Dave Critiques - Human Resource Machine: Puzzle fatigue

Transcript

Hey hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be talking about Human Resource Machine for those who have played it. If you haven’t and are worried about spoilers, please pause the video, and go play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

Human Resource Machine is the latest game from the minds behind World of Goo and Little Inferno. Fans of those games should recognize the art style immediately. This is a game where you create a list of commands which orders your worker around to complete a task given to them. Essentially, the game is teaching you how to program to solve problems. Each subsequent floor increases the challenge so that you’re multiplying, dividing, and then even outputting a fibonacci sequence. There’s also medals for solving the problem in the least amount of lines of code, or cycles through the program you’ve written. If you’re anything like me, if you’ve spent an hour solving one of these problems, and it turns out you’ve achieved one of these medals, it’s a feeling of extreme vindication and satisfaction. The game excels at that feeling to a point. To explain, I must dictate my journey through the floors of this fictitious company.

Have you ever played one of those mobile games where 3 stars is possible on every stage? When I approach one of those games my thought process usually goes like this. “I’m going to get 3 stars on every level.” Then after a couple of levels, “I’m gonna just try my best for two stars.” Then, “Man, I just want to finish the levels”, followed by looking up a walkthrough or stopping the game for good. My time with Human Resource Machine followed a similar pathway. There are branching paths as you make your way up the floors of the building. These branches are optional as they contain very difficult problems to solve. Partly due to a small amount of OCD and a large amount of stubbornness, I decided to tackle these puzzles. The floors alternated after all, and I wasn’t going to jump to floor 23 if I hadn’t completed floor 22. And as tough as some of these challenges were, and despite staring at my screen for close to an hour on a few of these, my brain eventually worked its way to a solution, and I felt amazing. To be honest, some of my best ideas came to me when I wasn’t playing the game. When meditating or walking, an idea would spring to mind, and the next time I loaded up the game, I was eager to try it. More often than not, that idea was what I needed to get through.

Then I got to the final branch. The Vowel Incinerator puzzle took me longer than any puzzle beforehand. Coming to the solution was excruciating. I will say right now that any time I had trouble with a puzzle (which was most of the time), I would go online to search for hints. I would read the forum threads on Steam where people were posting their solutions. This actually wasn’t a spoiler because the abstract nature of the code when pasted into a forum meant nothing to me. I was looking for commentary and hints to maybe push me in the right direction. Often the opposite happened. I don’t know if it’s normal internet bragging or a programmer’s mindset but everyone in these threads was talking about how easy it was. Oh it was a positive atmosphere mostly, where people were optimising each other's code and discussing the different ways to approach the problem, but as I was having such an issue with each level, I found this incredibly disheartening. I don’t think I’m particularly stupid (well no one really does), but I do think that perhaps my brain is not geared towards what is needed to easily see the solutions to these problems.

So after the difficulty of Vowel Incinerator, I opened the first puzzle in the final optional branch of the game. Looking at what it was asking me to do triggered a decision. I was no longer two starring the game (by solving every puzzle). I would stick to the main line and see the ending. This worked for a while, and then I got to the second last puzzle, Re-coordinator and something broke inside me. I no longer cared about solving the puzzles. I just wanted it to be over. I went to the Steam forum, copied the first solution in the thread, pasted it into the game, and enjoyed the ending. The only problem? I felt terrible after all was said and done. Like I had persevered so much through this whole game, and then right at the finish line I gave up. As I was playing through the levels, I often thought to myself how fantastic this is that I’m slowly making my way through these difficult challenges. When I solved the entire chain of optional puzzles starting with the fibonacci sequence, I was over the moon. Nothing could defeat me. Well yes, I could defeat myself. Something broke and I no longer cared. I gave up. So what went wrong?

The title of this video is ‘puzzle fatigue’. It’s a phenomenon I’ve thought about ever since the sequence I described with the mobile games first happened years ago. It’s a different phenomenon than just becoming bored with what a game is offering and deciding to move onto something else, but I think they share similarities. Now that a few days have gone by since I finished Human Resource Machine, I’ve been thinking of returning to it. I’ve been thinking about not only solving all the puzzles I haven’t, but I’d like to earn the optimization medal on every puzzle. Who knows, perhaps puzzle fatigue is simply a form of burnout. Games are usually repetitions of certain actions, and what makes an engaging game is a variety of said actions, or choices on how to utilize said actions. Human Resource Machine has a limited set of actions in the form of the commands available. As the puzzles show, these limited commands can be used to startling effect in a variety of ways, but perhaps the problem is that this variety is not immediately apparent.

A lot of the time spent solving the puzzles is based on working out just what you can actually do with the commands at your disposal. And while you’re trying to figure this out, you’re staring at the same office space you have been since the start of the game. The coffee breaks are not long enough to shake off the futility of your actions, and the encroaching horror of automation. There’s certainly a demoralising aspect to solving the puzzles in this game, and I wonder if it was intentional or not. And why did I feel so bad about looking up a walkthrough for this game, yet not for the puzzles in The Talos Principle? I think it might be because of the nature of these puzzles, I invested my self-worth in their solutions. My solution is unique, and by using another person’s solution, I had not actually solved the puzzle at all. I didn’t get help to progress, I cheated.

So what’s the answer to puzzle fatigue? Is it simply personal? What differentiates a puzzle that a player wants to solve themselves no matter what from a puzzle that they have no qualms about looking up a solution for? What triggers the change from the former to the latter? Is it a fault in the game or in the player? There’s definitely a difference between a game that has puzzles for their own sake rather than using puzzles as gameplay to break up story and world exploration. The two aren’t mutually exclusive either. Human Resource Machine’s puzzles are largely for their own sake. That likely means that the enjoyment of the game and personal satisfaction from playing comes from the player. This may be why so many felt let down by the bare bones story, and why I felt so terrible not getting to the end on my own.

Thanks for watching.

Why Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of my favourite games

Transcript

Hey Hey everyone, Dave here. Welcome to the 4th episode of Dave’s Favourite games. So it was 2004 or 2005. The local Blockbuster had one of those deals where you could rent a PS2 game for 3 days. My friend Andrew and I regularly took advantage of this offer. We discovered many interesting game experiences this way. It’s how we first came across Fatal Frame. Anyways, I forget what influenced our decision, but one weekend we got together and rented Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I was excited to play it. Not only because of the hype that I had heard about the game, but I had played the previous 2D Prince of Persia games on my PC when I was younger. I loved the setting, the animations, and the mix of puzzles, platforming, and swordplay. I was expecting great things out of this 3D iteration.

I feel like I need to apologise to Andrew because here’s what happened. We played the game for hours the first day. We might even have completed it that day, but I do remember how we divvied up gameplay. Basically, every time there was a fight, I would hand the controller to Andrew, and then when there was a platforming section, I wanted it back. I feel guilty because I felt I was selfishly playing the best parts of the game, and having him play the frustrating parts. All these years later, having played the entirety of the game through multiple times by myself after that rental, I still feel this way. The setting, the narrative framework, the level design, and the thrill of the platforming… these are all marvellous. They hold up to this day. The combat on the other hand… well, let’s just say I know why they completely overhauled the fight mechanics and put an emphasis on them for Warrior Within. It’s also why I have never been able to get through that game despite multiple attempts.

Although there is a little leeway in my criticism of the fights this time around. The PC Port of Sands of Time was released before controller support on PC was standardised. To get the analogue stick to record movement properly, I had to download a third party program to change some settings as to how the game interprets input. Even with these fixes, running in a circle would be halted into a walk animation. What I’m saying is there’s a lack of smoothness and consistency because I chose to play the game with a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard, and perhaps that is why a lot of the fights made me want to tear my hair out.

And I dislike being this critical about one particular aspect of the game. This is a favourite games video. I am meant to be celebrating the game in question. I will, but I feel I need to address this. The controller completely hampered my enjoyment. I have a feeling it was to blame not only for the issues I was having in the fights but often I would jump in the wrong direction, having to rely on a sand tank to correct the mistake, perhaps by changing the camera angle so I could adjust for the strange behaviour of the controls. Why I somewhat blame the game is that one of my criticisms of the game has always been the fights go on way too long. Before you obtain the dagger of time at the start of the game, you’ll come across groups of guards you must defeat. It can be a tough fight, especially when you’re surrounded, but once you are able to beat them, you feel triumphant. Once the sands have been unleashed, that same group of enemies is defeated, and then a new wave of foes arrive. And another… and another. Waves keep coming, and suddenly this short interlude between platforming and puzzle has become a chore. Each fight is ended with relief instead of triumph. Everytime enemies appear I could feel the pit of my stomach drop out. Especially because it’s so easy to make a mistake and suffer consequences that seem outside your control. Add Farah into the mix where you have to protect her, and a new level of anxiety is added. It culminates with the elevator ride at the end of the game. It took me 3 attempts this time. The funny thing is once that’s over, and you get the best sword in the game, fighting is supposed to be fun since you’ve become so powerful. This may be true, but once you remove the dagger and keep the controller issues, even one hit kills don’t stop the fights from being frustrating.

Ok, I think I have the criticisms out of my system. I still feel kinda bad since I love this game so much. It’s probably good it ended up this way. Some people have difficulty with the concept of criticising something they actually like. As if somehow you shouldn’t be finding fault in the things you enjoy. Of course, that is nonsense. My favourite books, movies, and especially games aren’t perfect, and sometimes by uncovering what isn’t working, it can make you appreciate what is all the better. So now let me just run through some stray thoughts from the game.

How great is it that so much of the platforming is baked into the level design? Especially the outdoor segments. I mean there’s the obvious example of climbing the tower without the dagger at the end of the game, but the caves, the sewer, basically any outdoor segment that involved flags, pillars, or disrepair leading to handholds. Heck, even a lot of the indoor sections. The library is memorable every time I play it for this reason.

How about how the best character moments are as you’re playing the game when either the Prince is talking to himself or him and Farah are verbally sparring? Yes, there are cutscenes, but it’s these audio files that play as you’re actually playing the game that endear you to these characters, and I think it’s a part of what makes the ending tragic yet bittersweet. The flash forward segments lend to this as well, showing late game narrative moments a lot earlier on, making the player wonder why they’re happening and what the context is for them.

How come nothing I’ve played in Assassin’s Creed or any 3D platformer since feels as cool as the wall run from Sands of Time? Maybe the camera placement has something to do with it, as in they knew how to frame each wall run and especially the wall run jumps for maximum cool. Not having consistent control over the camera with the right analogue stick was an odd feeling. When you’re used to something ubiquitous like that, stepping back in time before it was a general design rule can be tricky. I’ve had that get me into trouble before assuming older games had checkpoints and automatic saving.

And even with how frustrating I found the fights, there’s a fluidity and grace to the Prince’s movements that make them a joy to watch. Maybe that’s why the wall run is so memorable. Every action of his is elegant. It could be why the control issues and the fighting were so frustrating. When the Prince is failing, it still looks glamorous, so there’s this extra guilt heaped upon the player that yes, this is all your fault. Throw in controls and a camera you know aren’t perfect and anger can enter into it. “Great, the game is mocking me for failing when it’s doing its best to make sure I don’t succeed”. Next time I’m definitely going to try mouse and keyboard or go back to the PS2 version.

Thanks for watching.

Dave Critiques - Resonance: Is it thematically resonant?

Transcript

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I’m going to be discussing Resonance for those who have played it. If you haven’t, and are worried about spoilers, please pause the video and go play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

What differs Resonance from other adventure games is two-fold. One is that you control 4 characters throughout the game. From this point alone, there will be comparisons made to Heavy Rain and perhaps some spoiling of that game as well. Huh, this is the second video in a short amount of time comparing the game in question to Heavy Rain. I wonder what gives. Anyways, Heavy Rain spoilers, you have been warned. The more interesting difference, however, is the use of memory. You essentially have 3 inventories. One for the usual items you pick up and can combine and use to solve puzzles, and 2 memory slots. One for short term memory, and one for long-term memory. Long term memory features small cut-scenes that play either reminding you of information if you have forgotten it, or letting the character in on information that will now allow them to act with the game world in a new way.

The short term memory slot is by far the most interesting. Any hotspot in the game world can be dragged into short term memory. Want to talk to someone about a computer terminal? Drag the computer terminal into short term memory and then go ask the person about it. The only issue aside from the limited number of slots your short term memory possesses is that when stuck, you’ve essentially doubled the amount of fiddling around a player has to do. In most adventure games while stuck, a player will walk around and start randomly using all the items in their inventory on everything in the game world hoping to get lucky. I’ve solved many a puzzle using that method in the past. At its least innocuous, it gives the player something to do while their brain is working over exactly what they have to do to progress. With the addition of long term and short-term memory however, it exponentially increases the number of possible options (especially once you’re allowed to travel around the city at will). Resonance somewhat alleviates this problem by allowing the characters to ask the other characters what to do next for a hint. Of course, sometimes the hint is vague. After about 2 hours of consistent progress, I got stuck at a point where the hint wasn’t helping. I turned to a walkthrough and never looked back. Some of the puzzles even with the aid of a walkthrough were maddening (although one can’t fault the game for its variety of head-scratchers and multiple solutions to some problems). Of course I cannot say whether they would have been solvable or not with my own ingenuity and the use of the hint system. They definitely weren’t the draw of the game for me, more an impediment.

As with most adventure games, the story and the characters were what kept me interested. The game starts off with a global disaster before rewinding to a couple days beforehand. You take control of 4 characters who play through short separate vignettes until the inciting incident throws you all together. At this point you can switch to whichever character you want as you solve defined problems hoping to put a stop to this dangerous new technology. Those who have thought about the comparison to Heavy Rain for a couple of seconds might know where such a tale is going, especially when you control 4 characters. Yes, one of the characters is actually the villain. It’s not the ageing cop this time, but the game makes you think it might be. Actually, that red herring is pretty ridiculous when it gets explained, but it sets up the reveal to be quite shocking. And this isn’t even at the end of the game. It turns out Ed wasn’t exactly acting on his own. He was trying to stop two other characters who have been using him as a pawn in their own game. His actions while awful, are rationalised away as serving a greater good, and in the finale of the game, you can choose to side with him in his attempt to do what’s right, or you can take revenge for the death of Dr Morales and Anna. It’s one of those morality decisions. Do you sacrifice the few for the sake of the many, or do you enact justice no matter the cost of said justice? It’s a tough decision, and from what I gather, neither option is all that satisfying. I chose to save the greater good, and pretty much nobody has a happy ending.

At its core Resonance is a science fiction story about a new technology, and a shadowy group trying to use that technology for its own ends. The 4 characters you play as get caught up in this madness, and by the end of my playthrough, all 4 were either dead or in jail for the murder of other people. So how do the memories play into this narrative? Not well. Only Anna Morales has gameplay sections detailing her backstory. To be honest, her tale is only tangentially connected to the greater plot through her familial relationship to the creator of the resonance technology. The only reason her past matters is to be able to find Dr Morales’ vault where he hid the resonance technology, which serves as the driving goal for all 4 players once they come together. Dr Morales put safeguards in place that only Anna could solve, so we as a player have to know about her past to move forward. Ed, Bennet, and Ray’s past doesn’t matter as it has no bearing on the main plot of the game. There are ties to the antevorta system and the Eleven Foundation when we first play the vignettes of these characters, but those are present actions. The first playable version of Anna is her as a child escaping a monster. There’s a discrepancy between the 4 characters, and that the one character who does have a fleshed out backstory (which gives a reason for the memory system to exist) is killed to reveal that Ed is not who he says he is, that’s especially galling.

My overall impression of Resonance is a little flat (and that might have to do with the ending I chose). Despite the importance of the memory system not being altogether thematically tied with the narrative, I enjoyed how it worked. I liked the characters, the overall story and the world. It was good science fiction. After meeting the Eleven Foundation, I wished there was a game about those two characters, as their strange power, influence, and talk of fate I found much more fascinating than the vaporisation caused by resonance. As an adventure game I think it excels. As a consistent work, not as much, even if I think my long term memory will have a fond remembrance of the time spent with it.

Thanks for watching.

Dave Critiques - Undertale: The importance of killing Toriel

Transcript

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I shall be talking about Undertale for those who have played it. If you haven’t, and are worried about spoilers, please pause the video and play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

Watching Dave talk about Undertale fills you with determination. That’s a joke, I say, a joke. Well ok, it’s a reference, and quite an easy one at that. I wanted to start off by talking about determination. The determination I’m most interested in is my determination to play the game non-violently. This again is no big shock. The game opens you up to this pathway right after meeting Toriel. Each enemy in the game has a way to defeat them non-violently. A lot of people who haven’t played Undertale yet know about this factor of the game (or they talk about “that bullet hell RPG”). Back when the PBS Idea Channel talked about Undertale, they said that one reason this is so remarkable is that unlike most videogames, the violence in Undertale is a choice. Nothing is stopping you from murdering every creature you come across (and the game has its own path for this decision), but the characters are so delightful, and the world so full of joy and whimsy, that I don’t even know if I could attempt such a thing. I’m the kind of person who when finally trying his first Renegade run in Mass Effect turned it off after 15 minutes because I couldn’t stand what a jerk Shepard was being.

Toriel teaches you the path of nonviolence. She’s Undertale’s female goat Gandhi. She also arranges it so that you are stuck living with her forever once you reach her house and have put her philosophy into practice. To continue with the game, you must go against her wishes and follow her into the basement. To prove that you’re strong enough to face what the rest of the game has in store for you, you must fight Toriel. Now like every other fight in Undertale, it is possible to win this without bloodshed. There’s even a hint of how to do it earlier on. I guarantee that most first time players miss this. I certainly did. When sparing Toriel didn’t work, and talking to her didn’t work, I thought my only recourse left was to maybe get her health down enough so that she would surrender and you could spare her. After all, that’s how it works in Pokemon.

There’s a mechanic in Undertale related to critical hits and how much health your enemy has. In the final fight against Asgore, I noticed this for the second time in the game (as this is another battle where it seems like you must fight your way through). In fact, this increased damage saved my bacon against Asgore as I was on my last sliver of health. Remember what I said about my Pokemon idea? So I get Toriel down to about a third of her health and still I can’t spare her or talk to her. I think perhaps it needs to be a quarter or less so I attack again. Critical hit. Toriel dies. The ensuing cut-scene happens and the title plays. I was devastated.

I considered reloading my last save point and trying again. I’m sure many who killed Toriel thought of this or actually did it. Despite having to fight her, Toriel is gentle, kind, and lonely. It’s easy to empathise with her and her actions, and that makes the fight and her death even more poignant. As painful as it was, I decided to forge ahead. Here’s why. It has to do with David Cage. I know, I know, but listen. Back when Heavy Rain was released, Cage remarked that he didn’t want people replaying his game. You control 4 characters in Heavy Rain, and in most perilous situations, if you fail, the character you are controlling will die, and the game will continue. This leads to many possible scenarios. Cage’s thoughts were that the story you ended up with would be your unique story. I like this idea. It especially opens up a conversation with others who have played the game, as you can compare your notes on what happened and who survived. When Bioshock came out it was semester break at university, and returning to classes, all my friends started discussing our various strategies for combat. It gives each player a certain amount of ownership over their experience. Of course this idea goes against the notion of replayability which has been a sought after feature by gamers and game reviews for decades now.

And Undertale is chock full of replayability. Not only are there three main endings, but on those paths, there are some choices that will lead to different outcomes. Not all of these change the nature of the game, some are just changes in dialogue among individual characters, but it remains that Toby Fox put a lot of thought into anticipating player decisions and accounting for them. It’s the best use of player anticipation I’ve seen since The Stanley Parable. When a game has so many pathways open to it, a decision on when to stop playing has to be made. I have almost never played through a game a second time straight after completing it. All the other pathways, all those other decisions I leave until I feel like playing the game again someday in the future. Of course I am afforded this opportunity because I can buy my own games. I’ve always thought replayability was only a hook for younger players. If you only get a new game on your birthday or Christmas (if even you get one that often), no doubt you’re going to be playing a game with multiple paths over and over again until you exhaust all possible outcomes. Even then you’ll learn to master the systems and make your own fun within the game space. That’s certainly my experience as a kid, and I had some pretty awful games to do that with too.

As a further example of this, after completing the game, I guess I got the neutral ending. I had to fight Photoshop Flowey. That was a trip and a half. The game ends with encouraging you to replay to get the pacifist ending. I had killed Toriel after all. I was merciful to every other enemy in the game (even Flowey), but I had killed Toriel. And you know what, I’m kind of glad it ended up that way. The horror of accidentally ending Toriel’s life after she had been so kind to me, after I tried my hardest to find a peaceful solution, that stuck with me for the rest of the game. That crack I made at the start about determination, it turns out there’s truth to it. Killing Toriel filled me with determination. The determination to not end another life, no matter how difficult. I didn’t always have the answer, especially for most of the boss battles, but that determination made me look up the solution to these fights online. Strange huh. I didn’t want to reload my save file because this is the path I had chosen, but at the same time, I was going to find a way to complete the game nonviolently by any means necessary. It also gives me something to accomplish for a future playthrough.

I entertained playing through Undertale again straight afterwards. I actually played the first hour. I was able to spare Toriel, and then get a ways into Papyrus’ traps but then decided that my original playthrough was all I needed to make this video. The pacifist playthrough is something I can look forward to one day. Not only to see what happens but because I know there are many things I didn't do. I never made friends with Undyne. I never went on a date with Dr Alphys, and I’m sure there’s so much more that I missed. That’s the benefit of a game with replayability, more often than not, it’s close to impossible to see everything the first time through. Of course the opposite can be true too. If you play through a certain way, get an ending that was unsatisfying, and then don’t play the game again, your experience of the game might be negative, regardless of the game’s quality. I enjoyed my time with Undertale. That’s good enough for now, and getting the pacifist ending in the future might change my perspective of the game for the better.

Thanks for watching.