
Oh, god, our first playthrough of Xenoblade X was on an old CTR that literally didn't have the resolution to display some of the fonts, so we had to learn to distinguish attack types based on a tiny spec of colour and basically ignore all the other information because we just couldn't read them. A lot of the rumour-related things we had to guess our way through because we couldn't even read the text in the menus. It was a nightmare. Thanks for highlighting the problem with small fonts like this :D
(I disagree on the "go find your team mates in the city if you wanna take them out" being bad design, though. It always felt like the characters were meant to have lives of their own outside of the player character, to contribute to the slice-of-life-problem-of-the-week feeling of the plot. I actually kept hoping they'd have their schedules like XB1 NPCs which you'd have to learn, and passive levelling up based on the player character's level. But even saying that, a phone where you could ring team members up when you were accepting missions or something, would have been a nice anti-frustration feature.)
How about the game Ruiner for it’s “quest change” visual key! I always think that this is pretty neat and fits in amazing in the world!
Now I finally understand why I got "magic fairy" clothing items when beating challenges in Animal Crossing Puzzle League
Now I finally know where that wig is from!
For the next Boss Design, I'd like a section just for Monster Hunter in general. The whole game is a series of boss fights against wild animals; and each monster feels like an animal trying to survive.
They all have unique little quirks in their fights that say 'yeah, this is a believable animal I'm fighting' through their animations. Whether it be Deviljho's insistence to eat ANYTHING including its own severed tail and ability to attack despite falling in a Pitfall Trap showing just how desperate they are to constantly find food, Nakarkos stealing the biological weapons of its prey to use for itself displaying its intelligence, or Mizutsune's use of harmless bubbles and nimble movements to drive home how it usually allows enemies to flee. VERY few monsters feel like bundles of hitboxes and AI; which is a great sign for video game enemies.
One thing about Gris that makes it hard to play for me is that the minimalistic design extends to the options menu and the few UI icons that are included. I never know when the game was last autosaved due to the small icon that is easy to miss. There’s also no way to manually save in the options menu since it only has 3 options in keeping with the aesthetic.
I got tired when I was playing it but kept going to make sure it was saved. Half an hour later I was super tired and gave up thinking that I must have missed the icon showing up. I haven’t actually played it since then so I don’t know if I lost any of my progress but it sucked that that happened.
Puyo Puyo had the same problems as Puzzle League, at least in the west. It was localized as Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Kirby's Avalanche, Quirks, Puyo Pop, and eventually back to Puyo Puyo for the later, post-SEGA games. I feel like Panel-De-Pon will go the same route since the original was rereleased on SNES online.
I first played Panel de Pon on the switch and got addicted, and I wondered why I had never heard of such a solid, challenging game. I guess it just proves your point about their horrible branding that I all of those other iterations also flew completely under my radar.
I love how Doc pulled a Scott the Woz Chibi Robo Ziplash on us with Panel de Pon.
The animal crossing NO had me in tears, I loved it!
since you liked gris i recommend checking out goragoa it is an artistic puzzle game with a really creative concept. it has comic book style panels that can be shifted around to alter the world. line up a door shaped hole in one panel with a door on another to let a character walk to another panel or put a hole where the sun should be over a firefly to light it up, then make the un the light from a lightbulb in another panel. i dont remember what the ui was like but the game itself was fun and creative
You should look at Half-Life Alyx, designing for a vr game is mostly uncharted territory and alyx does some interesting stuff. All the info you need is on your hand, but ammo counts are visible on weapons if you're paying attention. (The pistol has a window for you too see the remaining ammo in a clip, the shotgun has a counter on the back, and the smg has a radial light.) And if you're low on clips, alyx has voice lines for if you're out or almost out of ammo. If you're on low health, your hand will make a beeping noise, and you'll also feel a heartbeat through the controller rumble. So in the end you almost never need to look at your hand because the game does such a good job at conveying all the info it needs diegetically.
I'd love to see you talk about the text and menu design on Disco Elysium alongside its incredible artstyle! :)
I played Tetris Attack on my TI-83plus.
It had only Puzzle mode, but I loved it.
That Xenoblade text was so awful that my eyes literally couldn't help but close because it was straining them so badly
X's UI looks much better on a computer monitor than a TV. Getting the full 1080p video with no additional post processing while sitting at a reasonable distance does wonders. The compressed font was still noticeably bad but the amount of text they pack onto the screen felt like a MMORPG that belongs on PC.
I hear that Tatsunoko vs Capcom music, instant subscribe