Okay last blog post. I mentioned I would do a part 3 in my previous post, but like everything I'm running behind.
This post I was supposed to discuss my final project. For this, we all worked on developing games. My contribution was working on the sprites for a classmate's game, Nick Saric. The game was the Outsider, and I don't have a link for it... okay I'm a complete mess, this post was due two days ago, and I have other things to catch up on, and I had a headache... okay whatever.

I worked on the sprite for the main character, I kind of had to teach myself how to animate, so I probably didn't get as much done as I wished, but I had a bunch of projects due... okay now I'm making way too many excuses, but I'm stressed and overwhelmed and just want it to be over. Besides the main character I was going to do a zombie sprite

I did this last minute and didn't have time to put it in the final game.

The point is, making a game involves a lot of time and investment. I didn't have a whole lot of time to invest, and now I know not to have so much on my plate and manage my time better.
Anyway, I should contact Nick for a link to the game.

I have thought about the use of faqs and replay value before. I'm a fan of JRPGs, which do involve a great deal of time investment, and I came up with the criteria that a game is good depending on if I want to use an faq or not. If I like a game, I'd be willing to play it again to find all the secrets; If I don't like it, I'll use an faq to find all the quests and items in one playthrough, because I do not want to play it again.

It's an idea that I've considered when it comes to designing games. I wouldn't want to play through the exact same game again, especially a JRPG, just to get one thing that I missed. And if I'm expected to play through a game several times just to find everything, forget it I'll use an faq. If a game offers replay value, it needs variety, offering things like unique choices and branching stories, and they better be distinct and game changing enough to be worth playing again.

A lot of these ideas occurred to me when playing Persona 3 and Chrono cross. I played and enjoyed Persona 4 without a walkthrough, and going into Persona 3 I decided I wouldn't use a walkthrough, giving me the chance to explore everything the game has to offer, doing multiple playthroughs as needed. One in-game month later and I saw that this game wasn't as fun as Persona 4. I wasn't going to play through Persona 3 again, I could barely stand playing the first time. I didn't like the idea of building my Social link with Kenji over and over again (freakin' Kenji... no asking your teacher to date you is not a good idea... okay I'll support you just so I can max this social link and then completely ignore you.)

The Persona games are unique in that you are limited by the in game calendar, only able to do a few actions each day. If you don't play right you won't be able to accomplish everything in one playthrough. If I wanted to max all my social links, do the quests, fuse all the personas, etc. I would either have to do multiple playthroughs to determing the best strategy or use an faq. Even in Persona 4 I opted to use a walkthrough for my second playthrough. I wouldn't want to play through a game again, doing all the actions I already did on one play through, just to do the few that I missed.

In Chrono Cross, I thought it was really cool that there were 40+ characters that can join your party. Like Chrono Trigger, there were multiple endings, so I thought the story would play out in unique ways depending on who was in your party. Not even Mass Effect met those expectations and that was ten years later. The story branched off maybe 2 times, and one decision barely had any difference between choices. Both branching points in the story reconvene and continue on with no difference, save maybe a few characters in your party. Yes, of the 44 characters, only 9 depend on the story branches, you only get one of three in the first branching point and three of six in the second. Half of the characters join your party just by advancing through the story so you'll get them no matter what, and you can get all the others in the same playthrough. So in total, a second playthrough is necessary to get four characters, and a third just to get the last one. And there are maybe a handful of moments that whoever is in your party causes something to happen, so doing a replay with different characters in your party is mostly unnecessary. Only one ending out of the twelve is affected by characters in your party, the rest are like in Chrono Trigger and just depend on when you fight the final boss. None of those characters change the story in any influential way by having them in your party. It's just the same one, unless you get a different ending, which just means it's the same story except it's cut short.

That was a game that on paper seemed like it offered a ton of replay value, making different choices each play through. But it's not enough variety to play through the same game, going to the same locations, and occasionally reading some dialogue you haven't gotten before or getting a new item. I'm not going to play through the same game over and over just to get a character I missed. Not when I have an faq to tell me how to get them.

So that brings me to my point, or points. When it comes to walkthroughs a game should encourage discovering things on your own without any sort of guide and without the fear of missing something. And if a gamer does miss something, playing a game again to get it shouldn't be punishment, playing a game should be fun. I could play Braid again to get an item I missed because it only took a couple of hours. Getting something you missed in a JRPG could take hours, an experience made worse if it's the exact same one as before. There should be variety in each playthrough, otherwise they should just skip over all the stuff they've done before to get whatever missing thing.

However, I could be wrong on both counts. For now, I'm tired. I might bring up my counterpoints in a third part later.

Well finals are around the corner. I have two projects due Monday, a third due Thursday, and various final essays to turn in. Also of course I have one more blog post due. I'll take a break from making game sprites and write an article of my choice: I'm gonna talk about Braid. This won't be a review of the game, in fact I expect anyone who reads this has already played the game.

Last week in class we were discussing "art games," which boiled down to why applying labels to things, whether defining art or a game, is harmful for whatever industry. Of course when discussing art games, the Indie darling Braid is inevitably brought up. Art games of course need to be analyzed, and I mentioned in class that I didn't get it, and my teacher replied with. "Well maybe you should play it again."

I had played Braid before, and I really enjoyed it. The puzzles were challenging and creative and the graphics were artistic, overall it was a unique experience. One thing I didn't like was the "plot." If you have played Braid you'd know why plot is in quotes. The story was told in through books at the beginning of each world. From world to world the parts of the story are disjointed, but each section has a theme to it that is applied to the gameplay of each world. That I really appreciate, each level is more of an abstract metaphor rather than a direct retelling of the events that unfold (the whole wishing to undo mistakes thing in the story and the rewinding time game feature presented in the first, or second I should say, world.)
By the end of the game I thought I would understand the story, having each of the story fragments combined for a full picture, and in that regard I was disappointed.
I had heard the plot twist of the game before I beat it: you're really the bad guy and the princess is running from you, and I thought the epilogue text would go into it. Instead I got even more disjointed story elements that seemed to tell different stories: is it about a girlfriend? A mother? A candy shop? A bomb? Just a crazy guy? I remember looking online to see if there was a coherent plot, and the most that I got was "the game was vague and meant to be left up to interpretation."
I think that really turned me off of the game. Jonathan Blow just decided to be vague and said it was "up for interpretation" in order to seem artsy instead of actually coming up with an ending.
So I loaded the game up on steam and got through the game on my day off. I got to the end with the epilogue books, and once again the books didn't make sense. I remembered there were hidden books but forgot how to read them, so I looked up a walkthrough for the ending, and I saw something I didn't know about, a second ending.
Wait, what second ending? How do I get it? I got everything in the game, how do I get it? Wait, what secret stars? There's secret stars in the game?
I had no idea whatsoever. I guess once I beat the game I put it down, I didn't really feel like doing the time trials, so there was no point to keep playing. But now that I knew there was something else, I was stumped on how to find them. I didn't see any indication of their existence or where they could be.
I looked online for a walkthrough on how to get them, and saw that one could be permanently missed, as you had to arrange the puzzle pieces in one of the puzzles in a certain way, but couldn't move them once they were assembled.
Well that's a dumb mistake. I have to play the whole game again just because of a glitch? Obviously the creator wasn't thinking. So I started a new game, and followed an faq to the first star. Once I was in the right room, it told me to wait 2 hours for a cloud to float to the other side of the room.

Nevermind, not only was he thinking, but Jonathan Blow must be an evil genius.

So I played through the game, and found all but one star. The last one is in the last/first level, appearing only after you have the others. This time though, you actually have a chance of reaching the Princess, and when I did so, she exploded.

Yeah That happened.

After that, I was able to get to the Princess's room to get the last star (I now realize this sounds like one of those fake video game rumors you heard on the playground about catching Mew or unlocking Sonic in Melee.) and then I went to the epilogue room, which was exactly the same. Of course now I saw the game in a new light. What I thought was just a potential theory for the game's plot is now more concrete: the princess is a nuclear bomb. I looked online again on meanings, and this time I saw an article that linked the fragments of the story into one cohesive take of a scientist named Tim who worked on the Manhattan project and was obsessed with creating the atomic bomb. That idea was always there, but I couldn't put the pieces together (like a puzzle... I see what you did there J-Blo) and I still held onto the idea that the Princess was a person. Her blowing up did change my thinking.

So yeah, this did change my opinion of the game, but it made me think of something else. If I had never looked at an faq, I wouldn't have known about the stars or ending. But by using an faq did I rob myself of the replay value of discovering it myself? I'll continue this in part 2.