Quick Time Events

            Guess how a developer who has run out of ideas implements gameplay with an action-packed feel. Do they duplicate content to pad out a game? Close, but not quite. They put in a quick time event. QTEs, as they are often called, are these prompts that ask a player to press a random button or series of buttons in a brief time limit. They are pretty nice if used correctly, but most of the time they are a huge nuisance.

            The Walking Dead uses several QTEs in their action sequences. You either hit a directional key to dodge an incoming attack or rapidly tap E to fight off a knife being shoved against your neck. They feel appropriate, but not very compelling. 

            Final Fantasy XII has a minigame that involves catching fish. You win by hitting certain buttons in a specific order. In a way, this is more of a combo button input, but the nature of it makes it feel like a QTE. Doesn’t feel like fishing in the slightest.

            The worst offender comes from Resident Evil 4. They put QTEs during cutscenes. The point of a cutscene is to show the story visually with no input from the player. Yet, they slip in a QTE when you least expect it. This is inconvenient and breaks the experience. Even worse is when a QTE is placed in a game as a means to make you feel involved, but all it really does is halt the game briefly while you figure out what button you need to press to make the animations finish.

            Kingdom Hearts 2 had QTEs, but labeled them Reaction Commands. At the time, these were an awesome addition to the gameplay. You hit Triangle when prompted and Sora would do a sweet combat animation. Sure it was all scripted, but it was cinematic and stellar. If you missed, Sora would get hit or just have to try again. They weren’t required to win the fight, but they definitely made it easier. Doing Reaction Commands again would require something more engaging. 

            Basically, QTEs work for action sequences, especially when it involves mashing one button. However, they can ruin pacing and feel arbitrary. If you implement a QTE during a cutscene sequence or a scripted scene where you periodically press a button or two, you’re doing it wrong. Set up QTEs to where the player actually feels like pressing that button carries a huge impact in their gameplay experience.

Gold Sinks

            This topic applies typically to MMORPGs, but any game with a currency system that is utilized by lots of players has inflation as a potential problem. Inflation is any time a currency becomes so abundant that it loses value and thus more of it is needed to be traded for goods. A rare weapon in the auction house may have been up for bid at 4G 99S 99C, but when too much gold gets put into circulation, that weapon is now worth 59G 99S 99C. Fixing inflation is virtually impossible, but preventing it from getting worse is a viable solution. The most common way is gold sinks.

            Gold sinks are not those basins attached to the wall in your bathroom painted brass, they are a means to take gold out of the economy in a reasonable way. The ultimate way to reduce inflation is to just take out all of the excess gold, but no one wants to hand over their hard earned cash. An easier way is to provide a service that takes gold out of circulation and improves a player’s experience. 

            One such example of a gold sink is Repair Fees. Naturally, your equipment will break, but you can repair it at a Blacksmith for a modest fee. The more powerful your armor, the less modest this fee is, but the more effective the gold sink. At higher levels you make more money, so naturally this needs to be balanced out with a bigger gold sink. 

            Another example of a gold sink is Travel Fees via a Flight Path to another city or a taxi service. A player wants to get to a major city far away, but doesn’t want to walk all the way there. Set up a taxi service and charge for faster travel. 

            As inconvenient as they are, gold sinks keep the ingame economy stable. If they didn’t exist, all gold would become worthless and all trade comes to a halt. No one wants to trade their crafting materials for a universal currency that players are practically making forts out of. Players would rather barter their goods based on trades of equal or greater value.

What Horror Games Do You Recommend?

     I haven't played a lot of horror games. The most memorable ones are the first Resident Evil and Dead Space. Seeing Halloween is about half a month away, I put up this post for anyone to reply to with what they think is the best horror game to play. If you have any suggestions, just leave a comment or just talk to me or Zach. We might even be able to play it for one of the meetings.

Boss Fights

What was the most difficult challenge you faced in a game most recently? Was it a puzzle? Perhaps a level with some tricky mechanics? Or was it some big dude with a huge health bar and an intimidating presence? That guy would be a boss. Unlike regular enemies, boss fights are intended to be difficult and are meant to test the player with what they have learned in the game thus far. There are games with awesome boss fights and games with pitiful encounters. How do you do it right? You approach it like another puzzle.

            Let me put it this way: imagine that the boss isn’t just some beefed up version of a previous enemy, but rather an AI with a set of tactics that the player must memorize in order to avoid taking damage and finding a weak spot to exploit. Easy bosses will have obvious weak spots and may do the same tactic over and over again. Harder bosses will have more complicated strategies and will sometimes change their tactics during later parts of the fight. They also have not so obvious weak spots. In a way, boss fights are just combat centric puzzles.

            Some of the best boss fights I can think of come from two games: Shadow of the Colossus and World of Warcraft. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, Shadow of the Colossus was this PS2 title made by Team Ico back in 2005. It presented an incredible world with creative mechanics. It is often cited as an example in arguments for proving games are an artform. The object of the game is to defeat all sixteen colossi and bring your dead girlfriend back to life. Thing is, there are no other encounters. It is solely boss fights. You have to find each colossi, then figure out how to slay them. Each fight is a puzzle unto itself. The first thing you have to do is find a way to climb onto the colossus itself, then crawl around on its body to find weak spots and strike them. This is easier said than done as the colossi can shake you off if you don’t grip tightly and some fights require critical thinking to find a solution.

            As for World of Warcraft, bosses would be found in either certain quests or dungeons and raids. Quest bosses were not very entertaining to fight. They were just beefed up versions of earlier mobs. However, the dungeon and raid boss fights are epic! These fights require you to have a team of people to coordinate with and take down. I’ll use the Icecrown Gunship Battle as an example. You have ten people on your team. The object of this battle is to destroy the enemy gunship whilst also keeping your ship safe and staying alive. You have members dedicated to fighting off invading attackers, firing artillery at the opposing ship, assassinating the enemy mage who disabled your cannons periodically, and at least one guy distracting the enemy captain so he doesn’t kill anyone too quickly. This was one of the coolest fights I ever participated in. It took practice to get everyone skilled enough to know the encounter, but it was worth it. The satisfaction of taking down a gunship was immense and I would gladly do it again if I could.

            And yet, there are some lazy examples of fights. Some games have bosses that either have an easy to predict pattern that never changes or they took a regular enemy, increased its size by 5, then tripled its health. Not exactly compelling. Sometimes the game might just repeat the same method of disposing of bosses. This isn’t always a bad thing, but if it occurs too often, it really takes away from the experience. As much as I love the series, Legend of Zelda is guilty of this. Most bosses will just circle around the player, rush to attack, Link uses the new item he just got in that dungeon, stuns the boss, pulls out his Master Sword, and just swings away. Rinse and repeat at least 3 more times.

            Boss fights are also becoming more like spectacle fights as opposed to puzzles. Look at Kingdom Hearts 2. I love that game so much and it was a hit in 2006, but doing the same system it did back then today would not work. Bosses had attack animations that were just stellar to look at and they felt intimidating to stand against. However, the game had something called Reaction Commands. When you hit the triangle button during a Reaction Command prompt, you would basically gain the upper hand and knock the boss down to your level. Then you just swing your keyblade away until it gets back up again. In other words, hit triangle to win.

Puzzles and boss fights go hand in hand. Puzzles are a test of logic and reasoning that do not involve combat and bosses are a test of strategy and staying alive long enough to gain the advantage and take the enemy down. Can a boss fight look amazing and still be an engaging experience? Of course. So long as it isn’t a beefed up version of another enemy or the fight looks pretty solely to look good, give that fight a riddle with a solution and you’ve got a great boss fight.