I think that rage games are actually a master class in this. Not your traditional asshat games like "i WaNnA bE tHe GuY" but you can see similarities in concept in games like Super Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy looks and hard but you have limited and overviewable controls at your disposal and know how the game interacts at any point in time. The result is, while you might die a lot, you don't feel stupid, you feel even more accomplished once you finish it and it's a core fundamental of why people keep playing instead of saying "THIS IS DUMB! I GO PLAY MINECRAFT NOW!"... Even if the one being dumb is themselves. Get it? :D
Jonas at 9:26: "If you want to make your players feel smart, it's probably a very good idea to have a lot of checkpoints [...]" Also Jonas: Builds the huge unforgiving piranha tower in will you snail.
Scape goat is the worst argument I have ever heard. This is the LAST thing you want to do in your game. As soon as the player feels that he died/lost and it was not his own fault but instead, something in the game then you lost that player. He will start thinking that the game is unfair, if it wasnt his own fault, then he can't fix it. It's just the game being bad. Badly balanced or whatever. At this point you either quit the game or refund it. GOOD SOLUTION: Make the game fair and make sure that if player dies, he gets instant feedback as to why he died. Make it clear to the player that if he dies, it's his fault and he can clearly see his mistake. That makes him think like "Omg, i fucked it up, I should have jumped here here and there and i missed that last jump". He instantly wants to replay the challange to fix his mistake. If he sees it as game being at fault - he loses interest.
You're probably 100% right and in I couldn't agree more to what you've just said. Maybe it's a factor in some games. When you play team based online games for example blaming team mates for the loss is common practice and I have the theory that helps players to feel better. I might be mistaken, though, and maybe it's just even more frustrating, because you feel like you didn't deserve that loss. Also I'm not sure having a scapegoat and knowing what your mistake was necessarily exclude each other. When you make a mistake you can still blame your own mistake on external factors. When I die in Dark Souls I blame both the balancing as well as myself, taking at least a bit of the blame away from me. Of course you should know what your mistakes were. Otherwise it just feels plain unfair. :D One more thing to discredit myself even further is that I have absolutely no idea how to design something like a scapegoat for your game. That makes it kind of impractical advice. I'm definitely not telling you to f*** up your balancing on purpose. :D Hope you can see where I was coming from, but in general you're absolutely right.
@@JonasTyroller I see both your points. But I gotta say the scapegoat thing is something I never heard of before but when I think about it, it is quite interesting psychologically. Because no games mechanics are perfectly executed ever, this is quite a deep thought to me. I recall several situations in games I like where a tiny bit of blame on the imperfections of a game pacified my own miserable feeling of failure. You can also notice this when listening to the cursing comments of certain players while they are playing a game. Of course the feeling of it being your fault when failing needs to dominate, but it seems to me that there is some thruth about this psycholocically when seen from a players perspective. Not that something like this woulde be a goal to implement on purpose, but more of a side effect of imperfections in games. So I guess the point is valid, but it somewhat might not fit into a list of design tips :P :)
@@JonasTyroller Thanks for being nice in the comments and having constructive conversations, there are many people who would have ignored the criticism or started a flame war You're cool :D
I know this was more than a year ago, but just gotta say that scapegoats are a real thing and excessively powerful if made correctly. If a player has a scapegoat for their losses or failures they essentially have an ego-shield if/when they need it. This is why it is so difficult to keep low skilled players coming back to online 1v1 games, but very easy to keep them coming back to online team based games. In 1v1 games the player is usually much harder pressed to find an excuse, and most games that provide excuses do so in the form of RNG that undermines skill. If the game requires lots of skill and has many different scapegoats, then a 50/50 win/loss ratio feels more like 75/25 to the average person. This is the most basic form: victory - I won. defeat - My team lost. Everyone thinks they are better than they actually are in the most popular team based multiplayer games. Most of these games are intentionally lacking any 1v1 game modes, because it would break the illusion. This isn't just psychological. It is expressed in the ways it impacts the player's social standing with anyone he/she involves into the game. If a player's friends cannot accurately judge against them for their failures, they are more secure playing that game with friends. If the game makes failures/losses "painfully obvious", then the player is NOT secure inviting people to play unless he/she is very good. If the game makes failures/losses "painfully obvious", then the people invited are NOT secure accepting the invite. This is also why allowing various forms of anonymity is important for online skill-based games. Breaking away from any of this requires the player to de-value the game's assessments or the importance of the skill involved. Any skill-based game that does not have enough scapegoats will be looked down upon by the people of average or below skill levels as a last resort. Actually, I could write a small book about how powerful scapegoats are, but the idea would remain constant and this summation should suffice for the one random person reading.
Note for myself: 1. Keep rules simple. (the player should understand what's going on and how to get better ) 2. Invisible tutorial. (the player should find the mechanics of the game by himself) 3. Use objects from the real life. (the player should understand purpose of items using intuition) 4. Use level design to guide the player. (put something like highlights or path to guide the player so the player don't get lost) 5. Make a default choice. (the player don't want to be overwhelmed with choices where he doesn't know what's the best for his own style, so make an option which just works for all situations) 6. Unlock features over time. (introduce to the player 1 thing at a time) 7. Make an easy game that feels hard. () 8.
It was absolutely mesmerizing to watch and I want more of it! :D Sometimes, I feel like some of the lines could be a little more on topic but in general it was pretty cool and fun to watch.
ik it's from 2 years ago but I have to say, the background of this video was SO creative and cool (though all of your videos are also really creative tbh, I just got really mindblown from this one)
These videos are very informative to new developers! One good example of an invisible tutorial is the thing FarCry3 did with the places you were supposed to jump to. They added vines to those cornices and borders of platforms you were supposed to climb to, so when you get used to finding those at places you can reach, you start looking for those to reach hidden places or get collectibles. But it must be a hell of work adding all of that to the map haha. Also, I remember playing Ratchet And Clank on PS3 and there was this first time you control Clank (you need parts to fix a ship) and I could not figure out how to grab the freaking robots that I had to put on a platform. There was simply nothing that told me what to do. At this time I was something like 8 y/o or something, so I had no freaking idea of what to do and for me there was nothing like the internet or tutorials. So I tried everything, but the game was also a little broken because when you pushed the robots by walking against them, they started to sink through the terrain. So yes, stupid kid me only had to push a button to grab them, but there was nothing like that on the main game so this was a mechanic that was introduced without explanation nor advice and I left that game for a while until a friend hiped me about that game being very good and wanting to play it. So I played it again, and after a lot of boredom I dropped the controllet into a carpet, and Clank grabbed one of those sukers and I was like... WTF just happened. I took the freaking robot to the platform and tried to figure out what button was pressed. This really pissed me off back then.
One small thing about giving players something to blame instead of them. Yes it may make them feel less stupid, but it also makes it harder for them to improve because it’s not their fault, and they end up getting frustrated because something hindered their progress. Other than that, I think this is all good advice.
I am feeling smart watching this video. It seems I figured out what Jonas is saying is related to what's going on in background drawings and everyhting
Those animations in the background are nice and visually appealing, but it's a little too repetitive in my opinion! All that knowledge you give us is really valuable and whenever I want to design my game to make the player feel smart and like albert einstein or something, I'll think of you and your videos :D
Jonas: tells not to overwhelm players with too much information. Also Jonas: uses multiple brushes with different colors and size at the same time in the video.
Hey man, very cool video. Have to get that one out there, because it happened to me recently: I felt pretty stupid after I had to look up the solutions to "Please, Don't Touch Anything". It's a tough puzzle game, so I didn't expect it to be easy, and after approx. 2/3 of the game I was stuck and still had found lots of hints that I just felt I didn't know how to put together. After I looked up the rest of the solutions, I was very disappointed. Almost all the hints I have found and not used until then had nothing to do with any of the puzzles or were plain dead ends. Game devs: please don't do this. Also solving the puzzles in "Antichamber" felt very rewarding and made me feel smart.
I absolutely disagree with the scapegoat. Teammembers - okay, but if I feel like the game is just unbalanced, then I won't bother retrying. If you managed to make your game look hard, your players ego should not suffer that much from failing. In a game *you* have the agency, therefore you should feel responsible for winning and failing.
1) A game that made me feel smart is Slay the Spire because after playing it over and over when those numbers align using the correct cards it feels good to have that run where it just works out. 2) One game that I quit for making me feel stupid is Super Smash Bros. Yes, that's right. In fact I despise the entire series now. A lot of people who play smash games nowadays (and by a lot I mean everyone I've ever met or seen) is super duper ultra mega tryhard competitive and so I can never have fun, I can never learn from my mistakes, and I can never improve because everyone I fight against is 8000* better than me. Plus everyone's a jackass. I had very few experiences as bad as this where someone would bully me for not being good enough. The only other times that happened was irl baseball (idk how to swing a bat), Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 (a peashooter and pocket sunflower would hunt me down the entire match and dance over my corpse not caring about anything else in the game), and Clash Royale (the game itself is an awful trap that reels you in and sucks everything out of you.) 3) I'm gonna go make a turn based rpg.
Loving your channel. I started developing games a few month ago and am thinking about game design a lot more now. Your videos are great. Im feeling relieved now that i found your channel.
I already told you but the most prominent example for a game that made me feel like I'm the culmination of human intelligence was Pixoji. Brilliant concept, lots of ways to find your own creative, clever solutions to the puzzles that are presented (I think this is a really important factor, don't know if you mentioned that somewhere in there), there's no way to ever get stuck (as in, you can't maneuver yourself into a dead end) and it ramps up the difficulty really nicely, giving you new tools to play around with and to combine with previous tools quite often but not so often that it becomes overwhelming. A game that made me feel like i'm a completely incompetent donkey's arse of an idiot was Absolute Drift. I couldn't get used to the driving physics at all, I was crashing against everything all the time and then I looked at replays of people who drive and drift with utmost elegance... I felt like I just didn't get it the entire time while I tried to play. This is not to say that it's a bad game, it just didn't work for me, unfortunately. It'd be helpful if you gave us a list of all the topics you talked about in quick-tip-form so we could look those up and remember exactly what was talked about in the video.
jonas i can't believe you only have 22k subscribers, maybe i guess the game dev community isnt as big as others, but you deserve a lot more!!! u are making great content
Wonderful summary of tips to enhance your game. I discovered your channel today and it's a perfectly centralized accumulation of knowledge presented in a masterful short way. Couldn't help but take notes and add them to my wall for quick reference while deving! :) Thank you!
Portal makes me feel smart. The hidden tutorial was fantastic and I feel like it's very good at introducing elements one by one. I also liked finding Doug's dens by myself 'cause games with NO exploration element bore me. Dishonored also made me feel smart, because pulling off a stealth thing is rewarding to me. And because the level design clicked with my brain in such a way that I feel like I always know where I'm going, it's the sort of game where I feel at home. It helps that it has objective indicators on screen but not a map. Games with maps piss me off 'cause they teach me not to look at the actual environment, which, in Dishonored, is gorgeous and that would be a shame. Not to mention games with maps usually think they can cut corners on giving you information. I tried to play Witcher 3 with the map off and the game was like "go to so-and-so but don't expect me to TELL you where that is, you have a map." Hollow Knight makes me feel stupid because benches are very far apart and you start each area without a map. So figuring things out on accident, like when I first ran into my shade on my own, is extraordinarily cool, but mostly you're just dying and losing inordinate amounts of geo/having no idea where the Fuck you are. Warframe also makes me feel really dumb because there's too much information given to you at once. I still have no fucking clue how the mods systems work. I just hide in the shadows and pick enemies off with the bow, which is fine, because that's entertaining to me.
A game that makes me feel very smart: Minecraft. When I play the game in creative mode, I build a lot of complicated stuff that alot of people don't understand
made me feel smart: Factorio demo, it looks hard but actually it is quite simple, there is room for some failure, a lot of invisible tutorial, very logical, information and new building possibilities come slowly one after another. made me feel stupid: Candy-crush-type games based on colors, since I'm colorblind and I don't have very fast eye-hand coordination, my asian wife is very fast at it but she doesn't plays games very often.
How to make something look hard? The snail level .. would it look hard with metal pipes instead of wood pipes? Or with epic music instead of relaxed music? The measurements can't be changed, it can't be a bigger stone, 100m tall. So how would you tell the player "this is a hard level" ? A character in front of the stone/pipes telling the player that he has given up climbing the stone? In the whole (4 year old) video (I know ..), examples would have been great. Maybe make a new one, same topic, but with more examples. ^^
Hollow knight is kinda complicated for me;when I fell into deepnest and died I felt stupid because I wanted to explore there but smart because I found a special area behind a secret wall!!
I just adore the new artstyle. Also it's surprising that I built many of those tricks into my game without even noticing. By the way, I'm doing alright with my game. Developement takes forever because I have to do really much for school. I recently managed to bump it up to 60FPS and now I'm working at a cutscene, that really frustrating because one of the characters is flying around the screen. But that's okay. For the challenge: I really felt smart when I was in the City of the Sky in Zelda Twilight Princess. It's a giant dungeon that looks super complicated because there are so many ways you can go, but in the end, you just follow a relatively linear path and feel intelligent for navigating through that giant building. But it was also in that game when I felt really dumb. This happened in the snow mansion. It was very foggy there and at some point I just got stuck. After a while, I realized, that I had overlooked a Button to use my hookshot on the whole time, because it was so dang foggy. Wow, this comment got awfully long :D
Glad to hear you're making progress with your game. Just take your time with it. I'm sure making cutscenes can take a while. :D Thanks for telling me about zeldas design. Haven't played that game. Do you have any idea how to fix that problem, so players don't overlook the button for too long? No worries, long comments are okay. :D
The problem was that it was really foggy and you could only see that button through a crack in the wall. I'd place a torch next to it, so it gets your attention faster. Also, you should try out Zelda, those games are really great. I suggest Ocarina of Time to start with. It's not that long and really good for beginners :)
10:05 The same happend to me when trying out the demo of thronefall, no stats, no circles on the floor showing the taunt and attack range of towers, etc… , i have lest a more detailed comment on the trailer video or the video where u anounce the demo beeig live (i dont remember wich one it was) 😊😊😊😊
What do you think about check points vs skip level buttons? Also, how about changing the game environment (e.g. remove some spikes) to make the game accessible to players who are not competent at it? Would it make players feel rather stupid because the dev had to lower the difficulty for them to overcome? I asked so because Im working on a small platformer that the level is relatively small, and so the idea of check points is almost impossible to implement, hence Im considering alternative options. Btw, very interesting content, and very honest too. Thanks for the video!
Not that you were asking me, but I find that almost nobody uses easy mode if they have the choice. Yeah, it makes them feel dumb... Maybe it's possible to add some kind of consumable hidden health item that lets them tank a single spike hit each? That would at least reward less skilled players who put more time in. E-tanks in Mega Man and shields in Sonic seem to basically work this way.
Totally agree, nobody uses the easy mode if they really care for the game. I implemented the skip level feature in my game jams and only people who don't care for my game found it useful. I like your idea of consumable health item, but the fact that its hidden means its a reward for exploration, which beginners don't really do. Or did you mean it differently?
Hum. You do have a point that some players won't bother exploring, especially not during time-sensitive game jams and in-person play testing. But I was more talking about how you could add some kind of 'get out of jail free card' item so that players won't loose agency just because one level is too hard for them... I suppose another way you could do it is making the item obvious and easy to find, but still only having a finite amount to be picked up across several levels. Some spawnable platforms, perhaps? Yeah, player agency is probably key here!
Challenge 1 Game that makes me Feel stupid: The legend of Zelda Link's awakening Why: it feels like I'm not going the right way, and I don't know how to defeat specific enimies Challenge 2: Sulution: Sings that tell you how to defeat an enimy, some kind of marker that tells you where you need to go Challenge 3: I can't code D:
Success in art is about one main thing: does your art accomplish what you meant it to? If your intention is to make the player feel stupid, and you successfully make the player feel stupid, then you succeeded. But you have to really think about what your intention is overall. If you want to make the player feel stupid so they connect better with the characters in the story, but your success at making them feel stupid makes them not able to connect with your characters, then you succeeded at your immediate goal, but not at your big one. So always keep the big picture in mind.
Hearts Of iron 4. Yeah, the game is awesome and very easy and comfortable to play if you watched professionals. But, there is few raging ticks. 1: tutorial is bad. Why? #1: bad nation chosen in usual map. In tutorial they make you play as ITALY. Its a bad nation. Not worst but a bad one. It also starts as fascist, and path to "good democracy" is long, and path to "strong baddie" is HARD. Yes, tutorial teached you how to like move your map, but the approaching windows basically says: Great! You found out how to build stuff! (It doesn't tells what you should build early and what every thing does) Now go conquer Ethiopia! And to do that, make an arny from troops, make a navy, assign planes and lead troops (no details) •Conquered Ethiopia: 0/1 I would make a simplified dimension where like you're a small not real nation with everything to start setted up and simplified focus tree. And instead of overwhelming the player, i would only make windows for movement, and show stuff very simple introducting stuff pereodically. Like: Welcome, new leader of {imagine a random country name}! You are ready to start your way if glory! #Screen/mouse wheel to move. -close- Then i would introduce him to a choice in focus tree. Like this: Time to find out your way of governing. Choose your future. -Focus tree- Investement /. |. \. Communism Democracy Fascism When player chooses, game first shows you to build early stuff, Then new small nation appears. Game lets you a choice of like Be friends. Be enemies |. | Alliance | trade. Fight | embargo. Tutorial modified from your actions. And learns you about researchement, asks type of combat you like, explains naval and aerial. There is many more to talk about. I choose this
Biggest waste of time: The Witcher 3. Trying to use the inventory or purchasing items from a store infuriates me to no end with the pointless stupid loading screens and scrolling through lists of retarded dialogue.
True, but I also know a surprising number of people who don’t know that! If you’re playing your first PC game ever you’re gonna be pretty frustrated if you try the arrow keys and it doesn’t work.
Jonas: make a game that looks/feels hard, but in reality is fairly easy.
Also Jonas: I'm gonna go make a rage game lol
I think that rage games are actually a master class in this. Not your traditional asshat games like "i WaNnA bE tHe GuY" but you can see similarities in concept in games like Super Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy looks and hard but you have limited and overviewable controls at your disposal and know how the game interacts at any point in time. The result is, while you might die a lot, you don't feel stupid, you feel even more accomplished once you finish it and it's a core fundamental of why people keep playing instead of saying "THIS IS DUMB! I GO PLAY MINECRAFT NOW!"... Even if the one being dumb is themselves. Get it? :D
I initially read rage as something else, and thought oooooof time to log off.
will u snail
I'm feeling smart about making players feel smart.
what if i am not a player neither a indie developer...what does that make me
@@belkacemF a smort viewer
@@belkacemF nor*
Hey ur the guy from the thumbnail
Tutorial is either
"The device in front of you is a computer"
Or
"Tap here now here now here the end"
Jonas at 9:26: "If you want to make your players feel smart, it's probably a very good idea to have a lot of checkpoints [...]"
Also Jonas: Builds the huge unforgiving piranha tower in will you snail.
Scape goat is the worst argument I have ever heard. This is the LAST thing you want to do in your game.
As soon as the player feels that he died/lost and it was not his own fault but instead, something in the game then you lost that player.
He will start thinking that the game is unfair, if it wasnt his own fault, then he can't fix it. It's just the game being bad. Badly balanced or whatever. At this point you either quit the game or refund it.
GOOD SOLUTION: Make the game fair and make sure that if player dies, he gets instant feedback as to why he died. Make it clear to the player that if he dies, it's his fault and he can clearly see his mistake. That makes him think like "Omg, i fucked it up, I should have jumped here here and there and i missed that last jump". He instantly wants to replay the challange to fix his mistake. If he sees it as game being at fault - he loses interest.
You're probably 100% right and in I couldn't agree more to what you've just said.
Maybe it's a factor in some games. When you play team based online games for example blaming team mates for the loss is common practice and I have the theory that helps players to feel better. I might be mistaken, though, and maybe it's just even more frustrating, because you feel like you didn't deserve that loss.
Also I'm not sure having a scapegoat and knowing what your mistake was necessarily exclude each other. When you make a mistake you can still blame your own mistake on external factors. When I die in Dark Souls I blame both the balancing as well as myself, taking at least a bit of the blame away from me. Of course you should know what your mistakes were. Otherwise it just feels plain unfair. :D
One more thing to discredit myself even further is that I have absolutely no idea how to design something like a scapegoat for your game. That makes it kind of impractical advice. I'm definitely not telling you to f*** up your balancing on purpose. :D
Hope you can see where I was coming from, but in general you're absolutely right.
@@JonasTyroller I see both your points. But I gotta say the scapegoat thing is something I never heard of before but when I think about it, it is quite interesting psychologically. Because no games mechanics are perfectly executed ever, this is quite a deep thought to me. I recall several situations in games I like where a tiny bit of blame on the imperfections of a game pacified my own miserable feeling of failure. You can also notice this when listening to the cursing comments of certain players while they are playing a game. Of course the feeling of it being your fault when failing needs to dominate, but it seems to me that there is some thruth about this psycholocically when seen from a players perspective. Not that something like this woulde be a goal to implement on purpose, but more of a side effect of imperfections in games. So I guess the point is valid, but it somewhat might not fit into a list of design tips :P :)
@@harrysanders818 That sums it up quite nicely. Thanks for binge watching my videos btw and welcome to the channel. :D
@@JonasTyroller Thanks for being nice in the comments and having constructive conversations, there are many people who would have ignored the criticism or started a flame war
You're cool :D
I know this was more than a year ago, but just gotta say that scapegoats are a real thing and excessively powerful if made correctly.
If a player has a scapegoat for their losses or failures they essentially have an ego-shield if/when they need it.
This is why it is so difficult to keep low skilled players coming back to online 1v1 games, but very easy to keep them coming back to online team based games.
In 1v1 games the player is usually much harder pressed to find an excuse, and most games that provide excuses do so in the form of RNG that undermines skill.
If the game requires lots of skill and has many different scapegoats, then a 50/50 win/loss ratio feels more like 75/25 to the average person.
This is the most basic form:
victory - I won.
defeat - My team lost.
Everyone thinks they are better than they actually are in the most popular team based multiplayer games.
Most of these games are intentionally lacking any 1v1 game modes, because it would break the illusion.
This isn't just psychological. It is expressed in the ways it impacts the player's social standing with anyone he/she involves into the game.
If a player's friends cannot accurately judge against them for their failures, they are more secure playing that game with friends.
If the game makes failures/losses "painfully obvious", then the player is NOT secure inviting people to play unless he/she is very good.
If the game makes failures/losses "painfully obvious", then the people invited are NOT secure accepting the invite.
This is also why allowing various forms of anonymity is important for online skill-based games.
Breaking away from any of this requires the player to de-value the game's assessments or the importance of the skill involved.
Any skill-based game that does not have enough scapegoats will be looked down upon by the people of average or below skill levels as a last resort.
Actually, I could write a small book about how powerful scapegoats are, but the idea would remain constant and this summation should suffice for the one random person reading.
Note for myself:
1. Keep rules simple. (the player should understand what's going on and how to get better )
2. Invisible tutorial. (the player should find the mechanics of the game by himself)
3. Use objects from the real life. (the player should understand purpose of items using intuition)
4. Use level design to guide the player. (put something like highlights or path to guide the player so the player don't get lost)
5. Make a default choice. (the player don't want to be overwhelmed with choices where he doesn't know what's the best for his own style, so make an option which just works for all situations)
6. Unlock features over time. (introduce to the player 1 thing at a time)
7. Make an easy game that feels hard. ()
8.
8.
How do you like the look of this?
Not sure about it, there is probably room for improvement...
It was absolutely mesmerizing to watch and I want more of it! :D Sometimes, I feel like some of the lines could be a little more on topic but in general it was pretty cool and fun to watch.
I draw them in real time one pen after another, so delivering on context is pretty stressful. Maybe I can find a way to do this, though.
Yeah, that sounds pretty stressful haha. Maybe a pause function so you can plan ahead from time to time?
Maybe. Or half of the speed.
ik it's from 2 years ago but I have to say, the background of this video was SO creative and cool (though all of your videos are also really creative tbh, I just got really mindblown from this one)
These videos are very informative to new developers! One good example of an invisible tutorial is the thing FarCry3 did with the places you were supposed to jump to. They added vines to those cornices and borders of platforms you were supposed to climb to, so when you get used to finding those at places you can reach, you start looking for those to reach hidden places or get collectibles. But it must be a hell of work adding all of that to the map haha.
Also, I remember playing Ratchet And Clank on PS3 and there was this first time you control Clank (you need parts to fix a ship) and I could not figure out how to grab the freaking robots that I had to put on a platform. There was simply nothing that told me what to do. At this time I was something like 8 y/o or something, so I had no freaking idea of what to do and for me there was nothing like the internet or tutorials. So I tried everything, but the game was also a little broken because when you pushed the robots by walking against them, they started to sink through the terrain. So yes, stupid kid me only had to push a button to grab them, but there was nothing like that on the main game so this was a mechanic that was introduced without explanation nor advice and I left that game for a while until a friend hiped me about that game being very good and wanting to play it. So I played it again, and after a lot of boredom I dropped the controllet into a carpet, and Clank grabbed one of those sukers and I was like... WTF just happened. I took the freaking robot to the platform and tried to figure out what button was pressed. This really pissed me off back then.
8:56
"Maybe trigger a funny voice line when the player falls of a cliff"
*proceeds to shame the player for dying on the hardest difficulty in WYS*
One small thing about giving players something to blame instead of them. Yes it may make them feel less stupid, but it also makes it harder for them to improve because it’s not their fault, and they end up getting frustrated because something hindered their progress. Other than that, I think this is all good advice.
I am feeling smart watching this video. It seems I figured out what Jonas is saying is related to what's going on in background drawings and everyhting
Those animations in the background are nice and visually appealing, but it's a little too repetitive in my opinion!
All that knowledge you give us is really valuable and whenever I want to design my game to make the player feel smart and like albert einstein or something, I'll think of you and your videos :D
Thanks. Any ideas how to fix the background?
B-Roll!
Add non-animated stuff to show what you're talking about c:
Makes sense. One of the problems is also that the animated stuff doesn't really show what I'm talking about. :D
Jonas: tells not to overwhelm players with too much information.
Also Jonas: uses multiple brushes with different colors and size at the same time in the video.
Meanwhile in an Alternate Universe: 14 Ways To Make the player feel dumb
Hey man, very cool video. Have to get that one out there, because it happened to me recently:
I felt pretty stupid after I had to look up the solutions to "Please, Don't Touch Anything". It's a tough puzzle game, so I didn't expect it to be easy, and after approx. 2/3 of the game I was stuck and still had found lots of hints that I just felt I didn't know how to put together. After I looked up the rest of the solutions, I was very disappointed. Almost all the hints I have found and not used until then had nothing to do with any of the puzzles or were plain dead ends. Game devs: please don't do this.
Also solving the puzzles in "Antichamber" felt very rewarding and made me feel smart.
I absolutely disagree with the scapegoat. Teammembers - okay, but if I feel like the game is just unbalanced, then I won't bother retrying.
If you managed to make your game look hard, your players ego should not suffer that much from failing. In a game *you* have the agency, therefore you should feel responsible for winning and failing.
0:42 ....
And he designed an AI which insults you every time you fail🤔
Did the jingle annoy anyone else?
1) A game that made me feel smart is Slay the Spire because after playing it over and over when those numbers align using the correct cards it feels good to have that run where it just works out.
2) One game that I quit for making me feel stupid is Super Smash Bros. Yes, that's right. In fact I despise the entire series now. A lot of people who play smash games nowadays (and by a lot I mean everyone I've ever met or seen) is super duper ultra mega tryhard competitive and so I can never have fun, I can never learn from my mistakes, and I can never improve because everyone I fight against is 8000* better than me. Plus everyone's a jackass.
I had very few experiences as bad as this where someone would bully me for not being good enough. The only other times that happened was irl baseball (idk how to swing a bat), Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 (a peashooter and pocket sunflower would hunt me down the entire match and dance over my corpse not caring about anything else in the game), and Clash Royale (the game itself is an awful trap that reels you in and sucks everything out of you.)
3) I'm gonna go make a turn based rpg.
Loving your channel. I started developing games a few month ago and am thinking about game design a lot more now. Your videos are great. Im feeling relieved now that i found your channel.
Thank you. I wish you the best of luck with your game and hope to see you around. :)
I already told you but the most prominent example for a game that made me feel like I'm the culmination of human intelligence was Pixoji. Brilliant concept, lots of ways to find your own creative, clever solutions to the puzzles that are presented (I think this is a really important factor, don't know if you mentioned that somewhere in there), there's no way to ever get stuck (as in, you can't maneuver yourself into a dead end) and it ramps up the difficulty really nicely, giving you new tools to play around with and to combine with previous tools quite often but not so often that it becomes overwhelming.
A game that made me feel like i'm a completely incompetent donkey's arse of an idiot was Absolute Drift. I couldn't get used to the driving physics at all, I was crashing against everything all the time and then I looked at replays of people who drive and drift with utmost elegance... I felt like I just didn't get it the entire time while I tried to play. This is not to say that it's a bad game, it just didn't work for me, unfortunately.
It'd be helpful if you gave us a list of all the topics you talked about in quick-tip-form so we could look those up and remember exactly what was talked about in the video.
Good example and excellent points. I'll add that creativity thingy to my text file. :D
I feel smart playing draughts, but I feel dumb playing chess
(Love the video btw)
jonas i can't believe you only have 22k subscribers, maybe i guess the game dev community isnt as big as others, but you deserve a lot more!!! u are making great content
Wonderful summary of tips to enhance your game. I discovered your channel today and it's a perfectly centralized accumulation of knowledge presented in a masterful short way. Couldn't help but take notes and add them to my wall for quick reference while deving! :) Thank you!
Awesome. I'm happy I could help you out. :)
Portal makes me feel smart. The hidden tutorial was fantastic and I feel like it's very good at introducing elements one by one. I also liked finding Doug's dens by myself 'cause games with NO exploration element bore me.
Dishonored also made me feel smart, because pulling off a stealth thing is rewarding to me. And because the level design clicked with my brain in such a way that I feel like I always know where I'm going, it's the sort of game where I feel at home. It helps that it has objective indicators on screen but not a map. Games with maps piss me off 'cause they teach me not to look at the actual environment, which, in Dishonored, is gorgeous and that would be a shame. Not to mention games with maps usually think they can cut corners on giving you information. I tried to play Witcher 3 with the map off and the game was like "go to so-and-so but don't expect me to TELL you where that is, you have a map."
Hollow Knight makes me feel stupid because benches are very far apart and you start each area without a map. So figuring things out on accident, like when I first ran into my shade on my own, is extraordinarily cool, but mostly you're just dying and losing inordinate amounts of geo/having no idea where the Fuck you are.
Warframe also makes me feel really dumb because there's too much information given to you at once. I still have no fucking clue how the mods systems work. I just hide in the shadows and pick enemies off with the bow, which is fine, because that's entertaining to me.
Bruh you dare hate on Hollow Knight?
jk it's ok
also you said no games with the exploration element bore you yet you described how the exploration element in Hollow Knight bored you
My opinion is making players feel smarter the more they play. They will think about their progress and will feel even smarter
A game that makes me feel very smart: Minecraft. When I play the game in creative mode, I build a lot of complicated stuff that alot of people don't understand
made me feel smart: Factorio demo, it looks hard but actually it is quite simple, there is room for some failure, a lot of invisible tutorial, very logical, information and new building possibilities come slowly one after another.
made me feel stupid: Candy-crush-type games based on colors, since I'm colorblind and I don't have very fast eye-hand coordination, my asian wife is very fast at it but she doesn't plays games very often.
I was thinking of Portal the whole time. It pretty much does this all.
How to make something look hard? The snail level .. would it look hard with metal pipes instead of wood pipes? Or with epic music instead of relaxed music? The measurements can't be changed, it can't be a bigger stone, 100m tall. So how would you tell the player "this is a hard level" ? A character in front of the stone/pipes telling the player that he has given up climbing the stone?
In the whole (4 year old) video (I know ..), examples would have been great. Maybe make a new one, same topic, but with more examples. ^^
You deserve millions of subscribers!
Love these tips, really helpful. Thanks for sharing your ideas :)
You're welcome. Thanks for taking the time to comment. :)
Big words from the guy who made a game that belittles you for any tiny mistake
I wish I had seen this sooner
made me feel smart : the witness ( very hard but i got through it )
made me feel stupid : CoD Warzone ( too hard )
Hollow knight is kinda complicated for me;when I fell into deepnest and died I felt stupid because I wanted to explore there but smart because I found a special area behind a secret wall!!
Mount and blade: viking conquest, actually does a REALLY good job at this!
Definitely get The game 100% recommended, ticks all the boxes!
SHILL!
(sarcasm)
I just adore the new artstyle. Also it's surprising that I built many of those tricks into my game without even noticing. By the way, I'm doing alright with my game. Developement takes forever because I have to do really much for school. I recently managed to bump it up to 60FPS and now I'm working at a cutscene, that really frustrating because one of the characters is flying around the screen. But that's okay.
For the challenge:
I really felt smart when I was in the City of the Sky in Zelda Twilight Princess. It's a giant dungeon that looks super complicated because there are so many ways you can go, but in the end, you just follow a relatively linear path and feel intelligent for navigating through that giant building.
But it was also in that game when I felt really dumb. This happened in the snow mansion. It was very foggy there and at some point I just got stuck. After a while, I realized, that I had overlooked a Button to use my hookshot on the whole time, because it was so dang foggy.
Wow, this comment got awfully long :D
Glad to hear you're making progress with your game. Just take your time with it. I'm sure making cutscenes can take a while. :D
Thanks for telling me about zeldas design. Haven't played that game. Do you have any idea how to fix that problem, so players don't overlook the button for too long?
No worries, long comments are okay. :D
The problem was that it was really foggy and you could only see that button through a crack in the wall. I'd place a torch next to it, so it gets your attention faster. Also, you should try out Zelda, those games are really great. I suggest Ocarina of Time to start with. It's not that long and really good for beginners :)
I'd love to play that for a bit. Unfortunately I have no Nitendo devices at the moment. :l
These need more views
Jonas: makes a vid about how to make players feel smart
also jonas : the video makes people fee stupid
THE MAJOR THING iS KEEP IT *Z-IMPLE*
Very cool video! This will help me, making the game I'm working on better :D
Awesome. Super happy to hear this. :D
10:05 The same happend to me when trying out the demo of thronefall, no stats, no circles on the floor showing the taunt and attack range of towers, etc… , i have lest a more detailed comment on the trailer video or the video where u anounce the demo beeig live (i dont remember wich one it was) 😊😊😊😊
understanding this made me feel smart
Probably most of the dislikes were people realising their life was a lie
What do you think about check points vs skip level buttons? Also, how about changing the game environment (e.g. remove some spikes) to make the game accessible to players who are not competent at it? Would it make players feel rather stupid because the dev had to lower the difficulty for them to overcome? I asked so because Im working on a small platformer that the level is relatively small, and so the idea of check points is almost impossible to implement, hence Im considering alternative options.
Btw, very interesting content, and very honest too. Thanks for the video!
Not that you were asking me, but I find that almost nobody uses easy mode if they have the choice. Yeah, it makes them feel dumb... Maybe it's possible to add some kind of consumable hidden health item that lets them tank a single spike hit each? That would at least reward less skilled players who put more time in. E-tanks in Mega Man and shields in Sonic seem to basically work this way.
Totally agree, nobody uses the easy mode if they really care for the game. I implemented the skip level feature in my game jams and only people who don't care for my game found it useful. I like your idea of consumable health item, but the fact that its hidden means its a reward for exploration, which beginners don't really do. Or did you mean it differently?
Hum. You do have a point that some players won't bother exploring, especially not during time-sensitive game jams and in-person play testing. But I was more talking about how you could add some kind of 'get out of jail free card' item so that players won't loose agency just because one level is too hard for them... I suppose another way you could do it is making the item obvious and easy to find, but still only having a finite amount to be picked up across several levels. Some spawnable platforms, perhaps? Yeah, player agency is probably key here!
Totally agree. As long as the item is not "on the way" and players have to put effort in getting it, they would feel rewarded. Win-win!
“mAybE I sHouLd cHeCk oUt tHe grAvEyArD aGaIn?” Lol
Why do I watch this I can't even code
fever dream visuals in this video xD
Challenge 1
Game that makes me Feel stupid: The legend of Zelda Link's awakening
Why: it feels like I'm not going the right way, and I don't know how to defeat specific enimies
Challenge 2: Sulution: Sings that tell you how to defeat an enimy, some kind of marker that tells you where you need to go
Challenge 3: I can't code D:
I feel like Getting Over It broke every single rule from the video
some of these also work in portal 2 community test chambers
Good informations!! I like this video and the background is awesome!
Thanks!!
Thanks for all those tips :D
You're welcome. :)
Great video!
Good ideas but the video text is very hard to read, it took a while to understand that it is not random visualization to be honest
Seeing you write scapegoat in the video makes me whole
what music plays from 7:00 to 7:32?
This video made me feel smart
(sorry for bad english) What if I want to make my game in a way that I want the player to feel stupid? (because story or something)
Then do it, that's a good idea 😂
Success in art is about one main thing: does your art accomplish what you meant it to? If your intention is to make the player feel stupid, and you successfully make the player feel stupid, then you succeeded. But you have to really think about what your intention is overall. If you want to make the player feel stupid so they connect better with the characters in the story, but your success at making them feel stupid makes them not able to connect with your characters, then you succeeded at your immediate goal, but not at your big one. So always keep the big picture in mind.
i like the tune
ta ta ta ta ta tun ta ta ta taa!
How to make a game designer feel smart?
Make a video teaching game designers how to make players feel smart.
You either feel like a smart fella or a fart smella
Is it a bad idea to make the player feel stupid if I want the player to connect to the main character
"tease the player and tell her..."
Yes, daddy. Go on.
thought my astigmatism switched orientation
8:55 Oh something like... Getting over it? Fuck that game :v
And I fill my games with satirical dialogue that constantly insults the player's intelligence hahah...
Can I have this painting? I'm decorating my new office space :)
Made me smart: Skyrim
Made me stupid: CoD MW4
Hearts Of iron 4.
Yeah, the game is awesome and very easy and comfortable to play if you watched professionals.
But, there is few raging ticks.
1: tutorial is bad.
Why?
#1: bad nation chosen in usual map.
In tutorial they make you play as ITALY. Its a bad nation. Not worst but a bad one. It also starts as fascist, and path to "good democracy" is long, and path to "strong baddie" is HARD. Yes, tutorial teached you how to like move your map, but the approaching windows basically says:
Great! You found out how to build stuff! (It doesn't tells what you should build early and what every thing does)
Now go conquer Ethiopia! And to do that, make an arny from troops, make a navy, assign planes and lead troops (no details)
•Conquered Ethiopia: 0/1
I would make a simplified dimension where like you're a small not real nation with everything to start setted up and simplified focus tree. And instead of overwhelming the player, i would only make windows for movement, and show stuff very simple introducting stuff pereodically.
Like:
Welcome, new leader of {imagine a random country name}!
You are ready to start your way if glory!
#Screen/mouse wheel to move.
-close-
Then i would introduce him to a choice in focus tree.
Like this:
Time to find out your way of governing. Choose your future.
-Focus tree-
Investement
/. |. \.
Communism Democracy Fascism
When player chooses, game first shows you to build early stuff,
Then new small nation appears.
Game lets you a choice of like
Be friends. Be enemies
|. |
Alliance | trade. Fight | embargo.
Tutorial modified from your actions. And learns you about researchement, asks type of combat you like, explains naval and aerial.
There is many more to talk about. I choose this
Nice video style!
btw. when is the next livestream or devlog? :D
(2:39 sniffi music confirmed :P)
aaaand I dont have a game I feel stupid or smart :D
Thanks. Good question.
Next devlog probably next week. :D
CONTROL made me feel stupid, I did not really know what I have to do, where I have to go and I did not really understand the story, I am dumb
Nice vid but The doodle feels annoying
I see. Thanks for the feedback.
Will you snail made me feel stupid!😅🤪😆
Biggest waste of time: The Witcher 3. Trying to use the inventory or purchasing items from a store infuriates me to no end with the pointless stupid loading screens and scrolling through lists of retarded dialogue.
Tip: if you making a tutorial dont say "WASD to move" because thats avious. Its the first keys there gonna press when they enter the game
True, but I also know a surprising number of people who don’t know that! If you’re playing your first PC game ever you’re gonna be pretty frustrated if you try the arrow keys and it doesn’t work.
@@NutyRiver perhaps make both work then
Maybe show them how if the character stands still for too long
bad music between tips
Put the 14 hacks in the description text. No one has time to watch a 15 minute video for things that might or might not be insightful.
Good point. Will do that. Thanks.
Perfect! :D
You're welcome. Thanks for the tip.
If you don't have time to study then you shouldn't be trying to develop games, due to the extreme learning curve and complexity.
I really don't get why snakepass gets all the praise, it honestly feels like a itch.io project by a small hobby team.
remove that sound please
that damn violin is so annoying