How Game Trailers Are Tricking You

[@MentalCheckpoint]

What's the game at 8:05?

[@xTigr]

minecraft

[@most_likely_sein]

he fell from his chair, nothing else except for some fun

[@carlosnava1471]

@@xTigr No, it's actually hit game Among Us

[@8bitbunnie936]

hmmm.. i think rounds

[@heimskr2881]

Modded Skyrim

[@scorpionjacket3129]

Started out as discussion about trailers deceiving and conning us, ended up as a trailer for Ultrakill

[@siliswest498]

Is there a problem?

[@quantum6784]

@@siliswest498 ball

[@personname-fw9jq]

+ENRAGED i think

[@Sombodydumb]

​@@siliswest4980 problem its a good game anyway

[@Bigdieentusiast]

Ultrasex

[@midnightlunch3285]

I've always felt that a game should never FEEL like it's enforcing its ideal playstyle, but instead, should simply make it known what its "rules" are and be as transparent as possible about its mechanics. One of the best game design tips I've seen comes from, hilariously, a decades old Game Maker tutorial which goes along the lines of "If a player dies and they feel like it's the game's fault, then you're doing it wrong. The player should always feel like they made a mistake, rather than the developer of the game."

[@guiii0696]

When I die is always the enemy's fault for being better than me

[@on-jo7716]

I didn't exactly choose to have the game frames drop for no reason just to get clapped when my computer is over the game requirements lmao

[@freevbucks8019]

Yeah like on Armored Core, there's no way around it, either you git gud or your mech is shit. It's funny how the most well known fighter games are the worst offenders on this one, even though they're supposed not to

[@DerpySnake]

Basic game design is timeless. If most people playing feel the game made them die instead of them losing, it is a problem. Of course, there are some who are just bad, but if most are saying it? Maybe something's going wrong.

[@Azure9577]

@@freevbucks8019 yooooo!! A fellow armored core fan

[@Diszzzon75]

I think dishonored would benefit from a "ghost magic and chaos magic system", where some of your more aggressive spells can only be refilled by killing enemies and stylish kills reward you with more magic(that quickly depletes itself if not used). And on the other hand your more stealthy spells(or weaker versions of the powerful ones) can automatically refill so long as you are not spotted or haven't killed anyone recently. So on one hand you have a play style that encourages not being seen, and on the other you have a quick passed aggressive assassin play style. Also make saving whenever you want, reduce your end level ghost/chaos score, and there could be different endings associated with having high enough of each one of the play styles(ghost, chaos and sloppy).

[@LazyJesse]

Why would you put a tax on saving?

[@horserage]

Annoyingly, this doesn't work in dishonoured 2 and I think onwards, as you can be as unstealthy as possible and simply punch the shit out of enemies too. Though a "pugilist" magic thing, or just foregoing both to punch shit really good would've been sick, and the game not having it sadly makes 2 feel lacking.

[@kimtgf7152]

The one game that put a tax on saving like this was ori and the blind forest, it was a real menace when you forgot to save and now had to do the entire section again just to die again to something you didn't expect. This is the reason why Ori and the will of the wisps, in my opinion, felt very refreshing as you could now focus on enjoying and playing the game rather than thinking about how many energy cells you have left.

[@SnowMexicann]

I dont like this idea tbh, it just doesnt fit dishonored

[@peterchu5609]

Hitman 3 for funzone falls more onto the encourage side of the spectrum. There are a few challenges that require Silent Assassin but there are just as many that don't. It allows for complete freedom in how you go about your mission.

[@rickvanleeuwen9589]

Every contract has only a handfull of silent assassin challenges and yet I find myself trying to do every mission unseen and in my suit

[@foxyin_1168]

also grants a lot of replay ability

[@xann2681]

Ultrakill's encouragement system isnt just being stylish, it also uses combos which can torn appart entire rooms and bosses based on your skill and creativeness to increase damage

[@zachalexuy449]

H3H3 C01N G0 [[UL7R4 R1C05H07]]

[@Arcanilumia]

Even better is that being stylish has a mechanical reward too - all the S ranks make your hard damage decrease at faster rates, whereas ULTRAKILL rank just gets rid of hard damage entirely! The rework to do this and encourage weapon swapping really helped the fun ceiling go even higher somehow

[@lightedtwice]

This has quickly become one of my favourite youtube channels to watch, the editing, the topics, ideas and analysis are top notch! Thanks for another video!

[@aleks_ivanov]

Same. And I just found this channel.

[@pieTone]

Same here. Better than 90% of the content found on youtube.

[@L0g0Z0g0]

I think Ultrakill deserves it's own video like Devil Daggers especially after act 2 came out, like watching you

[@GeoffPlaysGuitar]

Thanks for featuring my Silver for Monsters cover in the intro! Also really liking this whole video, it’s well written and i amazingly edited 😎

[@twinsen04]

A big reason why Enforcement is generally wrong is player expectation, which is a very important thing to take into account. If something is enforced, typically the player will feel that the game is "unfair" or "too hard" or "unbalanced" or generally not like the mechanic. No matter how wrong he is, he's still right. Enforcing is ok if you can "get away with it".

[@jacobshirley3457]

Choosing a genre is enforcement, yet nobody complains about it. When they bought the game, they knew what they were expecting.

[@mawillix2018]

@@jacobshirley3457 Is your point that all enforcement is good, because a much lighter "enforcement" is ok? I don't even know if I can call choosing a genre "enforcement", every game will have a genre no matter what you do. Even if we accept it as a soft enforcement forced upon the developers, then people can just specify that it applies to instances where the developers have the option not to enforce, for the enforcement to be bad.

[@twinsen04]

@@jacobshirley3457 That's what I mean by enforcement "you can get away with". If the player expects the enforcement, there's no problem.

[@sauceinmyface9302]

@@mawillix2018 Enforcement can be good, but the usual ways of thinking about it are probably wrong. Halo forced players to have only 2 weapons, allowing for more simplicity for controllers and thought about ammo and building a loadout. We don't think about it as enforcement because it's become a gaming standard and because its engrained in the rules. The lack of freedom in games also cuts off cheesy and overpowered tactics.

[@TheWayOfPencil]

If done right, this two approaches are indistinguishable. Encouraged behavior is only valuable, if its benefits desides will you win or not. This is really tied up to flow concept. Unnecessary bonuses are boring, unnecessary punishments are frustrating.

[@LackOfCreativiT]

When playstyles are left open-ended for me, I often find that I start playing in a very boring way. I think a bit of enforcement is important. Your players are not always going to find the Funzone on their own.

[@poggestfrog]

Then that means a lot of playstyles are "boring". Ideally a lack of enforcement just means the player can do what they want. In that case that may be "enforcement" because some styles aren't made to be very fun.

[@EnderTea_]

WHY ARE THESE VIDEOS SO GOOD it's like talking about the things everyone does/is aware of but no one talks about

[@Elemtree]

Saints Row 3’s POWER trailer is hands down the best game trailer of all time, but that’s the problem… I can’t remember the game as much or if it was even good or not. Trailers should be nice little treats for our minds to wonder and not be given too much or too many expectations to expect for the final game. It doesn’t also help that with the way social media has grown we have hype culture at it’s worst with everyone being being over killed by so much of one thing that people’s dopamine levels can’t be reached anymore because how high the roof is for most people.

[@aliatef7203]

I been saying this for years, the game was alright but compared to the trailer it was an absolute disappointment

[@seanventen1530]

I love the stuff you're putting out! I find those moments in platformers where they suddenly introduce a threat or time-limit extremely satisfying. While trying to minimise deaths and learn mechanics is fun, the moments in Celeste or other games that the game makes you apply those mechanics on the fly is where I find the fun zone. The feeling of watching movements that were once hard to master now flow naturally with instinct like decisions is a great way to force players to embrace the risk and enjoy the beauty of the movement in their games.

[@pixelpastiche]

Can you please put the name of the games you show in the lower left corner or something? Like at 10:07, I now know that this game is "Jack and Casie" because I searched online for the name and pixel art, and then came across their kickstarter which closed in 2019 after a few minutes. It would be mad helpful just to see the name though so that something relatively unknown like this can be used as reference and inspiration .

[@leokommadant938]

oh i was about to ask what game is that part around 10:07. thank you very much

[@sunryosuke]

thanks kind sir for the sauce

[@Slim7073]

do you know the name of the one at 15:52?

[@pixelpastiche]

@@Slim7073 I did some searching and came up with nothing! The game and mechanics look sick but I couldn't seem to find it. I also tried searching for the words used in the combo system and by using a screenshot in google images but still didn't get it. I'm sorry.

[@Slim7073]

@@pixelpastiche It looked very interesting. I couldn't find it either. 😞

[@kosmicgr]

In my opinion, "Enforcing" a playstyle feels worse in shorter games. However, I will note that I'm not the kind of person who replays most of the games they've finished unless it's been years since then.

[@nolram]

To me, the concept of a universal “Funzone” for a lot of games is highly flawed. For games that entice and are designed around a very specific type of combat, like DOOM or Ultrakill, with clear goals of how a player is meant to traverse the game, this can work - see the examples you gave in this video. However this only applies to a certain type of game and is not universal - in this case mainly high-velocity fast paced combat games. Creating a “Funzone” of this kind or rewarding style is a lot more difficult in a puzzle or exploration game. Also, not enforcing or enticing a specific gameplay style can increase the skill ceiling of a game massively - as an example of this you could take speedrunning. So while I feel like the “Funzone” absolutely does exist in games like Doom, once example to me that illustrated the fact that having varying playstyles can often really improve a game was Dishonoured which you showed towards the end. You described your approach to the game - non-lethal stealth. You indentify that this playstyle was fun to you - but then proceed to call a more... fast paced murderous style “more fun”. This does not make sense to me - while the velocity and pacing of the latter was evidently higher, this doesn’t just “increase the fun”. A large part of a games appeal can be finding your own way to solve it, and comparing your style to others, and saying “this is the most fun approach” in a lot of cases is very subjective, and thereby not really a metric to base design upon. This, like I said, all depends on the game.

[@-ZH]

Yeah, he says it himself that when given the opportunity, players would maximise their own fun. And then he chose to do the stealth route, and he said it is less fun then the killing route.

[@blastforge]

@@-ZH No he states players will minimise their fun and take the easiest route to completing something, even if its really tedious just because its easier. Such as cheesing an enemy. The issue with stealth gameplay is the high and lows of the playstyle, for much of the game you are moving slowly between areas of tension, you have small peaks of excitement whether you will be seen by the enemy. When playing at pace, you are getting to the next fight and are performing a series of kills and combos, then moving onto the next fight. So your graph looks more like ^^___^^_^_^ rather than ____^_____^__^_____. Because of the pace you are likely making less informed decisions and living on the edge of death, will you kill the enemy before they kill you, can you combo both of these enemies before they hit you with a powerful weapon etc. You dive into the fray, whereas with stealth, depending on how seriously you take it, you will be making very informed decisions and its more of problem solving. While the end is a peak of excitement and achievement, the journey is less so. Its connect 4 vs sudoku.

[@Puerco-Potter]

You would like Prey, and immersive Sims in general. That's a kind of game that you won't see often, because it requires a lot of design and programming and it's a niche market. But yeah, I always prefer to be able to choose.

[@Puerco-Potter]

@@blastforge I usually don't play games to feel excited, I play games to feel good about myself (the "you accomplished something" reward system in my brain) I don't really like to feel rushed, I don't like to feel I am on the edge, I usually drop games like that after one or two session. But I really like to cheese games, minimaxing whatever I can found that works. It can be boring to you, but I really like to feel I am in god mode. I remember playing Deus Ex (the original) and when I noticed that explosives shield was OP (any explosive will blow up before it reach you in a radius that increase by level) start using it every time I could and putting all my point in it, it was so satisfying seeing people and robots blow into pieces because they made the fullish decision of throwing a rocket at me being 25 mts from me.

[@YayaFeiLong]

Every well-designed game has a fun-zone, but they can be wildly different between games. The fun-zone doesn't only apply to high-intensity games like Doom Eternal. The fun-zone is just the part of the game that makes it engaging to the player. For Portal, the fun-zone is learning the mechanics and using them to solve puzzles. For Frostpunk, the fun-zone is managing resources to keep your little settlement alive. For Minecraft, the fun-zone is...exploring the game world, building and expanding bases, fighting bosses, designing complex redstone contraptions, obliterating your GPU with shaders, screwing around with silly mods, building colossal pixel art statues, speedrunning...the list goes on. The point is, the fun-zone can be anything, as long as it's the intended way to play the game by the designer

[@ThiagoJaqueta]

13:55 - The thing about SoS difficulty is that introduces enemies earlier. For instance, you'll have Sin Scissors spawn as early as Mission 2, and Fury's spawn as early as Mission 8 instead of Stage 10. It feels like locking this difficulty behind playing the game once was mostly done to: - Not affect enemy introductions, which is specially important considering that every enemy gets their own cutscene as well. - Slowly show players (including veterans) new enemies and their attack patterns. - Allow the players (including veterans) to slowly get used to the characters move-set through upgrades. - The designers also know that, most players that enjoy playing these higher difficulties, also enjoy playing the game multiple times. IMO having SoS unlocked from the start would do more harm than good considering the circumstances around how the game is designed. But that's my two cents.

[@JTCF]

3:55 Also Post Void could be highlighted here, where your health (liquid in the idol in your hand) is drained contanly and you refill it by killing enemies.

[@YourRndm]

I just want to say: I am glad that I found your channel, you make game development interesting.

[@andy4an]

I'm super impressed by the quality of these videos. just added to you to my patreon. That said, I'm not going to stop watching just because you add an ad. if you find the right one, go ahead and take it.

[@DrJigglebones]

16:35 Funny that you ask that question right after mentioning and while showing footage of Dishonored, the game that punishes you for killing enemies or ever being spotted, forcing you into the playstyle that you yourself said wasn't as fun.

[@redmanrode8349]

Well no, people who like combat will be happy there's more interesting and difficult combat, while stealth players will enjoy the more chilled out smaller enemy count levels so the sneaking is more manageable

[@Nachy]

Some shmups encourage this funzone behavior through their scoring systems. DoDonPachi and Ketsui by CAVE are prime examples of this. DoDonPachi's main scoring mechanic is a chain hit counter where the player must optimize their navigation and kills through specific timings and switching between the powerful laser shot that will give them slower precise movement and the more general autoshot type that will increase their movement. The chain runs on a timer, so if the player doesn't optimize their kills, it breaks. It's also completely possible to chain entire stages, which is required for the highest scores. Ketsui encourages a more aggressive approach by having two shot types as well dictating its scoring system through a 1-5 multiplier. You earn the highest multiplier which is 5 by destroying enemies upclose in proximity through the autoshot. Said multipliers run on a timer, and you have the choice of keeping it up by destroying more enemies through the same autoshot in close proximity, or using the lockon to 'cash out' the multiplier from any distance. The lockshot is also the more powerful shot, which encourages scenarios such as the player using autoshot in close proximity for weaker fodder enemies and then quickly switching to lockshot on stronger enemies.

[@MultiKombo]

Love how you showed NMS's gameplay trailer at the intro where you talked about how trailers are scripted, he was called out for saying it was random but it actually was a premade scenario with a planned route

[@sreeram3802]

17:35 that game is shady knight

[@foxsdefsoul]

About ultrakill - you can also parry attacks to regain full health (if no hard damage applied) it also makes you skill revarding and add althernative for healing

[@blackoutlol2857]

5:37 hold up bear wrestling? That actually sounds cooler than just regular basketball lol.

[@PBlague]

After watching some of your videos(or all of them I'm not sure) for the past few weeks I've started to appreciate the game creators and designers much much more; I never knew that they had such an influence on what goes into it I thought it was a willy nilly thing where for not skilled designers it would be just basically random and for the more experienced like an artistic vision... Thank you for all these videos

[@PBlague]

I had to edit it... The more I read the more horrible it got. Thanks for the like though Mental Checkpoint :)

[@the.true.A]

What a guy, first he makes one of the best party games I've played and now he's making super high quality videos with super high quality editing and great explanation, you're great

[@fancysonn]

Would love to see you explore more movement shooters. Titanfall 2 is one of many hugely underappreciated games that force players into the "fun zone" . Gameplay looks and feels like a trailer

[@masterdeity3400]

Maybe the multiplayer, but the singleplayer is something a whole lot more disappointing.

[@mastershooter64]

@@masterdeity3400 not really, singleplayer is amazing, the story and gameplay are both amazing, literally the only problem with the singleplayer is the enemy AI, they're kind of dumb.

[@vasilistsitsas5088]

These videos are fun to watch as a person that plays games. More than that, I feel that they will help current and future developers with their work! I really appreciate your channel since it will have a positive impact on the quality of games in the future!

[@spicykoreannoodle]

havent watched the video but should be good as expected from this amazing channel

[@DWal32]

15:25 ULTRAKILL tells the player outright multiple times in terminals and the marksman description that your coins can ricochet any hitscan attack. It's not a mystery, you just have to pay attention to what you just bought from the dubious yellow jukebox that's in every elevator shaft's bottom.

[@The_Cheesus_Christ]

Nobody looks at those

[@MetalDragon199]

Dishonored's chaos/morality system kinda pushes you away from using most of the mechanics and relying only on blink, choke holds, and the tranq crossbow. I love the idea of dishonored but I couldn't get myself to play more than a couple of levels due to that. Unless I missed something about the game.

[@drackar]

Yeah nah, the "best" most enjoyable, fast paced play style absolutely does fuck you over in that game. It's seemingly designed as a giant middle finger to player choice. "You CAN run around stabbing the guards, but that will do Bad Things, so instead you should spend twenty minutes save-scumming for a better ending".

[@jerrodshack7610]

The majority of tools they give you are lethal, but the in-game world punishes you for using them

[@synthgal1090]

@@ezekielrauch3703 the fuck do you mean it's "not the game's fault" Having the game punish for killing objectively bad people instead of dispensing tiredly cliche poetic justice by going "well ur evil therefore now society evil" is some dumb shit. Imagine being so emotionally disconnected that you aren't affected by plot and writing.

[@siruno6024]

I'm a chaos enjoyer and not a fake moralist like most people, and in top of all a certified edge lord, so for me the best endings are the ones that people consider bad endings. so I always enjoy the best ways to play even if this conflicts with a game moral systems, because after all it's just a game, it's fiction nothing is real there.

[@ollytherevenant1653]

@@drackar the reason I think this works, is because it’s much more challenging and less “fun” to take the morally better path, meaning a lot of players will take the more obvious and easier route of high chaos and lethal, and player actions in gameplay hold a narrative consequence. It holds a great theme of the righteous path being a lot more difficult and less obvious, I think.

[@Kodaiva]

Having ultrakill in the thumbnail is a crime

[@Lugmillord]

0:48 Using metal doesn't need an apology. btw, where do you get your gameplay footage from? Does your team record it all on their own?

[@scorpionelite2543]

Ok i need to know the song from the intro (it kicks in at 0:47 ) Also you have very quickly turned into one of my favourite channels. You have so much effort in these videos and it shows. Hand crafted

[@kakutasu8431]

It's a metal cover of Silver for Monsters from the Witcher 3 by GeoffPlaysGuitar

[@DualTheAwesome]

i think maybe your videos could benefit from a little watermark showing what creator made the footage or what game we're looking at. I personally know both FUNKe and StealthGamerBR so I wouldn't benefit from that in this video but I can imagine other people would like it, since you never even mentioned StealthGamerBR's channel name and people probably wouldn't know how to spell FUNKe. Also I knew almost all of the games you showed except for that game with the bow, and i think it looks really cool and i would've liked to know what it was called.

[@schazz3929]

I think that splatoon is an exemple of encouraging a way of playing. Movement is a key part of the game (even if it might not seem like it as you're not throwing yourself across the whole map). To refill your ammo faster, you can go back into the ink, which allows you to have greater movement speed. So the best way to cover ground is to paint, swim, then paint again. This is further reinforced with the special gage mechanic which rewards you with a special attack once you paint enough. With 1v1s generally lasting 2-3 seconds, moving efficiently is important as it can help you ecade ennemy fire and then get to a position where YOU can shoot at the opponent while they won't because they won't be able to react fast enough to where your new position is. Also just want to point out that some movement tech that could have been considered as exploints in splatoon 1 still existed in splatoon 2.

[@holygon]

Great video as always! I was wondering if it was possible to include closed captions/subtitles on your videos? You're perfectly easy to understand, I just happen to have ADHD, and I find that I have a hard time concentrating on videos for extended periods if they don't have subtitles. It would help immensely in engaging with the videos for me. I completely understand if it's too much work for what is probably a very small percentage of the audience, but I figure that it doesn't hurt to ask! :)) And to be clear, the videos are VERY engaging, and it's totally a "my brain"-problem, and not due to the way you edit your videos, since they are among the most well edited videos I've seen on the site. Just want to make sure that it isn't seen as criticism! Anyways, no matter what I look forward to seeing all your future videos!

[@Leffrey]

It’s wirth noting about Ultrakill’s health system that it has both the encouraging system of “get close to bad guys to heal” but also a discouraging system of limiting your max health temporarily if you take a lot of damage in a short period of time, meaning you cant just bury yourself in enemies and out heal them, eventually you’ll have to keep some distance and then jump back in

[@doubleyedtitan9644]

Love this channel, and I think doom eternal is such a perfect example for this video, because I think it strikes a perfect balance between encourage and enforce. Your given a efficient method to kill an enemy, but by no means is it the only way OR (and this is important) always the best way. For example, as shown by Under the Mayo, a high level doom eternal player, you can use full auto shotgun and it's mastery to finish an enemy and come out of it with more ammo for Ur gun, without having to use a chainsaw. Using this method, sometimes you can just grenade the cacodemon for the glory kill, but sometimes the best choice is to pepper it down for some free shotgun ammo. This approach is great, because it gives newer players a way of dealing with enemies in a fun, effective manner, but high level players can opt out of using the grenade if the situation calls for it. I think the game would be a lot worse off if the cacodemon was ONLY able to be killed by a grenade into glory kill, because it would reduce the depth of the game significantly. An example of this can be found in psychonauts 2, where for some reason, there is an enemy that can only be beaten by using a body swap ability. This makes the enemy very one dimensional, in stark contrast to the rest of the games many options for dealing with different enemies. Anyways, I hope U found this interesting!

[@Octobeann]

I think what really ties together the Ultrakill style system's positive reinforcement is the hard damage system. It lowers your max health temporarily for taking damage, and the lower your style rank is, the longer it takes to wear off (with max style making it not apply at all). This creates more incentive to play stylishly in order to stay alive, rather than just playing aggressive. Higher style actions that don't heal you, or actively harm you (example: using a ground slam to launch nearby enemies into the air and the rocket launcher to blow up everything, possibly including yourself) become viable and important parts of staying alive, as even though you are not actively gaining health you are giving yourself more room to heal later on, and use your grappling hook more (which also applies the max hp drop on use).

[@Mjamar]

Chapeau to the editor, that's some of the highest quality videos out there btw can someone tell me what's the game at 15:52?

[@yugimob5037]

I am still searching for it... Did you have any success yet?

[@Mjamar]

@@yugimob5037 nope, no clue

[@2crzy4uall]

I found it. It's called Shady Knight, it's currently only a demo on steam.

[@2crzy4uall]

@@yugimob5037 Looks like It's called Shady Knight, there is a demo available but no release date.

[@yugimob5037]

@@2crzy4uall The search has found an end, nice. Thank you

[@thexp905]

A game that I personally love, that encourages that weapon swap style, is Swords With Sauce. It's a game where you're not forced to use anything you want, but because of the limited nature of ammo, and the one unlimited weapon is Melee. The freedom of loadouts also makes you pick what you want to use, and what feels comfortable.

[@frogrammer7954]

I’ve been thinking a lot about fun in Dishonored actually, ghost/sneaky approach seems like a more difficult way and generally makes you explore more places but indeed reloading your save because someone saw you, isn’t the best feeling. Although the fast paced way is very fun, sometimes it felt like it was too easy to go with, so sometimes I felt confused about however I should play the game I kinda think that’s because developers wanted to appreciate both of the ways to let players *choose*, but that may create the confusion I guess? I’m not completely sure but just wanted to share that thought eh

[@gaboqv]

Yeah, that's why i dislike the stealth trend that happened in 2010s shooters, it would make failling a stealth zone feel almost like loosing but not loosing at the same time

[@colbyboucher6391]

Dishonored pretended that it was a "stealth game" despite stealthing through things not being very fun. It's like they set out to make a spiritual successor to Thief but got carried away, ended up making a different game, but tried to act like it was still a Thief sequel.

[@carrotmaster8521]

something that i only do in vr games is play like they do in trailers, i love being immersed in the game and getting into the shoes of the protaganist

[@dedemianmia9854]

This channel is amazing!

[@theonlyfry]

If ultrakill is in any video thumbnail, I'll click it

[@RainMakeR_Workshop]

I think taking sponsorships are fine so long as its a product that you actually like and you don't waste time mid-video with an annoying ad. Sponsorship sections are best at the end of vids. Because unless its just a couple of seconds mentioning that its sponsored, putting the ad at the beginning makes people loose interest in the vid itself and mid-video ads are just annoying and off putting.

[@dannymac6368]

Talk about encouragement vs. enforcement! The NBA instituted a 24-second “shot clock” in 1956 to invigorate stagnant play; the three-point line was added for the 1979-80 season in the NBA, though it had been a staple of the short lived ABL, EPBL and ABA since 1961, 1963, and 1967 respectively. The slam dunk was banned in NCAA and in most high school play, but never in the NBA. By the time the three-point line was adopted, there had already been a slam dunk contest at the all-star game, with the occasion becoming a staple by 1984.

[@tbotalpha8133]

Can we talk about Real Time Strategy games? Those games always, always advertised themselves as being about epic battles and cunning strategy. While the actual reality of playing RTS games is endless, tedious busywork. No RTS game has ever advertised itself on the burden of its micromanagement, yet dealing with that burden is 99% of the entire genre.

[@Ryanisthere]

I can say i loved doom eternal and like how it forces you into the hyperspeed adhd fueled gameplay but ive seen how frustrating that is to some players, my older brother was struggling to beat the game on ultra violence because he wasn't adapted to the pure adhd rush that is doom eternal, he didn't know how to weapon switch or move at the speed of sound, so he struggled, he was also playing on controller which made mechanics like weapon switching and fast flick actions alot harder, so as an experienced player doom eternal forcing its gameplay on you is really fun, but for less experienced players i can see how it would be frustrating

[@UnicornCombo]

what's the song in the intro at 0:48? I imagine its probably something from doom but song name would be very much appreciated

[@aleks_ivanov]

It's from Witcher 3 and it's called Silver for Monsters

[@GeoffPlaysGuitar]

It’s my remix of Silver for Monsters!

[@luca-yv4ww]

Mental checkpoint and FunkE are the most entertaining video game essay creators ever. Hearing one legend reference another is insane

[@8lacKhawKtheRIPPER]

It's pretty interesting how I am part of that vast, vast minority that DOESN'T enjoy Doom Eternal because of its specific design philosophy. I get what it tries to do and it seems to work for 98% for people, but to me it just feels gimmicky and makes the gameplay pretty one-sided and restricted. Kinda turns it into a fast-paced puzzle game.. and that's not really what I'm looking for in a Doom game. I'm also not a big fan of its level design but w/e. Great video nontheless~ o/

[@DankGas-]

This channel has been a haven for the best video game analysis, the editing is fabulous, the occasional quip, ah it is so good!!!

[@kaiotk]

i know you get the question "what is this game " alot, and i dont wanna add up to that bile ,so can you next time just add in a corner a little seethrough text that says the game name, cuz when you talk about good game desig,n you bring up good games ty in advance if u actually do it Edit: also take the sponsors ,all the youtubers are doing it why shouldn't you, a 1 min or 2 min of a sponsor in a beautifully edited video is nothing ,no one will care mind it (you don't see youtubers getting cancelled for accepting sponsorships)

[@muriloaguiar4341]

just found out about your channel, it's really good man, i was immersed from the start to finish, keep it up

[@TheGeekRex]

In my experience, enforced funzones have NEVER been fun to me, just a constant feeling that I'm fighting the game for the way I wanna play. It feels like trying to play an arcade machine while the developer is standing over you and pulling at the control sticks when you do something he doesn't like. DOOM Eternal was exactly this way for me. I beat the whole game and never bothered installing the DLC. For every moment I felt like I was playing like in the trailers, there were a hundred where I "messed up" and got totally thrown out of the gameplay loop, having to go play a chainsaw minigame to have fun again. For me the "funzone" was any time I was allowed to play however I wanted for ten seconds without the game shouting "NO" and taking away the fun. By fencing in the player into what you see as the funzone and putting up barbed wire everywhere outside of that fence, you make a massive assumption that the way you want the player to play is THE best and most fun way, and that can be a very dangerous assumption to make. I don't understand how you can view this as being a good thing; it seems tantamount to missions in games that instantly give you a game over for walking outside the designated path or exploring other options. The statement from DOOM's developer, "And when they don't play that way, we kill them", honestly should just sum this up. What purpose is there in punishing the player so harshly for thinking outside the box or doing something THEY think would be more fun? It sounds like pure hubris, thinking your way is the only way they should play, and honestly feels like an insult to me.

[@masterdeity3400]

Then thank the lord you ain't a game designer.

[@ruolbu]

While it's fair to prefer a different way of playing, I think it's also fair to say that the developer has a target audience in mind and that you are not part of it. I understand that a game can have mutiple interesting aspects that make you want to play it and that it's frustrating if some other factor prevents you from having fun with these aspects. But to the developer that other factor is a core part of what they built. And your preference is but one of many, many varying preferences which the developer can not consider all. All they can do is focus on what they personally consider to be fun and make a game that works using that playstyle. Enabling all these other preferences while making every single playstyle super fun might be possible but could just as well be unachievable. Attempting to do so could plausibly make the intended playtyle less fun and diminish the entire game.

[@mladen8127]

Playing co-op The Warriors on ps2, there's a stealth level where you're sneaking through some gang's hideout, and having to unlock gates to proceed. If you were spotted, infinite waves of goons would come fight you, which meant you had to run and hide again in a dark corner to reset your stealth. But since brawling in The Warriors was so much more in the "funzone", we decided to just go ahead and trigger the waves of enemies for one player to heroically hold them single handed while the other player picked the locks. It probably took ten times longer since the lock-picking player kept getting punched in the back of the head, and we wasted far too many health pickups on what should have been a relatively easy stealth mission, but damn it was just so much more fun to do it 'our way'.

[@yeet9420]

I love lineal game design. I find open world games usually really boring because they can't keep my attention. I find it discouraging when, for example in breath of the wild, I beat a shrine the "intended" way, just to find out that I might aswell have cheesed it in like 10 other ways. I feel like my way of doing it just got kinda invalidated by that. I don't know if that makes alot of sense but I would love to discuss it some more and come to a clearer conclusion.

[@jerrodshack7610]

The fact that you feel invalidated by the fact that problems have multiple solutions based on intricate interlocking systems sounds more like a you thing than a game issue thing

[@yeet9420]

@@jerrodshack7610 well of course it sounds like a me problem. I am stating the problem I have with games like that

[@drooks_]

16:25 StealthGamerBR is just the best dishonored player ever, i love his videos

[@MrLaeddis1]

I had the exact opposite take on Doom Eternal. If I have a favorite gun, let me use it. Don't force me to switch to weapons I don't like for the sake of variety. Umm let me have fun? No? Ok, I'll move on to a game that let's me do the things I enjoy.. You say at 10:31 that if a player finds an objectively better weapon, they'll never go back to the original. Aaaand I see no problem with that. Why would I want to go back to a weapon I don't enjoy? And if the game forces me to go back to a weapon I don't enjoy...ok, you win, I'm no longer enjoying the game. Forcing variety at the cost of enjoyment is stupid. If a game makes me WANT to have variety, that's good (I.E a "style "mechanic). If a game FORCES me into variety by giving me extremely limited ammo in my favorite guns, that's stupid.

[@candydendi8364]

Does fun for you mean *pressing WASD and clicking mouse1" then? Because it sounds like it.

[@jameshibberd5134]

To paraphrase Habie147, a VR youtuber praising a new Tactical VR shooter, "good game design is when you start getting into the roleplay elements of the game and are rewarded for it." This really doesnt apply to every game, but in that case, when he started getting into the "special forces, breach and clear" kinda mood and behaviour, he was having much more success and fun. I think this is another good example for a well designed fun zone, when the fun way IS the optimized way. Like in ULTRAKILL, the optimal way to play is just really good combos, there are few big tricks for optimization. Its just the fun way but youre slightly better.

[@xensakura595]

And yet, by trying too hard to "enforce" a playstyle, the game gets excessively stale and repetitive and uninteresting. Just look at the reception to the second DLC, in which enemy designs tried too hard to enforce playstyles that were too passive and "strategic" for most players, which ended up annoying most. In fact the general consensus within the community at the moment is that enemies like the marauder are uninteresting and boring, enemies like stone imps, turrets, and spirits also being boring at best and downright annoying at worst

[@masterdeity3400]

It's the complete opposite. Marauders, Spirits and the like are among the fan favourites actually.

[@xensakura595]

@@masterdeity3400 that’s absolutely not true if you look at achievement rates. Most people who bought dlc 1 absolutely did not finish, and most players did not move on past arc complex in the base campaign.

[@Hamzafan522]

Hey I discovered your channel the other day and I love your video I think you have some of the most entertaining videos on KZbin and I’m surprised you only started this channel a few months ago because you seem so experienced and I hope you keep making videos for years to come

[@elsa4206]

bro the one day i have a headache i was not ready for the intro

[@blundering.]

did not expect you to mention FUNKe, but it is a welcome surprise

[@queryneo]

THANK YOU for making this video! I've been saying forever that more freedom doesn't always mean more fun. Sure, the player can find new ways to do things, but not at the detriment of the experience. usually, the way the developer intended is the most enjoyable as that's what's presented to you when you saw the trailer and thought, "Wow, this looks like so much fun!"

[@mikel2976]

Bloons tower defense is the best combination between both, you have a lot of towers and super powers to choose from and there is nothing wrong with having 2, 3 or 4 mains only, yet you are encouraged to add new towers with bigger splash damage, slowness effects, buff effects to your nearby towers, the ability to shoot invisible Bloons, high attack speed to prevent bloon healing or single target damage throughout the first 100 rounds. You are completely free to just choose 2 tower though, and that is where daily challenges and each difficulty level challenge appear. They give small rewards for completing some number of rounds with some specific towers in a money tower placement or upgrade reduced scenario. This makes you learn a lot and win some extra cash or abilities plus the extra you can get for reaching round 100. This encourages you to think twice before buying a tower and deciding it's placement. As an example, there is a catapult like upgrade which has a small shooting range which means it has to be placed near the bloon path, but it has a lot of range once the spiky ball is shot, which encourages you to place them at the end of really long straight paths with last bloon as main target. All of this to make damage to multiple bloons in a straight trajectory. This is also applied and reinforced to powers, insta and monkey knowledge through the community challenges.

[@Krystalchan2009]

15:37 fun fact about the rail gun, you eventually find that you can quickly throw multiple coins and your shot will chain between them for more damage... The normal pistol tends to just not penetrate enemies but yea it does a lot of damage... but the rail gun's blue shot does have unlimited penetration... Making coin set ups to instant kill some of the stronger foes and bosses.

[@spork2839]

What game is that?

[@homelaptop4510]

@@spork2839 Ultrakill on steam, also I've been seeing you reply to a lot of comments regarding Shady Knight. Your effort is appreciated :)

[@Krystalchan2009]

Oh did you know that coin also has another interesting mechanic? That flash isnt just for show. There is a point early and late that will glisten. This is actually a "split shot" timing, allowing you to hit two enemies or a coin and a foe. Yes it can split the rail too

[@SUSSAslicer]

16:24 that’s some insane gameplay right there. My man jumped of a falling body

[@Thundag01br]

it's from stealthgamerbr he's considered one of the best stealth games player

[@Rezikham]

This channel deserves A LOT more attentions

[@robinnohood5557]

This is exactly one of the reasons why I love Fighting games, especially the anime ones. For example, one of my favorite mechanic is the "Negative Penalty" in Guilty Gear, Blazblue... etc etc If the player has been running away, standing still or not hitting the opponent, it punishes them by putting them in a state where a type of resources will be emptied (Barrier in Blazblue, Tension in Guilty Gear) in Blazblue's case, you will even take increased damage from your opponent I think this lies right in between the encouraging and enforcing line Yes, it forces you to attack your opponent and to play aggressively. Guilty Gear even has a RISC gauge to punish you for blocking too much. But it doesn't mean you *must* play this way. The game still provides you with a lot of defensive options, that's why players have come up with different playstyles that focuses on counter attacking and abusing the opponent's mistakes. Opening up more possibilities, while also making aggressive players having to be careful about this kind of players, creating more depth for the game.

[@JanbluTheDerg]

I experienced this in one of my uni projects, my game was a hypercasual about ramming cars on a highway, my intended way of playing involved switching lanes and ramming cars and causing cool looking chain reactions. But in the playtest, I realised that players defaulted to avoiding the cars. I realised that it's because I had set it so that distance increases score, so they saw their score go up whenever they could look at it, but if they accidentally rammed a car, they didn't realise their score went up more. So I added immediate score feedback whenever they rammed a car, removed distance as a factor, and split up the score into two parts, the points per car and the number of rammed cars. While I didn't get the chance to playtest this, it definitely was picked up on as an improvement by my lecturers. I still could have done more, I could have added score from causing chain reactions and all, but for a one month uni project, it's fine. If/When I return to the game (because the gameplay ended being really good), I'll flesh out the score more to encourage players to engage with the game more how I normally do. Also, a Funke reference! How unexpected!

[@PaulyPop]

Hearing the words “noob tubing” unlocked a memory of mine

[@freefluxdev618]

I used a combo system in my own game encourage a certain type of play and would give rewards for it. Great video, I love your channel!

[@WaterBias]

Game at 17:34 is shady knight

[@ImDaRealBoi]

I think that some degree of light enforcement is required in certain cases, because if we don't interact with all the mechanics and the consequences of our actions in games (like camping in corners in CoD or quick loading in dishonored), we aren't really enjoying all that the game is offering. In recent CoDs, they added stims which significantly cut down on wait times for regen, as well as radar detection for standing still. Stims encouraged faster gameplay because it gave the option to run and gun and get away with it, thereby removing a consequence a player would like to avoid. Radar detection also provides some enforcement to get people to move more, but you can still sit in a corner, just with more people being aggressive towards you. I played Infinite Warfare's campaign, and one way it strayed away from the usual veteran difficulty strats of peaking, taking damage near lethal damage, and hiding in a corner was through its specialist difficulty campaign. The AI is scaled down to hardened difficulty (at least I'm pretty sure), but the main star was the realistic body damage. Being less forgiving with my opportunities to heal (and also having other cool asf features) made me use a lot more tactics like leaning and taking better angles. Not for everybody, but to me it felt refreshing. Quickloading in dishonored removes a big part of the potential risk you could've had for failure, and some abilities are admittedly really cheese. I think that dishonored 2 rectified this with its time travel mansion mission, where you are stripped of powers, but get a get-out-of-jail free card with the time warp mechanic. You can still escape from some encounters if you're spotted, but you really need to learn to interact with the basic mechanics, as at this point you have insanely upgraded equipment but probably cheesed with timestop and other abilities. Also, in order to get through some segments of the mansion you have to get through it using the base kit and knowledge in a single movement through time, as there are sections where time travel is obstructed by debris and other clutter. The time-spyglass helps in planning, which gets you to interact with the mechanic and observe the map safely without anything like quickly warping in and out to see a location (which could have potentially been an unenjoyable cheese for the level if they did not add this mechanic and remove the possibility)

[@simonghoul3602]

Your channel icon blends in so well with youtube on dark mode I don't know what to say about the topic, that just got complicated and I rather just play the game rather than figuring out what's the best strategy for this

[@impulsiveloki769]

The idea of "Who is your game for" is something I haven't considered before, and it's an interesting perspective, though I will say that it seems possible for someone to make a game both for themselves and for the player, with things like the Steam Workshop and community made content.

[@2Fast4Youtube]

Omg, I cannot believe you made Move or Die. I love that game, thank you so much for creating it :D

[@customch33s32]

Hollow knight is one of the games that force you into the funzone, the soul meter making it so that if you want to heal you have to fight is great. Other soulslike games give you a set amount of healing items each "bonfire". making it so if you mess after you benched you might feel inklined to bench again to get your heals back to full. In hollow knight you can earn more healing, but it isn't a regenetive system where you just wait it out until you can fight again. Edit: If you were to make a mistake you aren't totally punished for it but instead you can make up for it by playing good in the next fight. Normally you get a finite amount of times you can get hit per boss, but with the ability to heal yourself you can clutch up and get back to a good spot

[@Sakar0Z]

15:00 meanwhile herb messiah cheesing Gabriel with fists only

[@AcridDragoon]

I just stumbled upon your channel very recently and literally binged all your videos when i realised how new thid actually is and then i saw that you post biweekly so i was so gassed for this video lmao

[@Eggph]

That noob tube reference hit me right in the childhood

[@Smoka_Lad]

I think a good topic to talk about could be how upgrades in games have percentage upgrades that don’t add fun to your experience because it’s either a passive upgrade, a bare minimum that needs to be earned, or the idea of punishing for having good how the outsiders have a tree full of upgrades and 4 different classes of elements and play styles but they all seem similar in the end, the same skill tree, the similar AOE attacks or ranged with some specialties here and there, and how cod says increased damage or more range but it never really feels like anything’s changed but you look at R6S and how the (very limited) variety of items are very noticeable and sometimes can be the reason why you get to kill

[@justinwhite2725]

When I played hitman 2 I thought the point was to hide from everyone and kill only the target. I actually had a disagreement with my roommate about it, and I pointed out that you get a bonus reward for beating a level without killing anyone else. He pointed out (which I didn't know) that you get a bonus reward if you kill EVERYONE in a level. So the game rewards both extremes of the play style.. But anythibg in between does not get the reward.

[@explosivecherry2150]

I think the difference comes down to the type of experience you want to give your players. If you want them to experience the game a certain way enforced is better, if you want players to create their own story you give them lots of possible goals and ways to achieve them, but you don’t enforce them into a set path. This is wear games like Rimworld, Dwarf fortress, and Minecraft hit their strive. Rimworld and Minecraft both have end goals that they tell you about, be it from the achievements list or just the research progression tree. But they leave the method to get there rather open leaving it to players creativity to get there. I believe it’s these types of creative games that also inspire the most creative mods that can often even reinvent the games that inspired them. Also it’s nice to see Funke getting some recognition

[@Makowako_]

It's always a good day when a new mental checkpoint vid drops

[@ryduann]

In terms of RPGS, the smt series uses the weakness/crit system to give you more turns, while striking an enemy strength can hurt you, null attacks, or heal enemies and remove your moves. It really forces the player to summon smartly and attack enemies in a smart order, so the funzone comes frpm defeating powerful enemies at every corner while underleveled through this system.

[@Its-Ternaki]

why did you use ULTRAKILL in the thumbnail when it has the most realistic and factual trailer there is

[@A_Smurf]

I know I ain't a KZbinr. But from hear what other bigger KZbinr have said that 9k sponsor is really low. If it's from one sponsor for one video is decent but you could probably talk into receiving more, it's within reason. Also, once again great video! :)

[@ziadrbai9339]

U should credit the dishonored player at the end, Stealthgamer br He has some stylish gameplay on more than just dishonored games, very interesting stuff!

[@dbztothemax9041]

Absolutely love these videos! The transition title cards are so loud I get jump scared every time. Started anticipating when they will be so I can skip them

[@GoddessCynthia]

I will say I think certain games can totally just be devoid of a "funzone" encouraged/enforced meter thingy. Like with Musou games, otherwise known as the Warriors Genre. It's a power fantasy where you feel powerful because you are inherently more powerful than most enemies. This is a power fantasy of being a general on a battlefield, and it's expressed to great effect, without needing anything to do with balance or encouraged, or enforced playstyles. I also think games with multiple apporaches is def fun. It's why Imsims have such a cult following. It's fun to be able to do whatever you want without having to think about extra challenges or a style meter or anything like that.

[@xharerae]

also a honorable mention in my opinion is Metal Gear Rising, and how its parry mechanic works. Parry uses the same button as attack, with only difference is that it requires a direction from a player to be inputted, and it also requires an incoming attack from an enemy. With all of this, it FORCES players into an aggressive playstyle, where they HAVE to go near the enemy and attack, in order to block the attacks. Many players don't understand when completing the game for the first time how this works, but once you beat it atleast till the Moonson's fight(his bossfight is just a big parry training) most of the players get how it works. The game also rewards players for taking a risk and trying to perfect-parry, because if the perfect-parry was successful, player either deals heavy damage to the boss, or is able to trigger some sort of glory-kill(It allows players to instantly zandatsu the enemy, allowing to restore health and fuel)

[@the_something_something]

"I'll try my best to sneak in other games as well" ULTRAKILL DETECTED