Is It Possible To Make Feeling Weak Fun? 

Why yes, I did make up the word "gribbly"! No, you are not allowed to use it unless you're a patron: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames Follow me on twitter to slightly dilute the horrible takes on that site with my dumb videogame shitposting: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot Also here's a big list of charities for you to choose from: www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/s6g5un/want_to_support_ukraine_heres_a_list_of_charities/

Your calling untitled goose game a soulslike ingnited a spark of inspiration in me. Like most souls likes, you awaken in a land ruled over by horrific monsters who wish to impede your every move, and in order to progress you must overcome the unique challenges several of those monsters lay in your path. And at the end you may topple the false facade of stability in a stag anting empire, only to discover that this subversion and attempt to disrupt the unfitting rule of the so called gods is part of the cycle itself.

Animal Crossing games are all about having the time and energy to enjoy being outside, making friends as an adult, and paying off your debts. How is that not the ultimate power fantasy?

The thing about Dishonored is that being Good is PART OF the power fantasy for a lot of people; check the achievement ratio for good and evil runs completed for any game that does it, WAY more people do the good route only. Making the Evil route easier makes sense in that context, because what you're giving up for a much easier time is being able to think of yourself as the good guy. Which might not translate to game mechanics very well, but is still more effective than you'd think despite that.

For masochists, being weak is always fun

For me while I initially felt weak playing Sifu; it eventually became a power fantasy as I got better at it. You really start to feel like a kung-fu god by the end of it.

I never quite liked discussing Dark Souls in terms of empowerment or disempowerment. It looks like an obvious angle, but my favorite part of Dark Souls 1 was that it seemed entirely disinterested in my happiness, at least at face value. It felt incredibly liberating that I could choose how I feel about every death and victory, rather than a game admonishing me or encouraging me to carry on. I'm sure other people have a different take, because Dark Souls is such an open ended experience, but those are my two cents.

I think making the player character feel fragile and having a healthy amount of pushback for mistakes is integral, and even in the games that can be labeled as “power fantasies” don’t feel good if the challenge is non-existent or trivial.

First two witcher games did it right. It's power fantasy on a gameplay level, but choices are more complicated than generic "sacrifice something to be good" vs "pick an easy path and be bad". It makes you think about how world works and how it will react. In a first game your very first choice is to spare or turn in an elf terrorist. Your rpg experience tells you something like "yeah, I'll spare him and get more content later, maybe a quest or something". Then a terrorist does a terrorist thing and kills important character, so you get less content. Game forces you to think like someone living in this world, not a player. It rewards for acting in character, not doing annoying things and having less fun.

Something that I want to add is the power that comes from knowledge and tools instead of bigger numbers you can put out. The rush and feeling of being able to take down bigger enemies due to knowledge is incredible. When you can deal with low-level enemies with your sharp wit while they can still pose a threat is the perfect combination of power fantasy and tension. Being able to get a bunch of upgrades that make you deal significantly more damage or save you from punishment multiple times can make the game boring.

I think a game that often goes overlooked is scp containment breach: you have to explore an enourmous laboratory while ttrying your hardest to survive while ultimately having no way to defend yourself with mechanics that make you feel hindered too, when you get hit, for example, you run slower, or if you want to survive 049's touch you need to give up your ability to run altogether. I know it might be way easier to make your character weak in a horror game, as you have to feel powerless, but I still think containment breach does it really well.

I think, like with many things that seem opposed to each other, that "power fantasy" and "feeling weak" are often a false dychotomy. Just like Batman seems badass *because* he's just human and because he can accomplish so much without any superpowers, a game that sets you up as weak can give you the greatest sense of power that more traditional "look you're so strong" games can't deliver on. My two most memorable moments in Disco Elysium were: (very mild spoilers I guess?) . . . roundhouse kicking a fascist in his stupid head, and getting some begrudging acknowledgment from a colleague that I have not been drinking or taking drugs in the past few days. A game where you're a self-admitted f*ckup makes those moments incredibly meaningful. You will never be this proud of yourself by kicking someone in a fighting game. For obvious reasons. And this extends to the whole "feel" of the game. When you make a genius deduction, when you save someone or help someone, when you make a difficult shot with your gun - all those things, in a world that's designed to grind you down, are big wins. In a world where even assuming you could win sets you up for failure and pain, the occasional small triumph is empowering and heroic.

I think I actually disagree with you about Dishonored. One of the most common complaints about the first game is that the good route is so much more boring and difficult than the chaos route, but the game gets so mad at you and shames you so much if you have fun on the chaos route. But I think that's exactly the point: being good is difficult and there's so much temptation to be evil, because it's just frankly more fun. So I actually think the game really achieved what its going for imo

Everyones first night in Minecraft is this. And now that the deep dark is coming, it appears to be returning. My favourite part about Dishonored 2 (and also the part that got me so annoyed) is that trying to play non-lethally is always harder. There are very few weapons to take people out without killing them, rewiring stuff typically results in that stuff killing everyone else, making the slightest noise is detrimental, and crouching around all the time is slow and boring. Doing non-lethal takedowns of the targets involves going the roundabout way, though it's always more fun to do so. Why kill when I can snoop around more to get some other stuff. Then when things don't go as planned, ya gotta figure out a way to salvage the situation. At the start, I resorted to murder. Later on, I tried to choke people out mid-fight (and accidentally get them killed by their own allies whoops). A rewarding experience, but sometimes things are so bs.

I think that feeling weak would be great for making tense survival games where you're constantly fighting for your life, so that is an idea.

To me Sifu doesn't seem any less of a power fantasy than Dark Souls. If Sifu wasn't a power fantasy, then you couldn't fight anyone. Instead you'd have to call the police after getting assaulted.

Personally, being at a disadvantage in any scenario, feels more rewarding when you actually end up overcoming it than you would normally feel if you were on the same playing field as everyone else. Not just in games but in life as well.

Honestly, I feel like this is just my preferred playstyle even in a lot of power fantasy games. I tend to "min/max" in everything, which in of itself is kind of a power fantasy, but with strings attached, for example, I love the Lethal mode in Ghost of Tsushima and trying to make purely charisma-based characters in games wherever possible, characters that're great in some situations but weak in others is often more gratifying than purely powerful characters. I'll definitely have to check out Sifu after this video.

Subnautica makes you feel out of your depth like your not at the top of the food chain any more I love it

Little surprised you didn't use Rain World as a perfect example cause "you're literally the weakest link on the food chain, survive" is what the game is all about. Almost everything kills the player in one hit/bite/grab and navigating the dangerous and deadly world while being weak is where most of the fun comes from

I greatly appreciate how many different kinds of games you talk about in your videos, no matter how niche they may be. Makes it so that after every video I'm not only left with some great insight about games and their design but also a list of titles I had never heard of but should really give a try.

"Power fantasy games" aren't a problem if the end-result of such power granted, ultimately comes from a fair reward of player that has sincerely worked for it. However, it does become a problem when players start to think such "power fantasies" are to be expected, and demand it from any and every game. "Power fantasy" as a game-play style, is an element which fits some games, but doesn't do well in others.

I have a cripplingly perfectionist mentality from growing up believing I was supposed to never make mistakes. As such, I'm pretty much terrified to attempt anything with even remotely significant stakes, so games that grievously punish you for messing up...don't really sit well with me. Any satisfaction I may get from them is always tinged with frustration. Honestly, I do need some form of escapism to not be constantly wrapped up in feeling hopeless and powerless, especially in recent years. I can understand the ideas discussed here, but I don't agree with it.

rain world is a great game where you really don´t get more powerful over time, and because for the msot part it´s not a game that focuses heavily on combat msot of the time you will try to survive instead of killing every enemy, the fact that your power mostly correlates to your skill level makes this stand out more

Have you heard of Hardspace: Shipbreaker? It's a blue collar work sim where you deconstruct spaceships. At times it's a puzzle, sometimes it gets stressful, and at the end of the day you're that much closer to paying off your debt.

Probably one of the most memorable moments in Mass Effect for me was in the third game when we were on Tali's homeworld and Legion was wanting to integrate the Geth into the Reapers and I had to choose between killing Legion or letting Tali and all of the Quarians die. I didn't have enough of either renegade or paragon to save both and I loved both characters so that decision put me into that kind of powerless position where either way, I was going to regret my choice. If I had been renegade or paragon enough, I don't think that moment would've stuck with me as much.

I think part of this is how insanely fucking difficult games are to make, and the insane diversity that can go into even the most restrictive genres. Being entirely original in a game only makes the insane difficulty of making them exponentially harder. Trying to divulge and make your own genre of game is kinda like trying to make a movie if all the world's knowledge of films were completely erased, there's just nothing to go on, you're on your own. Rain world is the game I've played that is most wholly original and divulges from power fantasy while still feeling like the pinnacle of an entire genre. You're weak, but it's not something you need to overcome, more something you need to accept, and become enveloped by the games mechanical storytelling. There's so much space games have yet to explore and while I think it'll be a long time until they do, I'm willing to wait for it.

I've always loved the concept of Pikmin: incredibly weak alone but strong together. It's a very unique game mechanic.

I remember getting Death Stranding when it first came out, and then saw all the terrible reviews it got and never played it. Last year I picked it up finally just to give it ago, and loved every single second of it. Planning out your path, packing all the right equipment, and finishing your job as efficiently as possible is so dang satisfying. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who takes so much joy in such a seemingly monotonous thing

There's one view in the art world that goes approximately like this: "Mass art recreates the effect of a feeling, while actual art presents conditions that cause you to feel a certain way." And personally, I've found that to hold true quite often in video games. A lot of large, expensive spectacle games distill power fantasy into a series of timed presses of a button, and make more or less self-insert movies with varying degrees of player agency within that pretty small window of optimalness. Meanwhile, many indie games often build themselves into operator rooms in which what button you press and when defines you, over the course of the game, as both the hero of your particular story and the player. And that is not at all surprising. You have to be pretty limiting to generate a particular set of pre-planned responses in a player, so you just orchestrate the "feeling" and sell that very specific thing. Or, alternatively, you can have a general direction outlined, and provide your player with all the logical tools to explore it with... but at the risk of the system occasionally not delivering a "satisfying" product. And we can't really take that kind of risk for such serious things as games now, can we?..

I wonder how a game like Spiritfarer fits in this. I can't really explain why because that would spoil most if not all of it, but being powerless seems deeply embedded in it.

One thing I read from a Jojo fancomic always stuck to me and fits this video pretty well. "Hasn't anyone ever told you it's okay to be weak?"

Being from Ukraine and watching this video exactly 1 year since the release, when we just marked the year of resilience for my country and getting to end of the video made me so very emotional. Thank you for your support Adam. It means so much. It's been one hell of a year, and while i am so very lucky to even have an opportunity to play games today, it takes an immense effort to let myself actually do it. Your videos always did inspire me to try something new and possibly something that i would have missed. You do remind me the main reason why i love gaming so much. I may not be able to play a game today. But your videos give me that feeling that later i will. Thank you for that.

I think the best game that makes you weak is Kingdom Come: Deliverance. At the beginning of the game, a fight with anyone can get you killed. And even mid game, any 2 people can kill you

The games that make you do hard moral choices are like tragedies in fiction: its well written, its impactful, its memorable, but It's not something you want to experience again, especially for games that don't eventually give you a better ending. You played the game without knowing there is a hard moral choice, you were hit hard emotionally and give the game a 5 star, but next time you shop for a game you look at the comment section first to make sure there are no hard moral choices.

5:00 I share the same feeling, my favorite part on almost any game (a good example is Resident Evil 4 & 5) is that beggining part where you barely know what to do or how to play, have weak weapons, low ammo, few healing items and need to desperately work around the challenges thrown at you, it like this "anti-power fantasy" so much that what i like to do the most on the majority of games (doom, gof of war, resident evil, etc.) is to play on the hardest difficulty with no upgrades (which i know, is like a power fantasy, the only difference is that the satisfaction comes from winning even against all odds), which is really frustrating and... FUN! XD

Pathologic and Pathologic 2 are my favourite examples of games that make you feel weak. They're just so brutal and any success you have just feels like a stay of execution.

I think before immersive sims ran themselves to extinction, they had a great idea in that the more options you give a player to solve a problem you can get away with making them less immediately powerful. It encourages lateral thinking, so your less Superman and more Kevin Mcallister or Rick O'Connell. They are very clearly weaker then the villain and have to rely on whits and quick thinking to defeat the bad guys, be they home invaders or an ancient evil mummy. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic did this amazingly by introducing you in the tutorial to the kicking and physics mechanics before even teaching you how to use the actual weapons. It's teaching you that direct conflict isn't the best way to solve problems, and that's really what most games are. Elaborate way to solve problems in a given framework.

The thing about Dark Souls, is that it lets you learn, and it gives you... _a lot_ ... of options on how to overcome different challenges. It plunks you into a world, gives you a vague bucket list of things to do like "Ring 2 bells", gives you a vague idea of where those bells might be located, and gives you a pat on the back and a hop to it and there you go. Now, the "Newbie Route" is rather obvious, but you aren't forced to go that way. As for your personal power level vs. that of the enemy, if something seems way too hard... you're either not fighting it right, or you really need to have a serious look at your equipment. Maybe you're using the wrong type of weapon against it. Maybe your equipment is outdated and needs upgraded. Maybe you're just not supposed to be there yet, and there's better stuff elsewhere, where enemies are far more reasonable. Maybe you just need to "Git Gud". I can't really say, though, that I ever felt that Dark Souls was a power fantasy, unless you're running through areas you are well-familiar with, but even then, you can easily die if you forget the basic safety rules. One slip off of a ledge, letting your guard down so someone can knock you off a ledge, or heck, one riposte from an enemy is all it takes to send your overgeared butt back to your last bonfire. I like games that let you learn and grow as you go through the games. Games with "adjustable difficulty" in-game. RPGs are best known for this, they give you XP and equipment choices and you adjust your challenge by doing more grinding or speeding through the game faster. One thing about "feeling weak" that I don't really like in some games, is that some games mistake "lack of options" for "being weak". I hate it when games give you a character, and start you off being able to do almost nothing but basic attacks and they create weakness through a lack of options of what you can do. This is something else Dark Souls excels at, within the first 5 minutes of the game, you get your entire repertoire right from the get-go: A weapon, a shield, and your Estus Flask. It's up to you to learn what _else_ you can do (with a few hints scribbled on the ground).. Backstabs, Ripostes, Rolling, all of that can be explored and done from the opening moments of the game. They aren't locked behind tutorials, they aren't locked behind boss fights, or treasure chests, or what-not. The only thing in Dark Souls that's locked from the player is a weapon (the one you start out with is hilariously weak), and a shield (you get it a minute or two later), and both are given before you really have to fight anything (except for dodging a couple arrows to get your shield). Now obviously, you are likely going to want to replace your starting weapon with something a little better, and most certainly get better shields and better armor, but other than different animation and movesets, you still have your entire toolset from the beginning. Other than finding items you can use, AFAIK the only thing you unlock as you progress through the game is crafting related (finding blacksmiths who can upgrade equipment) and Fast-Travel once you get to the end of Anor Londo.

One of my favorite 'weak' games is Rain World. It's a survival game with an entire ecosystem. Some creatures don't care about you, some are afraid of you, and most importantly, most want to eat you. You are low down in the food chain, and until you get **much** better at the finnicky and at times frustrating controls and combat, your best option is to be stealthy. However, the part where this becomes amazing is when you take into account the way you move across rooms. Most rooms aren't connected by large hallways, they're connected by pipes you can't see through until you're on the other side. Not only can you pop out of a pipe immediately into a predator view, one could very well pop out at any time and see you. You need to adapt on the fly to predators that are often more versatile than you, you can never rest until you find a safe shelter to stay for the night. It's truly a terrifying experience, and my favorite game of all time. I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a phobia of bugs.

I love how you included footage of Untitled Goose game when you mentiones Soul's Likes, had a good laugh at that one. Honestly, I wish there were more games about mundane life, even if it's in a fantasy or sci-fi setting. And to anyone reading, please pray for the Ukraine in their troubled time. Pray for the safety of the people, pay for the missionaries and relief workers going to help them and support the people of Ukraine as much as you can.

I love Willmots Warehouse!!!! I was so exited when you mentioned it. I hope more people can try it.

Minecraft is interesting. When you first play it in your first survival world, it feels hard and you feel weak. But shortly after, after acquiring stone tools and iron, then it's just a power fantasy. And then after that, when you make a new world, it ends up as a power fantasy from the start.

I am so thankful for the list of games used as footage. I always found a new gem through your videos.

I think Dishonored rewarding high chaos and making low chaos tedious and less cathartic is kind of a part of it. It's easy to use your powers immorally and doing so is a slippery slope. Holding on to a moral code even when doing so is difficult and lacks the catharsis of revenge is what makes low chaos runs so fun. I played Dishonored 2 the first time as Emily and decided it wouldn't feel right for her to kill people so I went with a non-lethal assault playthrough and it honestly is the closest a game has made me feel to being batman. Trying to beat people up and stay alive in an increasingly out of control and desperate situation while still trying to hold back and make sure nobody dies is a pretty fun juggling act.

Pathologic 2 is my favourite game of all time, precisely for how it crushes you under its heel and spits on you for feeling pain. It doesn’t just make you feel weak, it makes you feel like a dead man walking. Hunger is a resource. Thirst is a resource. Money is a resource. Exhaustion is a resource. Health is a resource. Infection level is a resource. Immunity is a resource, Time is a resource. Inventory space is a resource. Resources are, well, resources. Hell, NOT BEING DEAD is a resource, because when you die the fourth-wall breaking theatre director will penalise you by reducing your stats; each and every one of these resources are plummeting into the abyss in real time, and to restore one of these stats you have to shoot yourself in the foot in regards to another. Say you’re out looting in a district where the Sand Plague, and every innocent citizen in it, is dead, and you happen to get stabbed by a looter with the same idea as you. You’re nearly dead, and the plague is already shaving away your health by the minute, so you need to act fast. Maybe run to the store and buy some bandages? No, you’re also starving to death, so you’re saving what money you have left for a slice of bread, which’ll buy you a few hours tops. You’re carrying a few water bottles, why not find the town drunks who hand out bandages for them? Well, you’re going to have to spend time finding the sods in the first place, and you’ll need those bottles to create tinctures in order to keep the infection from eating you whole and your friends from getting infected in the first place. And then that will entail finding MORE water bottles in bins, eating more time. Oh, and time progresses faster each day. This is just a minor, hypothetical and all too common part of the gameplay loop as well. The plot of the game, the unique events that happen across town, have their own ways of fucking with you. There’s a situation where a dear friend of yours wants to set up a shelter and requires a water barrel to take care of the people in her house. You find out that the barrel you want to get for her is infected, the water muddied by the plague. So you’re met with either the option to deliver the barrel to her, which will infect her part of the town, or take sampled, muddied water to a doctor working to prevent the spread of the plague who WILL destroy every barrel in the middle chunk of town to err on the side of caution. The best part is, the best option for the quest is to do completely nothing. Taking either one of the options handicaps you. Everything fucking sucks, but you go on, right? Every day, your condition gets worse and worse. You run out of resources, brush shoulders with death over and over again, even cut a few folks organs out or stab a member of the homeguard in the dead of night for a little more money; but every once in a while, you’ll find that you’re okay. Sure, you’re strapped for cash and your health isn’t great, but your stomach is full of dried fish that will keep you going for a few hours, and you’re not SUPER close to death. Those moments make it all worth it, even if by time you go to sleep that night you’ll be close to death again. It’s a game of adaptation, of survival. Day 11, the real last day, is my favourite moment in all of gaming because of how hopeless it is yet how desperate to survive you are… and after fighting tooth and nail to survive across this gargantuan journey, you’re here at the end. It’s actually heartbreaking, knowing you’re about to say goodbye to this world after all the time you’ve spent in it, even if you’ve grown to despise near enough everyone in this town, the backstabbing rats and the delusional tribals. This game helped me through one of the darkest times in my life, where autism underlying anxiety has kneecapped me as I sit here and patiently wait for death because I’m convinced I’m so broken that I can’t change, I have no idea how to change. It was a game that allowed me the opportunity to live, to strategize, to run around town and take care of mundane-- if deadly-- busywork. People call the game boring, soul-crushing, and that’s why they love it; I say it’s the happiest gaming has made me. Yeah, the game tore me down by the end, but it really did feed me a slice of life that I thought I could never have. Yeah. This game is a masterclass in making you feel weak and simultaneously like you have the biggest genitalia around. Buy Pathologic 2 if you haven’t, it’s fucking fantastic. AT LEAST watch a video essay or two on it or Pathologic Classic HD, my own words can’t do the game justice.

That tiny, tiny clip of Not for Broadcast at 9:05 sparked joy in me. I _love_ that game.

I'm really surprised you aren't a lot bigger! This video is amazing!

Gothic 1 and 2 are perfect games where the hero starts very weak, with everything being dangerous at the start

As a Ukrainian, I appreciate the outro 👍

I can't wait for the day you have 1 million subs. u really deserve it with how u do your videos. its amazing.

I have literally felt this way for years! You really hit the nail on the nose with this video I experience this all the time and im glad im not the only one :)

I feel weak and it is not fun. I live in Russia and have no control over situation. I feel that whole world hates us for what politicians did, while all we want is no war, but only peace. We all humans and was born on the same planet... And yet we live in a fucking 1984, but with internet, which makes it even worse - ignorance is strengh. I would prefer be dead stupid. Im sorry for bringing it here, just cant do anything with myself. I enjoyed the video, even through tears. I need something to keep myself sane. Thanks. Thanks. Keep up with your content

Ukrainian subscriber from Poltava here. Adam, thanks for the great video. When you don't know if you'll wake up tomorrow, you start to enjoy the little things much more. Ordinary things help to maintain a good mood. We all really appreciate all your help at this difficult time. Take care of yourself too, friend! P.S. I must say, playing "This War of Mine" with solo-setup on ironman-mode IRL is not that fun at all ;-) Hope to see your next one!

metal gear rising title screen OST is just jaw dropping, it gives me for night cyberpunk vibes than cyberpunk 2077 as a whole game itself.

Refreshed my feed at the right time! Gonna have fun watching this ^^ I was just getting bored but now that problem's solved

Kenshi is for me the best game ever created so far, i'm so hyped for the net one *o* thank you for mentionning it :D

I remember back at the time when I played Prince of Persia: The Warrior within. I played it on PS2 without memory card when I was a kid, I felt it utterly hard to the point whenever i had low HP i used to do repetitive mechanics using wall jumping to kill enemies and store high dmg weapons. The point is that you feel like being powerful or rather unique but not enough with all the enemies and the setting around you, not mentioning the Dahaka chasing after you, even at the end you dont't feel like you have surpassed everything, you are still the same dude from the beginning with more knowledge 'bout what's happening around you and continuing your history. To me the point of being weak is the internal change you make to surpass the conflict because you are not in charge of the situation, while the change could be anything from physical to your way of thinking.

i just watched this not realising it was made 2 years ago, still valid. nice work, always great videos to enjoy as well as showing me some games i would like to try out.

The digital sword of Damacles ---- sick. Great video Adam.

Rain World is great because of how weak you are as an unwieldy slugcat. So when you master the controls and kill a few stealth lizards or vultures it feels like you are an apex predator caveman stalking and laying traps for your prey.

"Kenshi" is unfair.. yes in your favor. Almost no enemy's in this game can kill you. many of them actually nurse you back to health after attacking you. If one of your people gets captured and sold to slavery that sounds bad but it's a free workout routine with health insurance they are literally training you in the skills you need to eventually escape. Kenshi is brilliant in seeming much worse than it actually is. Just disregard anything I said when it comes to beak things they are actually evil.

4:00 that’s a description I can fully agree with!

Okay, your paper's-please-likes joke actually got me to like the video. I think there's some meta thing in there about how you just went the evil route, and got rewarded for it.

One of my favorite moments in video gaming would have to be playing ARK: Survival Evolved for the first time. Played with a buddy, and like normal, started on a beach. Seeing dinosaurs like that was fascinating, and surviving to build a little hut and prepare to tame our first dinosaur was a challenge. I remember being terrified of walking through the jungle, not knowing if and when a T-Rex might be behind the next tree. I was new and had no idea where the spawns were or nay of the tricks to surviving. I miss that, and any game that can make you feel legitimately scared is a great game in my book. Feeling weak and being forced to respect your surroundings and the unknown as you explore and go on an adventure that's unique and personal... It's just really impressive when a video game can accomplish that, and really elevates its standing as an art form.

Great video. Funny ending. And I really think it's great that you used the outro to talk about Ukraine. If people can't find the decency to care about what is happening, maybe selfishness will help. This is definitely gonna delay stalker 2. Seems trivial but there ya go

all respect for the music in the backround at the beginning

Watching this in August 2022, that outtro hits hard.

The "morality in a power fantasy" question kind of reminds me of the Euthyphron Dilemma, where the player is god. What's the point of being good when you are all powerfull. Weak characters must play according to rules, and those limitations (and the fact that one can still success with those limitations) could be what makes a great game.

8:30: I remember playing Dishonored, and only ever got the high-chaos endings. I tried, but never had the patience to get low-chaos endings, because the game gives you like twenty different cool ways to kill enemies, but only two to pacify them. Trying for the "good" ending was slow, and painfully frustrating. As soon as you stopped caring about chaos score and started using cool powers to kill stuff, suddenly the game became fun again.

Adam! I love all your videos, but I especially appreciate the way you shout out a smaller creator in the space. It can be really hard for people to grow and I appreciate it because your recommendations are always great!

Great video! TBH, I did have some trouble trying to focus on it, but having other things to think about is nice.

This video went in a slightly different direction than I expected at the start. I thought you were going to talk about the related topic of bigger stakes narrowing choices a lot more. In a slice of life story you have all the options what you want to do. In a save the world storyline generally speaking things become a lot more predictable because all the 'do not save the world' options are incredibly unlikely.

I kinda thought all of this was building up to you talking about pathologic. Sadly I was mistaken

I think this is why I often like the beginnings of RPGs the best.

Great timing!

Hey Adam are you planning on doing a video on the idea of in game research and study? Games like Strange Horticulture, Cultist Simulator, and the Spell Research mod for Skyrim have kind of opened up an opportunity for a whole new way to look at games where both you and the character have to learn about the world and stuff in it to succeed

This basically comes back to the question of "Do you let the player be strong or tell them to get good?"

I had never heard of silicon dreams, thanks for linking it. I look forward to diligently prosecuting person-shaped appliances who failed to retain their proper programming.

in the (underappreciated) SSX On Tour, you're a snowboarding master that easily goes super fast and smooth down any slope while making insane jumps and pulling of crazy stunts. But then suddenly there was a mission (/task/event? I dunno what they called it) where you had to go down an entire track without getting more than like a second of airtime. This meant you had to play completely different than normally, and it actually felt like I had to snowboard like I would in real life. (I'm not very good at it in real life) You had to slow down all the time, and try to avoid all the bumps in the road. Suddenly slopes and even just bumps started to look scary. While I think most people hated these missions, I absolutely loved how it painted those track and the entire game in a different light and made me see the game world as a more real place, and sub-sequentially made the normal gameplay feel even more insane. Missions like that a just a great contrast

I think that powerfantasies is what League sells as their champions. Every champion starts as a weak lvl 1 noob each game and through careful farming and using small advantages to get a lead, you reach your powerspikes earlier than the enemy. The powerfantasy cant be reached just with stats and items alone most of the time. It often requires careful planning, thinking of enemy cooldowns and positioning. Thats why most "failed/not often played champions" either dont have a clear powerfantasy, or reaching it isnt satisfying or can be reached by other champions easier. Powerfantasies are so diverse just in that game, that i personally believe, that anyone, who can live with click to move and the general control system (and the worst tutorial in videogame history) has something for them. From ultimate healbot support, to literal Lord of the Undead to nimble assassin to mighty tank there is everything. You also learn pretty fast, when it is better to just let go of your powerfantasy and support the most fed player in your team to win the game. Or even, when a game is just completely lost. You just have so many different mindsets with just one champion so many times.

No, but playing a game where I feel like a God from the title screen is BORING AS HELL!!! Sadly it seems like that's what the people want nowadays. A game that practically plays itself is not a game, mine as well call it a Movie

Incredible video

I love how you explain things and break things down. I agree with so many things you are saying not only in this video, but in others before it. Now I'm really interested in how you would tackle a video with Path of Exile, that is so incredibly grindy, difficult and not friendly to newer players, but in the long-term rewards you with so much, if you stick with it and figure things out.

Being weak and slowly working your way up to becoming strong can be easily achieved in most games by playing on the hardest difficulty and getting better. That's what I do at least, and oh boy, is it satisfying when you get good.

I like Darkest Dungeon in regards to this particular theme. The people you use (not heroes) to combat monsters slowly being worn down into madness and insanity as you push them ever forward to complete the quest given to them, pushing you to have this question ever present and lingering in your head: "Do I retreat and go home, or risk having all of these people die on me?" Most other games would let you recover to full power after every fight, through spells or use of items; but not Darkest Dungeon, every fight is a struggle against death from a thousand cuts; trying to avoid the straw that breaks the back of your party. Even after the mission is done, you still have to deal with the consequences of all the stress they've built up; and you have to send fresh meat into the grinder and hope they'll be up to the task at hand as well. Seems the theme that runs through all the various games is essentially "Balancing on a knife's edge" and that's the source of the fun: Can you balance what you're given? And how long can you keep it balanced?

so happy to see lisa in this, was thinking of it from seeing the title.

Thanks for the vid

"Is It Possible To Make Feeling Weak Fun?" Yes, this is well known by everyone since, at least, Resident Evil 1 came out (26 years ago).

-hp, +dmg is not the same as getting weaker. That only applies if you suck! Dealing more dmg means you kill faster which means enemies have less uptime to hurt you.

"Oh fuck, I've got to go climb that mountain now" I have tears in my eyes

What you said about the first few minutes of battle royale games is what I initially liked about Dead Island, as back then it was (one of) the first game(s) to have you use common items as breakable weapons, instead of having indescructible "built in" weapons.

A bit of a tangent here, but I always thought moral choice systems where missing something… different morals to choose between. They always have you choosing between being good or bad. It’s always been conceptually weak. Why not give 3 or 4 different morals and have different responses effect them differently, with the idea being that is is very rare to have one choice be positive for all morals. Make the player choose between being nice or being honest. Following the rules vs honesty. Being fair vs being nice, etc. It just seems like the obvious way to do this mechanic.

18:26 Hermosa elección 😘 xxlike.Uno de los mejores conciertos ❤ ❤Asi con toy y sus mañas no se la 20:11 Amor: "Momentos" 10:21 Yoongi: "Butter" 10:21 Senada: "Hermoso" 40:21 Alfiora: "Preety" ​30:21 Megan: "Hotter" 50:21 Alana: "Awesome" 21:21 Belleza doops 25:20 Son unos de los mejores conciertos, no puede ir pero de tan solo verlos desde pantalla, se que estuvo sorprendente 🖤 40:31 Hopi: "Sweeter" Tve6 20:20 Joonie: "Cooler" 🌹♀💯 17:50 Son unos de los mejores conciertos 🖤

This war of mine... is fun while not being fun, is weird, but it works

Rain World. You are a slugcat, slugcats are food for everyone, your only (common, there are others but you basically never see them) weapons are a spear that embeds itself in an enemy, requiring you to go pick it up, and a pebble that does nothing except against one specific type of enemy. Good luck!

I was waiting for Lisa the painful/joyful mention here, I'm happy it got it's one second :D

Any game is a reverse power fantasy when you're as bad at playing games as I am

I recently picked up a healer in an MMO, and it's incredible how unprepared *the entirety of the player base* is, to play with and against a competent healer. like, seriously, how much weaker can you go, than a healer? some players would outright ignore me thinking I'm just a bot, some others would try to rush me ignoring the fact that I can put them to sleep or root them to the ground. I might *not do damage* but I'm certainly *not defenseless* one of the most difficult classes to fight against, is a summoner: they bring in magical creatures, the creature does all the fighting, and the summoner just hides behind it.... warriors would slash and punch at them while the pair just heals itself to infinity. nobody ever considers that I as a healer can outright *banish* the servitor out of the battlefield. like... one click.... poof! gone... no fighting, no healing, no contest... outright *gone* without the servitor, the master is just a cardboard cutout.... even *I* can take them on in melee, without attack skills. I don't know how did warriors survive for as long as they have until now, by grinding their knuckles against the wall that is a perpetually-healing servitor and it's master.

Love this