Finding True Freedom In Videogames

[@ArchitectofGames]

SMALL CORRECTION: Yu Gi Oh has a three card limit, not four! I added that section last second and now I feel a bit dumb! You are choosing to give me money on the internet of your own free will, it's such an empowering choice, wow! look at you go!: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames ... On the other hand, maybe freedom wasn't such a good idea after all: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot

[@squa_81]

11:30 on sable if i'm not wrong, that word is a french word, so you know, it means sand :)

[@THICCTHICCTHICC]

That shout out to Frazzles tho

[@hinamiravenroot7162]

Pot of greed was only in the first few sets of the game, it was one of the reasons a banlist was even invented. The reason pot is soo good is that Yugioh has no additional resource such as mana or a card limit per turn. That means the only thing you have to worry about is so called card advantage. Drawing 2 cards for the cost of 1 is ridicolous until the less busted versions of pot of greed were announced. They gave the card much needed drawback by eliminating one quarter of your deck, getting rid of powerfull options from your extra deck or just preventing you from summoning monsters for a long time. Those revamped cards are not banned for that reason. And yes Yugioh doesn't have a 5 color system that means staple cards still exist but they are much more balanced than what you remember from your childhood. That's because instead of colors there is archetypes. Meaning for example Mermail cards that heavily rely on discarding stuff to get powerfull effects don't work with cards like the dark world archetype thats known for summoning themselfs when being discarded. That's because most cards are carefully worded in a way that gives players creative freedom while not breaking already existing archetypes. "When this card is discarded by a Dark Fiend type monster" doesn't allow for Mermails, a water type card to use that effect, BUT it _does_ allow players to combine that effect with one of the other 4230 dark monsters in the game. That you said Yugioh sucks kinda broke my heart a little bit because it's a very free form type of card game that I've never seen replicated. Most decks work more like a toolbox where you ask yourself what kind of card you need at the moment and use a complicated rube-goldberg machine of possible card chains in your mind to fetch that card from your deck, all while activating the least amount of likely responses from your opponent. That constant tip toeing around enemy traps and guessing what their cards could be is really fun and you feel like you can truely express player skill compared to other card games where luck is a much much biger factor. And the best thing is that yugioh doesnt have a rotation system. That means the evergreen format constantly pumps out new archetypes to try to combine with existing ones and you often see cards you've never seen that are decades old pop back into the meta because they somehow synergise with a new card. You get to feel smart, experiment with sygergies, it's always fresh, creativity beats power. It's just really good. Not the old versions where big number wins tho. The game is much higher quality now than 15 years ago.

[@evernewb2073]

@@hinamiravenroot7162 it would probably be more accurate to say that the base game design of yugioh is actually pretty decent (especially the bits requiring players to actually keep track of the situation and react quickly) but the majority of balance decisions and majorly impactful cards in each set were clearly made for reasons rooted in marketing, not game balance/play/depth/etc. in short yugioh = good but all to often yugioh _cards_ all too often = bad

[@internetstranger_]

@@hinamiravenroot7162 Thank you for conveying that point so clearly. I had the same sentiment floating around but didn't have the words to describe it... I really enjoy Architect's content, and it seems he always does his research before handling a subject, but that yugioh bit seemed kind of under-baked... I personally think that people should avoid criticising things they don't have a good grasp on... (I don't mean that there's nothing to criticise in yugioh, just that there is a way to go about it)

[@DavisGSee]

Worth noting that the meaningless of grading in Art Sqool seems to be an intentional, scathing critique of actual art school. Doesn't make the game more fun, but I feel like the dev deserves some credit there.

[@ArchitectofGames]

Yeah, I couldn't find any confirmation on it being intentional or not but it's pretty clear this is the case - cool idea, not great execution!

[@unchpunchem8947]

Yeah honestly I hated playing that game, but I don’t think it’s supposed to feel fun. It’s just empty and random, while putting on a facade that what you’re doing is actually loads of interesting and challenging fun. Real life art school made me feel the exact same way a lot of the time though so it’s definitely successful at what it was going for

[@TheAsj97]

Credit for what exactly? If he wanted to criticize art schools, just criticize art schools, don't make it into a pointless boring ass game. Sounds to me like it's just an excuse to not bother with the actual hard part of game development, you know, making the game fun.

[@unchpunchem8947]

@@TheAsj97 because games don’t have to be fun to make a point. Not every game is purpose-built to maximize the fun you get out of them, some are just supposed to make you feel something. Art Sqool accomplishes that pretty damn well

[@NavyTrooperFenson]

@@TheAsj97 Art Sqool comes from the same school of thought as Spec Ops: The Line and Papers Please. These games are not fun entertainment in the straightforward sense but rather simulations of an experience. Ways to expand your horizon by experiencing something you otherwise couldn't in your regular life, that isn't necessarily enjoyable. I think it's unethical to advertise these kinds of games deceptively like how Spec Ops seemed to be a regular Call of Duty shooter showing creative action set pieces and mechanics but then posed very serious questions of free will after half an hour which have not been really put into focus by any of its advertisements. The meaning falls flat for those who keep playing the game because they bought it wanting an action shooter and would feel scammed out of their money when they don't finish it, while a developer intended choice is (seriously) to completely stop playing the game when you don't like it as an expression of your free will. That's just not a healthy relationship between consumer and producer. I would prefer this kind of game to be called differently and become a new genre. A word to define these games that is more to the point than just "praiseworthy", "award-winning" or "artistic" because those words don't convey anything about such games and set expectations that are very hard to meet. Simulation Game would be fitting but games like Flight Simulator would have to be rebranded as Mechanical or Technical Simulations.

[@WoodlandDrake]

As a player, I have always wanted more endings, not just more options. Give me the same options I have always had, just make them matter.

[@CowCommando]

Yes, what's the point of options if they don't matter. I too disagree with the lemon (while acknowledging that design restrictions are the reality we live in).

[@danilooliveira6580]

I don't even think we need 1000 different endings for every combination of choices, we just need the game acknowledge the choices we made. I actually like how Witcher 3 did it, where it kinda has a bunch of different endings for every long running storyline. characters you killed or saved will or won't appear later on, choices you made on a few quests will affect another quest in the future, things like that. even though there isn't many possible endings, it still feels like the choices you made led you to there, that you didn't get railroaded to that ending, but you shaped it. then we come back to that argument of real agency x feeling of agency. the feeling that you had a lot of agency is more powerful than real agency. it doesn't matter how many endings the game gives you if it doesn't feel like you a result of the choices you made a long the way.

[@CreativelyJake]

@@CowCommando making little decisions along the journey is fun! i don't think everything in a game has to matter or be useful, if its something as simple as a little reference to a choice you made previously somewhere, i think thats cool. games can do so much more for the story when they restrict themselves to being a lemon, imo.

[@CowCommando]

@@CreativelyJake I think everyone agrees that showing the player there were consequences, whether big or small, for their actions tends to be satisfying. Some games and development teams may be better served by doing this through the lemon approach while others may work better with a branching narrative and multiple endings. It depends on the team and game which fits better.

[@axelory7676]

I would rather have more persistent worlds. I love Prey for this. You can't really change the ending, but everything you do affects the world around you. You can set up a turret somewhere and when you go back after being in another department it'll still be there, either shooting at enemies or being destroyed. I don't think games need to provide different endings, just make the actions we take in gameplay last up until the very end.

[@TheMidnighttea]

I'm in Dragon Quest Builders 2's postgame and my god does it feel like I can be or do or make anything. It's to a degree almost no builder has ever inspired in me, so I feel this video on a deep level. And I had to do it by finding a spark the game nudged me to find on my own, to self-start.

[@frds_skce]

That game is the best sandbox game i ever played before. Not even Minecraft made me reach that level of satisfaction in making more beautiful buildings out of my hard earned materials. Truthfully, I never went far from Dragon Quest Builders 2 other than the demo content. I would honestly love to buy it nowadays but personal financial issue. But the demo alone is so extensive, you'd forgot that it's going to end at one point. Imagine spending 20 hours and then DQB2 finally tells you that this is just the demo content so far. I'd recommend anyone who's interested in the game to play the demo first if you're skeptical with the sandbox-fantasy-story-driven world of DQB2

[@4evermilkman]

I wanted to get that game. Is it like minecraft? It looks like another block building game. Am I wrong?

[@frds_skce]

@@4evermilkman It is, it is. And they got pretty good story too

[@arathain2]

@@4evermilkman Yes, in the sense that the world is made of blocks for you to manipulate, and there are resources to gather and things to build. There's a lot more, though. It's a story based RPG, for one. But also, it uses its characters to build a sense of community and purpose. The other characters you meet learn to work alongside you, and you build things for them to actually use. It's got a neat story, too, that really takes some turns. Building and crating is fantastically deep, and you can make some rather cool things.

[@GradyDP]

Oh my gosh, I loved DQB2. The only reason I'm not still playing it is because my game pass subscription ran out and I'm too cheap to renew it.

[@jmh8817]

I design tabletop RPGs and I continuously emphasize in them that the most important thing you can do for Players is to give them a feeling of agency. A lot of GMs are worried that they'll "Railroad" their group when what they should know is that what matters is respecting their self-expression and preserving the illusion of choice.

[@Anonlyso]

The hypothesis of "freedom via a perceived limitation" reminds me of that Yoko Taro quote that for a player to feel any sense of freedom, they need a frame of reference and to then shatter that. That the game needs to communicate an in-world limitation, then the game actually lets the player subvert it making them feel like a rule breaker and thus more freely. Following up on that, I do wonder what the opinion on "subversion" and game twists does for game design, like before Undertale was the big indie darling, I have fond memories of 2008 freeware game Iji that was effectively a 2d platforming immersive sim but was known for having tons of player acknowledged actions from as early as just jumping head first into ceiling lamps to later having Iji herself change voicelines depending on how passive or violent the playstyle of a run is. I'd also say the biggest form of "subvert what the player thinks is a game limitation" is *spoiler* how the original pacifist run had no mechanics tied to it like Undertale so the player's entire first run of grief and strife would also push many to actually try to be pacifist (rather than being handed a Mercy option and being lectured about not using it all the time).

[@4evermilkman]

Well said, I recently became a huge Yoko Taro fan. Automata is now in my top 5 games of all time :) I'm trying to Platinum it, but I started new because I sacrifice my first playthrough

[@AnotherDuck]

Iji is a fun game. Yeah, non-violence isn't something that's lectured about. It's experienced. That, and not trying to trick the player into making a "choice", make for an actual choice. Also has great music. Especially the ending and last boss themes. If you haven't watched it, I recommend watching the creator's Maximum Charge Tor battle. I heavily relate with the, "hums along with the music", part.

[@charlesboudreau5350]

I think there's merit to that quote. On a small scale, we can think of every single time a game puts us in an obvious tutorial area up until the moment when it lets you step out and lets you loose on the world. That quote reminds me of that moment.

[@danilooliveira6580]

isn't that basically what Negative Possibility Space is ? you work on things that are apparently impossible until someone figure out how to do it, so it ends up feeling like the player discovered something they weren't supposed to know/do, and is rewarded for it. like a special loot on the top of a mountain that has no obvious way to climb, or a weird mechanic interaction that lets you cheese specific fights.

[@Anonlyso]

@@danilooliveira6580 So yes to the concept (as I'm not as familiar within game dev terminology) but I want to also bring up that games are also not made in a cultural vacuum. By that I mean that some expectations are internal within a game, but also have been long set-up via genre convention, like players now expecting a treasure chest behind a waterfall or always heading "backwards" in a platformer starting stage because something will be behind them. I also want to shout out Mattewmatosis for framing "your choice matters" as being a significant selling point in games because so many games opt to have numerous seemingly trivial choices. His "penny taken, penny given" metaphor that it's only because so many other games have pointless choices that players let their guards down for other games that DO make your trivial choice matter. (On vid re-watch while I disagree with Matt's framing of illusions of choice parasitically benefiting off meaningful choice, I still somewhat agree from the communal expectation that keeps people guessing).

[@emeraldnightmare2027]

Once art games got brought up this essay, and especially once artistic feedback was mentioned in the context of those, I was really hoping Chicory: A Colorful Tale would become an example, particularly the art lessons. Of course, perhaps the game doesn't particularly fit the overarching theme of the video as well as it does for that specific segment. If anyone is reading this, I highly recommend checking that game out. Made by many of the same people who worked on Wandersong!

[@drewpeppley1804]

I still really need to play Chicory D: I played Wandersong and it's one of my favorite games ever, and I don't know why I'm waiting on this one, other than the fact that my current backlog is massive o.o

[@GmodPlusWoW]

@@drewpeppley1804 I had a chill time with Chicory. While the actiony bossfights didn't quite line up with the laid-back colouring book puzzle-adventure that the rest of the game is (which I guess might have been the point?), there was something kinda zen and relaxing about colouring in a world wiped clean of colour. And of course, there's the charming story. So yeah, I agree with Emerald Nightmare: more people need to play Chicory. Also, IIRC the game was made not only by some of the folks who made Wandersong, but also some of the folks behind Celeste.

[@subprogram32]

@@drewpeppley1804 Chicory's demo was good enough for me that I let it skip my backlog entirely and I just played it all to completion over like a week or two of game sessions. Was very much worth it! ^w^

[@lizardlegend42]

Someone's been enjoying Echoes of the Eye lol. Understandable, an absolutely brilliant expansion to my favourite game of all time

[@conheaton1111]

Yeah I noticed that OST he was using like instantly.

[@TheDigitalWeeb]

I heard it and actually jumped out of my chair omg I love that he used it so much

[@sumbuddy4088]

Outer wilds my precious ♥️

[@realdapi]

I love the Outer Wilds Echo of the Eye music in the background

[@pipp972]

Knew this video was gonna be based right from the first second

[@ArchitectofGames]

It's so good!

[@itsoracle]

I need to buy outer wilds ig

[@BunsGlazing768]

@@ArchitectofGames Can we look forward to a video on that soon? I gotta agree that the OST is a goddamn masterpiece (the River theme swelling right as you drop into a scene right out of Halo was godlike) but the rest of the game is pretty damn good as well and I would love to hear you gush about it :D

[@ascended8174]

No Man's Sky is the perfect example of giving players a literal universe to explore, but in the end they'll want a direction to head towards, a goal to achieve, or a system to abide by. I like the game not for solid gameplay loops or well-crafted stories or any of the usual things a game is praised for. I like it because it captures what true freedom is. You can go anywhere and do anything but what are you really doing any of that for?

[@Virtualnerd101]

Tbh that's why I stopped playing Elite Dangerous.

[@joaquinnievas9079]

Im been asking myself this very question when playing both nms and elite. So I started using space engine where I can explore and Pilot a ship without having to repeat any crap that makes me wonder what im doing.

[@blackheavymetalman]

It also doesnt help that there are like 10 different planets at best Or at least where when I played last in 2017 or something like that

[@ascended8174]

@@blackheavymetalman There's a really good variety now actually. Lots of changes since 2017, but if you didn't like the game then, you probably won't like it now. Game is true freedom and exploration for exploration's sake

[@blackheavymetalman]

@@ascended8174 i enjoyed my time but after seeing the same planet for the 20th time it didnt feel like there was much to explore for me. The living ship update was out when I played but I never got it myself

[@thyrussendria8198]

Freedom is nothing without a struggle as you can not see the value of something if you do not know what it is like to be without it.

[@stevenewsom3269]

The concept of freedom did not exist until feelings of oppression were experienced.

[@thatnerdygaywerewolf9559]

Kind of an old one, but I remember really enjoying the freedom in MySims Kingdom (wii version). You are basically able to build whatever you want with the blueprints you have, but each zone you can build in also has some kind of puzzle that gives you a goal with whatever you are creating. You can make things as barebones utilitarian or highly decorative as you want, so long as you remain within the bounds of the puzzle. Sadly, once the game’s story is over there really isn’t anything interesting left to do. But starting a new playthrough was always fun.

[@francegamer]

the thing is "do anything with zero constraints" just isn't compelling because then theres nothing to do and no motivation to do it other than "i want to build this cool thing"; the best "finding your own fun" is when you have this deep and interesting story that you're ignoring to see how many bees you can eat before your character dies

[@jayemover_16]

Basically Red Dead Redemption or Breath of the Wild type games.

[@thanhvunhat6995]

Some people said they don't like freedom games because they're being aimless and don't know how to beat the game, while liking linear games because the game always guide them. Are they right?

[@francegamer]

@@thanhvunhat6995 That's up to them, if that's how they like to play, that's how they like to play.

[@thanhvunhat6995]

@@francegamerBtw usually my favourite is linear like resident evil 4 or dead space, elden ring is my only open world favourite game. What about you?

[@francegamer]

@@thanhvunhat6995 I like a whole variety of games. Been playing sorcery! And night in the woods most recently.

[@alexanderjackson7948]

7:40 Well actually, modern Yugioh has a greater focus on playing specific archetypes, where the player choice revolves around which cards from the archetype to play and which archetypes to combine it with (synergies in play style/generic text). A lot of the banned cards belong to specific strategies, rather than just being generically powerful.

[@simonmcglynn9332]

Also, small detail but the card copy limit is 3, not 4

[@stylesheetra9411]

As someone that play both mtg and ygo in competitive setting He is just full of shit, he is the typical kitchen table mtg player lmao, I guess he only play edh During the firewall Dragon meta there were more viable decks than during the elk meta in mtg

[@Me2893me]

I couldn't figure out if he was trolling or just ignorant. If ignorant its kinda sad because it honestly undermined a lot of what otherwise was a good video. The ygo he described (which for the record never existed because of release and banlist timelines and the duplicate limit being 3) was also present and worse in original mtg with ftk decks constructed of only black lotuses, moxes, time walks, lightning bolts, and ancestral recalls all of which were uncapped (a deck consisted of any 40 cards as opposed to 60 cards with only 4 of any card excluding basic lands). An optimal deck was like 15x black lotus, 15x ancestral recall, and 10x lightning bolts. Really diverse deck there. That said both YGO and MTG have evolved to create trade offs that are meaningful and require tough decisions when constructing decks as well as playing them. Thus it irritates me all the more that he takes a cheapshot at YGO that isn't either constructive or accurate.

[@coins_png]

it was the mentality flip that surprised me. "I don't know, and I don't care" first he didn't know the barest most basic info about the game having card duplicates limited at 3 per deck. which takes opening any deck. even the deck he shows in the demo had he actually been the one playing. and so saying you don't care or "it just sucks" having already showed not knowing is a big combo to make, not just his take but, ANY take useless. and at the end of the day it's his job to both know and care (at least to the point of having an opinion). at least that's why i come back to his videos

[@betchaos7383]

You put these these concepts I’ve been mulling over for a long time into words so eloquently. It’s why I “feel like I can do anything” in super Metroid, but I find myself doing nothing in Minecraft. (Not saying Minecraft is bad btw) What fun would flying be if there was no gravity? What fun would lifting something be if it wasn’t heavy?

[@gabrote42]

That's why deep games usually come with extreme difficulty. As the good toad says: "Losing is Fun"

[@DarkBloodbane]

That's common feeling you get from most metroidvanias. Their world is clearly limited but somehow it's enough to give freedom to players with the powerups and upgrades.

[@fredranzalot4849]

I think a lot of minecraft mods try to fix that problem, but swing too hard in the other direction and make the game feel oppressive.

[@zubbworks]

I like the challenges of minecraft in that. I want a building, well I need blocks, well I need a mine, I need a building to put blocks, a road would make this walk quicker, my castle really could use some rare exotic plants in the front yard, sure could use an automatic brick smelter, can I make a block farm from the bones of skeletons?, what about wool from spider farming? Creative mode, I like to think more of, "how would this run in adventure mode?"

[@Cognobean]

I think people who don't have strong desire to build things and not fond with the blocky/voxel looks will not find it fun, at least at start.

[@Austenite75]

This video had summaries my entire existential dread in video game. No matter how much choices you have in building deck, choosing weapon, equipment, etc, you will always ended up choosing the most optimal one. This is especially true in PVP, which is basically means that PVP is pointless, because you (and everybody else) will always ended up doing (or trying to do) the single most optimal way to play instead of just having fun and expressing yourself by using your own strategy.

[@danilooliveira6580]

that is why when it comes to player freedom I prefer if its not competitive. a lot of times I want to try stupid builds that are fun but not optimal and try to beat the game with them, or even if its PVP, I much prefer if its people playing for fun fucking around than trying really hard to obliterate their enemies. there is a space for competitiveness, its actually amazing to watch people trying to figure out the optimal builds, but since I'm not a POWER GAMER, I usually just let people figure out for me and then use their strategy, what is not as fun.

[@libiroli]

Try Super Auto Pets. It's free and PVP. Every round is different, kind of like StS.

[@schmecklin377]

That's up to you. The only thing I care about in pvp is having fun

[@obiwanpez]

0:14 - The time when I realize that it's "The River" from Echoes, and I start involuntarily tearing up, screaming, "Let's GOOOOOO!!!"

[@hotcyder]

Thank you for the shout out Adam! 🙏

[@trigger_once]

“Creativity comes from limitation”

[@gabrote42]

RGME sure taught that well

[@CaptainCorneliusArgo]

When I had "finished" Elite Dangerous, by that meaning I did what I set out to do (get the biggest meanest combat vessel in the game), I realised it hadn't really been all that fun. I had just grinded out the optimal route to my goal, and now I was at it, I didn't know what to do with it. So I bought a smaller ship I thought looked cool and had a blast bounty hunting. Too bad I didn't realise this before.

[@bennemann]

Sounds like a very good analog of the experience of people who work their asses off to get rich and get a nice house, a fancy car etc. and then find themselves feeling empty afterwards, and realize they've basically wasted their life to get to that goal which turned out to be hollow.

[@ralcogaming7674]

I've done this to myself, setting a long term goal and tunneling so hard into it you forget to have any fun. If games made "grinding" more fun it wouldn't be an issue, for example when borderlands 3 was coming out alot of players made bucket lists for borderlands 2 to completely before that, me, I only wanted a max level God finger for my pure sniper zer0, I ran the most optimal routes I knew including running the dust circuit for 3 months straight. I got pearls and legendaries most would have been thrilled about yet never got my gun. Inevitably bl3 came out I stopped playing bl2 and since bl3 was such a disappointment I stopped playing any borderlands games all together. That being said those 3 months of run, shoot, reload was the most unfun time I spent in borderlands 2 because I tried my ass off for 1 pearl and never got it. Given the extremely unlikely spawns for "tubby" enemies on uvhm this essentially made 40% of my runs worthless.

[@Christopher_Gibbons]

While I agree, for the examples that you went through, it isn't quite the same for games like Minecraft or D&D. With these truly more open experiences the fun largely comes from testing, playing around, and finally growing beyond the rules. Those other games are fun, some of my favorite, but there is no joy in exploration to them. When you explore in dishonored, all you find are easter eggs that just remind you that getting to this out of the way spot was never you being cleaver it was part of the developer's plan all along. Any genuine originality is generally met with broken sequences, or intentional bottlenecks that make everything screech to a halt. When you play Minecraft on the other hand you can do things that the developers clearly never planned for, and this does not make the game go horribly wrong. What makes these games so good is a set of rules that is both comprehensive enough, and open ended enough, that it will fit its best to keep going when you do outlandish things.

[@thejedimaster32]

I had quite a different experience with Dishonored. I really loved the exploration specifically BECAUSE there was so much care and detail put in by the devs, not in spite of it. It felt like a living, breathing world, and I was so immersed that I was never really drawn out by the limits of the game. I guess the differences in how players perceive their freedom is largely personal in nature.

[@Sleksin]

Something that I've found is that fewer mechanics with freedom in how you engage with them is usually more meaningful than freedom to engage with more, less developed mechanics. Minecraft, for example, has rather few types of things you can do. It just so happens that the sandbox aspects of removing and adding blocks alone has massive potential. Compare to [open world game #XYZ], in which you can engage with the game is so many ways, but each means of engagement is likely quite minimal.

[@danilooliveira6580]

I think what you mean is building on a solid foundation, if you have meaningful mechanics that are engaging on its most basic level, everything you add that complement it will only make it better.

[@joshlegacy1101]

Minecraft is a small pond that's very deep while most big budget open-world games are large lakes that only go shin high.

[@ralcogaming7674]

Makes me think of skyrim. We had all these swords, magic, different skills and all sorts of ways to fight yet the vast majority of players ended up being stealth archers because it was optimal and one of the only ways to deal with endgame level enemies.

[@Kestas_X]

7:32 This slightly tilted Color Pie gives me a whole nother perspective on the game.

[@ZeroGravitas]

2:49 - Games can go beyond content created solely by devs, by making player creations themselves the content for other players, within a simulation that permits emergent gameplay. Various games kind of start to do this. Like TerraTech spawning player built enemy "techs", and "invaders", in its sandbox campaign. Like challenge maps (and of course mods) in Terraria (or Minecraft). And like the evolving meta of tactic in any competitive PvP games, like e.g. Overwatch. But I feel there's a huge unexplored design space that goes massively beyond any of these.

[@sqwid12]

Ooof, great work as always, but I wish you didn't show the Echoes of the Eye setting. Going in, I had no idea where the expansion would take place, I had only watched the reveal trailer. Once I entered the (setting), my draw absolutely dropped. I was completely blown away. One of my favorite experiences in gaming.

[@Nathanw022]

Yeah for the sake of others who haven't played it, wish he didn't spoil that

[@channel_00000]

Hollow Knight has a great sense of this with the huge amount of sequence breaks they are

[@ShadowChief117]

Goodness you can't freakin breath these days without a hollow knight fan deciding it's been too many microseconds since they last mentioned hollow knight lmao

[@AlexDimouArt]

@@ShadowChief117 as someone that loves hollow knight yeah- agreed. especially when anyone praises any other metroidvania??? like no ok enough about HK for a bit jesus

[@AnotherDuck]

@@AlexDimouArt I generally prefer the Metroids and Vanias. And closely related to the genre, if not actually part of it, the Zelda games.

[@AnotherDuck]

@@ShadowChief117 At least they're not as obnoxious about it as Undertale fans.

[@Runegrem]

@@ShadowChief117 they can be a bit loud, yeah. But at least they tend to not be hostile, even if you happen to not be a fan of the game.

[@avataraarow]

Awesome video. 100% agree that Agency is much more important than actual freedom. For one thing choice paralysis is a very real thing, but for another being in a constrained situation kind of inherently makes most people want to push the boundaries of that system. Having limitations makes you want to test those limitations, which causes you to get creative and see just how far you can push your own limits. 100% freedom is often kind of boring, because you don’t have any real impetus to do anything, but when you’ve got fun constraints to give you a push in the start that can go a long way towards giving you some inspiration on where to go from there. Also god I hope that Chao never stops supporting on patreon, the outros wouldn’t be the same without them. We should set up a trust on patreon in their name in case something happens to them financially

[@sayaks12]

i'd honestly argue that you can't really say you have freedom if you don't have agency. like if you can do anything you want, but nothing matters, what freedom do you exactly have? if what you did didn't matter, then did you even do anything at all? this extends beyond video games too. you can't say someone is free if they have no agency. freedom requires agency, i may even argue that freedom *is* having agency. it is just more obvious outside of video games that limiting agency will limit freedom.

[@Aceedius]

I spent summer and early autumn in a slump working over some bad experiences, and channeled that into cyclical replays of Disco Elysium. It's kind of beautiful in when, where, how and most importantly *why* it affords player agency. Every version of det. Costeau must walk the path from his moment of derealization to a reconstructed human being, and will make most of the same major decisions towards solving the murder along the way. He and the player have agency mostly in the moment, in the impact they leave on Kim and other characters they interact with, as well as on his ongoing internal conversation. Most of the antisocial behavior is there to reinforce the point that it's free to stop being like this at any moment. Weirdest self help book I ever read but it worked

[@zacbergart6840]

you should play Alpha Protocol... I love how your allies from one play through can be your enemies in another

[@alecchristiaen4856]

In Payday 2, the way you build your heister can get quite odd. You get: -a perk deck, which is a set of immutable buffs which can be really simple (armorer gives bonus armor) or quite complex and game changing (Stoic changes your grenade to a flask, turns your armor into hp, and gives you 75% of damage taken to DoT, allowing you to cancel pending damage with your flask). -a skill tree, 5 sets of 3 trees with each a specialization (tank focuses on armor ammo, and shotgunning; engineer is about turrets and drilling; ghost is about dodge and stealth, etc.) -weapons, 2 firearms which can be customized, a melee weapon, and a throwable (which can go from a ninja star to incindiary grenades) -a deployable, which is usually a case for supplies but can also be a turret or a jamming signal You can mix and match your skill points. Just because Shotgunner is a skill tree of the tank, doesn't mean you can't make a dodge build with it. This is because gun customization can get wild (some rifles can be modified into low damage snipers, many guns can be customized to up their concealability), and the only limit to the skill tree is your skill points (in a single tree, perks have requirements of points invested to unlock them). You're free to match and mix your perk deck, skill points, and weaponry in whatever form you want. My current build combines a sniper rifle, a shotgun with dragon's breath, and the Anarchist perk deck (-50% hp, +120% armour, armour will recover continuously in bursts, armour recovers when you damage someone) into a lightning fast tank build. The sniper can instakill anything except a dozer, the dragon's breath staggers non-specials and deals damage over time (so long as I have an enemy on fire, I'll recover armor every 2 seconds), and I can forgo heavier armour, meaning I have the highest possible speed while still taking a solid beating. It's counter-intuitive, but with experimentation and creativity, you can make a ton of varied builds, with meaningful differences (my friend runs a kingpin deck, and his survival strategy is vastly different from mine)

[@isaipack]

I'm waiting for the epic encounter between The Architect of Games and the Real Civil Engineer. This battle will be legendary. You guys both are from the UK, make it happen :)

[@AquaStockYT]

Can't wait to play Garruk Primal Hunter in Standard Since y'know, MTG doesn't have a banlist it just literally has to restrict which Pokemon are in this proverbial title each year so the game doesn't break violently :P

[@Nawer_Rapter]

"Kill the strategy itself" Bristleback Yes Absolutely My dude just turns his back and stands there after farming 3 items Why, doto, why

[@Anonlyso]

Silver Edge stocks skyrocket on the first pick Bristle pick every time. This is also why it's more fun getting to muck about as a support who suddenly has enough money to stop buying utility and just turn your support venge into full carry every other stomp game.

[@ArchitectofGames]

I've lost so many games to exactly that - and then he goes and stands with his back to our fountain and kills us over and over :(

[@Bloodyblack123]

@@ArchitectofGames kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3ech6BoeatnqaM

[@rollermixmax]

@@wataaaaaaaaa RIP OG from The International :_( . Also goodbye Ceb we will miss you

[@Anonlyso]

Happy International everyone gg to Team Spirit for going all the way

[@CreativeExcusesGaming]

Fundamentally, limitations allow us to experience pleasure. Take away our limits and we get sooooo bored soooo fast

[@nattzero5315]

Sable reminds me of an old indie game called Zineth, I had so much fun skating at absurd speeds through it's desert.

[@DaxterL]

It's a hard thing to do and i still occasionally do it, but I've been working hard on not optimizing the fun out of my game. I highly recommend others to do so too, it's a challenge on itself that's rewarding in the end

[@LFielding07]

In divinity original sin 2, The 1st big quest of the game, to escape Fort Joy, is a masterclass in how to provide player agency. Theres a great balance in providing enough direction for players to not get lost, while providing an IMMENSE amount of opportunity for discovery and creativity. Every time I start a new game I discover something new

[@CurlyHairedRogue]

Wish I could have stuck with that game longer. I kept getting disengaged by constantly having to restart because of getting hard locked into a fight I couldn’t disengage from or because the character I was playing just didn’t feel like the right pick for me.

[@PKToysoldier]

@@CurlyHairedRogue Try to approach it more from the perspective of seeing an interesting and unique narrative of your experience more than "winning" the game. I know this is easier said than done but the decision paralasis and drive to play as perfectly as possible can lead to this. Try approaching Original Sin like D&D or other TTRPG games where you are along for the experience good or bad. There is so much to the game that if you screw up and kill an npc you wanted to do something with don't worry and laugh it off, the game will end up more fun this way. I had to do a similar thing when playing coop with someone and it helped to accept their poor choices and not let them make the game worse, but only different from how I expected.

[@CurlyHairedRogue]

@@PKToysoldier wasn’t really trying to win. I was just trying to see the narrative better… but every time I did something it felt like I was missing something. When I’m along for the ride, a shitty plot line I have to follow for hours of playtime can really kill it for me. That, and finding a playstyle that’s fun to work with was really difficult. Never felt like I was playing with a full set of tools. Didn’t ever escape the fort either. Just got stuck talking with people about stuff and things that went round-about and made me think: “Yes… but what does this have to do with what I’m doing? And why do I feel, personally, like a supreme asshole, no matter what decision I make, like no matter what I do, somebody gets hurt?”

[@danilooliveira6580]

@@CurlyHairedRogue after you leave fort joy you can actually completely change every character build for free on the boat.

[@CurlyHairedRogue]

@@danilooliveira6580 damn… Fort Joy is just a tutorial, then? That… definitely explains why I felt like I wasn’t really accomplishing anything. I wasn’t supposed to, I was just supposed to book it for the exit.

[@TianyuQi]

when you mentioned arkane studio you could mention the genre of immersive sim which is basically everything arkane and looking glass studios are doing

[@LeoStaley]

The reason roller coaster tycoon2 was so much more fun than rct3 was that the restrictions in rct2 made all the freedom fun. In rxt3, you could tweak roller coasters to your hearts content, but in rct2, you had basically wide turns, normal, and narrow turns, you could only put loops after an up slope, etc, and when you had exceptions, you appreciated them a lot and it made them more run.

[@Kushufy]

the real reason you feel rct2 was more fun is because you were younger when you played it

[@LeoStaley]

@@Kushufy incorrect. I played through again about 2 years ago and it was even better than I remembered.

[@kobax9999]

I'm surprised I havent see anyone said it: Limitation is the mother of creativity. The more limited, the more fun you will juice out of the game, pushing the limit

[@bpansky]

very interesting perspective, thanks

[@friedlemons5201]

Kenshi is a good example of a game without a clear endgame that lets you do whatever you want but the freedom it gives never feels empty. Even the simple goal of surviving while exploring is rewarding in itself. Choices can affect the factions around you but even without grand ambitions like base building or overthrowing leaders, the player gets meaningful stories out of simply interacting with the world however they see fit

[@ledsanreplays8225]

In fighting games one of the best feelings is to find a combo that you like, and when decelopers allow player expresion in combos, feels so good, it becomes your combo, maybe others use it, but its still special for yourself.

[@styrofoamcow6996]

For sure and roguelikes are really good at the formula in my opinion so seeing games outside that genres like sable makes me really excited

[@monkiplasmi]

you know what, i hink the concept of "Freedom" i like the most in videogames is the "Freedom of enjoyment" sorta thing. like in skate 3. Its fun just tu jump around stuff. and you cand jump around stuff in so many ways, and you can go to a lot of places to keep jumping around stuff. the game design philosophy its a no brainer, just make cool places to skate to so people can have fun moving and jumping around stuff. and doing the same thing with their friends online. let people be free of enjoying themselves in your game

[@Exarian]

The timer in Xcom 2 made it unplayable. Like seriously, I can barely even get my guys into a position that won't get them all killed before I'm like out of turns.

[@sankhyohalder97]

I play with a mod that only starts the timer when you lose concealment. Even the lead dev said that would have been a better implementation from the original!

[@CowCommando]

I'm surprised the video didn't mention that player reactions to the timer were massively negative.

[@yell9140]

I agree, I stopped playing it because of a mission made difficult only by the timer, that removed the possibility of managing my soldiers that was on of the thing I liked most. That's why I am making my game, partially inspired by Xcom but with many different design decisions.

[@danilooliveira6580]

yeah, there were many ways to fix the problem with classic xcom, a timer wasn't it, they didn't realize that it was actually fun to take time to strategically plan your attack, it would actually make a lot of sense on a game where you are supposed to be a insurgent force.

[@807D14M0ND5]

@@CowCommando I think he talked about that at lengtht already. Might have been GMTK tho..not sure!

[@kevery.]

i think it’s great that the ideas of freedom that you’re exploring in relation to gaming transfer over to how we view our freedoms in relations to a lot of other things in life. i’d like to read/see more research and thoughts on the different degrees and kinds of freedom in this way

[@yallgottaunderstand]

IMO, Hitman is one of the best examples of player expression and freedom in a game. Surprised it wasn't talked about more.

[@amckeown]

Flipping the bird to a bird is the greatest thing I've seen today

[@NathanTowles]

15:03 Whoever made this mod, you have my attention

[@honeyjars]

A video with Sable in the thumbnail and Outer Wilds right at the start? Sign me up

[@TheEveryDayC]

this is why i like star citizen so much when playing with friends. sometimes it doesn't work and we sit there bashing our heads against gameplay preventing issues or dying to stuff we just should not die to, but when it works, it's something in it's own category, with the closest other games have ever gotten being stalker with the right mods on. love it so much, just wish they could be faster with pushing new content, though i'm pretty sure the biggest reason right now for slowness is backend tech and server infrastructures being changed and R&D'd

[@butter0989]

I feel this just has to be brought up A game that does the lemon structure masterfully is Deltarune. The game (so far) has managed to make it so that not only does player agency affect the middle part of each individual chapter the most, but it also affects the middle chapters more than it does the start or the end. So many things are gonna open up I'm so excited for the full game I'm not even gonna spoil myself playing chapters 3-5 until the thing is complete

[@xx_gamer_xx8315]

0:19 "Figuring out your own strategies" *Shows cannon rush*

[@TheLumberjack1987]

Finally, I've been saying this for years, freedom in and of itself is pretty meaningless if there is nothing else which makes the game engaging. "Nobody cares about being railroaded as long as they don't notice it". I heard that a long time ago and it's absolutely true.

[@NoizeViolation]

I realise I'm late here, but Subnautica is an absolute master class in this form of 'limited and guided freedom'. You start of with baby steps of discovery; the world opens up with your increased mobility, allowing to explore far and wide, uncovering parts of the story in no particular order; then, as you progress deeper in the ocean, you are funnelled back into the story ending.

[@mousermind]

I KNEW Arkane sounded familiar! One of my fav games, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, is by them. ^_^

[@japoonboals718]

I who just started playing DIsco Elysium on switch, so th emoment I heard you say it's name I skipped that part. Had to do it. I'm so hooked. Just woke up on day 2 and I have no clue where this will go and i'm loving every moment of it.

[@Frank_havre_creation]

This gave me an Eureka moment that will shape my team's upcoming game. Thank you!

[@gusty7153]

ijust remembered, the weird ending to the original anime for evangelion pretty much was about about something similar, though more or less nonsensical and not related to the rest so a movie was made to replace it, but the main idea was that your in an endless void and can do anything but the lack of limits in of itself is a limit so making a boundary somewhere and you can finally do actually something soo anyways the best games to exercise freedom tend to be ones that have actual stuff to do and the freedom is simply how to go about them and whether or not you even want to do them, along with using whatever you want, but the most important thing is that there's actually something to do rather than just do whatever. mmorpgs have a heavy focus on end game content and continuous release of story expansions to make sure there's always something to do, clever ones might even have semi randomized dungeons to explore with short burst missions and raids that make their content seem like a competitive arcade game. also heavy focus on pvp. borderlands is a funny mention, ofcourse we're only going to use the one gun inspite of millions of other available, that's the point, pick from endless possibilities and you find THE ONE that defines yourself and your preferred playstyle. this also goes for classes which i prefer a classless system, or as close to a classless system as possible. i have been having a preference for colony/city/settlement building and management type games as i have both absolute freedom to build and do and be whatever i want and it's not boring do whatever empty sandbox with meaningless choices, because the main objective is to essentially maintain a group of virtual pets while doing the things i want to do at the same time. also it's why a lot of sandbox games are also usually "survival" games, since it essentially makes yourself the virtual pet, although i think pvp ruins survival genre since everyone that likes multiplayer is usually hyper-competitive and wants everything revolve around pvp, which in turn leads to every multiplayer sandbox game revolving entirely around how to deal with griefers, and how to be a griefer yourself

[@shubhamghoshal2939]

I want a nickel every time a game design youtuber mentions Soren Johnson's quote lmao

[@zachb4561]

After playing Metroid Dread this seems especially relevant. Usually you are pretty railroaded into a certain direction, but since it is not blatant and it is up to you to scour the map and find the way to progress, it makes you feel genius. Pair this with the many ways that many items can be obtained, and you have a very "free" feeling game on your first playthrough, despite there being one start and end to the game.

[@ThatNoobKing]

Ad: it's time to remind the world- _skipped_ Video: there is no greater feeling in video games than the sense to be able to find your own fun

[@ElinaNoodles]

I've put Genshin Impact on hold for a year before finally playing it, because the initial impression I had of it was just an RPG in anime. Although it has a grind-intensive nature, I manage to find my own fun in the game simply by forming up my own stories when completing quests and such. Lots of people I've come across just rush through some quests just to get the rewards in the end, but I wanted to absorb the contents inside it to it's fullest to add a part to my own story. I play through this game without paying a single penny, mainly cause I like the feeling of going through the effort of getting the materials than the material itself, as it feels more rewarding.

[@TitanicMT]

There’s a term for this, it’s called player agency.

[@jonathanfavourite]

This video just answered something that's been bugging me a lot. I've been playing The Cycle: Frontier for a couple of weeks now, and I've been really wondering why I don't enjoy it as much as I do Hunt: Showdown, even though on paper I should. I love the world and setting of Frontier much more (don't really care for the weird west thing of Hunt), I love the map and weather design, love the weapons and items, and I love the chat-less social systems... but I'm not having fun. So, Frontier and Hunt are survival sandbox FPS games about fulfilling bounty contracts. Both are built around high risk, high reward: spend currency to prepare your loadout, then go into a mission and hope you do well and extract with more currency and loot than you went in with; however, if you die, you lose everything. In Frontier, what you do in a mission is entirely up to you. - Take whatever contracts you want: deliver items, stash items in dead drop boxes, kill players, kill monsters, etc. - Pick your map. - Go wherever you want. - Fight whatever and whoever you want. Killing other players is often a huge payoff. - Complete control over your inventory, including changing weapon attachments on the go, splitting up items into smaller bundles and dropping some to pick up others, moving items into a safety stash, choosing different armor and backpacks etc. - Stay for as long as you wish. Stick around for 6 hours trying to complete all your contracts, farm up data drives, collect body parts from monsters, mine ores, kill players... or leave two minutes after you drop. - The rewards can be used to unlock persistent upgrades, buy more equipment, craft rare equipment, fulfill contracts, or buy your way up faction tech trees. Meanwhile in Hunt: - Contract is fixed. You find out what it is after you're already in the mission. - Map is whatever you get. - Go to the clues, then go to the boss lair(s), then extract. - Fighting hunters doesn't give you a lot of xp or loot (they might have worse guns than you). You do it for fun, and to make the main objective easier to secure. - Inventory is functional and streamlined. Up to 2 weapons, 4 tools and 4 consumables. While in the mission you mostly pick up consumables and ammo. - You have 1 hour. - The rewards from the match are used to buy your loadout for the next one. Despite the massive freedom of choice in Frontier, I enjoy Hunt so much more, and now I can see why that is. The dense network of choices in Frontier feels meaningless; everything I do means I am not doing something else, every item I take means I can't take another. The value of each choice is vague and transient, and I largely feel like I am walking in place, unless I try to set goals for myself (which often get derailed by the glut of new opportunities that pop up as soon as I start the match.) By comparison, in Hunt I always know what I should do, and doing it feels impactful because most things are connected and get me moving forward to the objective. When I extract, it's always a victory; I don't feel like I'm leaving behind hours of potential activities and piles of loot. I am not knocking Frontier -- it's the most enjoyable alien planet experience I've had in games so far -- but the lack of clear objectives and impactful decisions is pushing me back to Hunt.

[@MegapiemanPHD]

Puzzle games like the Bridge Constructor series are great at this. It doesn't matter how you complete the objective, just THAT you complete the objective.

[@AtLeastTryALittle]

As someone who works me than full time and has always had both school and work at the same time I just like to play a game through once with a great one time experience and story. More than 100 hours in one game starts to get to be too long for me as that takes me about 6 months or longer to get through. I feel like games that are too open ended don't really appeal to me because I just don't feel like I have that kind of time. With that being said there is a prefect balance between freedom to make moment to moment decisions that matter and an on rails when needed roller coaster of a gaming experience

[@generrosity]

Definitely saving this one. Serious guru meditation needed to absorb the wisdom. If you are looking for ideas, a deep dive on breaking this up even more would be very interesting!

[@TimTeboner]

After defeating the Del Lago monster in Resident Evil 4, my friend handed me the controller and I announced that Leon had decided to retire to the life of a simple fisherman. I claimed the empty shack as my home and spent the next hour cruising around the lake in the boat, shotgunning bass and taking them to the shopkeeper on the other side of the water, selling them to afford more shotgun shells to continue fishing. It was super fun and relaxing. My friend still brings it up.

[@8BEATER1]

I think you can't buy ammo from the merchant in RE4. Is there something I don't know of?

[@marcelwannieck]

Forza Horizon 5 was just released a few days ago and I have about 11 hours of playtime so far. While the game is a lot of fun, I feel like it's one of these games that give you TOO much freedom. There are a bunch of different race categories, like street racing, rally, cross country, etc. In Forza Horizon 4, you would gain exp for each category separately. Playing street races got you exp for street races, rally wins get rally exp, etc. And when you reach a level up in a category, more races for that specific category would unlock, until you reach max level by basically winning every race event in a category. That then unlocks the final race in that category, like a giant street race that goes around the entire map once. There is a final race for each one of the categories. There was a lot of freedom, but if you want to unlock that big race I mentioned, you'd have to play every other street race first. Rally races get their own giant endgame race and so on. Forza Horizon 5 basically throws all that out in the name of maximum freedom possible. Instead of exp for the different race categories, you now get so called accolades. These are universal and you get them for doing pretty much anything at all. Won a race? Accolades! Discovered a new part of the map? Accolades! Did a bit of drifting around in the open world? Accolades! Accumulate enough accolades and you can unlock a new chapter of Horizon Adventure, a campaign of sorts. You have the choice which chapter you want to unlock. Street races, rally, PR stunts, it's all up to you. I chose street races first and it starts a bit of a story section where you have to drive into the center of a storm, explore some Mayan ruins, pretty neat stuff. And when you're done with that, EVERY SINGLE STREET RACE EVENT IN THE ENTIRE GAME IS UNLOCKED IMMEDIATELY. What. I did some side missions that tied into the campaign chapter I just finished and when I was done with that, I already had enough accolades to unlock another chapter of the campagin. I hadn't even done a single one of the dozens of street races I just unlocked and I was already on my way to unlock all of the rally races at once. This cycle continued until I had unlocked all of the events on the map. The game gives you accolades for absolutely anything you do and the amount of accolades you need to unlock another chapter is tiny. I was about 9 hours into the game, I had done about 6 or 7 street races and I was given the option to unlock the Goliath, the final big race around the entire map. Something that took me about 40 hours in Forza Horizon 4, I did in 9 hours in Horizon 5. Yes, there is a lot of freedom but it feels like it doesn't matter what I do, the game just unlocks everything regardless. There is no sense of progression. At least they got the cars right. While it doesn't really matter what car you use, a slower D class car is just as viable as the hypercar in X class. You only race against other cars in the same class, so X isn't necessarily better than D. And X class cars are typically harder to drive and keep under control because they're so stupidly fast. Also, there are weekly challenges that have to be completed by a specific kind of car, like three specific races in an A class sedan for example. Those challenges force you to experiment with cars that you maybe wouldn't drive otherwise. They're what kept me coming back to FH4 and it's probably going to be the same for FH5. *tl;dr: Forza Horizon 5 is a lot of fun but it unlocks everything way too fast to give you too much freedom without a real sense of progression.*

[@SuperVillianStudios]

Adam does it again, another amazing topic I never really thought about and now I am more knowledgeable as a game dev. What would I do without you

[@trainiumm]

Lets go! Each upload is a blessing

[@RolandTheJabberwocky]

Sable is honestly one of my favorite games in a long time. Yes it has its issues, and the "choices" could be a lot better, but the amazing atmosphere and setting just made me enamored. I didn't play anything until until I 100% completed it, and god do I hope the developers make a sequel, or at least a DLC.

[@RolandTheJabberwocky]

Ah well hit you basically said the same thing. Should have waited I guess lmao. Just sm so pumped for it, I really don't want it to go under the radar.

[@lewis1423]

i feel x com2 is a weird example here. they added the timers with the ideas that risks were more fun, and it dose follow the restrictions bread creativity philosophy. however by doing so they took away a lot of player agency. in the second game you are forced to run forward and put your people in dangerous situations where rng is the only factor. if i move a person in the open to kill an enemy quickly and miss a 95% shot and as a result im heavily punished for it i dont feel like my decision matter its all a roll of a dice that i never wanted to take in the first place, where in the first one i atleast knew playing back would get me the result i wanted.

[@timpize8733]

I'm glad that you regularly mention Sable. It's a beautiful and original game which deserves more praise - despite its many gameplay problems, let's face it. I wish it were more polished.

[@wizardwhen]

Garry's Mod shows this very well, as it allows you to do ANYTHING (with the workshop), but it's only when you do something you never thought possible (break the rules of the game/ANY game) that you feel truly free.

[@HeWhoShams]

Sable is a masterpiece. 100% the game in a couple of days.

[@fuzzypickles3129]

This is another excellent essay. Thank you for your effort.

[@hannannibal_barca]

Some of the most fun I’ve ever had in games has been playing hide and seek on the tower in destiny 2 with friends. The game wasn’t designed for it and it clearly wasn’t the goal of the devs but the game had all the tools needed if you wanted to play.

[@City-Hunter]

Little Big Planet 2 was great too, in a parallel line of the indicators, displayed throughout your video, hoping it comes to PC

[@martine5604]

That Echoes of the Eye background music hits right in the feels

[@MuhammadAli-ih8be]

I feel its more important to have choices that are fleshed out, meaningful and fun rather than a huge variety of options that all mostly end up shallow as they have no merit beyond face value. I.e = Catapult across the map, but thats it. There is no proper application of it in a story, no secret puzzles or challenges where you use it, no rewards for expertly executing it.

[@anotherrandomguy8871]

I think that would be the best illusion of freedom, being free to make a choice to actually make decisions of anything you want, but your decisions have weight to the story, and I don’t just mean “oh you killed a npc in a game, now the cops are after you until you die” I mean as in you can just kill someone’s in the game, even someone within your own group of friends and family in the story, and that triggers a hidden script of the story where things go sideways instead of how the story is meant to play out.

[@fotografick]

My friend and I would spend hours passing the controller, trying to get the most ridiculous deaths in GTA4. GTA5 just didn't have the same appeal, with the death animations being quicker, the helicopters being more tame, and taking out the slow motion cam. GTA5 was more refined, but GTA4 really celebrated that sandbox gameplay with it's physics engine, and easy to input cheat codes.

[@dmarsub]

In a great game the best strategies are also the most fun. When you have to decide between cheesing the game and fun then everything feels less significant.

[@sandimtavares]

That bristleback clip made me smile. OY, YOU WANT SOME OF THIS?

[@doorbell8132]

I came into this video being like “please talk about Outer Wilds please talk about Outer Wilds” and then the first fucking frame was Outer Wilds lmao

[@CowCommando]

I keep hearing that quote about players optimizing the fun out of games, but has anyone stopped to ask if that concept is actually true or not? Take the XCOM example from this video, many players hated the timers in XCOM 2. I heard people claim that after mods were made to reduce or eliminate the timers the devs acknowledged the mods were a better implementation of the design goal they wanted. The problem wasn't that players found a boring strategy. The problem was that the developers found the player's strategy boring and then forced the players to change. The devs design the game to be fun how they want it to be fun, but the player gets to decide in the playing how they choose to have fun.

[@ZeroKitsune]

I still think it's true that players will often optimize the fun out of games, but I also think it's slightly more complicated than that quote makes it sound. Not all players even do it, for one, but I think what usually happens is that...often, reacting to or overcoming some kind of adversity, especially if it's unexpected and forces plans to change or be adapted, can be exciting and fun if it's done well. The problem is that by optimizing a game beyond a certain point, you can reduce or eliminate entirely the chances of something like that happening. And while disruptions in plans are nominally a bad thing, that's often where some of the engaging gameplay is located. But on the other hand, trying to FORCE players to do something differently by implementing a system that doesn't feel justified is...really only going to make people angry. Especially if they didn't have any expectation that their usual strategy is no longer going to work, and especially especially if it feels like a direct action from the developers and not something that arises naturally in-universe. Whether or not people have fun with a particular strategy, it is still THEIR strategy, so just bluntly trying to pull it out of their hands is not going to be received well. (Another issue with the timer in particular is that without mods, you don't have any control over when it starts or how long it lasts, so it feels overly restrictive and reduces your sense of freedom--only certain kinds of strategies are now viable, and you have to use one of those.) ...the tl;dr version is that yes I think people can settle on strategies that suck the fun out of a game because they're effective, but that it's' important to consider player psychology when trying to fix the problem. If it's perceived as a punishment it isn't going to be received well.

[@enrymion9681]

"I heard people claim that after mods were made to reduce or eliminate the timers the devs acknowledged the mods were a better implementation of the design goal they wanted. The problem wasn't that players found a boring strategy. The problem was that the developers found the player's strategy boring and then forced the players to change." Uh, no? Devs tried to achieve a design goal and then saw mods that achieved that goal better, that doesn't in any way indicate that they were wrong to try to fix the issue, just that they didn't do it as well as they could have.

[@ioele1000]

I believe the quote is true. While I take my games mostly leisurely, my friends like to push forward as hard and fast as possible and say the game is nothing but “pain”. As an example. We played terraria recently and I was 1 shot by skeleton, which I activated unintentionally. But by the next day they had not only beat skeleton, they had also made the strongest weapons and armor in the game (pre hardmode). Then they killed the wall of flesh, with little to no help from me. Now the world is almost completely consumed by the corruption and they wanna create a secondary world to mine resources and purchase a bunch of dynamite to stop the spread, which they caused. And they were also following a guide so they could do all this as fast as possible. I would call this a sort of optimizing the fun out, because all they did was follow the guide, removing any fun of discovery, and grind till they could get all the top tier items, removing any challenge.

[@zenotaddei]

It's like freedom is not about where you go but more about how you get there

[@mattcat83]

I'm not sure that we're in a better position to know that we have free will ourselves than we are to know that others have free will, too.

[@Kartaal]

While not exactly the same, Espen Aarseth has written an academic paper titled "A Narrative Theory of Games" which somewhat deals with the same idea of 'freedom'. It's more in the perspective of narrative freedom for the player vs 'enforced' narrative by the developer(s) but it also has the 'lemon shape'. Rather than lemon, Aarseth calls it the "creamy middle" (as opposed to either of the extremes). It's not really a long paper but I think it'd be interesting for you, Adam.

[@613aristocrat]

Toy Galaxy reminded me about the Choose Your Own Adventure book series and its spin offs. They were really freeing, though they were also very limiting.

[@NicholasLaRosa0496]

Never heard of Sable. Thanks for giving it a shout out.

[@josephkeen7224]

It’s so refreshing to see someone say that the turn timers in Xcom 2are a good thing.

[@GamerTayhong]

This is true. This is the simple reason i fell in love with hades star. It's the freedom to play with people, politics, psychology, leadership, organizational skills, etc. It may not have the same consequences in real life but what you do from the beginning until the end has consequences with how you progress. You can build relationships in corporations or play rogue solo. You can be the hat hole or be friendly. They all become part of you.

[@ruolbu]

Sable is an interesting thing. It's a bit like a boiled down Breath of the Wild. It's minimalist in a way of doing things not to accomplish something, but just for their own sake. In Breath of the Wild I soon saw obstacles in the light of "what can I get from climbing this?", where Sable makes me climb things just because they're there. The world is smaller, often sparsely populated with points of interest and there are very few functional connections between these points. If you miss some cave somewhere, you're not missing a huge questline. You're missing one cave. But the things that ARE there, are often wildly unique. Sure there is a baseline of common NPC clusters, but as far as landmarks go, these things can vary BIG time. On top of that, the narrative is all about finding out what you like. All of this put me in a mindset of just going for what felt right, of outright ignoring things that annoyed me. I didn't care about bike parts, or bugs or quests or samey ships. I did all of that once and never again. Instead I climbed and climbed. I saw a thing, I had to see it from above. No purpose to anything. And the game outright telling me that this is what's expected from me, the game not holding out hidden incentives to do EVERYTHING anyway, you know that really mattered. It gave me the permission to be single minded. I have always been a type of player that not just optimizes fun out of the game, but also grinds the fun out of it. An open world like Skyrim grinds me away until all excitement vanishes and I stop playing, never having experienced the parts of the game that truly were fun to me. Sable kinda showed me with it's minimalist nature, that I can experience games another way. I might have to train myself a bit though.

[@kokxiangwei1646]

Yea I have the same problem with JRPGs. When I was playing Octopath Traveller, my brain just can't stop telling me to "explore every single part of the map". And thus by the 60 hrs of play time, I haven't even collected all my starter characters and I still found myself running around some lame looking area searching for items that aren't even worth anything to begin with. It's like some addiction to need to see everything. I've gotten better over time, but I still appreciate it when games reassure me that it really is okay to not have see everything, and that you can progress the game whenever you want to.

[@Scarletcroft]

Like life. You are born and you die. Everything in between is a game of choices. Some are born in hard mode others in easy mode.

[@shoemakerx0105]

And the best part is that your decisions can change the difficulty settings, just don't use exploits if you're in easy mode or else you'll be locked into hardmode, or even be banned from the game Glitches are allowed, but the religion factions might hunt you down and delete your account/worship you

[@grognakthedestroyerattorne3211]

Gotta say space engineers felt unbelievably open world because of the level of customization (easily build your own ships) and the ability to mod it. All it needs Is a better engine and some ai. An example of it being great for me is when I created a ship that was capable of punching a hole straight through an enemies massive capital ship by plowing straight into it.

[@TheSuperOncheman]

Hello, when watching your video it greatly reminded me of gamebooks (like Choose Your Own Adventure) that I used to play when I was a child. Video games and computers already existed, but I found a lot of fun in these games... books... I guess there's a reason they're called gamebooks. This "lemon shape" you spoke of, as well as many other video game concepts, can already be found in these books that are about 40 or maybe 50 years old. They are constructed exactly like any video game would be, with multiple choices, sometimes limited by the character you built up to this point, and often allow you to go through an adventure with the tools you have at hand. I would find it highly interesting if you tried out any (if you haven't already), and maybe talked about it, or incorporated them in your videos... Or you might just as well not do it, who am I to suggest that after all ^^ However, I still strongly recommend playing these gamebooks, which still have an active community up to this date. If you decide to do so, or any other person reading this comment, please start out with the easy ones. The hard ones usually only allow for one path, and will lead you to a dead end for a long time (you can keep on playing for an hour only to find out that any choice you made during that time would have lead you to death).

[@charlesrankin1190]

Hello Mr. Millard, you absolute LEGEND!

[@collinbrown9233]

That’s so funny you bring up the “pinched balloon” theory of game paths I first saw that idea in a guide for dungeon masters written by the Angry GM

[@ruolbu]

would you perhaps still know which of his many texts that was?