Is It Possible To Make Feeling Weak Fun?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Support the channel on Patreon!: / architectofgames
Follow me on twitter!: / thefearalcarrot
Power fantasies are almost ubiquitous in games, from the absolute most casual experiences out there to the hardest of the hardcore - videogames LOVE making us feel strong and powerful, and why wouldn't they? Feeling powerful is loads of fun!
However, a feeling of strength and control isn't all games have to offer, and in our obsession with power fantasies, some equally good kinds of games can sometimes get swept under the rug. After a lifetime's worth of training in the martial, bureaucratic and logistical arts The Architect is ready to tell you how being weak is just as fun as being strong - even if it's in an unconventional way.
Links to charities:
www.mightycaus...
vuf-td.space/
voices.org.ua/en/
Check out Graythorn!: / @graythornian
You Saw (a lot of stuff, jeebus):
Elden Ring - 2022
Dying Light 2 - 2022
The Sandbox - lmao
Fortnite: Battle Royale - 2017
Dishonored - 2012
Carrion 2020
Bayonetta 2 2014
Warhammer 40k Space Marine - 2011
Mirror's Edge - 2008
Mario Odyssey - 2017
Crumble 2020
Neon White - Early access
Metal Gear Rising Revengence - 2013
Dark Souls - 2012
Untitled Goose Game -2019
Bloodborne - 2015
Dark Souls 3 - 2016
Control - 2019
Ultrakill - Early Access
Pikmin 2 - 2004
Disco Elysium - 2019
Silt - Early Access
Death Stranding - 2019
Sifu - 2022
Apex Legends - 2019
Spellbreak -2020
Battle Brothers - 2015
Kenshi - 2015
Resident Evil 2 Remake - 2019
The Stanley Parable - 2013
Fallout 3 - 2008
Bioshock - 2007
Fable - 2004
Infamous: Second Son - 2014
Spoodermon No Way Back For The Franchise - 2022
Saints Row 4 - 2013
Infamous 1 - 2009
Mass Effect Legendary Edition - 2021
Far Cry 5 - 2018
Spec Ops: The Line - 2012
This War of Mine - 2014
Undertale - 2015
Papers Please - 2013
Not For Broadcast - 2022
Death and Taxes - 2020
Strange Horticulture - 2022
Not Tonight 2 - 2022
Mind Scanners - 2021
Silicon Dreams - 2021
Blade Runner - 1982
Frostpunk - 2018
Fable 2 - 2008
LISA:The Painful - 2014
Twilight Princess - 2006
Uncharted 3 - 2011
Metal Gear Solid 4 - 2008
Doom: Eternal - 2020
Doom - 2016
Monster Hunter World - 2018
Viscera Cleanup Detail - 2015
Batman Arkham City - 2011
Sherlock Holmes: Crime and Punishment - 2014
Return of the Obra Dinn - 2018
Hypnospace Outlaw - 2019
Wilmot's Warehouse - 2019
EVE Online - 2003
Animal Crossing New Horizons - 2020
Microsoft Flight Simulator -2020
Ace Combat 7 - 2019
Assemble With Care - 2019
Asura's Wrath - 2012
Crosscode - 2015
Why yes, I did make up the word "gribbly"! No, you are not allowed to use it unless you're a patron: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames
Follow me on twitter to slightly dilute the horrible takes on that site with my dumb videogame shitposting: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
Also here's a big list of charities for you to choose from: www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/s6g5un/want_to_support_ukraine_heres_a_list_of_charities/
An appropriately chosen charity for the subject matter. Or should I say, an appropriately chosen subject for the current geopolitical scenario?
Edit: I just hit the end spot. Well then. In all honesty, though, it is timely.
I propose calling the games that make you weak Strand type games instead of Papers please - like
I like that you brought up Kenshii. It's been better than a year since I played but it is one of my favorite games.
I've been using the word "gribbly" for years...
1:57
Why does it say "is a little racist" on your headband? lmao
有点种族主义
Your calling untitled goose game a soulslike ingnited a spark of inspiration in me. Like most souls likes, you awaken in a land ruled over by horrific monsters who wish to impede your every move, and in order to progress you must overcome the unique challenges several of those monsters lay in your path. And at the end you may topple the false facade of stability in a stag anting empire, only to discover that this subversion and attempt to disrupt the unfitting rule of the so called gods is part of the cycle itself.
Arise... Honking One...
Now I'm imagining a literal souls like game as a goose. Taking on enemies like other birds, cats and dogs with the bosses being actual people with weapons and gear, eventually taking on a tank with only the powers of a goose. Bringing on the chaos and misery all geese dream about!
While reading your comment, I was imaginging a game where you're a human trying to free the minority human kind from the mob oppression of geese nation. Trying to navigate streets of honking and pecking attacks. Trying to reason with an angry goose, just to get some food. I dunno... lol
I really have to think of a dark souls mod now where you play as the goose. I specially thought about honking and biting the gaping dragon to death and now I want to see that happen. (Yep , I don't like that boss)
@@cae2212 dragging his tail untill it drops the weapon is peak goose behavior
The thing about Dishonored is that being Good is PART OF the power fantasy for a lot of people; check the achievement ratio for good and evil runs completed for any game that does it, WAY more people do the good route only. Making the Evil route easier makes sense in that context, because what you're giving up for a much easier time is being able to think of yourself as the good guy. Which might not translate to game mechanics very well, but is still more effective than you'd think despite that.
I've always really liked how Dishonored 1's positive murder feedback loop tm feeds into the game's themes of corruption. The good ending requires a lot of restraint to not summon an army of rats to devour your enemies. Being good makes a better ending even if it is less "fun", except for the targets, non-lethal is usually more fun there.
You're right. It doesn't translate into mechanics very well. And that's why it sucks, full stop.
@@defaultname-wr9sk I personally really like the puzzle feeling of a non-lethal stealth run. Killing just seems like the easy way out a lot of the time.
I'd not thought about it this way but you're right!... even if the game doesn't pull off this plan very well
@@ArchitectofGames another aspect of it is that it is so easy to misclick and stab instead of knockout.
So easy to place down a sleeper and they just die.
So easy to miss a local hazard and the person dies.
It goes beyond mere restraint and more into planning how to keep the person hidden, but alive.
Edit: that being said there is something about accidently killing then going "woops, time to erase everyone"
Animal Crossing games are all about having the time and energy to enjoy being outside, making friends as an adult, and paying off your debts. How is that not the ultimate power fantasy?
Well it is the most realistic power fantasy but I prefer being able to nuke a major city with a snap.
@@robbieaulia6462 At least then you don’t have to contemplate the loneliness of adult life 😥
@@brush5004 Nice meme.
@@FelisImpurrator I don't think you know what that word means.
@@brush5004 If you have to work all day to even get food on the table you might not have the time, money or energy to achieve these things, I don't think that would be considered "non functioning". The only thing that is non functioning is employers giving slave wages to their employees. And no it's not as easy as "switch jobs then" because not everyone has that luxury, because then they risk their food and shelter, and not everyone can do that.
For me while I initially felt weak playing Sifu; it eventually became a power fantasy as I got better at it. You really start to feel like a kung-fu god by the end of it.
It really do be the dark souls of punching people, dark souls fist runs notwithstanding.
Ya you got to really earn the power fantasy
By the end, I’m turning on music to get into rhythm and just annihilating people
It's why I think that every game that has progression, be it story, character or difficulty is ultimately power fantasy. Like Super Mario is ultimately power fantasy, the power is just player's acquired skill with the game.
@@Gebunator True, but I would say it's more rewarding to me being powerful because of skill than being powerful because of gaining attributes while I progress in the story. Just my opinion though.
For masochists, being weak is always fun
Man... I felt that.
risk of rain 2 says hello!
@@nightsmusicuk RoR2 is most fun when you can literally wipe the screen by just taking damage once, but Yeah the journey to that point is what makes it so satisfying.
@@nightsmusicuk in the beginning: perhaps
in the end game: you are the final boss... Only rivaled by a guy with negative health
@@nightsmusicuk mercenary approves.
I never quite liked discussing Dark Souls in terms of empowerment or disempowerment. It looks like an obvious angle, but my favorite part of Dark Souls 1 was that it seemed entirely disinterested in my happiness, at least at face value. It felt incredibly liberating that I could choose how I feel about every death and victory, rather than a game admonishing me or encouraging me to carry on.
I'm sure other people have a different take, because Dark Souls is such an open ended experience, but those are my two cents.
I definitely agree with you. Getting a big ol' "YOU DIED" after getting my teeth kicked in by a boss is a rather cold feeling. What I really like is that instead of getting a tips message in the loading screen as you respawn, you can find them written by actual players outside the fog door.
Receiving encouragement from other players instead of directly from the game makes you feel more connected to them as you're all struggling together to overcome the game.
Dark Souls definitely covers both the empowerment AND disempowerment angles. You start out disempowered, but it's still theoretically possible to succeed with pure tactics and skill. You can become empowered, but doing so requires it's own set of strategy and discovery, and the skill floor never completely goes away.
Meanwhile, whatever your preferences on power, the games are utterly beautiful in setting, theme, minimalist story, and environmental storytelling.
Yeah, soulsborne stans like to pretend the games are flawless, so it makes sense you wouldn't like discussing one of its possible flaws.
@@mechanomics2649 He just said that getting kicked in the balls isn't a bug, it's a feature. Whether you appreciate that intentional design decision or not is up to you, but that doesn't make it poor design. Bad take.
I do agree that the power fantasy trope really doesn't apply to Dark Souls. There are only a few builds within all the games that can truly make you a boss shredding machine, they are not easy to obtain, and it's unreasonable to expect any casual player to run into them. Ultimately I think you have to use a very liberal definition of the term power fantasy to include the games. (except Sekiro, that game is literally a ninja power fantasy. You literally block bullets with a fucking katana.)
I think making the player character feel fragile and having a healthy amount of pushback for mistakes is integral, and even in the games that can be labeled as “power fantasies” don’t feel good if the challenge is non-existent or trivial.
I think it depends on the kind of difficulty too. Many games aid you in situations that would be frustrating, e.g. in Portal you rarely miss a correct jump (one that you were intended to make) often enough to get anywhere close to rage quitting. Here it is okay to be easy. On the other hand the puzzles should not be so easy as to be insulting to the player's intelligence (but also not so difficult that they need to look them up).
Example: devil may cry.
Something like Bayonetta does it well, especially on higher difficulties. You can dish out an awesome amount of stylish pain very quickly, but it does not take all that much to kill you if you mess up.
Paradoxically despite their similarities, I could never get into Devil May Cry 5 because the highest difficulty I had access to from the start did not really feel punishing at all. I never felt the enemies could threaten me, due to a combination of most being rather slow and their damage not being all that high. Sure the combos I could string together were impressive, but I still grew bored at how little risk the enemies seemed to pose.
I think you confused " challenging " with " unfair ".
Beating a challenge feels fun. Beating unfairness feels like a chore. Dark souls is challenging, cod waw on veteran is unfair.
“power fantasies” realys on change in strength, you have to start out weak so you can become strong and feel it.
Something that I want to add is the power that comes from knowledge and tools instead of bigger numbers you can put out. The rush and feeling of being able to take down bigger enemies due to knowledge is incredible. When you can deal with low-level enemies with your sharp wit while they can still pose a threat is the perfect combination of power fantasy and tension. Being able to get a bunch of upgrades that make you deal significantly more damage or save you from punishment multiple times can make the game boring.
I once felt like this too, but currently I'm just tired all the time, I don't have the strength to do something creative, and in the "make your own fun" games I just feel lost when I don't have a clear goal. The only power I feel is when after the 30th try I just power through the Boss with my overlevelled character, that's really the only moment I feel some kind of power, because when I try to come-up with something, I just feel dumb and sad.
I feel like this is why the earlier Thief games did a decent job at making "feeling weak" feel fun (for the most part). Because you're a thief, you're not much of a fighter, and thus you fare better when you're able to avoid detection and thus avoid conflict. The janky swordfighting mechanics (a holdover from back when the game was going to be "Dark Camelot") and the array of specialized tools help make dealing with the game's problems be more intricate, while also making direct confrontations less practical.
@@IchigoShinagami same
Thats how Genshin Impact's combat works
This is why sekiro has been my favorite fromsoft game. Sure you can grind to get higher attack damage in the game but it's incredibly tedious and a lot of the skills in the game aren't super useful. Learning a bosses attack pattern and winning that game of attack and deflect is the most satisfying thing to me and I love it.
First two witcher games did it right. It's power fantasy on a gameplay level, but choices are more complicated than generic "sacrifice something to be good" vs "pick an easy path and be bad". It makes you think about how world works and how it will react.
In a first game your very first choice is to spare or turn in an elf terrorist. Your rpg experience tells you something like "yeah, I'll spare him and get more content later, maybe a quest or something". Then a terrorist does a terrorist thing and kills important character, so you get less content.
Game forces you to think like someone living in this world, not a player. It rewards for acting in character, not doing annoying things and having less fun.
Third one does that too. Baron questline is just plain cruel in how it does it.
I think, like with many things that seem opposed to each other, that "power fantasy" and "feeling weak" are often a false dychotomy.
Just like Batman seems badass *because* he's just human and because he can accomplish so much without any superpowers, a game that sets you up as weak can give you the greatest sense of power that more traditional "look you're so strong" games can't deliver on.
My two most memorable moments in Disco Elysium were: (very mild spoilers I guess?)
.
.
.
roundhouse kicking a fascist in his stupid head, and getting some begrudging acknowledgment from a colleague that I have not been drinking or taking drugs in the past few days.
A game where you're a self-admitted f*ckup makes those moments incredibly meaningful. You will never be this proud of yourself by kicking someone in a fighting game. For obvious reasons.
And this extends to the whole "feel" of the game. When you make a genius deduction, when you save someone or help someone, when you make a difficult shot with your gun - all those things, in a world that's designed to grind you down, are big wins. In a world where even assuming you could win sets you up for failure and pain, the occasional small triumph is empowering and heroic.
That's a good point. Although I think you greatly underestimate how much emotions fighting games can invoke. Just a bad example.
It works even with chess. Because those games really take you on the journey where you have to learn everything by yourself to win (not counting silly wins that definitely will happen). Your first major victories are exhilarating. And I'm not even qualified to speak about professional tournaments but I've definitely seen some strong feelings. And all those can happen from a single move at the right time
My favorite kind of game is the kind where progression is skill. Im not getting more powerful because the game is giving me better abilities, but rather because Ive become better at the game, got familiar enough with the controls to pull off awesome moves that would have been impossible when I first started the game.
When I beat such games, it feels so good because not the character has grown, but I have.
@@2MeterLP that's fighting games in a nutshell. Your character damage rises as you learn longer combos, your ability to defend increases as you block more mixups, and there's a simple joy to knowing how to twirl the stick around 720 degrees and press two buttons to hit somebody with The Throngler
I remember the heart-pounding anticipation I had while trying to shoot down the body with Kim's pistol. No other game had me literally on the edge of my seat for something as mundane as shooting a gun.
I could quite literally feel my heartbeat rise as I sat there, clutching to every word, listening to my small audience and their eyes glued to my back, the journey my character had taken up to that moment, it was exhilarating, and all in the hopes I landed that one shot.
When I actually did, that game made me feel more than anything I had experienced in what felt like a very long time.
I haven't even finished the game yet, last time I played I got finished talking to Evrart, but man, that moment is still cemented in my mind.
Batman is still a power fantasy - just one on a different wavelength. He has functionally unlimited money, a backstory that gave him over a decade of any training the writer needs him to have, and is the power fantasy of brains over genetic super powered brawns (like Ironman fulfills in the Marvel set). He may not have superpowers, but whatever engineer designs the tech behind the bat gadgets basically manufactures superpowers for him. Batman is just smart enough to predict what gadgets he needs to lug around on any day and is smart enough on his toes to apply them midcombat.
I think a game that often goes overlooked is scp containment breach: you have to explore an enourmous laboratory while ttrying your hardest to survive while ultimately having no way to defend yourself with mechanics that make you feel hindered too, when you get hit, for example, you run slower, or if you want to survive 049's touch you need to give up your ability to run altogether.
I know it might be way easier to make your character weak in a horror game, as you have to feel powerless, but I still think containment breach does it really well.
It is hard to appreciate its moral and mechanical complexities, as it relies on shadow organizations, predetermined creatures, and an anonymous protagonist. The character you play as barely speaks a word during the campaign, and the enemies you face are either faceless gunmen or seemingly mindless monsters who solely wish to kill you. Morals are out of the window within the facility and choices are simplified to animalistic instincts. Fight or flight, mouse within in a labyrinth, these are the fundamental idioms for which the premise is built upon. Sure you may learn how to face your demons (example: you shouldn’t look at 096, but should look at 173), but that’s where it ends, they are demons, nothing more or less. Even though SCP has a highly dense story and diverse ranges of philosophy: from determinism vs fate, to whether it is worth existing within a false narrative or surviving even if it means torture, the game summaries all of that within .pngs that serve as a optional collectible and tutorial.
That’s completely ok, the game is not bad at all, actually it’s one of my favorites. However, a potential SCP game that better represents the many moral crossroads not as absolute “goods” and “evils” like how games are often designed, but as “greys” left for the player to determine and decide upon choices of with no real answer. This would be more synonymous to what SCP’s multiverse is about where we have lovecraftian stakes leaving the world’s most powerful unsure whether they should tell or not tell people of their contained anomalies, or to even contain them at all in the first place.
Indeed while also being slasher game that still continues to be fun despite it's complete unfairness
I think I actually disagree with you about Dishonored. One of the most common complaints about the first game is that the good route is so much more boring and difficult than the chaos route, but the game gets so mad at you and shames you so much if you have fun on the chaos route. But I think that's exactly the point: being good is difficult and there's so much temptation to be evil, because it's just frankly more fun. So I actually think the game really achieved what its going for imo
What I like is it doesn't label the routes "good" or "evil", and the "low chaos" choices are often significantly crueler than the "high chaos" choices. What makes "low chaos" low chaos isn't the amount of damage or individual suffering you inflict, but on reducing the collateral damage to the bare minimum. What makes "high chaos" high chaos is the sheer collateral damage.
Those guards you kill? Those civilians that get caught in the crossfire? They have families, fiancees, do a job for society, etc. Whether you consider them good or evil, any wanton, undirected destruction erodes the society they are a part of. Hence the therm "chaos".
@@r3dp9 This. I always loved the sense that Dunwall actually was the capital of the Empire you were either saving or destroying. And seeing it become more infested and ruined really was the cherry on top for me.
Idk about fun, fun is subjective. I've already seen people in this comment section talk about the good side being more fun because it turns in to something of a puzzler. No, the evil path is always "easier". It's easy to be evil.
The idea of high vs low chaos is actually really interesting, especially if a game took it to its logical extreme and didn't make it obvious which options were which and it was part of the puzzle to figure that out (or enjoy the chaos of guessing a random option). In Dishonored, stabbing the guy with your knife was always the high chaos route, and the one other option was always the low chaos route, but what if a game flipped that on its head? What if the low chaos route and the pacifist route were not the same, maybe in some cases directly killing someone is exactly the one way to cause the least amount of suffering for others and prevent bad things from happening in the world. This would also decrease the power fantasy of such a game, as now you can't just get a single unambiguous good ending but must sacrifice some things for other things as you see fit. A really interesting concept.
I think RPG makers realized this conundrum pretty early on. Thinking back to any game I have ever played with a "good vs evil" system. The evil was always much easier. It's easier to just kill someone and take their stuff than to go out and complete an entire task for them to get half the reward you couldve gotten for just killing and robbing them. Because most forms of punishment for those types of crime in real life are fairly permanent. But I doubt people would continue playing a game if crimes committed in the game had potential to delete their save file.
To me Sifu doesn't seem any less of a power fantasy than Dark Souls.
If Sifu wasn't a power fantasy, then you couldn't fight anyone. Instead you'd have to call the police after getting assaulted.
I agree that the choice of Sifu is odd.
Haha lmao
That or the fights wouldn't be like Hong Kong kung fu movies. Attaining mastery in Sifu allows you to kick ass _and_ look cool doing it, which is definitely a power fantasy.
Also, getting old transforming you into a glass cannon takes this to 11: you're now that much more lethal, but only if you're experienced enough to avoid getting hit. Plus, you look cool as hell, wiping the floor with those young 'uns faces as a rickety old kung fu master.
I mean, in real life theres a power fantasy called cancel culture virtue signalling... lol and I wish it wasn't true
He called the game’s “age” progression mechanic an anti-power fantasy, not the game itself. Nonetheless, both are power fantasies but are certainly much different and most games don’t you think? The learning curve is much more steeper until you start becoming “powerful” within the games
I think that feeling weak would be great for making tense survival games where you're constantly fighting for your life, so that is an idea.
Thats kinda what Pikmin is about, granted you are narratively in more danger than you actually are in the games.
You have an army of plant minions of up to 100 on the field at once to complete all your tasks with throughout the day. You need to fight enemies, collect mcguffins, grow your army/recover losses, and solve puzzles and open up the map.
Its the ultimate console RTS. Its less of survival in the sense that death/extinction just wastes the day, but it does have a timelimit and a bad ending.
The Long Dark is a game that fits that pretty well
Don't Starve certainly fits that genre.
Rain World.
@@kote444 Yes
Everyones first night in Minecraft is this. And now that the deep dark is coming, it appears to be returning.
My favourite part about Dishonored 2 (and also the part that got me so annoyed) is that trying to play non-lethally is always harder. There are very few weapons to take people out without killing them, rewiring stuff typically results in that stuff killing everyone else, making the slightest noise is detrimental, and crouching around all the time is slow and boring. Doing non-lethal takedowns of the targets involves going the roundabout way, though it's always more fun to do so. Why kill when I can snoop around more to get some other stuff.
Then when things don't go as planned, ya gotta figure out a way to salvage the situation. At the start, I resorted to murder. Later on, I tried to choke people out mid-fight (and accidentally get them killed by their own allies whoops). A rewarding experience, but sometimes things are so bs.
It certainly gave me a bit more sympathy for the murderhobbo route. Keeping uncooperative people alive is really, really hard. The fact that Navy Seals (&and even ordinary cops) routinely capture people alive is a heck of a lot more impressive, both technically and morally, than any assassination.
@@r3dp9 Well said. I think it serves to allow the player to titrate their level of difficulty, too. You want a strict power fantasy? Go full murderhobo and chop some heads. But if you want to give up some of that power and pride in a sincere attempt to do the right thing, then you're up for a much more challenging time. I think it's a good mechanical representation of the kind of sacrifice Adam was talking about in this video: doing the right thing is much harder than resorting to violence. And that begs the question: what kind of man will you be?
> is that trying to play non-lethally is always harder.
I disagree, the rush of cunting someone into the ground after semi stealthing off some key people picks is, for me, bitching, and would give more momentum then just using the basic killy strats.
@@horserage Don't mistake something being harder for it being less fun. It may be harder, but it's more rewarding if you manage to take out a room full of people without casualty.
@@JanbluTheDerg Oh, totally.
Personally, being at a disadvantage in any scenario, feels more rewarding when you actually end up overcoming it than you would normally feel if you were on the same playing field as everyone else. Not just in games but in life as well.
Honestly, I feel like this is just my preferred playstyle even in a lot of power fantasy games. I tend to "min/max" in everything, which in of itself is kind of a power fantasy, but with strings attached, for example, I love the Lethal mode in Ghost of Tsushima and trying to make purely charisma-based characters in games wherever possible, characters that're great in some situations but weak in others is often more gratifying than purely powerful characters. I'll definitely have to check out Sifu after this video.
Intentionally making a weak character doesn't really work in games where combat or whatever can be cheesed, even more if there are good perks to be had from being a socialite and any other obstacle can be simply removed with sufficient application of explosives. If you can get by simply enough in combat with some mechanics not tied to combat-related stats, you're not turning away from the power fantasy at little cost for the greater rewards locked behind high charisma checks.
@@cdgonepotatoes4219 I think we need more games like Sifu i.e. games that over time turn you into a glass cannon that are balance on the razor's edge of dealing more damage and taking more damage. As much as I like being able to start a game with a stealth build, then slowly build up to a brawler tank build. I can still appreciate a game with trade offs.
"Power fantasy games" aren't a problem if the end-result of such power granted, ultimately comes from a fair reward of player that has sincerely worked for it. However, it does become a problem when players start to think such "power fantasies" are to be expected, and demand it from any and every game. "Power fantasy" as a game-play style, is an element which fits some games, but doesn't do well in others.
Yup, gaining the power in the first place is part of the experience. The power has to come as a reward.
Subnautica makes you feel out of your depth like your not at the top of the food chain any more I love it
Even when you get more advanced tech you end up being pitted against even more dangerous animals. And fighting isnt really a great option. Building a Cyclops is a great moment, it beginning to sink because a leviathan wants to size you up is terrifying. Your never allowed to get too comfortable.
@@thomasallen9974 And then you figure out that leviathans have broken AI and you can simply go right past them and ignore them completely with a Seamoth or smt. Especially in Below Zero
I have a cripplingly perfectionist mentality from growing up believing I was supposed to never make mistakes. As such, I'm pretty much terrified to attempt anything with even remotely significant stakes, so games that grievously punish you for messing up...don't really sit well with me. Any satisfaction I may get from them is always tinged with frustration. Honestly, I do need some form of escapism to not be constantly wrapped up in feeling hopeless and powerless, especially in recent years. I can understand the ideas discussed here, but I don't agree with it.
I know how that feels. I often feel like every little mistake I make has much more drastic consequences than every little success, and frankly I think that’s what society at large is instilling in people.
However, anti-power fantasies help me personally deal with that feeling; they help me learn to celebrate the little successes that come from your own hard work, which is the real essence of happiness.
this is the exact reason why i have such a hard time playing rougelikes & soulslikes, it doesn’t feel like i can just pick up and play them whenever, it feels like i ruin everything anytime i make a small mistake
I greatly appreciate how many different kinds of games you talk about in your videos, no matter how niche they may be. Makes it so that after every video I'm not only left with some great insight about games and their design but also a list of titles I had never heard of but should really give a try.
...And yet he didn't even mention Don't Starve, a game that was literally built upon the premise of you being weak.
Little surprised you didn't use Rain World as a perfect example cause "you're literally the weakest link on the food chain, survive" is what the game is all about. Almost everything kills the player in one hit/bite/grab and navigating the dangerous and deadly world while being weak is where most of the fun comes from
rain world is a great game where you really don´t get more powerful over time, and because for the msot part it´s not a game that focuses heavily on combat msot of the time you will try to survive instead of killing every enemy, the fact that your power mostly correlates to your skill level makes this stand out more
I was actually expecting to see Rain World in the video. But apparently he hasn't played it yet
That game is one of my favourites.
Nah, you're ability to survive mostly depends on your unserstanding of the ecosystem and of the controls, how to move more efficiently into the world and what creatures to fear and how to avoid them are key
@@dskawaii9200 who said you weren't able to?
@@zkull9982 My point is that there is no such thing as power-gain and that the skill level plays a minor role in your survival compared to the map-knowledge for example. The game is knowledge-based, not skill-based.
There's one view in the art world that goes approximately like this: "Mass art recreates the effect of a feeling, while actual art presents conditions that cause you to feel a certain way."
And personally, I've found that to hold true quite often in video games. A lot of large, expensive spectacle games distill power fantasy into a series of timed presses of a button, and make more or less self-insert movies with varying degrees of player agency within that pretty small window of optimalness. Meanwhile, many indie games often build themselves into operator rooms in which what button you press and when defines you, over the course of the game, as both the hero of your particular story and the player.
And that is not at all surprising. You have to be pretty limiting to generate a particular set of pre-planned responses in a player, so you just orchestrate the "feeling" and sell that very specific thing. Or, alternatively, you can have a general direction outlined, and provide your player with all the logical tools to explore it with... but at the risk of the system occasionally not delivering a "satisfying" product. And we can't really take that kind of risk for such serious things as games now, can we?..
The games that make you do hard moral choices are like tragedies in fiction: its well written, its impactful, its memorable, but It's not something you want to experience again, especially for games that don't eventually give you a better ending. You played the game without knowing there is a hard moral choice, you were hit hard emotionally and give the game a 5 star, but next time you shop for a game you look at the comment section first to make sure there are no hard moral choices.
Would love som3 recommendations
I think part of this is how insanely fucking difficult games are to make, and the insane diversity that can go into even the most restrictive genres. Being entirely original in a game only makes the insane difficulty of making them exponentially harder. Trying to divulge and make your own genre of game is kinda like trying to make a movie if all the world's knowledge of films were completely erased, there's just nothing to go on, you're on your own. Rain world is the game I've played that is most wholly original and divulges from power fantasy while still feeling like the pinnacle of an entire genre. You're weak, but it's not something you need to overcome, more something you need to accept, and become enveloped by the games mechanical storytelling. There's so much space games have yet to explore and while I think it'll be a long time until they do, I'm willing to wait for it.
Not only original games are hard to make, but they're development is often stressful and painful, Rain World's developement being another example on the pile: lasted 7 years, retraction from social life, tight deadlines and PTSD syndrome aswell as chronic fist pain from overworking. I hope the devs are working on RW updates and their next game while staying healthy.
I've never played rain world but from what I watch (youtube videos), it feels like the game is telling players "you're weak, so be creative in surviving"
Have you heard of Hardspace: Shipbreaker?
It's a blue collar work sim where you deconstruct spaceships. At times it's a puzzle, sometimes it gets stressful, and at the end of the day you're that much closer to paying off your debt.
Probably one of the most memorable moments in Mass Effect for me was in the third game when we were on Tali's homeworld and Legion was wanting to integrate the Geth into the Reapers and I had to choose between killing Legion or letting Tali and all of the Quarians die. I didn't have enough of either renegade or paragon to save both and I loved both characters so that decision put me into that kind of powerless position where either way, I was going to regret my choice. If I had been renegade or paragon enough, I don't think that moment would've stuck with me as much.
I remember getting Death Stranding when it first came out, and then saw all the terrible reviews it got and never played it. Last year I picked it up finally just to give it ago, and loved every single second of it. Planning out your path, packing all the right equipment, and finishing your job as efficiently as possible is so dang satisfying. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who takes so much joy in such a seemingly monotonous thing
Being from Ukraine and watching this video exactly 1 year since the release, when we just marked the year of resilience for my country and getting to end of the video made me so very emotional. Thank you for your support Adam. It means so much.
It's been one hell of a year, and while i am so very lucky to even have an opportunity to play games today, it takes an immense effort to let myself actually do it. Your videos always did inspire me to try something new and possibly something that i would have missed. You do remind me the main reason why i love gaming so much.
I may not be able to play a game today. But your videos give me that feeling that later i will. Thank you for that.
w
I wonder how a game like Spiritfarer fits in this. I can't really explain why because that would spoil most if not all of it, but being powerless seems deeply embedded in it.
Like power fantasy, the premise gives you power over life and death. Spritfarer just manages to make you feel sad, even when doing the right thing. I guess the being weak part comes though more from the existential level as the game is after all about death. How it deals with the topic during the game would maybe go into spoiler territory.
One thing I read from a Jojo fancomic always stuck to me and fits this video pretty well.
"Hasn't anyone ever told you it's okay to be weak?"
I think the best game that makes you weak is Kingdom Come: Deliverance. At the beginning of the game, a fight with anyone can get you killed. And even mid game, any 2 people can kill you
I've always loved the concept of Pikmin: incredibly weak alone but strong together. It's a very unique game mechanic.
I think before immersive sims ran themselves to extinction, they had a great idea in that the more options you give a player to solve a problem you can get away with making them less immediately powerful. It encourages lateral thinking, so your less Superman and more Kevin Mcallister or Rick O'Connell. They are very clearly weaker then the villain and have to rely on whits and quick thinking to defeat the bad guys, be they home invaders or an ancient evil mummy.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic did this amazingly by introducing you in the tutorial to the kicking and physics mechanics before even teaching you how to use the actual weapons. It's teaching you that direct conflict isn't the best way to solve problems, and that's really what most games are. Elaborate way to solve problems in a given framework.
I loved Dark Messiah...minus the spiders. Some of the creepiest spiders I have ever seen in any video game ever.
The thing about Dark Souls, is that it lets you learn, and it gives you... _a lot_ ... of options on how to overcome different challenges. It plunks you into a world, gives you a vague bucket list of things to do like "Ring 2 bells", gives you a vague idea of where those bells might be located, and gives you a pat on the back and a hop to it and there you go. Now, the "Newbie Route" is rather obvious, but you aren't forced to go that way. As for your personal power level vs. that of the enemy, if something seems way too hard... you're either not fighting it right, or you really need to have a serious look at your equipment. Maybe you're using the wrong type of weapon against it. Maybe your equipment is outdated and needs upgraded. Maybe you're just not supposed to be there yet, and there's better stuff elsewhere, where enemies are far more reasonable. Maybe you just need to "Git Gud". I can't really say, though, that I ever felt that Dark Souls was a power fantasy, unless you're running through areas you are well-familiar with, but even then, you can easily die if you forget the basic safety rules. One slip off of a ledge, letting your guard down so someone can knock you off a ledge, or heck, one riposte from an enemy is all it takes to send your overgeared butt back to your last bonfire.
I like games that let you learn and grow as you go through the games. Games with "adjustable difficulty" in-game. RPGs are best known for this, they give you XP and equipment choices and you adjust your challenge by doing more grinding or speeding through the game faster.
One thing about "feeling weak" that I don't really like in some games, is that some games mistake "lack of options" for "being weak". I hate it when games give you a character, and start you off being able to do almost nothing but basic attacks and they create weakness through a lack of options of what you can do. This is something else Dark Souls excels at, within the first 5 minutes of the game, you get your entire repertoire right from the get-go: A weapon, a shield, and your Estus Flask. It's up to you to learn what _else_ you can do (with a few hints scribbled on the ground).. Backstabs, Ripostes, Rolling, all of that can be explored and done from the opening moments of the game. They aren't locked behind tutorials, they aren't locked behind boss fights, or treasure chests, or what-not. The only thing in Dark Souls that's locked from the player is a weapon (the one you start out with is hilariously weak), and a shield (you get it a minute or two later), and both are given before you really have to fight anything (except for dodging a couple arrows to get your shield). Now obviously, you are likely going to want to replace your starting weapon with something a little better, and most certainly get better shields and better armor, but other than different animation and movesets, you still have your entire toolset from the beginning. Other than finding items you can use, AFAIK the only thing you unlock as you progress through the game is crafting related (finding blacksmiths who can upgrade equipment) and Fast-Travel once you get to the end of Anor Londo.
Pathologic and Pathologic 2 are my favourite examples of games that make you feel weak. They're just so brutal and any success you have just feels like a stay of execution.
One of my favorite 'weak' games is Rain World. It's a survival game with an entire ecosystem. Some creatures don't care about you, some are afraid of you, and most importantly, most want to eat you. You are low down in the food chain, and until you get **much** better at the finnicky and at times frustrating controls and combat, your best option is to be stealthy. However, the part where this becomes amazing is when you take into account the way you move across rooms. Most rooms aren't connected by large hallways, they're connected by pipes you can't see through until you're on the other side. Not only can you pop out of a pipe immediately into a predator view, one could very well pop out at any time and see you. You need to adapt on the fly to predators that are often more versatile than you, you can never rest until you find a safe shelter to stay for the night. It's truly a terrifying experience, and my favorite game of all time. I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a phobia of bugs.
I was looking for this comment. Rain World is the only game in which each new enemy manages to terrify me more than the previous one and in a different way. I don't have a phobia to bugs but my heart almost exploded with the first enemy of the "dark" zone. I love it, but I'm unable to finish it because its dificulty.
@@ek.m.611 Don't feel bad! Rain World is brutally difficult, and it's not your fault. It took me 80 hours to beat! If you're ever stuck, I would recommend backtracking and going forward through a different area.
@@lordecramox7394 Thanks for the advice! I'll finish it someday
Yep
5:00 I share the same feeling, my favorite part on almost any game (a good example is Resident Evil 4 & 5) is that beggining part where you barely know what to do or how to play, have weak weapons, low ammo, few healing items and need to desperately work around the challenges thrown at you, it like this "anti-power fantasy" so much that what i like to do the most on the majority of games (doom, gof of war, resident evil, etc.) is to play on the hardest difficulty with no upgrades (which i know, is like a power fantasy, the only difference is that the satisfaction comes from winning even against all odds), which is really frustrating and... FUN! XD
"Kenshi" is unfair.. yes in your favor. Almost no enemy's in this game can kill you. many of them actually nurse you back to health after attacking you. If one of your people gets captured and sold to slavery that sounds bad but it's a free workout routine with health insurance they are literally training you in the skills you need to eventually escape. Kenshi is brilliant in seeming much worse than it actually is. Just disregard anything I said when it comes to beak things they are actually evil.
Starting as a slave in Kenshi is the exact opposite of what you may think, and the actual worst possible starts are the ones where you start from the Hub and that of the Hive exile (or I guess the Cannibal Hunters, but in that one dying is so frequent and immediate the feeling of weakness doesn't have time to settle in).
Starting a game in Rebirth is essentially starting at a gym with a life membership and "free food", whereas starting from the Hub, if you don't immediately book it to another one of the cities, you're often at the mercy of roving starving bandits and dust bandits, and you can't draw from the assistance of the Hub guards as they're significantly weaker than any other city's. As a hive exile you do have the security of hive guards and financial opportunity from gutting beak things and selling stuff to the caravan leaders, but getting away from your starting area is hard and, well, you start as a poor and naked bugman.
I kinda lost the enjoyment of the game after discovering this as well as other likely unintended but intentionally looked over methods to cheese your way into power quickly in Kenshi, trying to do something different always felt slower and I'd eventually fall back into trends so I can't for the good of me really call it a proper example of a game which handles "reverse power fantasy" right.
Another thing that Kenshi does fantastically about that concept is the fact that you earn way more experience on combat skills for getting beaten up than from actually winning fights.
Ukrainian subscriber from Poltava here. Adam, thanks for the great video. When you don't know if you'll wake up tomorrow, you start to enjoy the little things much more. Ordinary things help to maintain a good mood.
We all really appreciate all your help at this difficult time. Take care of yourself too, friend!
P.S. I must say, playing "This War of Mine" with solo-setup on ironman-mode IRL is not that fun at all ;-) Hope to see your next one!
Minecraft is interesting. When you first play it in your first survival world, it feels hard and you feel weak. But shortly after, after acquiring stone tools and iron, then it's just a power fantasy. And then after that, when you make a new world, it ends up as a power fantasy from the start.
I love how you included footage of Untitled Goose game when you mentiones Soul's Likes, had a good laugh at that one.
Honestly, I wish there were more games about mundane life, even if it's in a fantasy or sci-fi setting.
And to anyone reading, please pray for the Ukraine in their troubled time. Pray for the safety of the people, pay for the missionaries and relief workers going to help them and support the people of Ukraine as much as you can.
Okay, your paper's-please-likes joke actually got me to like the video.
I think there's some meta thing in there about how you just went the evil route, and got rewarded for it.
Pathologic 2 is my favourite game of all time, precisely for how it crushes you under its heel and spits on you for feeling pain. It doesn’t just make you feel weak, it makes you feel like a dead man walking.
Hunger is a resource. Thirst is a resource. Money is a resource. Exhaustion is a resource. Health is a resource. Infection level is a resource. Immunity is a resource, Time is a resource. Inventory space is a resource. Resources are, well, resources. Hell, NOT BEING DEAD is a resource, because when you die the fourth-wall breaking theatre director will penalise you by reducing your stats; each and every one of these resources are plummeting into the abyss in real time, and to restore one of these stats you have to shoot yourself in the foot in regards to another.
Say you’re out looting in a district where the Sand Plague, and every innocent citizen in it, is dead, and you happen to get stabbed by a looter with the same idea as you. You’re nearly dead, and the plague is already shaving away your health by the minute, so you need to act fast. Maybe run to the store and buy some bandages? No, you’re also starving to death, so you’re saving what money you have left for a slice of bread, which’ll buy you a few hours tops. You’re carrying a few water bottles, why not find the town drunks who hand out bandages for them? Well, you’re going to have to spend time finding the sods in the first place, and you’ll need those bottles to create tinctures in order to keep the infection from eating you whole and your friends from getting infected in the first place. And then that will entail finding MORE water bottles in bins, eating more time. Oh, and time progresses faster each day.
This is just a minor, hypothetical and all too common part of the gameplay loop as well. The plot of the game, the unique events that happen across town, have their own ways of fucking with you. There’s a situation where a dear friend of yours wants to set up a shelter and requires a water barrel to take care of the people in her house. You find out that the barrel you want to get for her is infected, the water muddied by the plague. So you’re met with either the option to deliver the barrel to her, which will infect her part of the town, or take sampled, muddied water to a doctor working to prevent the spread of the plague who WILL destroy every barrel in the middle chunk of town to err on the side of caution. The best part is, the best option for the quest is to do completely nothing. Taking either one of the options handicaps you.
Everything fucking sucks, but you go on, right? Every day, your condition gets worse and worse. You run out of resources, brush shoulders with death over and over again, even cut a few folks organs out or stab a member of the homeguard in the dead of night for a little more money; but every once in a while, you’ll find that you’re okay. Sure, you’re strapped for cash and your health isn’t great, but your stomach is full of dried fish that will keep you going for a few hours, and you’re not SUPER close to death. Those moments make it all worth it, even if by time you go to sleep that night you’ll be close to death again. It’s a game of adaptation, of survival. Day 11, the real last day, is my favourite moment in all of gaming because of how hopeless it is yet how desperate to survive you are… and after fighting tooth and nail to survive across this gargantuan journey, you’re here at the end. It’s actually heartbreaking, knowing you’re about to say goodbye to this world after all the time you’ve spent in it, even if you’ve grown to despise near enough everyone in this town, the backstabbing rats and the delusional tribals.
This game helped me through one of the darkest times in my life, where autism underlying anxiety has kneecapped me as I sit here and patiently wait for death because I’m convinced I’m so broken that I can’t change, I have no idea how to change. It was a game that allowed me the opportunity to live, to strategize, to run around town and take care of mundane-- if deadly-- busywork. People call the game boring, soul-crushing, and that’s why they love it; I say it’s the happiest gaming has made me. Yeah, the game tore me down by the end, but it really did feed me a slice of life that I thought I could never have.
Yeah. This game is a masterclass in making you feel weak and simultaneously like you have the biggest genitalia around. Buy Pathologic 2 if you haven’t, it’s fucking fantastic. AT LEAST watch a video essay or two on it or Pathologic Classic HD, my own words can’t do the game justice.
Depression in western media: im sad and quirky :/ XD
Depression in eastern euro media: you are a maggot getting grinded in to dust but there might be hope at the end of the tunnel
for me the quote at the end of the game by Viktoria really hit hard for some reason:
"The Polyhedron, The Bull Enterprise... those were all cruel machines geared to produce utopias. Factories that processed people into ideas. But we'll make a world where people peoples bones arent crushed under lofty words."
video games are not art. it is a medium but the art you still have to make. Pathologic is a game that goes the full mile. i love how uncompromising it is and i wished they were a bigger studio so they could make their vision even less compromising but also more engaging through gameplay.
I will note one correction here: the best option is *not* to do nothing in that water barrel quest, because even if they aren't destroyed, the middle barrels of the town will remain infected for the rest of the game. Having them destroyed, just helps you to avoid making more mistakes further down the line.
@@subprogram32 Ah, thank you for the correction! I swore the barrels went back to normal after that event, but its been a while since I last played.
@@soundwaves8619 I'm not 100% certain either myself, but I distinctly remember reading about that fact at least. It makes sense for it to work that way, and with the chaos of daily play, it can be very easy to lose track of which barrels are which I imagine.
Most of Patho 2's quests do benefit you in *some* way after all, even if it's not in a way you expect. The destruction of dangerous water barrels would be an especially notable example of this.
I got the game and plan to play it soon so didn't read everything to avoid spoilers, just wanted to say that you might be interested in Rain World
That tiny, tiny clip of Not for Broadcast at 9:05 sparked joy in me. I _love_ that game.
in the (underappreciated) SSX On Tour, you're a snowboarding master that easily goes super fast and smooth down any slope while making insane jumps and pulling of crazy stunts. But then suddenly there was a mission (/task/event? I dunno what they called it) where you had to go down an entire track without getting more than like a second of airtime. This meant you had to play completely different than normally, and it actually felt like I had to snowboard like I would in real life. (I'm not very good at it in real life) You had to slow down all the time, and try to avoid all the bumps in the road. Suddenly slopes and even just bumps started to look scary. While I think most people hated these missions, I absolutely loved how it painted those track and the entire game in a different light and made me see the game world as a more real place, and sub-sequentially made the normal gameplay feel even more insane. Missions like that a just a great contrast
I think Dishonored rewarding high chaos and making low chaos tedious and less cathartic is kind of a part of it. It's easy to use your powers immorally and doing so is a slippery slope. Holding on to a moral code even when doing so is difficult and lacks the catharsis of revenge is what makes low chaos runs so fun. I played Dishonored 2 the first time as Emily and decided it wouldn't feel right for her to kill people so I went with a non-lethal assault playthrough and it honestly is the closest a game has made me feel to being batman. Trying to beat people up and stay alive in an increasingly out of control and desperate situation while still trying to hold back and make sure nobody dies is a pretty fun juggling act.
Rain World.
You are a slugcat, slugcats are food for everyone, your only (common, there are others but you basically never see them) weapons are a spear that embeds itself in an enemy, requiring you to go pick it up, and a pebble that does nothing except against one specific type of enemy. Good luck!
I feel weak and it is not fun. I live in Russia and have no control over situation. I feel that whole world hates us for what politicians did, while all we want is no war, but only peace. We all humans and was born on the same planet... And yet we live in a fucking 1984, but with internet, which makes it even worse - ignorance is strengh. I would prefer be dead stupid. Im sorry for bringing it here, just cant do anything with myself. I enjoyed the video, even through tears. I need something to keep myself sane. Thanks. Thanks. Keep up with your content
You are not alone and I don't hate you or Russians. I can only hope that this concludes in the best possible way at this point.
@@Dagenham_Swish Thank you for kind words
Adam! I love all your videos, but I especially appreciate the way you shout out a smaller creator in the space. It can be really hard for people to grow and I appreciate it because your recommendations are always great!
As a Ukrainian, I appreciate the outro 👍
Stay safe, my man.
Fuck putin! Stay safe, Friend.
Stay safe dude.
metal gear rising title screen OST is just jaw dropping, it gives me for night cyberpunk vibes than cyberpunk 2077 as a whole game itself.
Gothic 1 and 2 are perfect games where the hero starts very weak, with everything being dangerous at the start
Great video. The whole reason gen 4 Pokémon was enjoyed so much was the difficult (even traumatising) battle against Cynthia. It was way better than playing easy Pokémon battles all the time like these later games. Even now, Pokémon Legends Arceus has been praised for reintroducing the hard Cynthia battle with 8 Pokémon against your 6. Watching people's reactions to finally having a realistic match, some were ecstatic or even cried. It wasn't all about balance, it was about having to think of clever strategies to survive and having to reattempt the battle several times.
I remember back at the time when I played Prince of Persia: The Warrior within. I played it on PS2 without memory card when I was a kid, I felt it utterly hard to the point whenever i had low HP i used to do repetitive mechanics using wall jumping to kill enemies and store high dmg weapons. The point is that you feel like being powerful or rather unique but not enough with all the enemies and the setting around you, not mentioning the Dahaka chasing after you, even at the end you dont't feel like you have surpassed everything, you are still the same dude from the beginning with more knowledge 'bout what's happening around you and continuing your history.
To me the point of being weak is the internal change you make to surpass the conflict because you are not in charge of the situation, while the change could be anything from physical to your way of thinking.
A big challenge I suffer with morale dilemmas in videogames is that when gaming I become some kind of hyper pragmatic sociopath who cares only for my 'team' and who would sell the souls of a thousand people to the devil if it means my team will have it slightly better there for.
Personally, I blame Rimworld for having teaching me that being a monster can be so much more lucrative than concerning myself with silly little things like war-crimes.
I love Willmots Warehouse!!!! I was so exited when you mentioned it. I hope more people can try it.
I think this is why I often like the beginnings of RPGs the best.
Kenshi is for me the best game ever created so far, i'm so hyped for the net one *o* thank you for mentionning it
:D
I can't wait for the day you have 1 million subs. u really deserve it with how u do your videos. its amazing.
Rain World is great because of how weak you are as an unwieldy slugcat. So when you master the controls and kill a few stealth lizards or vultures it feels like you are an apex predator caveman stalking and laying traps for your prey.
Rain World is fire. Underrated af. I gotta finish it.
Another example would be the colony building game rimworld, the game makes you feel weak by scaling the difficulty of the events exponentially based on the wealth of your colony to the point where they become unmanagable disasters forcing you to have a minimalistic approach into it and use various tactics to continue playing,
Its always the struggle of having juust enough food for your colonists to survive the day, even more advanced defensive tools add to the wealth of your colony, putting the player in a dilemma of wether they should keep the weapons or not.
One of my favorite moments in video gaming would have to be playing ARK: Survival Evolved for the first time. Played with a buddy, and like normal, started on a beach. Seeing dinosaurs like that was fascinating, and surviving to build a little hut and prepare to tame our first dinosaur was a challenge. I remember being terrified of walking through the jungle, not knowing if and when a T-Rex might be behind the next tree. I was new and had no idea where the spawns were or nay of the tricks to surviving. I miss that, and any game that can make you feel legitimately scared is a great game in my book. Feeling weak and being forced to respect your surroundings and the unknown as you explore and go on an adventure that's unique and personal... It's just really impressive when a video game can accomplish that, and really elevates its standing as an art form.
Well I don't know about you but I think you will like this little Polish game called Darkwood. Trust me, that game it make you feel like your are at the absolute bottom of the food chain almost all of the time.
Then you wander away from the beach and towards the swamp where you encounter twelve foot crocodiles and fifteen foot titanoboas and you realize that maybe you should go that way just yet.
I had never heard of silicon dreams, thanks for linking it. I look forward to diligently prosecuting person-shaped appliances who failed to retain their proper programming.
This video went in a slightly different direction than I expected at the start. I thought you were going to talk about the related topic of bigger stakes narrowing choices a lot more. In a slice of life story you have all the options what you want to do. In a save the world storyline generally speaking things become a lot more predictable because all the 'do not save the world' options are incredibly unlikely.
The souls games really don't advertise an oppressive difficult game, they usually advertise the triumph, it's really video game articles that overplay the difficulty that advertise as such
8:30: I remember playing Dishonored, and only ever got the high-chaos endings. I tried, but never had the patience to get low-chaos endings, because the game gives you like twenty different cool ways to kill enemies, but only two to pacify them. Trying for the "good" ending was slow, and painfully frustrating. As soon as you stopped caring about chaos score and started using cool powers to kill stuff, suddenly the game became fun again.
It seems partly intentional for it to be that way, though. It's something of a statement about how difficult it is to be righteous when alternative options exist that are much easier but morally dubious.
That's the thing with Dishonored though, you get to play how you want. I like putting everyone to sleep one by one
I recently picked up a healer in an MMO, and it's incredible how unprepared *the entirety of the player base* is, to play with and against a competent healer.
like, seriously, how much weaker can you go, than a healer?
some players would outright ignore me thinking I'm just a bot, some others would try to rush me ignoring the fact that I can put them to sleep or root them to the ground.
I might *not do damage* but I'm certainly *not defenseless*
one of the most difficult classes to fight against, is a summoner: they bring in magical creatures, the creature does all the fighting, and the summoner just hides behind it.... warriors would slash and punch at them while the pair just heals itself to infinity.
nobody ever considers that I as a healer can outright *banish* the servitor out of the battlefield.
like... one click.... poof! gone... no fighting, no healing, no contest... outright *gone*
without the servitor, the master is just a cardboard cutout.... even *I* can take them on in melee, without attack skills.
I don't know how did warriors survive for as long as they have until now, by grinding their knuckles against the wall that is a perpetually-healing servitor and it's master.
Great video. Funny ending. And I really think it's great that you used the outro to talk about Ukraine. If people can't find the decency to care about what is happening, maybe selfishness will help. This is definitely gonna delay stalker 2. Seems trivial but there ya go
Honestly I feel like there's a place for both power fantasies and struggle fantasies. It's so fun being a bad ass playing as Dante but it's also fun feeling a challenge where it's a struggle to overcome.
The "morality in a power fantasy" question kind of reminds me of the Euthyphron Dilemma, where the player is god. What's the point of being good when you are all powerfull.
Weak characters must play according to rules, and those limitations (and the fact that one can still success with those limitations) could be what makes a great game.
i think the beauty of souls-like games is that you have so many different ways to tackle the game. You can do a standard playthrough. you can set artificial challenges for yourself (like soul level 1 being the most popular one), and you get to learn the game in an entirely different way each time. i just beat elden ring, and for my first playthrough, i refused to use a shield, because i wanted to actually get good at the game, rather than hiding behind shields the whole time, and i think my experience was better for it.
Hey Adam are you planning on doing a video on the idea of in game research and study? Games like Strange Horticulture, Cultist Simulator, and the Spell Research mod for Skyrim have kind of opened up an opportunity for a whole new way to look at games where both you and the character have to learn about the world and stuff in it to succeed
So, Morrowind?
What you said about the first few minutes of battle royale games is what I initially liked about Dead Island, as back then it was (one of) the first game(s) to have you use common items as breakable weapons, instead of having indescructible "built in" weapons.
This basically comes back to the question of "Do you let the player be strong or tell them to get good?"
Thank you for using Wilmot's Warehouse as an example. I had never heard of that game before today.
About six months ago, I sold an old lawnmower battery to a scrap warehouse. When I saw the inside, all the shelves and boxes, I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to have a game where you need to figure out how to organize a warehouse. I wrote down a BUNCH of notes on how I imagined this game would work, and thought, "maybe one day after I retire, I'll create a game like this".
Turns out, Wilmot's Warehouse ticks about 80% of the elements that I wrote down. I can't wait to play it, and see what my dream game is like.
I like Darkest Dungeon in regards to this particular theme. The people you use (not heroes) to combat monsters slowly being worn down into madness and insanity as you push them ever forward to complete the quest given to them, pushing you to have this question ever present and lingering in your head: "Do I retreat and go home, or risk having all of these people die on me?" Most other games would let you recover to full power after every fight, through spells or use of items; but not Darkest Dungeon, every fight is a struggle against death from a thousand cuts; trying to avoid the straw that breaks the back of your party. Even after the mission is done, you still have to deal with the consequences of all the stress they've built up; and you have to send fresh meat into the grinder and hope they'll be up to the task at hand as well.
Seems the theme that runs through all the various games is essentially "Balancing on a knife's edge" and that's the source of the fun: Can you balance what you're given? And how long can you keep it balanced?
Your talk about morality systems reawakened my emotions from replaying the Mass Effect trilogy back in 2020, when Mass Effect 3 came out on Steam. I spent the entire first game punching people, shooting criminals in the face, and generally abusing my power whenever I thought it would do good in the setting. I didn't take any outright psychotic choices, but I role-played a character I refer to only as "Bad Bitch Shepherd", and by the time I finished the game, I was so fucking *tired* of being told how great I was in dialogue that I wanted to throw half my crew out the airlock for being sniveling sycophants. The thing that struck me most was that Mass Effect *has themes* about the abuse of power, how much authority any individual should be trusted with, and lets you say that your job as a specter should not exist and isn't ethical: But no matter how much you do to prove those points *correct*, the game never has the balls to call you out on it, and that I find incredibly disappointing. It's why Mass Effect 3, despite its *very big flaws*, is the best game of the trilogy: It's the only one willing to tell you that you fucked up and an entire planet just died because of it.
A bit of a tangent here, but I always thought moral choice systems where missing something… different morals to choose between. They always have you choosing between being good or bad. It’s always been conceptually weak. Why not give 3 or 4 different morals and have different responses effect them differently, with the idea being that is is very rare to have one choice be positive for all morals. Make the player choose between being nice or being honest. Following the rules vs honesty. Being fair vs being nice, etc. It just seems like the obvious way to do this mechanic.
I'm really surprised you aren't a lot bigger! This video is amazing!
-hp, +dmg is not the same as getting weaker. That only applies if you suck! Dealing more dmg means you kill faster which means enemies have less uptime to hurt you.
The answer in my extensive experience as a gamer is, yes, IF.
It is only fun to feel weak in a game if it is balanced out by having other options or in other words, strength in other, perhaps non conventional areas. Take stealth games. your character may have no chance in a straight up fight if spotted, but can infiltrate and take down entire complexes of enemies through sneaky action.
Being weak is not fun. being LIMITED is fun when it is part of the gameplay design experience, to encourage you to explore the options the game gives you, or even as a temporary gameplay mechanic to change up the pace for a level, like playing as a metahuman superhero who has been injected by a serum which prevents them from using their powers and must escape the evil scientists lair by mcguyvering things from his tech in his lab, and ambushing his minions, to reach the exit.
The final showdown can happen later once his toxin has worn off, and you get to see that the hero isnt useless without their powers.
I kinda thought all of this was building up to you talking about pathologic. Sadly I was mistaken
I guess he had a deal with Mark Immortell or something 😉
The problem with these games trying to "make me live with my choices" is that I don't have to. If I'm unsatisfied with the outcome of some choice the game forces me to make, I can save scum, or if all outcomes are unsatisfying, I can simply stop playing the game. I get that the point of these games is to be unsatisfying, but then I wonder as I spend my time on them "why am I playing something deliberately unsatisfying" and stop soon afterwards.
No, but playing a game where I feel like a God from the title screen is BORING AS HELL!!! Sadly it seems like that's what the people want nowadays. A game that practically plays itself is not a game, mine as well call it a Movie
8:27
I think the issue is that the game ends with either "Well done" or "Fuck you, Corvo" but you're rarely placed in a scenario where killing people wouldn't be justified so there's a disconnect between your choices and the world.
I think Dishonored 2 fixed this by making its ending entirely fitting to your playthrough. The world still reacts to your playstyle, but your playthrough doesn't end with the game condescendingly wagging its finger at you, unless you'd actually done something to deserve it.
You can kill all the people you want, or be as passive and stealthy as you want, but if you forget to leave someone in charge in Karnaca then the game will tell you off for that, because it was a mistake on the players part that's seperate from their playstyle.
All this scrolling finally someone gets my point of view
"Is It Possible To Make Feeling Weak Fun?"
Yes, this is well known by everyone since, at least, Resident Evil 1 came out (26 years ago).
One of the best things about older Rpg titles is exactly this. Like ultima underworld, fallout 1/2, Gothic 1/2
Have the player scraps for food, resources and anything that the player can get their hands on to survive the early parts of the game making it much more rewarding when at the end of the game you become a demigod alot more satisfying and difficult
I think that powerfantasies is what League sells as their champions. Every champion starts as a weak lvl 1 noob each game and through careful farming and using small advantages to get a lead, you reach your powerspikes earlier than the enemy. The powerfantasy cant be reached just with stats and items alone most of the time. It often requires careful planning, thinking of enemy cooldowns and positioning. Thats why most "failed/not often played champions" either dont have a clear powerfantasy, or reaching it isnt satisfying or can be reached by other champions easier.
Powerfantasies are so diverse just in that game, that i personally believe, that anyone, who can live with click to move and the general control system (and the worst tutorial in videogame history) has something for them. From ultimate healbot support, to literal Lord of the Undead to nimble assassin to mighty tank there is everything.
You also learn pretty fast, when it is better to just let go of your powerfantasy and support the most fed player in your team to win the game. Or even, when a game is just completely lost. You just have so many different mindsets with just one champion so many times.
I think sometimes it is definitely doable but it doesn’t always work out. For example, Fallout 3 does it perfectly, for the early game and up into the mid game your guns are often weak and badly repaired, ammo is constantly short, and good healing items aren’t always available, and even when you have stuff to trade or spare caps the shopkeepers rarely have enough supplies to keep you stocked up. You feel like a weak, lost, survivor scrambling through the ruins trying to survive and that is exactly how I want a 3D fallout game to feel. The atmosphere works great with that perceived feeling of weakness, and the DR armour system makes billers way more deadly than they are in NV, you can’t just wear leather armour to take significantly less damage per hit, and shooting is inaccurate until you can level up so you don’t feel overpowered, and even when at a high level you can’t be sure you’ll hit an enemy so you never feel completely invincible.
I remember in my first run *loving* that sensation of never being comfortable or supplied properly and really feeling like a post apocalyptic scavenger, I wish more of the fallout games tried to get that feeling. Exploring the metro tunnels was the best example for me, as there was even less supplies there than in the DC ruins topside, and my guns just fell apart on me, I ran out of 10mm ammo, then my pistol broke, then my rifle broke, then I was down to just a silenced 10mm with the tiny amount of ammo I’d scavenged and I had to use clunky melee combat just to fight stuff. If felt almost like a survival horror game, which I think are another genre that really benefits from feeling weak and threatened.
Being weak and slowly working your way up to becoming strong can be easily achieved in most games by playing on the hardest difficulty and getting better. That's what I do at least, and oh boy, is it satisfying when you get good.
Yeah I started playing "boomer shooters" with doom 2016 and only manned up for ultraviolence in eternal. As a newcomer you're well because you're bad at the game. And once you start ripping and tearing you feel amazing because you earned it.
Also like the first half of botw really has you rely on your wits and avoid alotnof encounters.
This war of mine... is fun while not being fun, is weird, but it works
18:26 Hermosa elección 😘 xxlike.Uno de los mejores conciertos ❤
❤Asi con toy y sus mañas no se la
20:11 Amor: "Momentos"
10:21 Yoongi: "Butter"
10:21 Senada: "Hermoso"
40:21 Alfiora: "Preety"
30:21 Megan: "Hotter"
50:21 Alana: "Awesome"
21:21 Belleza doops
25:20 Son unos de los mejores conciertos, no puede ir pero de tan solo verlos desde pantalla, se que estuvo sorprendente 🖤
40:31 Hopi: "Sweeter" Tve6
20:20 Joonie: "Cooler" 🌹♀💯
17:50 Son unos de los mejores conciertos 🖤
"Oh fuck, I've got to go climb that mountain now" I have tears in my eyes
i just watched this not realising it was made 2 years ago, still valid. nice work, always great videos to enjoy as well as showing me some games i would like to try out.
Any game is a reverse power fantasy when you're as bad at playing games as I am
The difference between Dark Souls and most action games is the designers don't care if you win. They want you to feel epic if you win. And they give you the tools to make it work. But at the end of the day, you have to just get good. And in that way, Souls is similar to games focused on showing the player's weakness.
Lisa: The Painful has a fun mechanic where you lose power in exchange for keeping certain party members alive.