Multiple Endings

     Every story has an ending. Same goes to games. When a game's story ends, that's it. There might be some sequel baiting or some unfilled plot holes, but point is this is how the story ends for this particular title and as far as that IP's universe is concerned, it all ends right there. The ending might be great, it could be sad, it could be confusing, yet make you want to play through again to see if you get it the second time, and it could also be non-canon at all. WHAT!? I played through this game and the end title card tells me I can unlock another ending? What does that even mean?

     Here's my problem with multiple endings: it gets a little complex when you try to figure out if all that just happened in the story actually happened. If the main ending is canon, it means everything that happened did in fact happen. If it is non-canon, then what is the point? Some games pull the devious act of telling you your “true” ending is only unlocked on the hardest difficulty. It is never the original ending obtained by completing the game without doing any special side missions or getting 100% completion. If you block your best conclusion to a story behind a wall that not many people will even attempt to climb over, then why put it in?

     Dishonored is an example of this. It has two endings that I know of: one of which is if you so much as kill one person, you get the “bad” ending. I won't spoil what happens, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out. The “good” ending only occurs if you spare every life and only incapacitate your victims or have them eliminated by other non-lethal means. This means that if I want to play as an assassin who kills so many people in a variety of ways, I get stuck with a terrible ending. I have to play a specific way, despite the freedom of choice, or I don't see the better ending.

     What could be worse? Why, making endings a collect-a-thon. Guess who is most notorious for this? It's one of the world's greatest RPGs Chrono Trigger. If you beat the game under specific conditions, you unlock other endings. I don't know how many you can unlock, but it's at least ten. I have to play through the game ten times at the minimum just to see what changes after I kill Lavos. Usually, it's very slight. The change could very well be a tiny difference that holds no impact on the overall story. As for which of those endings is canon to the Chrono Trigger universe, I have no clue. It just feels like a way to force replayability on a title. Granted, I am not saying Chrono Trigger is at terrible game. If I could find it again, I would replay it. I just dislike the separate endings with obscure and cryptic requirements to unlock.

     I have seen multiple endings done right, however. So far, Radiata Stories does a fairly good job of that. What happens is in the middle of the game's story, you are presented with a choice. This choice will affect who can be recruited into your party and who becomes your enemies. It also changes the story dramatically. One road leads to one ending, another leads to another ending. As for the ending that is canon, the “Non-human” path is accepted as being the “true” ending. It's just better in terms of how everything turns out. The “Human” path just fills you with regret and tears, but it was still well executed. This method encourages replaying the game at least one more time to see what would happen if you went down this road.

     There is some appeal in multiple endings. I see that. It just becomes a frustrating chore when you try to view a specific ending only to find out that you must go through an overly intricate system of tasks and tribulations that would make a Rube Goldberg machine look ridiculously simple and straightforward. Kind of like the Stanley Parable. A game that is all about endings has you doing all sorts of things just to find out what will happen, how Stanley will end his story, and if the narrator says anything humorous. If it feels like a contest, you will flip tables and throw chairs to find out how to get that specific ending.

     However, the Stanley Parable encourages exploration and finding out how you can end your story. I absolutely love that about the game. It makes me not care about what I have to do to earn a specific ending. I just walk around ignoring the narrator or doing some of what he says and seeing what happens. But the overall point is this: making a bunch of endings that have no real bearing on the story of the universe just makes the game a collect-a-thon that requires a playthrough of the exact same content countless times. If the game plays differently towards these alternate endings, that would help replayability, but it would still make no sense in the story of that particular IP. Unless maybe you have some game with five characters who have their own stories separate from the others along with unique gameplay mechanics for each as well as five distinct endings. Maybe that would be an exception.

What it Means to be Overpowered

     When it comes to games, developers try to create a balance between the players and the enemy AI. If the player is dying too easily, the monsters might just be too strong. If the enemy is dying way too fast, the player is too strong. Anytime there is a lack of balance between these two, the game itself becomes less fun whether players are breezing through with little to no challenge or the enemies just make playing tedious.

     Being overpowered (or OP) is just a term gamers use to describe something out of balance. In single player games this isn't usually an issue. Sometimes an enemy AI is designed to be OP so that it provides a nice challenge and is highly rewarding to the player when it is defeated. Typically, boss enemies are OP. When the player gains something that gives them a huge advantage, they become OP. In most games, making the player OP is not a bad thing. It gives them the satisfaction of having godlike powers over their foes and it feels great to show them off with extreme prejudice.

     But as I mentioned before, an OP player can also make a game too easy. If there is virtually no challenge at all to the player, the game becomes stale quick. The best solution developers come up with is to create enemies that are much stronger so that the player gradually feels less powerful until they obtain a better means of eliminating their enemies. This can sometimes be taken too far such as some games give the player a cool weapon with OP stats, the weapon works well for the first level, then the mobs are given absurd amounts of health and defense, then suddenly the weapon loses its impact and killing the mobs becomes a chore. Making the player OP, and then taking that away and giving it all to the enemy AI isn't balance.

     In a multiplayer game, being OP is a big issue. Players who have a distinct advantage over other players are immediately called out by the community. Sometimes they get accused of hacking. Whether they are hacking or not, the developers have to find out what makes that player OP and find a way to balance it out. Most of the time it is the class they play. It is up to the developers to fine tune the stats of that class to make them more balanced with the other classes. Sometimes it is certain weapons that have either ridiculously high power or have a special ability attached that gives the wielder a huge advantage.

      Why is it so important to balance players and enemies in a multiplayer game? Because if you don't, the community becomes irritated and people start to leave. I was once on a low populated server in WoW and the community was pretty bad. The reason was all of the players were rolling Death Knights, the new class at the time. Death Knights were highly OP at this point, especially as damage dealers. Because of this, no one was playing other classes that could fulfill other vital roles. Playing the game felt like a job that everyone was paying to do. It is because of these very reasons that balance must be maintained between the player and the enemy AI. Otherwise, no one will want to play.

Multiplayer

     Playing solo is fine, but some days you feel like it's missing something. Usually that's other people to play with. Multiplayer is a term that describes games that allow multiple players to interact with each other in the game world. I for one love single player games for their immersive experiences. However, playing in a room with other people makes it even better. There are two types of multiplayer: local and online.

      Local multiplayer is when you get your friends together and play on the same console, or in some cases, multiple consoles. Local multiplayer is great for when you have a bunch of friends that you know getting together to play a game you all love. For me, that was Halo 2. Back in high school, I would attend these Halo Parties where we got three TVs, 3 Xboxs, and 9 people together to play each other. With consoles, local multiplayer is easy to pull off. PCs on the other hand are a bit harder. You can't exactly hook up multiple keyboards to the same computer. You can, however, go online and maybe find your friends through matchmaking.

      Online multiplayer is just that: multiplayer experiences online. Let's say you have somebody you know who has 6 computers (one the size of a server), a speedy online connection, and just found out Left 4 Dead 2 was free for a day. Everybody gets on a computer, downloads the game, logs in, goes to Multiplayer Options, connects and finds their friends online. However, there's only 2 computers in each room, so you have 6 player divided into 3 rooms. The cooperative experience feels a little diminished, but it isn't completely absent. Programs like Teamspeak or Ventrilo offer voice communication services, so you and your allies can connect to a server and speak to other members of your team, provided you have a working mic.

      But what if you want to play with others, yet none of your friends are online? Well, you can always try matchmaking, a service that lets players find other players in a game by grouping them together. The downside is that matchmaking can take a long time if there is a significant lack of players. Not only that, when you do find a group, your team may not be as communicative. They may not have working mics or they just don't feel like they are really cooperating. They may feel as if you are just in the same game as them and hope you know what you're doing. Look at any MOBA-style game. Any team you end up with expects you to be a pro and if you do something wrong, they call you out on it even if you don't know what you did. Games like this usually have toxic communities due to the amount of teamwork required to pull off a winning game. You can't just do one little thing and expect the team to carry you. That's why it's best to find people you know and play with them.

      As for the best way to go multiplayer, I prefer local. You are in the same room as everybody, using the same consoles and playing the same games. Unfortunately, the current generation of consoles don't have a lot of local multiplayer support. So far, only the Wii U has games that feature local. Most PS4 and Xbox One games have online multiplayer only. As for online multiplayer, PCs tend to have an edge in matchmaking. They just seem faster than console multiplayer searches.

Showcasing Games at Meetings

Usually every meeting I try to bring a game to let everyone try out and play to see how they like it. The days I don't we just play Brawl. In the off chance that people start getting bored with that, I would like to list the consoles I have and a few games I might bring. 

 

Playstation 2: Devil May Cry

Kingdom Hearts

Radiata Stories

Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal

Star Ocean: Til the End of Time

Playstation 3: Uncharted

Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time

Final Fantasy 10 HD

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus

Those are just a few examples. If there is a game you want to see played at a GDC meeting in the future, just post a comment and I will see if I can get a hold of it.

Lazy Design

     I understand making a game is hard, but you seriously cannot cut corners during the process. It's called being lazy. Granted, laziness might have actually invented a few things (i.e. the TV remote), but so far it hasn't helped game design. From what I have seen, there are several ways a game can be lazily designed, and when it happens, the player's experience is dwindled down to absolute boredom from lack of engagement.

      Ever notice how a mob looks just like another mob, just purple instead of red? This is what we call a “palette swap.” The model isn't changed except for the color textures. In some games this is acceptable due to limitations, but the majority of companies can do better. They can have a different model built for the enemy, even if it looks a little similar. Giving them attack variety helps as well. Maybe make them do something crazy such as wield two weapons and attack twice as fast.

      Another example of being lazy is repeating boss fights. Sure, your typical first boss might go across the screen a few times, fall down, take a hit, then repeat the same mistake two more times before it dies, but this better not happen again. When it happens again with a very slight difference in tactics, it just becomes boring. You can kill that guy with a glazed over look on your face. You could probably beat him up with your eyes shut! Bioshock Infinite did something like this with a boss. They have you fight a spirit who sends waves of enemies after you and periodically attacks you herself. They have her show up once, and again, and once more. If her tactics were a lot more varied between encounters (or you only had to fight her once), she would be a good boss. However, she is remembered for the wrong reasons.

      Does that level look a little familiar? It has a night filter so that it takes place at night as opposed to the day? That is a level repeat. Keeping with the theme of the world is fine, but making it look virtually the exact same with a moon instead of a sun isn't viable. Just level repeating in general gets annoying. I noticed in One Finger Death Punch the scenery changes and the game modes have some variety, but there are a ton of Mob Rounds and too many levels to progress through. It is at this point I just want it to be over with.

      How about those mobs that die in one hit? You aren't necessarily overpowered. The AI just sucks. Terribly. They have bad accuracy, run straight for you, and take too long to aim. These enemies provide virtually no entertainment other than free potshots left and right. That gets old after five or so minutes. Don't be afraid to make the player have to change their strategy to win a fight. 

 

      Music? Yes, even music can be lazily done. Just look at the Rambo game that recently released. There is a part where this epic flourish of music comes in, then fades out only to repeat itself on an endless loop. Feels like the developers found an mp3 file with a nice part, ripped it out, then slapped it into the game with little though given. 

 

      Story? Even the story can suffer. In some cases, having a careless narrative hardly affects the game, especially if it is in a genre with very little emphasis on story. Story behind Pac-Man? Beats me. He munches on dot shaped crackers until he runs across a Power Pellet (a.k.a. Jawbreakers), then sends those ghosts back to hell? No clear narrative, but no one cares. It worked for that game. As for other games that try to rush the story or fail to explain certain events, those are the lazy narratives. Rushing a story might make sense in an action game where you need to know what is happening quick so you can jump back in the gameplay, but skipping critical details leaves the player lost. Best bet is to make the story simple and easy to convey. If it is meant to be deep and emotional, take things slow and carefully explain everything. Spewing out random words with no coherent meaning makes no sense and hoping the player will figure it out later doesn't help matters.

      Developers get lazy from time to time because either the game they are working on has a short window of time before it gets released or the employees might be working on a game they really dislike. It might be their job, but they're mostly artists. Artists are just naturally lazy and need a schedule to keep up their work. Even I get lazy and procrastinate with stuff I don't like doing such as making this model chair. As of writing, I have blueprints, but no actual model standing yet. Which reminds me, I should get to work on that... tomorrow.

List of Game Related Media now available in the Magale Library

Books

Bold Visions: the Digital Painting Bible

The Art of Blizzard Entertainment

Game Coding Complete

Digital Painting techniques

Game Design Workshop

Level Up!

Drawing Basics and Video Game Art

Reality is Broken

Challenges for Game Designers

Drawing and Painting Fantasy Landscapes and Cityscapes

The Mac is not a Typewriter (Graphic Design related)

The Non-Designers Design Book (Graphic Design related)

DVDs

The Illusionist: DVD

The Triplets of Belleville

The Secret of Kells

*An extensive e-book library of game related books will also be ordered soon.