Unconventional game design that you like

[ciro64]

I'll start with...

Early difficulty spike!

Because having your efforts to learn the game mechanics pay off when you get to see landscape on the other side is extremely satisfying.



In Kid Icarus for NES, you start as a under-leveled and unequipped angel with a shitty bow, only to have to face several unknown enemy patterns, expensive ass shops and a one-way ascending level that insta kills you for falling out of the screen.

The game actually gets easier after this, as the next set of levels are a horizontal side stroller and you proceed to grow stronger and better equipped. Also the final level feels very special to experience and to listen to.

There are a few dungeons in the later game that are still hard... well, more frustrating at a few parts than hard to be honest. I like the challenge but I think the game has its janks. But the charm holds up and I like the core idea of the gameplay, I think it could be polished into greatness if a new faithful sequel were to be made. I'd make the game more frenetic and give pit's bow more range from the get go if it were up to me.



Pseudoregalia is a pleasing 3D metroidvania (which I have not beaten yet) with focus on ambience and exploration, but the early game throws this Dark Souls ass boss which requires a surprising amount of tries then refuses to elaborate by not having any more bosses until the final one.

And I love that.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

Driver on the PSX has filtered millions and i love it. Best way to teach anyone and the only hardest part of the game.

Gran Turismo series with the driving license tests plus not reading up on the official driving manual the games provide on the cases.

 

[Prism Red]

I love it when a game lets you do whatever to tackle a problem, Deus Ex being a major example where it often allows you to take an out-of-the-box solution and the game will still acknowledge it. Disco Elysium and Alpha Protocol does it too to some extent.

 

[Hourai]

Hear me out, because this is going to sound silly at first.

Actual evil choices.

So, so many games that allegedly allow you to be evil absolutely suck at it. People love pointing out stuff like Bioshock, Baldur's Gate 3, Bioware and Obsidian, so on and so on, but none of those aside from KotOR 2, Dark Urge, and maybe one or two other things really let you do it. Either you're punished so hard that there's never a reason to pick it (this is often the case where the evil option is "murder a plot-relevant character for no reason; nobody will take their place or really even care that you did this after maybe the intiaial acknowledgement," which is very common), or, as is also very often the case none of them are actually evil. They're short-sighted cartoon villain choices that exist so that you can feel better about choosing the good option. There are maybe a few well-made evil choices (there's some Closed Fist options in Jade Empire that follows the ideology and isn't the standard "kill the owner of an orphanage so you can have a consistent stream of useless orphan paste" evil option that Bioware loves), but as a whole, you can't get any enjoyment playing evil, and you can't even make an evil character to roleplay as without jumping through absurd hoops to justify how this is entirely self-destructive and doesn't even follow a consistent internal narrative the way being good does. Bioshock in particular undercuts this even further by giving you more rewards for choosing the good option, giving even less reason for choosing it.

There are exceptions, sure. That the majority are overwhelmingly awful doesn't mean there are no good options. Owlcat is great at this, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has three of the four evil paths be very well realized, including the Chaotic Evil one. Soul Nomad's is also really fun, and there's some solid eroge with it (Toushin Toshi II is a worse experience if you don't choose the evil options, even), but they exist near-exclusively for the 90% of people who will never choose them, but want to feel like they resisted the urge to be evil, unaware that the entire choice is a cheap illusion.

 

[Yousef]

Personally it would come down to how a game is designed said unconventionality.

I personally really like dev-imposed inconveniences, time constraint mechanics and uber hard modes and fights centered around how sluggish your movement is compared to your boss.

Sudden boss fights in the open world are also something I admire. But to highlight how much I love this, I’ll show examples I like and examples I don’t like.


Examples I like :


Dead rising is a complete master class at this.

^ Kent Paul is not only a guy you find in the open world, but there’s two versions of his encounter. One of them has you completely naked, forcing you to rely on unarmed combat which is awesome. It actually tests your understanding of the game without being too punishing about it.

^ slappy is yet another excellent example of this. DR2 initially makes no real distinction between side missions and main story missions, especially if you’re not aware that both have voiced cutscenes and both net you valuable rewards, making DR2 a masterclass in open world design on top of already being a master class at survival horror and storytelling.

Anyways, slappy is great, it’s possible you may encounter him at the perfect moment, where you *think* this’ll be a normal side mission, then the game pulls the rug right under you by forcing you into this (rather deceptively difficult) boss fight.

^ GTA IV brings a particularly interesting example of this. GTA IV both rewards you and punishes for your actions in both tangible and interesting ways. Throughout the game, you are given multiple opportunities to spare certain characters, Clerance being one of them. A lot of these characters are pretty innocuous actually, serving to show that your actions may not have a grand outcome but are impactful nonetheless, and this is the most unique example of it cuz CL chooses to express his gratitude for you saving his life… by pulling a gun you, and this is a completely missable optional encounter too (doesn’t even count towards the in-game 100%), showing you just how real the worlds truly feel in gta at times, complete master class.


Examples I don’t like :

I don’t really have any good footage for what I want to show, but I think elden ring fits into what I’m about to complain about. I don’t really know what raid bosses are. It’s an MMO term, which I know nothing about cuz I’m not really an MMO nutjob. I like shooters and open world games, I like street racers too, but MMOs? Just looks like gibberish to me, I don’t really know how you’re meant to play them without getting an aneurysm. I knew one guy who solely played mmos but he constantly seemed mentally braindead, which I’m often told is just how these people are.

That said, there’s this guy on a horse, he was never fun to fight. He was just so boring, and way too easy, and added nothing. I believe re-fights are what can truly ruin this kinda stuff. All the encounters I linked above feel organic cuz you only see them once or at worse, a handful of times, making them a tangible part of the world building. Elden ring just felt incredibly shallow compared to GTA, hell it felt shallow compared to Dark Souls 1, the goat of video games.

 

[Yousef]

Hear me out, because this is going to sound silly at first.

Actual evil choices.

So, so many games that allegedly allow you to be evil absolutely suck at it. People love pointing out stuff like Bioshock, Baldur's Gate 3, Bioware and Obsidian, so on and so on, but none of those aside from KotOR 2, Dark Urge, and maybe one or two other things really let you do it. Either you're punished so hard that there's never a reason to pick it (this is often the case where the evil option is "murder a plot-relevant character for no reason; nobody will take their place or really even care that you did this after maybe the intiaial acknowledgement," which is very common), or, as is also very often the case none of them are actually evil. They're short-sighted cartoon villain choices that exist so that you can feel better about choosing the good option. There are maybe a few well-made evil choices (there's some Closed Fist options in Jade Empire that follows the ideology and isn't the standard "kill the owner of an orphanage so you can have a consistent stream of useless orphan paste" evil option that Bioware loves), but as a whole, you can't get any enjoyment playing evil, and you can't even make an evil character to roleplay as without jumping through absurd hoops to justify how this is entirely self-destructive and doesn't even follow a consistent internal narrative the way being good does. Bioshock in particular undercuts this even further by giving you more rewards for choosing the good option, giving even less reason for choosing it.

There are exceptions, sure. That the majority are overwhelmingly awful doesn't mean there are no good options. Owlcat is great at this, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has three of the four evil paths be very well realized, including the Chaotic Evil one. Soul Nomad's is also really fun, and there's some solid eroge with it (Toushin Toshi II is a worse experience if you don't choose the evil options, even), but they exist near-exclusively for the 90% of people who will never choose them, but want to feel like they resisted the urge to be evil, unaware that the entire choice is a cheap illusion.

Why not play infamous 2 and second son? Infamous 2’s evil route’s final boss is you murdering your best friend over the last two games in cold blood, and second son lets you commit matricide. If these don’t check your boxes for evil, then I’ll need your personal definition of evil.

I fully understand the frustration that exceptions aren’t the status quo, and I wouldn’t try to argue something that naive, but unless I’m wrong, it does seem like you e ruled out all the major players, unless there’s another choices driven game im not aware.

I do suppose it would also need to come down to your own criterias and preferred variables for what constitutes a choice. Would active complacency count as a choice? What about murdering certain npcs?

I’m perfectly open to giving pointers, and sorry in advance if I didn’t really get what you want but what I understand from your text is that you don’t want to be “punished” and you don’t want to be “non-punished”, I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure this is a binary choice. “I dont want to kill useless or a useful character” doesn’t feel like it’s leaving any other options there. Do you wanna kill a half useful character? Quarter useful character maybe? Eighth useful? Sixteenth useful?

Sorry if I’m being pedantic, I actually find semantics really fun to argue, this is all playful don’t worry

 

[Hourai]

Why not play infamous 2 and second son? Infamous 2’s evil route’s final boss is you murdering your best friend over the last two games in cold blood, and second son lets you commit matricide. If these don’t check your boxes for evil, then I’ll need your personal definition of evil.

I fully understand the frustration that exceptions aren’t the status quo, and I wouldn’t try to argue something that naive, but unless I’m wrong, it does seem like you e ruled out all the major players, unless there’s another choices driven game im not aware.

I do suppose it would also need to come down to your own criterias and preferred variables for what constitutes a choice. Would active complacency count as a choice? What about murdering certain npcs?

I’m perfectly open to giving pointers, and sorry in advance if I didn’t really get what you want but what I understand from your text is that you don’t want to be “punished” and you don’t want to be “non-punished”, I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure this is a binary choice. “I dont want to kill useless or a useful character” doesn’t feel like it’s leaving any other options there. Do you wanna kill a half useful character? Quarter useful character maybe? Eighth useful? Sixteenth useful?

Sorry if I’m being pedantic, I actually find semantics really fun to argue, this is all playful don’t worry

No, it's okay. You aren't. And inFamous 1 and 2 were actually games I considered mentioning, but didn't. 1 pressures you to fully consider to the evil path because it's entirely possible that you need the power you get from it (narratively, at least). Choosing not to runs the very real risk of failing like Kessler did. And 2's decision of saving yourself and all potential conduits vs saving all of humanity at the cost of all conduits is also a good one. Second Son didn't really satisfy me, though. There wasn't any real reason beyond "doing it for power," though I will admit it's not inherently a poor idea. I just walked away from it going "this could've been a lot better."

For criteria...there's nuance, for sure. Complacency isn't quite the same as being evil, as while yes, you are allowing evil things, you're not doing them yourself, either. It doesn't quite hit the same as having a hand in it, you know? Plus, due to the nature of video games in present day, present time as centering you as the most important person in the world (generally, things happening without at least telling you beforehand is very much outside the norm, and why things like Lain opening a video of someone dying in the Lain PS1 game if you leave her unattended is so shocking), it's more a soft evil. We aren't quite at the place where I'd argue that it holds much weight.

As for the other thing...if you murder just anyone for no reason, that's not really a choice because there's no reward, and generally no real benefit. You're playing a video game and treating it like a video game. I'm aware of how silly that sentence sounds, but immersing yourself lets you kinda forget that. Stuff like thinking about which decision you'd rather make in a conversation, even if none of it means anything. There are cases where it works, but those cases also set it up so you feel something about it instead of just...video game. Pathfinder WotR has a Lich path as one of its well realized evil options, and there's some killing for no reason beyond that you wanted to that feels evil. But it's also a narrative choice, rather than walking up to someone and reverse pickpocketing a grenade in their pocket and that being the end of it, y'know? I enjoyed using the murder knife in my asshole run of Dragon Age Origins for that same reason. The game acknowledges that it happens, however briefly.

As for punished/non-punished...I don't think I mentioned I don't want to be non-punished? I think it would be fun to do something evil and have it backfire later down the line. Same for being good, but y'know. The short of it, though, is that I don't want to feel like I, the person playing the game, am being punished for it. If any punishment happens, I want my character to bear it, because it's my character doing it. And killing a character with a storyline that would go on for quite a bit if I didn't kill them vs absolutely nothing if I did kill them is a punishment towards me. It'd be one thing if killing them happened at a pivotal moment (such as, in DAO, Lelliana and Wynne turning against you if you poison the urn), or that it brought about something gained only through killing them (as they both give different alternatives of emotionally satisfying and an alternative instead of a punishment), but there generally just is not.

Does that make sense?

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

Hear me out, because this is going to sound silly at first.

Actual evil choices.

So, so many games that allegedly allow you to be evil absolutely suck at it. People love pointing out stuff like Bioshock, Baldur's Gate 3, Bioware and Obsidian, so on and so on, but none of those aside from KotOR 2, Dark Urge, and maybe one or two other things really let you do it. Either you're punished so hard that there's never a reason to pick it (this is often the case where the evil option is "murder a plot-relevant character for no reason; nobody will take their place or really even care that you did this after maybe the intiaial acknowledgement," which is very common), or, as is also very often the case none of them are actually evil. They're short-sighted cartoon villain choices that exist so that you can feel better about choosing the good option. There are maybe a few well-made evil choices (there's some Closed Fist options in Jade Empire that follows the ideology and isn't the standard "kill the owner of an orphanage so you can have a consistent stream of useless orphan paste" evil option that Bioware loves), but as a whole, you can't get any enjoyment playing evil, and you can't even make an evil character to roleplay as without jumping through absurd hoops to justify how this is entirely self-destructive and doesn't even follow a consistent internal narrative the way being good does. Bioshock in particular undercuts this even further by giving you more rewards for choosing the good option, giving even less reason for choosing it.

There are exceptions, sure. That the majority are overwhelmingly awful doesn't mean there are no good options. Owlcat is great at this, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has three of the four evil paths be very well realized, including the Chaotic Evil one. Soul Nomad's is also really fun, and there's some solid eroge with it (Toushin Toshi II is a worse experience if you don't choose the evil options, even), but they exist near-exclusively for the 90% of people who will never choose them, but want to feel like they resisted the urge to be evil, unaware that the entire choice is a cheap illusion.

Prototype?

 

[Anim8rDude]

It's either you love or you hate it.
Being able to see/plan/build everything right off the bat. Like when you start a new game & the sheer amount of info displayed on screen is almost intimdating. But I find a certain calm in planning my characters/build way ahead of time... better payoff too when you finally reach your goals. I guess you could argue this is basically skill trees in a nutshell but theres a difference! Etrian Odyessey is the perfect exmaple I guess.


^lol

 

[Prism Red]

Hear me out, because this is going to sound silly at first.

Actual evil choices.

So, so many games that allegedly allow you to be evil absolutely suck at it. People love pointing out stuff like Bioshock, Baldur's Gate 3, Bioware and Obsidian, so on and so on, but none of those aside from KotOR 2, Dark Urge, and maybe one or two other things really let you do it. Either you're punished so hard that there's never a reason to pick it (this is often the case where the evil option is "murder a plot-relevant character for no reason; nobody will take their place or really even care that you did this after maybe the intiaial acknowledgement," which is very common), or, as is also very often the case none of them are actually evil. They're short-sighted cartoon villain choices that exist so that you can feel better about choosing the good option. There are maybe a few well-made evil choices (there's some Closed Fist options in Jade Empire that follows the ideology and isn't the standard "kill the owner of an orphanage so you can have a consistent stream of useless orphan paste" evil option that Bioware loves), but as a whole, you can't get any enjoyment playing evil, and you can't even make an evil character to roleplay as without jumping through absurd hoops to justify how this is entirely self-destructive and doesn't even follow a consistent internal narrative the way being good does. Bioshock in particular undercuts this even further by giving you more rewards for choosing the good option, giving even less reason for choosing it.

There are exceptions, sure. That the majority are overwhelmingly awful doesn't mean there are no good options. Owlcat is great at this, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has three of the four evil paths be very well realized, including the Chaotic Evil one. Soul Nomad's is also really fun, and there's some solid eroge with it (Toushin Toshi II is a worse experience if you don't choose the evil options, even), but they exist near-exclusively for the 90% of people who will never choose them, but want to feel like they resisted the urge to be evil, unaware that the entire choice is a cheap illusion.

Have you played Beat Down Fists of Vengeance? I think this game do a great reward/punishment system according to your morality.
The game lets you pick up thugs off the street, fight them, then you choose whether to A. recruit them, B. interrogate them for information, C. rob them, or D. beat 'em to death, literally.
Your character has 3 stats; Charisma, Cash, and Leadership, which affected by your choices above by a huge margin, while it's essentially possible to fill up all 3 stats it is extremely difficult to do so.
If you kill someone your Charisma stat will go up, the stats will affect which people you will meet throughout the game as well as the ending, there are some bosses character that only become recruitable if you have high Charisma and very low Cash and Leadership, the game basically encourage you to do all possible outcomes on multiple playthrough if you want to unlock everything.

 

[Hourai]

I

Have you played Beat Down Fists of Vengeance? I think this game do a great reward/punishment system according to your morality.
The game lets you pick up thugs off the street, fight them, then you choose whether to A. recruit them, B. interrogate them for information, C. rob them, or D. beat 'em to death, literally.
Your character has 3 stats; Charisma, Cash, and Leadership, which affected by your choices above by a huge margin, while it's essentially possible to fill up all 3 stats it is extremely difficult to do so.
If you kill someone your Charisma stat will go up, the stats will affect which people you will meet throughout the game as well as the ending, there are some bosses character that only become recruitable if you have high Charisma and very low Cash and Leadership, the game basically encourage you to do all possible outcomes on multiple playthrough if you want to unlock everything.

Haven't heard of it, no. I'll give it a look; thanks for the recommendation~

Heh, figures it's a PS2 game. It's either indies or that console that have the weirdest, most out there ideas.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

I

Haven't heard of it, no. I'll give it a look; thanks for the recommendation~

Heh, figures it's a PS2 game. It's either indies or that console that have the weirdest, most out there ideas.

I notice its always the weakest consoles of there gens that have the craziest games

 

[Hourai]

I notice its always the weakest consoles of there gens that have the craziest games

I'd imagine it's easier to develop for, but that's just speculation. There's also something to be said about its overwhelming popularity, and that the other consoles didn't succeed for their own reasons. The Gamecube kneecapped itself super hard for the sake of anti-piracy and failed extremely hard outside North America, and the Xbox was such a flop in Japan that a lot of Japanese developers chose to ignore it, in a time that was the last hurrah of Japanese dominance. The noticeably weaker consoles tend to be the most popular (...Wii Nii aside), so it makes sense that they'd get the weird stuff with a niche appeal.

 

[Yousef]

It's either you love or you hate it.
Being able to see/plan/build everything right off the bat. Like when you start a new game & the sheer amount of info displayed on screen is almost intimdating. But I find a certain calm in planning my characters/build way ahead of time... better payoff too when you finally reach your goals. I guess you could argue this is basically skill trees in a nutshell but theres a difference! Etrian Odyessey is the perfect exmaple I guess.
View attachment 8991View attachment 8990
View attachment 8992
^lol

This reminds me of the school rumble romance chart


Or the dragon quest 3 personality chart https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dragon_Warrior_III/Personality

 

[Yousef]

No, it's okay. You aren't. And inFamous 1 and 2 were actually games I considered mentioning, but didn't. 1 pressures you to fully consider to the evil path because it's entirely possible that you need the power you get from it (narratively, at least). Choosing not to runs the very real risk of failing like Kessler did. And 2's decision of saving yourself and all potential conduits vs saving all of humanity at the cost of all conduits is also a good one. Second Son didn't really satisfy me, though. There wasn't any real reason beyond "doing it for power," though I will admit it's not inherently a poor idea. I just walked away from it going "this could've been a lot better."

For criteria...there's nuance, for sure. Complacency isn't quite the same as being evil, as while yes, you are allowing evil things, you're not doing them yourself, either. It doesn't quite hit the same as having a hand in it, you know? Plus, due to the nature of video games in present day, present time as centering you as the most important person in the world (generally, things happening without at least telling you beforehand is very much the norm, and why things like Lain opening a video of someone dying in the Lain PS1 game if you leave her unattended is so shocking), it's more a soft evil. We aren't quite at the place where I'd argue that it holds much weight.

As for the other thing...if you murder just anyone for no reason, that's not really a choice because there's no reward, and generally no real benefit. You're playing a video game and treating it like a video game. I'm aware of how silly that sentence sounds, but immersing yourself lets you kinda forget that. Stuff like thinking about which decision you'd rather make in a conversation, even if none of it means anything. There are cases where it works, but those cases also set it up so you feel something about it instead of just...video game. Pathfinder WotR has a Lich path as one of its well realized evil options, and there's some killing for no reason beyond that you wanted to that feels evil. But it's also a narrative choice, rather than walking up to someone and reverse pickpocketing a grenade in their pocket and that being the end of it, y'know? I enjoyed using the murder knife in my asshole run of Dragon Age Origins for that same reason. The game acknowledges that it happens, however briefly.

As for punished/non-punished...I don't think I mentioned I don't want to be non-punished? I think it would be fun to do something evil and have it backfire later down the line. Same for being good, but y'know. The short of it, though, is that I don't want to feel like I, the person playing the game, am being punished for it. If any punishment happens, I want my character to bear it, because it's my character doing it. And killing a character with a storyline that would go on for quite a bit if I didn't kill them vs absolutely nothing if I did kill them is a punishment towards me. It'd be one thing if killing them happened at a pivotal moment (such as, in DAO, Lelliana and Wynne turning against you if you poison the urn), or that it brought about something gained only through killing them (as they both give different alternatives of emotionally satisfying and an alternative instead of a punishment), but there generally just is not.

Does that make sense?

This is true about infamous 1 to some extent. Infamous 2 does have a more valuable reward for being a good guy, but infamous 1 seems to pull you more toward being a villain, what with how ungrateful people act during the lockdown and feel more comfortable ostracizing you and demonizing you for indirectly causing the quartine.

I think you hit the nail on the head with inactive decision making, sorta reminds me of OneShot if you played it. I brought it up cuz it’s a big part of how you can affect the world in Dark Souls 1. You might be aware of the “big decision” you can do while in anor londo.

This is entirely preference on my part, but I do actively enjoy vague, indirect or unclear decisions. I fully agree that only being aware of them in hindsight can risk losing impact, but as someone who enjoys replaying her favorite games, I’ll confess im rarely affected by this setback. So there’s inherent bias on my part im sometimes blind to.

I get your point about killing npcs, and sorry if I was unclear on my end (my roaming internet isn’t letting me access other forum features like spoiler tagging, so I AM actually being purposefully vague, just FYI) but I was arguing for npc murders that actively HARM you, like losing access to some features, being hunted down, etc. That’s basically Dark Souls 1 (you really should play it, I promise it’s way more fun than your standard soulslikes, I’m saying this as someone who despises soulslikes but has DS1 in their top 5 games of all time)

No worries, I misunderstood you initially but I do think I get the gist of it now. That’s a fair assessment in general. It makes sense also, there’s insane levels variables to what constitutes “impact”, and a lot of is personal and context-dependent.

To retrace my steps a bit, I legitimately enjoy infamous 1 having subtle changes in the cutscenes based on what you do. Either your ex will comment on your little acts of kindness, or reprimand you. Second son does feel weak though, it was likely doomed the moment Sony wanted it as a launch title. Delson is someone I appreciate in hindsight, but I couldn’t fathom him being a good guy so I chose the evil route. At the time it didn’t help how in my teens I was way too much of a goody too shoes, so his punk rock personality heavily clashed with my preferred aesthetic (at the time, not now. Spotify told me all I listen I’d industrial rock so I definitely changed)

 

[Anim8rDude]

This reminds me of the school rumble romance chart
View attachment 9011

Or the dragon quest 3 personality chart https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dragon_Warrior_III/Personality
View attachment 9012

lol @ the School Rumble one, there's gotta be a better way to represent this, the arrows pointing everywhere is crazy

Theat DQ3 personality chart... w-what the heck am I even looking at!?