Should the new King's Quest game have unwinnable states?

[MusicallyInspired]

No, it's not a nice experience. But it is absolutely INTEGRAL to the overall enjoyment of a game. Punishing players is WHAT GAMES ARE ALL ABOUT. You have to overcome these obstacles! Overcome what the game throws at you! Against all odds! I hate games that hand themselves over to you on a silver platter. "Oh you died? Well, that's ok. You can still beat me. Here, I'll even give you infinite retries." What's the point in deaths if that's what you get for them?? I mean, what obstacles are even left in games now? They've taken out death and failure, the number one obstacle in any game. Even FPS games are really easy now. No challenge. Just try try again. I don't know about you, but I don't want my challenge in a game to be simply how fast I can run through it, because it's so easy. Or to just be repeating a frustrating and annoying sequence over and over again with no penalties whatsoever. It completely removes the suspense, the edge, and even the immersion.

It's the same failure in understanding game design that led to Jurassic Park's removing of walking around between scenes because "it's annoying to take the time to walk from place to place when you can just go there with a click". Well, golly gee why don't we just remove all interactiveness in a game then? It's annoying to take the time to actually play through the game, let's just get to the ending and see how it all turns out! You're not really playing the game anymore anyway. You're watching it. And that's all games are becoming now. Cinematic. Gameplay-less. And then after you fail a number of times it starts making things easier for you to make sure you beat it like hints, or dynamic game difficulties, etc. They make you feel at first like you're an amazing gamer and you solved/beat it, but really all you did was follow the signs and follow them down the brightly lit and completely safe path, instead of finding your own way through the dark woods with dangers everywhere, so to speak. Some games even offer you the option of skipping the section if you fail too many times!! It's insane!!

Are games progressing? No, they're devolving and getting more and more dumbed down to appeal to the LCD, resulting in gaming trash. That's why I appreciate games like Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac for pulling no punches and slamming you right in the face with its difficulty. Sure it can make you livid sometimes, but then after you beat it that feeling of satisfaction is like nothing else. Sierra games were the same way, until they added retries.

I'm sorry, if the price means losing my enjoyment of my game, then I refuse to pay it.

[Olaus Petrus]

The thing is that most people don't like losing and inorder to sell the game to wider audience you'll have to water down the puzzle difficulty and add unlimited continues. These days it's hard to find difficult games and usually most challenging games are those published by indie game makers or small studios who aim for niche market of hardcore gamers.

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

The first couple King's Quests come to mind, where there were alternate puzzles for almost anything if you forgot to pick up or do something. However, if you didn't have the alternate inventory items you would still be stuck. Also, the alternate solutions were not favourable and would not grant as many points, and in some cases, cost you some.

Hmm, I thought there was something very familiar with it when I came up with the idea. It seems that I'm reinventing the wheel here.

[Darth Marsden]

Look, I agree games are getting too easy. Its been happening for years and it's not something I'm entirely happy about. But those are action games. Action games are all about the action, so replaying sections there is fine, but when you have to replay sections in adventure games, you're going through the same dialogue, the same puzzles... adventure games don't have the same replayability factor as other genres. Adventure games should be about the story and the atmosphere, and in my experience you lose a lot if you have to replay sections, especially if it's not by choice.

It's clear we're not going to agree on this issue Inspired, so I'll try to leave it there and not push it any more. We're obviously different people with different tastes, and all that.

I will say one last thing though. In my first post in this thread, I said that a good death sequence can add a great deal to a story, and I stand by that. But in my experience, most possible deaths in games have not been fair, and it's those that seem to have helped form my opinion on the subject. Good deaths, with enough forewarning, aren't necessarily a bad thing. They just seem not to be very prevalent, and it's a shame.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

...adventure games don't have the same replayability factor as other genres.

Exactly why I'd want the experience to last as long as possible rather than have the whole thing over because the game helps me through it so much.

It's clear we're not going to agree on this issue Inspired, so I'll try to leave it there and not push it any more. We're obviously different people with different tastes, and all that.

Indeed. I'm not against others' opinions. But when people just flat out say that certain things are just simply and plainly bad game design, that's more than just an opinion.

I will say one last thing though. In my first post in this thread, I said that a good death sequence can add a great deal to a story, and I stand by that. But in my experience, most possible deaths in games have not been fair, and it's those that seem to have helped form my opinion on the subject. Good deaths, with enough forewarning, aren't necessarily a bad thing. They just seem not to be very prevalent, and it's a shame.

I agree there's room for more possibilities all around. Including what you've stated. I'm just not against unforseen deaths, because I don't entirely agree that they are truly unforseen. A gaming world, no matter if it's action or adventure, shouldn't be a safe gaming world. At least not everywhere. And if it's not safe, then you should be careful. And most dangers are forseeable.

[Olaus Petrus]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

Look, I agree games are getting too easy. Its been happening for years and it's not something I'm entirely happy about. But those are action games. Action games are all about the action, so replaying sections there is fine, but when you have to replay sections in adventure games, you're going through the same dialogue, the same puzzles... adventure games don't have the same replayability factor as other genres. Adventure games should be about the story and the atmosphere, and in my experience you lose a lot if you have to replay sections, especially if it's not by choice.

It's clear we're not going to agree on this issue Inspired, so I'll try to leave it there and not push it any more. We're obviously different people with different tastes, and all that.

I will say one last thing though. In my first post in this thread, I said that a good death sequence can add a great deal to a story, and I stand by that. But in my experience, most possible deaths in games have not been fair, and it's those that seem to have helped form my opinion on the subject. Good deaths, with enough forewarning, aren't necessarily a bad thing. They just seem not to be very prevalent, and it's a shame.

Personally only time I think that the death is completely unfair is when there's action minigame inside adventure game which is annoyingly difficult because of bad controls. Although I occasionally find timed puzzles where you die if you fail somewhat annoying. I like to explore everything and often it takes several retries before I have managed to do that and then I can actually focus on solving the puzzle. Although if timed puzzle is well designed it doesn't annoy that much. Last Express did this extremely well, there were several things happening at the same time on the train and sometimes you had to be in right place at the right time. And sometimes it took plenty of rewinding back the time before you figured out what you were supposed to do, but it was never boring because there was plenty of new things to learn while you explored the train and you often did find plenty of stuff you had missed in your first attempt.