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Haha, from my experience working in the biz it's a way more chaotic messy process which doesn't really reflect the old school top-down/bottom-up approaches from pre-agile days.
J I’ve been wondering, do you have any thoughts on fighting games? Broadly, Yahtzee can’t stand the lot of them (and being honest he used to be one of the only content creators for this group I watched) but they tend to be my favorite genre. I’m a quite mechanically focused player and I like my character vs character matchups, where playing against friends gives incredibly variable game feel based on the characters in the matchup. I understand that motion inputs are really a pretty obnoxious barrier of entry for a lot of people who don’t like the genre, but I really think that if you like 1v1 combat in other genres, getting past the barrier of motion inputs lets you access a suite of super unique games that aren’t directly comparable to anything else. (Favorites are Guilty Gear Xrd and Under Night cl-r for any fg nerds that stumble across this).
Feel it's worth mentioning, in terms of Starfield, IIRC they full on bragged about having -no design document attached- (EDIT: correction, wasn't NO document, just a small one that was iterated upon during development, though I feel the below sentence could still apply), so it's distinctly possible they were doing both top down *and* bottom up depending on who was working at the time and a jumbled mess came out of it. Or, slightly more cynically, they didn't get far enough into thinking about it to choose between top down and bottom up in the first place!
To be quite frank Bethesda have been making games that in many ways, just throws a concept at a wall and hoping it'll stick for a long time now. Starfield was just a continuation of this trend, and this trend was made very apparent in Fallout 76, although it began long ago. I'd argue (and have on multiple occasions too), that Bethesdas problems began before Oblivion, though they were expanded and enforced specifically by Horse Armour. The knowledge that a bad product could be released, but still sell well is honestly what I think drove them down this road of mediocre overhyped games that they've been riding for far too long. Unlike a lot of other people I imagine, I am not really interested in The Elder Scrolls 6 anymore, there was a time wherein I absolutely was, but considering that it will most likely be a continuation of previous problems, I don't believe for a second that the result will be anything worth the hype for it.
“No design document” is like filming a movie without a script, or building a house without a blueprint. “We had no plan” is not something to brag about.
It's just an old-school game design tbh. You should listen to how Tim Cain talks about the creation of Fallout in the tks Mantis interview. It is very much the same "throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks" design. And that works until your studio hits a certain number of people as you are able to just directly communicate ideas. Bethesda both grew significantly between major releases and also had COVID rock the boat for communictions. Combine that with a totally new IP without a set tone or world, and it's a perfect storm for that old school way to be blasted to bits. Hopefully, they learned from this. Starfeild is honestly remarkable for not being a total dumpster fire@@gus.smedstad
I think when designing Starfield they originally had a much bigger mechanical focus on exploration, base building, and survival but heavily scaled back on those before releasing. There are too many tooltips/items for survival and making sure you have supplies and how to chain outposts together to not think they were originally going one direction but cut it out/back before release adding to the feeling of empty worlds/lack of content.
Yeah, the fuel system along with different planet environment effects in particular. I think that has huge potential for a future patch and/or mods to make a really immersive space sim/space colonization game.
If the game had a solid basis for modding, the top modders of Skyrim and Fallout4 would have stuck around a lot longer before throwing the bucket to bethesda. @@Flyon86
@@Flyon86 those two specifically Todd Howard has gone on record saying they dialed those back from their initial iterations to what is in the launch version
Their scope exceeded their time, resources, funding, etc. With video games its a story as old as time. Start with a ridiculously big and amazing idea, then the reality of building it sets in, then they rip out the 40% that they can’t get to work and release.
It's pretty obvious that the exploration had to be dialed back because either: - they would need to create a lot more unique "dungeons" so the speak, which I there only ever seems to be three, and they are exactly the same, right down to the combatant placement. - They had something procedural in mind (eg the planet surface and mineral placement) but the POI follows no logic. Like the game I compared Starfield to all the time was "Starflight", it has all the same core pieces: - story unraveled through communications with aliens and exploring messages left in ruins - gathering minerals to sell at home (SF1) or trading with aliens (SF2) to make money - Upgrading ships in a fixed way - both planet and ship-to-ship combat And you know what else has that? Elite. Elite has all the other pieces (bounty hunting, asteroid mining) that influenced all the 3D space traders (including Wing Commander Privateer and Eve online) However you can also tell where certain newer games like Mass Effect which have a heavier story, and the mechanics other than the FPS combat all took a backseat. Even though it has some of the same "explore the planet, and find materials" in the game. It's not hard to draw these comparisons, and once you've seen it before, you come to the conclusion that Starfield does all these things not quite as well as the oldest games, but what it brings to the table fits the game mechanics these players wanted. Could starfield have been better? Yes. And if the developers listen to feedback they'd realize that the best part of the game, that is IN the game is the shipbuilder, and if they expanded that to make entire capital ships and starbases it could be really extend the lifecycle of the game.
I believe starfield was made top bottom, but not from story but in theme. They imagined an experience of someone traveling through the vastness of space lost in the immersion of exploring the unknown. From this grand design, everything else was built to suit that experience. The mechanics are there to give you things to do while exploring. The story is just to give purpose to the exploration. When issues cropped up like massive load times, the solutions sacrificed everything from fun to immersion in order to maintain the ability to explore. Everything else was a willing sacrifice or just a support tool to the overall theme. No Man Sky suffered in the same way. A locked in ideal first with only enough mechanics and game elements to be functional.
Yeah, I'd say that's the case with all the Bethesda RPGs. The central theme is "you are an adventurer in this land" and the basic mechanics facilitate the players specifics of the fantasy. Combat isn't too complicated or swingy so you can generally indulge in whatever combat aesthetic you want, and you put lots of different questlines in so that your character fits into the world in whatever way you want. The trick is just in doing it all well enough that you get sucked into the gelatinous cube of the setting even though you're playing Morrowind and just spent five minutes trying to kill a pterodactyl.
Probably an issue in development that lead to them scrapping space flight/landing and instead going for loading movies. The practice used to be much more common back in 2003 with games like Kotor.
@@thedatatreader I think I've seen posts on the modding subreddit that most of the tools are there to do seamless takeoff/landing/travel. They just aren't fully implemented and eventually run into memory issues and such. They probably ran out of runway on the schedule and the decision was made to launch and move most of the team onto another project.
I have another theory: Starfield was made bottom-up, but not starting at gameplay features, but at the engine's capabilities. The Creation Engine simply wasn't built for a seamless space exploration game, and it shows. Actually it's quite impressive that they even managed to somehow implement space battles, and I bet they needed a lot of funny trickery to make that possible.
I think it's possible to still enjoy a bad game even if you know it's bad. A few years ago I played We Happy Few. A game which has received a lot of criticism and much of it well deserved. Bad AI, Frequent Bugs, Strange Randomly Generated Levels and that's just the start. Despite all this however I still enjoyed playing the game. It had a fantastic sound track, a great visual style, an interesting world I wanted to explore and strong voice performances. In some cases the bugs actually made the game better in fact, I still remember hitting an enemy with a bat and the physics making a hilarious effect. We Happy Few is from a technical standpoint kind of a mess but it has such a strong charm to it that I can't bring myself to hate it.
I know the original Nier got a lot of flack for the gameplay being "servicable". But the game left enough of an impact through the way Yoko Taro directs games that it got to have a sequel: Automata (which plays great). Nier later on got a remake through Replicant that improves the combat immensely. Some games aren't that fun to play, but the *idea* behind it is strong enough to be worth playing. I know some people that outright hate how Witcher 3 plays, but they love the writing and the setting so much that it can still end up in their top 10 games. You can "fail" at making a game but still succeed in making art.
I played Paper Mario Color Splash for my first time last year, and while the combat system is quite repetitive and pointless, the writing in the game was so good I ended up enjoying my experience. Seriously, I never hear anyone mention in but the jokes in that game landed better than any other game in the series.
Wow, another *We Happy Few* stan, I thought I was the only one! Yeah, I was positively engrossed in the world. The story, the deranged humor, the setting, the voice acting, the characters, I freakin' loved it. I was more than willing to look the other way for most of the bugs (including the once or twice I softlocked myself by being a dumbarse) because of this.
Wrote a comment about we happy few. Scrolled down and saw this. I loved the game, but I haven't really gone back to replay it since it's a game you shouldn't play forever, just remember the fun you had playing it and move on. Seeing the story was a lot of the fun and going back with what I know doesn't appeal me very much.
That bat physics thing reminds me of something I did in KCD (which aside from this moment I found to be a spectacular game) where I hit an enemy in the gut before he had gotten up and he stood up, fell straight backwards and splayed out like a starfish because I'd knocked him unconscious (the game had somehow counted the attack as a head-hit and my perk that gives head-hits a chance to knock people out had succeeded). Won that mini "boss fight" in one hit and laughed my ass off because it was really leading up to it being a righteous, justice-fueled, difficult fight, and then the clown just collapsed like a rag doll.
That bit about personal ludonarratives driving the majority of Bethesda engagement is extremely apt when you consider the fanbase for Fallout 76. In the gap between launch and the npc update, the game formed a dedicated RP scene that essentially recreated the promised social dynamics that Bethesda teased in the build up to the game's release, with the formation of factions and conflicts between them. None of the mechanics supported this kind of play, but for the RPers keeping the game alive, they were able to work around these limits to create their own narrative.
Oh yeah, I remember seeing an article about a guy acting as a tutorial npc for people fresh from the vault, giving objectives and rewards to get them going
It also hits home when I think about why I stuck with skyrim or fallout 4 as long as I did despite genuinely hating spending my time on it, the ideas of playing these games are simply dozens of times better than any experience of actually going though with engaging with it
What you metion about mechanics supporting the experience of the players is so critical not only to the success of many games but also to the failure of the last two Bethesda titles. There are plenty of games that are driven primarely by player interaction, EVE Online being the prime example of this, which we could only assume Bethesda tried to emulate but failed due to not implementing sistems that facilitate engagement, expression and conflict between players. Of course this all boils down to Bethesda having zero trust that their supposed target audiences want anything more than a looter-shooter dopamine drip feed, but we have known this for more than 10 years now. It should have come as no surprise to anyone Starfield turned out the way it did so the only hope for TES 6 being any better is them taking seriously the lack luster sales figures and reviews of Starfield in contrast with BG3's success, but nobody should be holding much hope for that at this point.
A lot of those ideas can probably be extended to older MMOs that have recently been revived on private servers. A lot of these games are... not good. Maybe by the standards of their time where the concept of a persistent world with other players in it was novel, but not anymore. What matters is that they function as a framework for RPing, guilds, social interactions, city building, creating an economy, faction wars, creating an economy, whatever. They're like box of scraps, and they attract the players that have a fondness and familiarity for this very particular box of scraps and know how to build something out of them.
Still shocked thinking about that. Like are you a solo dev maing a small game? ok then the GDD isn't as important.... but a massive studio like Bethesda making a huge game skipping the GDD???
@@Mezbich I'd still say a GDD is good even if you're a solo creator. Some of my favorite youtubers have explained how they make their content and about 80% of them use documentation, even if it's just a list of notes. Having something written down does wonders for keeping one focused
Either approach is entirely valid to me. My GOTY for 2022 was Neon White - clearly a bottom-up designed game - whereas my GOTY last year was Baldur's Gate 3, and good luck building something as cohesive as that if you're not using a top-down design philosophy. My biggest frustration with modern game design is devs just putting in mechanics and features because other popular games also do them without consideration of the core theme/narrative/purpose of their game, which is an issue from either approach
When the mechanics are "forced in" I often imagine an executive from the publisher side forcing that decision down the dev team because "This is how we justify our investment into the game, so do it."
Baldur's Gate had to be both. It was using an existing IP and setting and had to go top down narratively, but it is also using most of the 5th Edition DND ruleset, so it had to some extent be bottom up design as well.
@@wanderer202have to agree with this. What made BG3 so special wasn’t the design, dnd has already created 70% of the gameplay mechanics and setting design. What made BG3 so special was the incredible writing, the incredible acting, and the sheer technical competency that was required to bring something this huge and complex to life
Another fantastic topic this week! Personally, I feel like Yoko Taro’s works, especially pre-Automata, are the poster children for this discussion. Is the original Drakengard a “good” game, mechanically speaking? Most people who’ve played it would adamantly say no. Same with the original NieR, especially many of the game’s questionable sidequests. And yet, despite it all, Yoko Taro’s mythos has only continued to grow, with his titles remaining relevant in gaming discussions even as the years continue to roll on. He’s gotten better design support over the years, but Taro’s history is still the first that comes to mind in a conversation like this.
I think Taro wanted to become known as "trolling players with the gameplay, but with a narrative intent", almost opposite of how Kojima became famous as 'the master of weird nonsensical narrative choices, but with solid gameplay"
I played a bit of Automata recently, and I must admit he has a unique method in the way he frames games that I find captivating. Obviously, the "delete your savefile" meme is probably not as shocking nowadays, but even stuff like finding context for the settings and how to save is really cool.
Lol I wanted to say this as well. I remember that I didn't enjoy Drakengaurd as a game but I grinded so I could get the next weapon story or to find out what happened next. And after I beat it the endings lived rent free in my head for a long time. As for Neir the first half was a slog but once I got to replaying the game again with added context I just kept going just to see how each part would be reframed.
I can't think of an entire genre of games that run entirely on objectively bad design and still end up as very engaging and fun out of sheer force of narrative than lucasarts style 2D point-and-clicks. Grim Fandango is the best example I can think of, it's downright uncomfortable to play but everything else (story, setting, characters, music, voice acting, etc.) about it is so fantastic that it's still a great overall experience, imho.
I don't think that's entirely fair. Back then they came out they made some great choices in design - the verb-based SCUMM engine and throwing out the deaths and "dead man walking" elements of other titles. Admittedly, they all had their sins and headdesk moments, but people back then expected different things from their puzzle games. Also, Grim Fandango isn't neither 2D nor truly a point-and-click, so I'm not sure it's the best example.
I think they are more a product of their time initially than badly designed games. When the technology developed, there were already a lot of fans of the genre so many games where still produced in the early 90's. The rise of 3D was the final nail in that coffin.
I've always viewed people liking a game because of nostalgia or because it fulfills a specific fantasy as an exstenion of "it's fun with friends". It's a very specific sort off enjoyment that's highly reliant on the person playing fulfilling certain criteria. While enjoyment of good mechanics/writing is much more universal.
It's funny how Inscryption was used as the background for talking about bottom up design; I had a strong impression that it was also designed top down, given the many different ways it flips the table on it's own gameplay when the player hits certain narrative beats (it's hard to elaborate without spoilers!). It fits with what I know about the rest of Mullens games too
I dunno, it feels like there were very clear demarcations between the different gameplay sections of Inscryption, like they were developed in vacuums and then stitched together by the story. So it fits.
The Mullinsverse was eloquently crafted 12 years ago in his diary, and will span an additional 5 games before the series finally ends by fully merging with reality.
Technically, the game started life as a flash game made for a Ludum Dare, expanded most directly into Part 1. That part was very much bottom-up. The other parts were probably more top-down, and they were considered the weaker parts. And when it came time for DLC, what did the developers do? Expand the gameplay of Part 1. Bottom-up was the stronger impulse of the two.
Initially its mechanic was created for game jam under the theme "Sacrifices Must Be Made". It could have been designed bottom up by taking that theme and applying it to mechanics ("sacrifice cards to play other cards") - and Mullins also managed to make the theme work on narrative level (both in jam's game finale, and in Inscryption's). Inscryption was an extension of that, and it all started from that initial mechanical design choice.
I know I prefer my stories to be top-down rather than bottom-up, a preference made very clear in the arguments I've had with a good friend about Tears of the Kingdom. I was really frustrated by the shallow, first-draft plot and how easy it was for me to come up with tiny changes that would have greatly improved the story, while my friend argued that it was fine for the game to have a bad story, because it had such fantastic physics-based gameplay. I still played 100 hours of TOTK because I'm also apparently one of those crazies that likes hunting for collectibles in the infinite wilderness for gear upgrades, but that fundamental disagreement speaks to the different experiences created by top-down or bottom-up design. Such a cool series, and I also love coming into the comments and finding recommendations for new games I've never heard of based on how they feature in your videos (Orc Massage? Don't mind if I do!)
You should check out Celeste. It was most likely made bottom-up considering it was originally a Pico8 game with no story. But because the mechanics of the game are so compelling already, the story that they weave on top of it is incredibly moving. It's not my favorite game but it is probably my favorite video game story. Also yes the story in TotK is abysmal lol.
Orc Massage is an... ahem... cultured game. The kind of culture that bosses don't like you to play at work, or Twitch doesn't like when you're streaming. You dig?
Good example. I've caught some flack for saying that I don't think BOTW or TOTK are masterpieces, partly because the stories and interactions felt shallow. But did I play them a whole lot and quite enjoy my time with them? I sure did.
I will freely admit that im not blind to the many flaws of Bethesda games despite being a fan of some of their games. Something about the game play loop speaks too me. And i also get a chuckle sometimes about the weird shit that can take place in the games. Just one example is sneakily strike falmer enemies with a bow in Skyrim, and they go into a weird animation glitch that defies gravity. I know i should be mad about it but its just so damn fun every time. This would be the original version of Skyrim not the enhanced editions that came later. But the more games they release the less patient i am with their shit.
The Nordic Space Program is another example of a glitch being more fun than intended gameplay. So much so that when Bethesda finally did patch it out, there was enough backlash that the devs remade the funny part as a feature. Now you can sometimes get ragdolled into the skybox.
My favorite games tend to perfectly meet in the middle where the story and gameplay decisions seem so thoroughly baked into each other that you couldn’t alter one without changing the other.
The ludo narrative is the main reason I play games. The games that I dump hundreds or thousands of hours into generally have unfocused or shitty storylines, but that makes me able to construct my own stories on top. I really like considering that everything my character does is canonical in the universe. This is why Destiny 2 is so good for me. I pretend that I'm a god killing unstoppable force at the center of the universe powered entirely by Immortalia, the super powered antidepressant mentioned in the Jade Rabbit lore tab. When my character does the Carmelldansen as Oryx floats into Saturn or splashes around in a puddle made by paracausal light during an "important" confrontation between characters, I pretend that actually is what happened. It makes the game into more of a comedy and makes me more engaged with the game as a whole. I played Fallout 3 way too much. I still know where every unique weapon and collectible is. The main story objectively sucks, but that's not my story. Mine is whatever I want it to be. If I want to be the goodiest two shoes and fix everyone's problems in the wasteland, I totally can. If I feel like killing every non-essential NPC, that's also my choice. The best games like this are ones where the story takes backstage to the mechanics. I've never heard someone else describe this joy when it comes to games like this before. I mean, the hbomberguy video on Fallout 3 is there to tell you how bad it is and it only briefly touches on why others find it so enjoyable. The one time I do enjoy a good story is in immersive sims. In these games, I can have my ludo narrative and the game changes around that. I can be JC, the GEP wielding psycho and the game respects that choice. The ludo narrative and narrative dissolve into one beautiful focus and it's so incredibly rewarding. These games do what Starfield did, but just better. The setting dictates what should be around you and the mechanics are built up to support that. Games like this are appealing to many kinds of players because they are able to accept the wide variety of players and give them the freedom to explore and express themselves in a way unique to them. As always, love the videos. Design Delve is my favorite series in the Second Wind group. Keep up the good work!
Making up stories for your PC is so much fun!! I decided on one run of Fallout 4 to play as though my character was an android, unrelated to the Institute, who's looking between the wastelanders (hate androids) and the Institute (would probably dissect her) and going "Haha, I'm in danger 😅"
@@charlieseen Exactly! It lets you view the world set up in front of you in a different manner and makes your narrative choices more interesting and personalized.
I understand your criticism of Hbomber's video, but I think it's worth pointing out that he made the video a great deal after the game came out, and after New Vegas had been released, so comparing the 2, there isn't really anything you want to do for your ludonarrative experience that you couldn't do in F:NV, especially with how they designed perks. But, I also understand that in some way, the fact that F:NV is the objectively better game of the 2, it can be considered a detriment to someone who's solely focused on the ludonarrative experience. There's an actual story now, and now you're part of that instead of whatever thing you thought up about your character instead. Because the story is so lackluster in 3 it's much easier to simply view story content as more shit to do rather than anything you'd actually interact with for a constructed narrative that is being presented to you. They might've added an entirely new storyline, but what matters to you and your personal narrative is the new loot, buildings, areas, NPC enemies, etc., not what any of it was is actually for in service of the narrative they were trying to sell you.
@@gwen9939 I actually enjoy Fallout: New Vegas more than 3. That one has a more flexible story that does change based on your choices. The guns and exploration are more rewarding too. I just mentioned 3 in my comment as I got that game about a year after release and it sucked me in. I actually haven't played as much Fallout: New Vegas as I have played 3 since I got that one for PC quite a few years later. When comparing the two, I think the ludo narrative in NV is actually better since the desire to go be a post apocalyptic vaquero is something I think we all want.
The inclusion of Orc Massage gameplay clips is actually quite relevant to this subject. 18+ games are very often designed top-down around the adult content, often leading to really shaky gameplay. But still, they can be considered great games if that adult content or story resonates with the degenerates who are looking for it. Orc Massage might be a pretty repetitive, simple gameplay loop that doesn't impress, but it does deliver on the orc massages pretty well. It's a game whose strengths lie in the character designs, animation quality and orc role playing immersion. Anyways, my preference is generally bottom-up design. Start with a great gameplay premise and find the best way to tell a story around it. In fact, some of the most impactful storytelling you can find in games comes from innovation in bottom-up design, like how Undertale explores its characters through that little bullethell window, or how Zagreus progresses his social relationships with some characters by fighting them in Hades. Storytelling through boss fights could be an interesting subject for the show.
One game I played where the bosses just worked so well for story is Fuga. Because every fight makes you wish to use the soul cannon, even though morally you really don't want to pull that trigger
@@megatennepster3833 I haven’t played it, but I’ve brainstormed some game ideas around the idea of moral-driven gameplay. Basically giving the player advantages for making emotionally undesirable choices in stressful situations. Something like letting a sympathetic boss live, knowing that they’ll probably continue to antagonize you. I’ll have to check out Fuga.
@@oposdeo Fuga is definitely "giving advantages for making emotionally undesireably choices in stressful situations". (The name "soul cannon" obviously gives a big hint as to what that means in the game.) As for top down vs bottom up, I don't have any specific preference. I play both games where the mechanics are the entire game, like Civilization or Factorio (which is quite literally all about mechanics), and don't have much top down other than in the sense of planning what genre of game they wanted to make, as well as things like visual novels that have so little bottom to build up from that some people don't even consider them games in the first place. Also, on the subject of 18+ games: As I said, I'm fan of visual novels (and VN-adjacent games with a mix of gameplay in between VN sections) and have played everything from criminal mysteries, to epic fantasies, to horror, to war stories, to just pure unrepentant smut, and, surprisingly often, that last category has some element, whether part of the setting or the mechanics, that manages to stick with you long after the, ahem, "main point" of the game has lost it's appeal. I have played games where I couldn't tell you what the porn was other than "then they fucked", but I still strongly remember other elements. A creative setting, a thought-provoking ending, or just a really interesting character. There are also a lot of great games, and even entire franchises, that have started out as 18+ projects and later ditched the porn altogether (looking at you Fate, I know what "mana transfer rituals" actually transfer) after they've gotten popular through their other strengths, be it wordbuilding, characters, or gameplay. So, basically, people shouldn't underestimate the ability of 18+ games, even ones that appear to be nothing but porn all the way from the title itself, to have some wonderful bits of creativity hidden in surprising places. Though, obviously, you would have to be prepared to explore a lot of "hidden places" before you find something, but that can also be fun in and of itself. ; )
One of my favorite hobbies is to buy cheap rpg make, game maker and hidden object games. They very often lack mechanical competence but i do adore all the tiny details and moments that let you know the developers inspiration and biases. While very rarely fun to play, they are so interesting from a human perspective.
Some of the games are just very interestingly told experiences, even if they are not technically polished. I better play such game than another "it is competent" game.
I tend to think of the good vs fun dichotomy as a venn diagram. You have a circle of games that are good, and a circle of games that are fun. Those circles overlap sometimes, but not always. I can enjoy a game that is fun but not good (Skyrim) or a game that is good but not fun (Pathologic), but if a game is neither good nor fun, it loses me
Yea agreed. Skyrim is straight up my favorite game, i've spent thousands of hours playing it and many many thousands of hours talking about it with other people, whether it's lore or modding or gameplay or design discussions etc. Yet i could easily spend genuine days pointing out all the flaws it has, ones people don't even notice. But in the end it's a game i absolutely love for it's aesthetic, modding capabilities, worldbuilding, immense replayability etc. And there's honestly nothing quite like bethesda RPGs out there, even if you can find similar features or genres crossing over. None to my knowledge offer that "this is your character, nothing about them is predetermined, make them who you want" from your character's eyes in an open world RPG of this scale where many people dump hundreds of hours with no gamified "unlock towers, collect arbitrary collectibles, stare at excessively gamey hud elements" aspects Cyberpunk is the only game i've tried that i could reasonably compare to BGS RPGs and even that is a far fetch.
I prefer having a top-down overview of the design, then build to reach that point from the bottom up. So, you layout your long-term goal, your master plan, and then you start with sticks and rocks and see if you can reach it. Something like Dwarf Fortress. Those guys know exactly what they want when the game is done; from the top-down they can see the whole picture. But, Dwarf Fortress is being built from the basic matter of the universe to grow into the vision they have.
An interesting thing about Dwarf Fortress's bottom up perspective over time is that the community lore will build up the top-down ludo-narrative (jesus I put a mouthful in that sentence). One example is when they made the war update and didn't account for elf lifespan mechanics. Elf populations exploded and since elves were willing to eat fallen enemies, you had histories where entire worlds were wiped out due to elf population booms and their cannibalistic tendencies. Prior to that everyone had Tolkien-esque view of elves, but afterwards elves definitely became creepier.
The line about negative emotions in a good game makes me think of Alien Isolation. A common complaint is that the game goes on a little too long and that people just want it to be over. I admit I felt the same way at first. But then I considered the context of the game, where you've tried everything to improve the situation, and by the end, are just desperately trying to escape to survive. And still, things are going wrong at every turn. Of course you're frustrated and want it to be over! I don't know how intentional that was by the developers, but that realization took what could have been a knock against the game and made it that much more special
Believe it or not, I think Starfield was top down. If I'm reading the tea leave correctly, it looks like they announced the IP right before, or just as, they started full production. I bet BGS was tasked with manifesting Todd's nebulous vision of space. Otherwise, they would have completely changed the setting once they realized Creation Engine wasn't up to the task.
If it was top-down, there'd be a consistent focus and it would perhaps be a bland as hell game, but it would be a game. Singular. Instead we have a completely disjointed mess of gameplay systems that barely interact with each other. That doesn't feel very top-downy. Let's not forget that there's also the third option, the "let's not design and just develop organically and whatever happens, happens" approach.
@@Monochromatic_Spider What if it had 3 tops? Think about it. Story, Exploration, and Game Mechanics. If taken in isolation, the concepts would work. But everything that tries to bridge them together turns it into a mess. Exploration is there... but traversal sucks. Story is there, but it just makes you travel in circles.
@@xBINARYGODx What do you mean ignorant? On October 23 MinnMax posted an interview with former BGS dev Bruce Nesmith. In which he referred to Todd picking 1000 planets like a number out of hat. On September 25 Academy of Interactive Arts & Science posted an interview with Todd Howard where he said they built out survival mechanics, then nearly nerfed them out of the game. Drivel or not, I think Nebulous is well within BGS's own description of events.
@@freelancerthe2561 Top down still enforces structure centered on the tops. If there was a dedicated story-focus, I'd have expected a bunch of story in the game to actually drive the gameplay. Instead there are bits and pieces of story here and there, but nothing that has too much effect on gameplay. The story just kind of happens if you want to, with the rest of the game paying no attention whatsoever. Similarly, if "exploration" was a top-down driven aspect then you'd have thought there would be a serious amount of gameplay built around it. There really isn't. You can scan planets from orbit but it does nothing. You can scan planets on the ground but it does nothing. There's also not really anything in particular to find. It's just kind of there, something you can do but not something you have any reason to do.
Damn just straight going for the throat with starfield and Bethesda. Glad I’m not the only one. The top-down and bottom -up explainer really put to words my feelings on Spiderman ps4. (Getting 2 soon) Amazing spectacle, feeling with solid mechanics but most busywork was very bland and not something I would come back for. Amazing game but it doesn't have the deeper mechanics that I like as in god of war or sekiro. Horizon has a lot of both imo. i can hunt machines for days in both games tho zero dawn is the more solid of the two.
There's also the issue that tastes change over time too. I acknowledge that my tastes have pretty much flipped as I've gotten older. I played WoW for a lot of years because on top of anything else the amount of time I could sink into a game was one of the biggest factors for me. I remember FF7 fondly having spent most the summer break playing it. Looking back I confess 70% of my total play time was devoted to 100% completion rather then the main game but hey, it had hours of content for that too. Back then I had very little disposable money and a mountain of disposable time and playing something for 10 hours a day wasn't unusual but I only had the money to buy a game a month or so. Now I've got, mostly, the opposite issue. I've got a lot more disposable income but I can only spent 8ish hours a week max playing a game. Now I want something more engaging, smaller, and tighter. Most of my favorite games I've played as an adult had total completion times in the single digits of hours. If I had bought a 4 hour game as a teen I would have felt cheated because now I had nothing to do until next payday. Now I can't motivate myself to start a game if its going to take me more then 40 hours to finish because that means devoting my next three months of game time to it.
I've played Fallout 4 for the past 3 years, but I knew what I was getting into. I wanted to help the settlements and I got what I asked for. Happy to find junk to upgrade my settlers weapons and have not gotten tied of it. Also mods help ALOT 🎉
I've started watching all of these DD videos with my wife and she says J is so sassy and I say I love it! Love how J is really starting to speak up honestly! !!
Shigeru Miyamoto has always done a fantastic job of bottom-up game design with Mario and Zelda. Many of the great headliners of those series have been built around mechanics like Wonder Seeds in Super Mario Wonder; Cappy in Odyssey; Ultrahand in Tears of the Kingdom; the painting transformation in A Link Between Worlds; etc. etc.
I think it works really well with the Zelda series because some of the higher-level work (the foundational plot/narrative, player and primary supporting characters/archetypes, and some of the worldbuilding) can be streamlined thanks to what each previous game has already built upon.
Personally Forspoken's magic system has been a surprising standout for 2023 since I bought it to test out my Dualsense on PC. There's been a few fantasy games this year but their magic systems didn't make me feel like a Planeswalker as much as Forspoken has.
I dunno, I feel like their animations for the magic could've been better. The thing about recoil is that it gives a feeling of power and impact. Similarly a powerful magic spell ought to feel like it takes lots of effort, even if it doesn't. That's why the element bending in Avatar is such a lauded example, it's magic is based off of the movements and physical techniques of the characters so harder "hits" are .Orr clearly readable. A magic spell that requires your hand to be stuck out but has less impact read than a non-charged megabuster? Eh, there's definitely room for improvement. Doesn't have to be Avatar, another interesting example is Naruto that use the whole hand movements for jutsus. As mediocre as the show was, having that kind of clearly readable effort for their magic system is great and also pretty iconic as well.
It's one of those things where restrictions can breed creativity. Sometimes, the mental gymnastics you have to do to justify a game play element leads you to a great idea for story or world building that you would never have found any other way.
If talking about a bad game that I positively love: Beastmancer, it's not anything special either story-wise or mechanics-wise, but the game gave me the experience that I desperately have wanted: to be able to tame a team of cool fantasy creatures and for that I was willing to overlook it's flaws and shortcomings. Before it was patched the final boss was one of the toughest I've ever beaten, I thought I was over-prepared, yet I barely snatched a win, it's one of my favorite gaming moments.
Another commenter already mentioned *We Happy Few,* which outside of Skyrim may be the most infamous recent-ish example of "bad mechanics, good game", but I'd like to second that. The almost-all melee combat and bizarre glitchiness and poor design choices were completely overshadowed for me by the plot, deranged sense of humor, solid voice acting, absolutely gutwrenching story, and the amazing dystopian permanent-1950s setting.
Ngl, I followed Second Wind because that’s where Yahtzee went, but I’ve been really enjoying this series and Cold Take. I love listening to this series, it’s a great entry for someone like me that’s interested in game design but has no experience.
"Want your voice to sound more like Frost´s? Well, that´s prbly not gonna happen, but here´s a cap" It´s a rare thing when a merch ad can make me laugh out loud, props to you
I'm sure these thoughts are relevant to why I enjoyed Forspoken. I thought it was just fun to play. I liked the checklist of things to do and combat encounters to have. I liked slinging all the magic attacks. I understand many of the complaints, but they just don't bother me.
I mean, there are games where the "badly designed" bit is part of the game, like in The Magic Circle or Hammer Space. Though admittadly, "The Magic Circle" is more of a commentary on how awful conditions can ruin game dev. Hammer space is a puzzle game where you go out of bounds by using a glitched item to get around "incomplete" levels
Much like bad movies, it doesn't really count if it's intentional. Consider stream-bait games like the "{noun} Simulator" genre which are often intentionally buggy, because the strange an unexpected behavior is part of the fun and makes for surprising moments that audiences enjoy. Or a game like hammer_space in which the glitches are not just explicitly part of the design aesthetics, but the actual game mechanics. Neither of these are "bad" games. A truly bad game, IMHO, is merely one that fails to meet expectations. The launch version of No Man's Sky is probably the most famous example. Duke Nukem Forever is another if you're old enough to remember that mess... everything else, you'll probably find *someone* who enjoys it.
Lamp-shading mechanics that exist as commentary can be hit or miss if it still mean that you have to play through something you don't think is good. A meta-commentary of escort missions will still be frustrating if it ends up doing everything people hate about escort missions, even if only to prove a point.
Ironically I think it takes very good design to make a game that, on the surface, appears very badly designed and still be engaging. And while The Magic Circle was fun to figure out, I think most of my engagement came from James Urbaniak playing a Richard Garriot-alike. That game's narrative was great.
As someone who's really loved Starfield, it's been really interesting to see how many people have talked so much about how bad it is recently. That being said, you really nailed how it doesn't really seem to directly follow the top-down/bottom-up design directly. Instead, it feels like 4 or 5 games melded together into a Frankenstein monster of space. Who is it really for? Me, apparently lol. I still love starfield and other bethesda games. But perhaps more so than any other game I've played recently, I can firmly say that it is not for everyone or maybe even most people. But it certainly is for me.
I kinda want to play it, liked the base building in FO4, and think I would like the ship building. Just don't know if the loop and copy paste worlds would be enough. Have gamepass, but don't know if I want to download 130ish gigs to find out. Plus, with work and family I don't have dozens and dozens of spare hours to play it, and the other great games out.
I won't tell anyone they're wrong for liking a piece of media but I think you sorta got it right. Its like 5 things trying to be a game. Is it an action game? Sort of, the combat in Bethesda titles has never really been great, the gunplay and enemy ai is subpar. Is it an rpg? Sort of, there is a skill tree and choices, though they don't have that much impact on the world. Is it an exploration game? Sort of, there are planets to explore but not much interesting to find. Is it a ship flying game? Sort of, you can fly your ship in space but not between planets or on them. Is it narrative? Sort of, there is a story but let's be honest Bethesda has never been great at writing main stories for their game. The reason it doesn't click for me is that I feel it doesn't do the one thing that Bethesda does really well. Drop you in the middle of an open and immersive world and let you go wherever you want, seamlessly. People bring up the loading screens and thats what did it for me, not because there can't be loading screens in a game but because I can't just wander in a direction and find interesting and unique stuff. I have to think to some extent to where im going, then open a menu and go there, then land on the planet and then find a few bits of uninteresting repeated content. Its all the meh aspects of a Bethesda game without the one thing that holds it together.
I feel that the people who enjoyed Starfield, enjoyed Fallout. If a mod comes along the lines of GTAV's FiveM mod which overlays a MMO-RP experience into the single player world, that might bring what people did with Fallout 76 to it. I enjoyed Starfield for what it is, and while I think a lot of people are needlessly talking crap about it, these are people who likely completely avoided exploring and just played the story straight down the middle. I played all of it. I feel that the intent was there for the player to pick a faction and just drive their story from there, but pretty much everyone I saw play it, just found a lot more interest in building ships and doing space crimes.
I appreciate the list of songs used! That's really helpful crediting. Might you consider adding a list of the games used for clips? Some, I don't recognize, and with no names attached, I'll never be able to find them...
If games can be designed bottom-up and top-down at the same time (in the case of Starfield this was done to an abysmal degree) then I believe the it's possible to also do so in stellar fashion. Outer Wilds is a perfect example of where the two design philosophies merge beautifully in that middle.
Re: card mechanics; couple years back I grabbed a lil heap of card and board games (digitized) off steam; I wanted to see what other people are doing, generally, with the concept. Plan was to play each for maybe an hour, take some notes, move on to the next one. So, first one was NeoVerse: and I sat down to try. It's actually surprisingly deep while also being very easy to learn! Cool! I'll try a couple more deck builds, then try the next game. ...well, NINE HOURS LATER I decided to take a break for "breakfast" and... oh. Wow. I have done NOTHING but play for over 9 hours. No water, bathroom breaks, snacks, meals, communications with any people in any way: nothing. Totally hooked. And I still enjoy that game, and try to figure out why it grabbed me so. (And no, not for the kinda odd visuals.) Roughly stated, I think it is that initial feeling of learning the game in minutes, but being able to then fiddle and experiment for hours and hours. And, yes, in many ways that is what makes any game with that type of progression addictive: but this did (and still does) feel different from other repeated runs-type gameplay. And I've been trying to figure out the "secret sauce" as it were. Still havent found it, but, I highly recommend grabbing it on a sale if even remotely interested in these types/factors of gameplay. I *THINK* what is grabbing me is this kind of Tao it has built-in: a constant ebb and flow between aggresive and defensive: you can't turtle, but you can't blitz either. You HAVE TO ebb and flow. (Well, if you want to survive🙄) and... that's interesting. And, yes, that is kinda game design 101: but, at the same time, they nailed SOMETHING about it super well. And i think it's very obvious that they had a great card game in mind, and added a narrative later, largely because it's so incredibly vague. There are badguys and some heroes and... tadaa. But that core mechanic is SO good. I usually prefer games for narratives, so this was a fun weird exception to find.
As a patient gamer, it's been fascinating to watch the discourse on starfield getting more and more sour as time goes on. Really curious how history will remember this game!
It’s funny because once the Game Award nominations were released and everyone learned that Starfield wasn’t even nominated for GOTY it’s like the community flipped opinion on it.
I haven’t played star-field, but from the community flip flopping from “it’s good/average but not the goty that was advertised” to “star-field sucks” I feel like nobody knows what star-field actually is.
I suspect that Starfield's overall lack of direction meant that nothing in it is done particularly well. It has practically nothing that would cause a game critic or player to seriously recommend it above similar games, except that it is a Bethesda game, which is a mixed blessing *even among their own fans*. The planets are empty, so exploration isn't it. Survival's pinched off. Combat is bland. Writing is phoned in. Models and animations are sloppy. Anything executed really well would buoy up the rest, but there's no high points!
I don't know if I'd agree Starfield suffers for its intent of "broad appeal". Any studio or publisher will want to sell their game to as many people as possible. Based on some interviews I've seen, I'm pretty sure Starfield didn’t have a design document, or at least had a very small one. Which would explain why the game is so unfocused and disconnected from itself. There was no theme or narrative core the elements were built around. It was a collaboration of 400 people all improvising like the worlds biggest jazz band. I think it's more likely the teams kept getting bigger and harder to manage, the scopes kept creeping up, and the management lost sight of what the final product was supposed to look like. I'm pretty sure the lead designer said in a discord Q&A that nobody had played the game in its entirety before release since it was too big.
"Any studio or publisher will want to sell their game to as many people as possible" Sure, Paradox (for a relatively big name) or most indie publishers, really, aren't trying to appeal to a niche instead of competing with AAA...
Bethesda games tend to be extremely broad in scope, which makes it impossible to have any significant depth in any single facet of the gameplay or story without neglecting everything else
@@BladedEdge Actually while Larian did more, they had more time than Bethesda did (less than a decade for sure), and significantly more staff dedicated to the project and two years in early access. I don't think alot of people realise that BGS are smaller than they seem. Anyway, they're two entirely different style of games. Most people just wanted Starfield to be a different game than it was. Doesnt mean it's terribly designed.
@@remlapwastaken8857 Oh really? What are you basing that on? I play it every few years, and it's so much better than anything Bethesda has put out since it's ridiculous.
@@alexlyster3459 "Most people just wanted Starfield to be a different game than it was. Doesnt mean it's terribly designed." Yes, not meeting people's expectations doesn't mean it's terribly designed. It is terribly designed, though.
The closest thing to quippy advice about art and game production is that “you can make anything work, as long as you do it well.” And that’s harder much harder; it always requires talent and time and choices, and people who actually care and can tell the difference between the two, or who are willing to give some control to people who are better able to do so than they are.
This reminds me of something that someone said in a video about the game Fear and Hunger: "I don't want to play good games, I want to play interesting games. While definitely not for everyone, that game is an undeniably interesting experience. I think that's something missing from the AAA games space: They're so obsessed with making a "good" game that they fail to make interesting games, retreading "tried and true" formulas instead of daring to tread new ground. Think about it for a moment: When I say "Bethesda Game" or "Ubisoft Game", you automatically know the general shape and form of the game, even if I don't tell you anything about it, because the studio has become synonymous with a specific kind of game outline and format. While it isn't a bad thing to have a kind of niche to fill, if all you ever make are that kind of game, you get complacent and start thinking that the actual quality of the game doesn't matter because people will buy it regardless of quality. And I think that's what Starfield is, at the end of the day: A game lazily slapped together than then shoved out the door with the expectation that it will be bought regardless of whether or not it is actually good. However, instead of coming out in a year where prospects were slim, it came out in 2023, a year that will go down in history as one of the best and worst in gaming history. In a year with games like Tears of the Kingdom, Armored Core 6, God of War Ragnarok, and many, many more, why would anyone buy and play a mediocre game? As VideoGameDunkey put it, there is not enough time in life to play all the great games that came out in 2023. Our time to play games is already limited enough, so why would we fill that time with boring and bland experiences when there are so many much more fun and interesting experiences to be had?
This is why the full phrase is "Jack of all trades master of none." I still enjoy jumping into starfield and getting my space exploration fix from time to time. But I'm finding that Hardspace Shipbreaker has more in it to hold me for the entire game because it does only one thing but it does it super well and so far the narrative is engaging if not predictable.
The video game industry has finally reached a point where genre, world design and mechanical design are broad enough that we have proper genres that not everyone clicks with. It's not 20 something men making up the majority of the market any more, and that's a sign of genre maturity rather than a flaw. I enjoyed starfield and thought it probably deserved it's 7-8 review scores. I didn't like Elden Ring because I don't like games that require that much memorization. I don't like survival games, have a lukewarm opinion of CRPGs, love Tycoon-style optimization games, can take or leave roguelikes and bounce off anything that has 8-bit graphics. Hooray, the gaming industry is diverse enough that my tastes don't align with everyone else's any more, but there's always going to be something that fits the design and aesthetic niche I enjoy. Now all we need to do is shake the bizzare opinion that "people who like thing I don't like are obviously on the cope" which washes around Reddit and the RU-vid comment section and maybe the industry can graduate to proper adulthood. Disclaimer: My views may be affected by years of brain damage from playing World of Warships and War Thunder.
What a great video. As someone who likes fighting games and schmups, I tend to gravitate towards the bottom up perspective. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate great storytelling, but in a video game, I would personally choose the former if I were given an ultimatum.
Guess I couldn't avoid hearing about Hogshits Leprosy from people I respect forever. Ah well. I usually like Bottom Up for Indie games and Top Down for bigger budget. For an indie dev I think it's important to figure out what you can design that feels satisfying and then build something unique that speaks to that design element. It creates more unique experiences and stories if you're a good writer (also please ask for help writing sometimes if you're unsure, so many of us writers really want to help on game projects). For Top Down though, if you have a talented and well-coordinated team, you can bring a vision of a desired story or setting to life by leveraging that talent. Unfortunately it definitely feels like marketable will always be chosen over interesting in this regard...unless we dismantle capitalism like I write in my diary every day.
I much prefer a specified game that satisfies a specific group of gamers instead of a bland game that satisfies nobody. That's why regardless of my hatred of Soulsborne games, I cannot in good conscience ever call any of them a "bad game." Because they're not. They're VERY well-designed. Just, not for me.
I personally prefer games that are build bottom up, but my actual favourite would probably be games that first are made with solid mechanics and a great framework. And then for that same developer to use that great foundation to build a story on top of, however usually this will turn out to be bland and boring, so it's definitely a risky move, and therefore I'd honestly prefer picking either or for most developers.
Spec Ops: The Line is a notoriously simplistic and even possibly badly designed third-person shooter, but that fits with its down-up design philosophy that war is hell and nothing worth enjoying. As a game, it can be boring, but as an experience telling you that you're a bad person for enjoying the bloodlust that it encourages, it is AMAZING and a must-play for anyone who enjoys shooters. NieR (both Replicant and Automata) can be mechanically intricate or dull depending on how deep you want to play, but both have strong messages about what it means to fight and your reason for doing so. Down-up is probably my favourite design philosophy, because they are the only games that can exist in that sole medium; a game that could (or even should) be made as a film/TV show can be great, but rarely has the same visceral impact.
I'm pretty sure Starfield exists purely because someone at Bethesda said "What if we did Skyrim in space?" and everyone in the room thought it was a great idea because they forgot that in the time since Skyrim came out their game engine and game mechanics have aged very poorly. Even Skyrim wasn't all that interesting, what did it have that Oblivion didn't? Dragon Shouts are just spells with a different button press, and crafting is functionally just an item shop with a stat requirement and different currency.
I couldn't agree more about starferild. the worst part is they have multiple foundations for a great game within it. the mechanics though generic are still soild. but story wise they don't stick with anything. They could of span it off in so many ways, from being a bounty hunter, to a space marine to a frontieer planet cop, to taking up the role as mantis, to being a corpo ops to being a gang runner. all these are in the game but only enough to get a true taste for it. by the time your done with shujin you have solved 1 major quest, but then its just radiant. if they had made a few quests like this, maybe have the corp be small at first and over time you build it all the way up to the number one on the market that would been a great and well recived game. If they had taken the mantis story and expanded it gave you arch nemisis, maybe a plot point about them trying to destory somewhere and it would been great. same for the space marines, yeah you stop one major threat but then it just stops again.. so much waste here beacuse they didn't commit enough to anyone idea.
Agreed. I think with a bit more top down direction/structure the game could have been a lot better. For example, pick 3-5 fantasies (e.g space-farmer, corpo/cyberpunk, space marine), give them distinct starting points in the game world -- e.g. Neon, and then build early game content around that. Delegate design to the team responsible for each area but build it out in a holistic way so that the quests in the area are meaningful and connected. Then later you may/may not meet Constellation and other high level quest lines -- dangerous bounty hunting or something that rewards your investment in building up your crew
That and the brand its associated with as a whole. Im willing to give the devs some benefit of the doubt because i heard they were working on the game before Rowling took the mask off and revealed she was a bigoted hag (actually, calling her thats an insult to hags)
yes and no, HP is problematic for other reasons but thats not exactly why the HL story was bad, its just very poorly written and falls apart around the halfway point and it just rushes every story point after it.
I want to talk about Biomutant, the AA game that wanted to be the next big thing but basically failed at everything it tried... with the exception of World Exploration. There are spots you can only get to by combining multiple movement skills (say like the bubble that lets you bounce higher and higher and the dash ability that launches you horizontally near instantly), and the whole game is so bland that you wouldn't expect to find cleverly hidden chests of high end loot, except that's exactly what you find. And that's a great reward for a looter shooter that also lets you customize the look of your character. Bright spots like that kept me playing until I let the story limp over the finish line.
Yes. I quite enjoy several games that are notoriously buggy (Warrior Within, Deadly Premonition, and Arkham Origins). It helps if the story and atmosphere keeps me engage.
I really liked Warrior Within story, the dahaka chases felt desperate, not necessarily in mechanics because after the first few you get a grip on them, but the expectation that at any time there could be a chase sequence, the music and how it unwinded after the chase finished was very atmospheric.
When Demon's Souls released in 2009, both the game's publisher, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, and the Japanese gaming press constantly gave the game crap, calling it a badly designed game. Sony still agreed to finance and publish the game, but even Sony's president at the time, Shuhei Yoshida, hated Demon's Souls. It got to a point that Sony refused to publish the game outside of Japan, believing it to be a lost cause. If you ask Sony what they think of the game now, they're kicking themselves. Turns out "bad game design" is surprisingly difficult to define, same with "good game design".
So I believe the way Bethesda builds games isn’t just as RPGs but also as immersive sims at the same time. So they need to create an RPG that’s also open enough to be an immersive sim, which means all the systems in place need to be loose enough for the player to alter them at will, and without much resistance. Those ideas sound like they would mesh in theory as both are supposedly giving the power of choice to the player, but in actuality, they’re counter intuitive. RPGs are actually quite structured and impressively well thought out while sims emphasize player freedom and an unobstructed playground. It’s “player choice” but I’m completely different ways. It’s why their games always feel awkward, because the blending isn’t quite conducive. But when it works, it works well for those who enjoy it and those games are generally lauded as genre defining successes
I've definitely found myself interested more in bottom-up designs. Terraria's a good example, as you've showed, though more recently I've played Void Stranger, which I'd argue started off with a game mechanic idea and then built the story to work with that idea. "Block-pushing, tile-swapping gameplay with inspirations from the shmup genre" sounds like it'd take a lot of effort to pull off, and whilst a few of its downsides are rather noticeable (the most notable being "no undo"), the narrative works with the mechanics to make one hell of an unforgettable puzzle game. Which isn't to say I dislike top-down games! But those sorts tend to be tougher to return to when I want a replay, cause I'll remember the troubles of certain parts that I pushed through to learn more of the story, and end up discouraged as a result 😅
I don’t understand how people can be a fan of HP at this point. Legacy was quite literally Blood Libel the game where you side with the group killing off the Jews. It’s not a subtle analogy that you can write off as accidental, either. I’m honestly disappointed.
There was a *lot* of Orc Massage footage in this that I can only imagine was a cheeky nod to those who know. (Like having a Bad Dragon coffee mug at work)
I have a couple badly designed retro games that can still be good, if you're willing to overlook the obvious flaws: Rare's Original Battletoads & Konami's 1st Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the NES. Both have their good qualities [Both have good graphics & music] But my God! they have SO many issues. Here's the evidence: Battletoads has it's infamous difficulty spikes [2 continues, no passwords for the whole game] while TMNT has absurd enemy respawn rates, janky platforming mechanics & spotty hit detection. Yes, I get that the games back in those days were made purposefully difficult to have the player buy the game instead of renting it [Castlevania III for example] but that shouldn't be an excuse for lack of common sense design choices even back in the NES days!
J & Ludo and all of Second Wind, I'd like to suggest, if it's not too much effort, including the name of which games you use visuals from. Granted, most were pretty recognizable, but a few eluded me (such as the game at 7:08). I and I'm sure others would appreciate it, thanks.
Rowling has said, multiple times now, that the continued success of the HP franchise is continued support of her transphobic views (ie, that trans women are rapists). The wider industry's continual positive promotion of things like Hogwart's Legacy is deeply disappointing. HL didn't need to be mentioned, especially positively, in this video. I'm glad you enjoyed it, I won't ever try and strip your right to enjoy whatever you want, but the consequences of referencing it so positively on such a large platform is...continuously big. And it's frustrating that so few people seem to get that.
Not gonna lie, that first sentence of your post, I've never heard of Rowling saying that. Nonetheless, I still believe you based on the kind of person Rowling has shown herself to be with her own words. People who think they're untouchable (regardless of why) tend to remove their masks and share the absolute worst hot takes of theirs with the world. Elon Musk does it, the out of touch showrunners at Disney do it (the most recent example in mind being Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy). I admit though, I appreciate the times Yahtzee references HL, because he always remembers to flex his c-word pass and use it on Rowling.
while everything you just said is true, im going to make an argument for why its relevant to bring it up. All of the discussion around the game had everything to do with the IP, rowling, etc. and it was never judged on it's own merits. which were shit in its own right and deserved to be criticized for it's own failings, not just because the person who owns the ip is what they are.
If I'd only been given a brief description of top-down and bottom-up design and then asked which type of game I prefer, I would have said top-down without hesitation. I love stories, love world building, and always go for the rule of cool in my TTRPG sessions. But hearing this explanation and seeing examples was eye-opening for me. Most of the bottom-up examples are games I have played and loved, and looking at my most played games on Steam from the last year has a majority of bottom-up games. I don't know if I've completely changed my mind on which kind of game I prefer, but I'm going to be thinking about this more. Definitely something that's going to stick around in the back of my mind for a long while. Thanks for that.
Hogwarts Legacy is like the Super Mario Bros Movie of games. Entirely generic, soulless and dull through and through, but because it has the veneer of something people recognize, players get tricked into liking one of the blandest games of last year.
I work in game dev and my job does it bottom up, mainly because we make games that involves a lot of math and it's easier to design the art and theme to fit it than the other way around. But it would be fun to do Top down for once, because bottom up design does give some creative limitations on my end. Buuut As long as there's a solid design document for both mechanics and art direction early during pre-production, I'm happy.
I would agree with you about finding the players you want and attracting them instead of making a generally meh game. I've seen this diving into automation games recently; each focuses on a different part of the problem, with their own choices on what to gamify, and thus attract a different player. For instance, Satisfactory isn't combat focused, doesn't have diminishing resources, and all belts are always magically powered, making them super efficient. Captain of Industry, instead, makes all belts use power, gives you a populace to take care of, and rapidly diminishing resources, so what you use when is much more important. But it glosses over fluids with a simple pipe system, and makes the population part uninvolved (you just plop a city square down with no regards for roads, etc, if you need more space). Still others gamify completely different parts and realistically simulate others. It leads to a set of *really* interesting games with a different target audience than a slog of samey games going for the same piece of pie.
Cruelty Squad is an intentionally "bad" game and yet it pleases both the mechanical and narrative audience, same with Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy. I think the main problem with Starfield is that there is no hook for any type of audience, it's just too watered down in every department. If it had competent base building it could attract the sims crowd, if it had competent manufacturing it could capture the factorio audience, if it had competent writing (HA) it could capture the since long gone from bethesda narrative audience, if it had more interesting and rewarding dungeons it could capture the dungeon crawler audience (More common than you'd think) , if it had more focused, breathing, living settlements it could capture the RP and exploratory audience (Think Cyberpunk) and so on for every single minor mechanic from lockpicking (A chunk of Oblivion's audience are lock picking enthusiasts because it emulates real lockpicking in an arcade setting) to commerce (Buying and selling) to home ownership to relationships to missions to shooting to fucking everything. Previous games had numerous options for people invested in a type of gameplay to get invested in, I was invested in Fallout 4 because of the ok gun crafting system giving me a reason to explore for new toys to mess with and make my own, putting a pool cue above the bench named "DOOM" or naming my explosive tommy gun "The Group Discount". Starfield's guns have so many arbitrary barriers to letting me make them my own, I can't mess with the ship in an interesting way and the gunplay itself just doesn't reward my creations or even make them feel like my own. So many of the upgrades are barely visible and I can't meaningfully display them next to where I made them like in Fallout 4. There's FAR fewer options and with the lack of mod support I can't even correct any of these issues myself, and even if I could, what for? That's a secondary loop fixed but the core and tertiary still don't exist. There's a million ways it could be made good for ONE audience in just a month of work and yet nothing sticks for anyone other than the Mecha audience specifically getting repeatedly told to piss off.
My preference depends on genres. Metroidvanias for instance is my favourite genre, they don't need a story - it's nice, but they are games where mechanics is king - the same goes for puzzle games, tactics games, etc so we want bottom-up. But when it comes to story games - JRPGs like Small Saga, Manafinder, Rise of the third power , CRPGs like Pathfinder: wrath of the righteous, or any other game with a tight focus on narrative like a space for the unbound, lacuna, etc. top-down can create some great experiences. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure a few of the ones I just mentioned might have been designed with gameplay first (Small Saga is a good example). So what I mean to say is I don't really personally have a preference, but each approach is better suited for certain genres, but it doesn't mean the other can't be used - it's just trickier. For the other question, you can for sure enjoy a badly designed game. I think if you avoid every game with significant frustration that will create a lot less stress for you, but you'll also miss out on some pretty good experiences. I have a rather high frustration limit (not endless though) and while that occasionally have kept me playing a game I don't enjoy for too long it has also allowed me to appreciate a number of imperfect games.
First off, I'm loving this series. Well thought out and it just feels great to watch. My answer to the main question is: Yes, BUT it depends on the support of the developers and the community at large. A great example is No Mans Sky. Many folks looked at that release where the game was clearly designed bottom up, but missed it's promises. Through the support of the developers constantly improving the game and the community around it, the game eventually be came good. Lethal company is also a game that showcases a game that on the top layer is poorly designed experience as a stand alone game, but is the rage right now as the community comes together and finds the humor in its quirks and the emergent gameplay. On the flipside, games like Redfall did not receive either developer support or community love and thus died out really quickly because it was just a bad game. When it comes to Starfield and other Bethesda Open world RPG's though, I feel like they aren't approaching it from either a top or bottom approach. Sure there's mechanics in there, a bit of story (a few small nuggets of GOOD story.) but really I think they approach it from the position of scale. Starfield is a large game, lots of zones and places to go, but not filled with as much to do outside of basic scanning/base building. The Ship mechanics are the bones of something that could be great once you get passed how frustrating it is to make a ship that looks like a ship. There is enough world building and undertones defining factions and their approaches to problems. Bethesda didn't design a good game, they designed a good baseline. Possibly because they have the history of knowing that modders will hit the scene and turn their game into something completely different. (Fallout 4, Skyrim, hell even oblivion and Fallout 3 have a god-tier mod community) There are folks out there more interested in taking this "game" and breaking it over their kneecaps to do truly great things. And so I think this is how bethesda planned to approach: Create a game focused on scale and marketability, with enough mechanics to make it a bit flavored and then release it and reap those sales and then reap a second windfall on those sales when modders eventually "crack the code" and turn the game into something interesting.
Top Down vs Bottom Up: I say it's more complicated than just choosing 1! At least from the game design perspective. I make games in my spare time (board games, card games, and video games) and I've found that I absolutely love involving myself in both sides of this spectrum, but for different reasons. I'm good at bottom up, but I love discussing top down. Bottom up design is like a puzzle to me. Trying to figure out how to make stuff work is just a great brain challenge. Trying to figure out all the ways players will try to break the mechanics or just misuse them. How mechanics feel and how they interact with each other. Too down on the other hand really brings out the creative side in me. Have to figure out how the game will feel, what colors to use, designing levels for multiple feelings, and what the game will be about. Figuring out music choices and which sound effect works best for an action. It's where I get to express myself or try and make players feel something. Bottom up is the Spock, Top down is the McCoy. And together we are trying to make the Kirk. So I say both sides are necessary, and both sides are fun, just for different reasons.
It's interesting the different approaches games take, I think one of the best approaches and examples is the portal series. The first game had a good story but was primarily focused on engaging puzzles. The sequel flesh out more of the gameplay but the story really came to the forefront.
The idea of personal ludo narrative is very apt. and is why Modding and personal challenges are so popular in said games. Everyone has a different theme in their head at the table, and having a game designed to be essentially bland pancake mix means it's easier to put more of yourself based on what you add and how you cook it. In a "G.A.M.E" (1:53) nothing is sacred besides your personal enjoyment. Being a 5E Dungeon Master for a few years. this video sparks alot of memories of jumping from top-down and bottom-up design throughout the development of my games. The bottom-up nature of set stats, and spells as a baseline for world and player potential, and the Top-down design of DM fiat, MacGuffins, and Homebrew, or removing rules. I applied both mindsets when designing a game to keep myself and my players invested and satisfied.
Happy new year to you too! I'm mostly top first, I guess. I love great stories and immersion, but I'm also very drawn to strategy games in different variations, which again is often about shaping a narrative. Funnily enough, I have more or less laid out a complete gameplay mechanic in my notes, which I mostly mechanic focused. How to write an interesting story about it on the other hand.... Guess I've listened too much to yathzee about core gameplay loop 😂
Until a few years ago I probably would have said I was definitely a 'Top down' person, because my fondest gaming memories were of the stories in games I liked - Final Fantasy VII, Bioshock, Portal 1 & 2 (even though the latter is almost certainly designed more bottom-up, it was the story and characters that I remembered most) - I would have said that I was mainly interseted in games with good stories. But after playing Souls games and some other story-lite titles, I kind of realised that maybe I was more of a bottom-up guy. A game with really good gameplay but not a lot of story could hook me in, but one with good story and uninspiring gameplay not so much. But I suppose really it can be both. It can be refreshing to come to a game with a lot of story in it after you've been playing something very bottom-up, and conversely, after playing something with a good story but not very inspiring game mechanics, it can be fun to get into something with innovative gameplay.
I know there's probably been a few thousand comments to this effect by now but it still amazes me that y'all haven't slowed down at all since the Escapist shenaniganery. I guess having content pre-loaded and ready to go helps to a certain extent but Yahtzee had to re-design his entire shtick basically on the fly. I guess that's what you're capable of when you really know what you're doing, huh?
I prefer to start Top Down. Create the basics with excessive thought behind why but without a narrative throughput the user will experience yet. Then we go Bottom Up. Create mechanics, abilities, and general personalities that fit the character with respect to the world/space they exist in outlined above. Then like a cheese grater, slowly yet surely, we go back on top, then back down, creating finer & finer details that compliment in tandem. This is pretty nice in writing design style and thought it may be analogous to games. Starting at the Bottom though may be correct depending on the situation.
