Something very very similar happened with Rimworld. The game creator, Tynan Silvester, created the game as a story simulator with drama, loss and struggle. But that's not how most people play it. In fact it's most often played as a base building strategy game in which loss is seen as something to be avoided. The game designer decided to push back hard against that kind of playstyle. People made kill boxes for raiders so he nerfed turrets, people responded with traps so he added tunneling enemies which ignored walls so people made the wall into a killbox, so he made enemies which drop down from the sky right into your base and.... you get the idea. The constant arms race has, in my opinion, made the game worse for both types of players so I think it's best to just give the players the freedom to choose how to play is by far the best, possibly with a message explaining the pros and cons like you suggested.
I think this discussion is pretty dumb. Players will play the way that they want, so if the creator doesn't want players doing A, they will mod A into the game. And I don't think comparing Issac to Balatro does it justice, Isaacs "getting lost is fun" is not really fun for many many people, hidden interactions are weird and for a game as hard as it is, you need info and you need optimization. Playing with mods or a wiki is NEEDED. In Balatro, on the other hand, you get a feeling of how well is your synergy scaling. You can get more points with mods and calculations, but you can go ahead and straight up use a solver to optimize games, just why play it? The thing is that Balatro rewards many people with the feeling of a slot machine, seeing unknown numbers go up and up. It's not the same audience who would go full tryhard and mod the game to optimize plays. But in Isaac, it is a required help as the game depends on so many things that not having info on the items is just unfair
There's a fair amount of random chance cards in balatro which is why I think full score calculators aren't that helpful for all builds. For now I'm glad it doesn't have them, I like to play casually and enjoy the slot machine effect.
Because of this game, i could never look at dubai or any military shooter games the same way again. God this masterpiece of a game was such a mindfuck it sucks i will never play it for the first time again.
On the difficulty vs tutorial thing: there is a trend of making games too easy and hand-holdy [like NPCs or chatty PCs that immediately blurt out the solution to a puzzle after a couple seconds or un-skippable tutorial diatribes [Navi and the Owl in Zelda games come to mind]. Tutorials are important, but shouldn't be mandatory. Modern fighting games do this well, where there is a training room where you have infinite health and super and can access the move library through the pause menu. In your game, a training room where there are single-mechanic puzzles that require only 1 clearly spelled out mechanic [with the level named after the mechanic, so the players can practice or remind themselves of the mechanic] that is completely optional [maybe with a trophy for actually doing them] can handle the "WTF do I do" problem The main body of the game can be 1-3 mechanic puzzles, preferably with more than 1 potential solution [your tricky convoluted one, and a simpler one] with the harder solution granting a reward. Super Mario World is a perfect example of this; all the levels have a "move right and up, occasionally jumping" exit, but some have a secret exit that requires advanced skills to solve, and they grant you shortcuts for solving the puzzle. Your original super-complicated levels can either be the secret solution, or be saved for a final optional showcase world, again like SMW's "Special" world where every level is as close to a kaizo level as Miyomoto is willing to make. Don't remove difficulty for the strawman of "accessibility", but don't remove aids for the strawman of "pro gamers". You can have both, as long as both are optional. Instead of asking players what they want in a game [they don't know], ask them what games piss them off and why. A difficulty mode that gives you optional checkpoints or a limited number of resets before game over [both select-able before the stage, like in Cuphead] could also be implemented.
I always hated this "optional difficulty" concept, it makes me unmotivated to play when I know that I don't have to do the hard parts to win and finish the game, it's not fun for me to make the game harder for myself by doing mostly pointless stuff to collect stars or check marks like a school kid getting a fantastic sticker on their math test
So a few puzzling ideas that are fairly easy w/out a tutorial may be: A speed up machanic that increases by score A slowdown power up Other power ups that you see in other arcade games
At 11:49 when typing "myRigidbody.velocity = Vector2.up * 10;" when I go into unity and press play it tells me I need to fix all compiler errors before entering playmode. Anyone can understand why its not working for me? I have everything exactly has the tutorial.
why my unity cant detect "private void OnTriggerEnter2D(collider2D collision)" and "public logicscript logic:". it is because i am using the newer version of unity?
Been playing Balatro (finally) and I figured out that it would 'technically' be possible to calculate your hand's score before you play it. But I decided not to go down that route because it would feel really boring and take way too long.
I feel like you shit on the arkham games a lot, when in reality it's a great example of easy to learn, hard to master, I mean for your example of parry timing, if you do get a perfect timed parry in batman you do more damage and get a higher combo multiplier, just as one example, the games actually get pretty complex when you get late into it and you have shield enemies, titans, knife enemies, electric baton guys, etc and you have to use all of your gadgets and combos to take them out especially when going for a high combo
Thank you for this tutorial. It was very helpful. I followed through, solved problems and added every addition you suggested and then some more of my own. Good learning project. I wish you would include the little target in the assets you used for shooting with the missile at the end. Anyway, thanks again.
One of the things that came to mind, are pacifist runs. I remember how my friend shared his attempts to went through og Deus Ex almost without violence. Which I followed. Then there are games like Iji, that specifically keeps count of killed. Somewhere by the end you realize truthfully that story could be little bit less sorrowful.
Make the outline then follow the fun. If u force the outline without fun you end up with boredom. If you ignore the outline and only follow the fun your manager will catch you jackerbaiting
