why not have games you have to sit and think through for weeks on end? i look at all these people who get a Final Fantasy game, infamous for being uber long, and they are done in a week. i wonder if they REALLY enjoyed the game. IS it just that they are that good, or that they just want to finish the game to say "i beat it soo fast dude. i am leet!"? is it really a problem with a game's complexity, or is it just to finish it to talk about it with everyone who's finished it?

and as a puzzle gamer, i say, don't go into a puzzle game without knowing the extreme possibility that you will need to think final exams hard. Dr. Layton seems like a nice entry/introductory to mystery/puzzle games. but not every mystery developer is going to give hints. like so many mysteries in life, you're given the problem and left alone with it. if you give up on the problem, it's not the puzzle's fault. puzzle games ask you to be smart, not finish them with quick ease. if you can do both, wow, good for you. if you can't, that's ok. but don't blame the game.

>why not have games you have to sit and think through for weeks on end?

because time is a precious resource.

Why translate Russian literature? Readers will get way more out of it if they learn Russian and read it in the original. Why build a railway to a mountaintop? Mountains are meant to be hard to climb.

>Why build a railway to a mountaintop? Mountains are meant to be hard to climb.

That's a pretty good analogy, actually. Sure, you get a beautiful view if you get to the top of the mountain both the easy or the hard way, but that view means something completely different to the climber than the train traveler.

What's wrong with a game developer saying the hike is THE enjoyable part of the experience? If Blow believes his game was created around the hike and not the vista at the top, it seems pretty reasonable to me means to short-circuit that hike would ruin the experience, making it much shallower than it was.

It sounds like Jonathan Blow was more concerned about making himsqelf happy than with making his audience happy. That's self indulgence, not art. Art is something that affects the audience, not something that massages the creator's ego.

Why does it diminish your enjoyment of the game if someone less capable can get some entirely optional in-game assistance? Hints in puzzle games are essentially the equivalent of a lower difficulty setting in an action game. And even infamously hard games like Ninja Gaiden now offer those.

Zak and Wiki is not remotely player-friendly. It encourages trial and error and sometimes kills you for it, then taunts you with hints and extra lives that you can never afford to buy.

GordonRumble said:

"It sounds like Jonathan Blow was more concerned about making himsqelf happy than with making his audience happy. That's self indulgence, not art."

Actually, that depends on the audience. Art for art's sake is self-indulgent.

totally agree with somedude

a painter paints a portrait, it's all for some rich guy who wants to show he's rich enough for a portrait. but a painter paints a massacre on a boat in wavy waters during a sunset, the painter is trying to show you a number of things. an event in history, how a horrible thing can happen to a beautiful background. the artist is painting that panting for the sake of the canvas, knowing it can ruin or help his career, and putting it in public without caring about either because he wants the canvas to be shone. Blow obviously felt that hints would work against the project. and this is his project, so it's his decision.

either try to see what he is showing how he's showing it, or think it's a mario game, made for everyone.

BudgetHero, to be fair, as soon as the painter puts it up in a gallery for sale, it becomes commercial. Either way, there's good self-indulgent art and bad self-indulgent art, so saying it's for the art doesn't make the art immune from criticism.

sorry, i forgot to put this in my last post

malkav11:"And even infamously hard games like Ninja Gaiden now offer those."

yes but it's easy to put difficulty settings on action games. tweak the AI to make the enemy smarter(hard) or dumber(easy), make the character stronger, or decrease the number of enemies. with puzzle/mystery games, it's a different structure. take the legend of zelda. to make it easy, you can make link deliver more "hit points" and/or put less monsters in the room. but wat about the puzzles? first, one has to ask, do you want to make the puzzles in zelda easier, which might take away some of the satisfaction of solving them? would you respect zelda dungeons the same way with "Dr Layton" hints? and to make a puzzle easier might require restructuring it.

fighting monsters or shooting people, thats a matter of skill, quickness, accuracy. puzzle games require deductive reasoning, memory, and a bit of clever and patience. they are two different systems. or you could put hints. just for a second, imagine hints in zelda. it would feel, to me, like the game didn't believe in me enough to figure something that hard on my own.

and on another point, i think poor tom is overworked. as, he needs a staff. isnt it a bit much to ask one person to blog on the whole gaming industry Dvice style?

In today’s world of walkthroughs and hint books, I think it is inane to complain that a game does not provide hints for when a player is stuck. It’s not like the player doesn’t have the resources in case he just wants to skip past the puzzles and get to the ending. In fact, I’m sure the ending is trivially easy to read on Wikipedia or elsewhere, if a person were so inclined. But providing in-game hints is the creator’s way of saying, “Okay, maybe this game is too difficult for you. Here, I’ll make it a little easier.” And if the developer WANTS the player to think about the puzzle, and WANTS him to try and figure it out on his own, then of COURSE he should not include hints in his game.

Frankly, it surprises me that someone like Tom Chick, who I thought would be supportive of the creator’s vision, is so upset that a game has come out that requires some genuine thought to get through. He complains about Braid on the one hand, while dismissively mentioning that anyone with half a brain can finish Portal on the other hand. So which is it Tom?

“It sounds like Jonathan Blow was more concerned about making himsqelf happy than with making his audience happy.”

To me, it sounds like Jonathan Blow is more concerned about giving his audience genuine happiness when they solve his game, instead of caving in when they say, “Awww, this game is too hard. I’m too dumb to figure it out. Just give me the answer already.” As any parent or teacher knows, it’s more satisfying when you figure the answer out on your own. And Jonathan Blow DID include a hint system: It’s called “the previous levels.”

"Why does it diminish your enjoyment of the game if someone less capable can get some entirely optional in-game assistance?"

That's silly. I don't think anyone's arguing that. If simpler puzzles and hints were in the game, I know I would use them, and I'm confident the experience would have felt worse for them. I would have felt guilty and stupid when the answer was right in front of me the whole time, rather than the satisfaction that I figured it out all by myself.

My experience with Professor Layton was exactly what happened above. If I used a hint coin or couldn't figure out something on my first go, the game made me feel stupid. Whereas Braid forced me to figure out the puzzles on my own, and I was much more satisfied for it when the eventual eureka did hit.

"Frankly, it surprises me that someone like Tom Chick, who I thought would be supportive of the creator’s vision, is so upset that a game has come out that requires some genuine thought to get through."

You're completely mischaracterizing my position, Andy. "Upset"? Hardly. I don't care for Braid, but I admire it as a design. And I'm a bit surprised to hear the developer was so deadset against a hint system in spite of early feedback. I feel it would have opened Braid to a wider audience (including maybe me) without compromising its design. If that's me being unsupportive, well, I guess I plead guilty as charged.

Have to say, I'm glad Braid didn't hold my hand. Mechanically, it gave me a gaming experience I haven't had in a long, long time - one where I was genuinely engaged, and the extra effort required made each victory that much sweeter. If I broke down and peeked at walkthroughs I imagine my opinion would be different.

That being said, there were quite a few challenges that took me a long time to complete. Braid just came to me at the right time - I was on vacation, and could stay up all night to beat it. Did, too, in one sitting.

I think the danger with the experience I had with Braid, though, is that I think I'm probably an exceptional case. I had a great time, but I can fully get why other players would be frustrated, and why Blow's rigid adherence to his design could create a block against having fun. Giving the player more feedback wouldn't necessarily mean the puzzles would be easier, especially when the game was essentially introducing a new gameplay mechanic that wasn't always apparent.

I guess, in my case, the learning process was also part of the fun for me. Figuring out exactly what was at work with every puzzle.

Anyway, I hope Blow makes some more games. I really loved the art, too.

Who cares if it's hard?

I suck at a lot of games but they're still FUN.

And it's not impossibly hard. Why should people complain about the difficulty of games? People need to realize that there are some games that are TOO HARD for them. But you can't expect the hardcore (or casual) gamers to suffer becuase each others games are too hard or easy. Just don't play them.

Do you know how easy games have become over the years? It's sad. Finally, we get a game that you actually have to be smart and patient to play, yet everyone so used to instant gratification can't stand it. Blow says suck it up, and I agree.
Btw, the mountain analogy is terrible. We need rails on mountains for transportation. You don't NEED to play this game. A hiker WANTS to climb Mt. Everest. Does he get a lift to the top? No. Tim doesn't get hints in life. He has to figure it out for himself. It's a simple artistic decision to let the gamer do the same.