software developers and programmers who go to a halfway decent school are taught to adhere to a user's "mental model" when designing a UI. everything has a UI, games are practically all UI. "invisible" UI, which is easy to understand and unobtrusive, depends on what the user already knows. where do they expect the back button to be? where do they expect the "x" to close a screen? what do they think this spell will do, if they've never seen it before? as much as possible, adhere to the mental model, or your game will be considered frustrating and confusing. so that's a large part of the sameness of magic systems across different games. it might not be the most fun, but it definitely works for getting new users to not give up 30 seconds in. there is a point at which good design and UI is more important than writing, and that is the only point that every player is guaranteed to reach: their very first ten minutes or so, when they're fiddling with controls and trying to figure the game out. so the challenge of applying this advice has to do with balance. how do you design something new and different without fucking with your user's mental model? how do you set them up to intuit your new magic system, while still creating something carefully suited to tell your story? writing does have to come second to the game being any kind of playable. the first time someone ranks up in your korean martial arts game, did they know that they were getting sent back to level 1? did you surprise them with it? if they did know, how did you tell them? more deviation from the mental model means more tutorials/exposition, unless you want to make players really annoyed. actually, either option has a good chance at making players really annoyed. getting the tutorial right is good game design, and there are lots of good game designers out there, but even the best games don't always nail it. the more deviation, the bigger risk of fucking up an otherwise great game. and then a lot of big studios take this to the extreme with the safest possible gameplay, bc fiduciary duty to shareholders. legally, they can't really take risks. i agree that more experimenting with this, and more intentional writing and decision-making, would be awesome to see. it'll have to come from indie studios with a diverse talent pool or the budget to fuck up over and over.
and yet he makes excellent points so often. appeal to authority may be enticing, especially when you want to dismiss someone out of hand, but it isn't the be-all end-all of discussion. judge the content by its merits.
@@asterling4 Which authority did I appeal to? I think you clearly don't know what you are talking about. An "ad hominem fallacy" maybe. But my point still remains. It's easy to talk about what developers and writers should do when you are not one of them, when you haven't been on their shoes. Basically this is not a voice of experience, it's the voice of an idealist who hasn't accomplished anything, which tbh doesn't inspire much trust.
@@asgoritolinasgoritolino7708 ohh, ok, you don't know what appeal to authority means. (...or ad hominem.) sorry for not explaining. it's a rhetorical term. essentially, an appeal to authority is a way of sidestepping the use of reason and fact, by basing a claim on someone's position or an aspect of their character instead of defending the claim itself. (when the claim is false, it becomes what's called a "character lie," which is a term that you might be more familiar with. ik some of this is a little obscure if you haven't studied rhetoric, so dw too much about it.) there's some debate about whether it's technically a fallacy, because there are circumstances where it _really_ makes sense to trust expertise, but it's absolutely not a substitute for a real argument. what you say in that second comment, that nothing he says is trustworthy because he hasn't published anything (...which, by the way, is completely unfounded. you have no idea whether he's published anything lol) is an appeal to authority. and while it might seem like an attractive tactic, it stops working if there's nothing else to back the claim. if you had a counterpoint, you would make it, but you haven't. all you can contribute is vague distrust. there are definitely things that this video misses; in my own comment i talked about the concept of the "mental model" in software design, which contests his simplification of the problem. i'm curious to see where that conversation will go. he invites people to share their own takes in the comments because that's how you get solution-oriented discussions. so if you think he's wrong, say why he's wrong. otherwise you have literally nothing except a really lazy appeal to authority.
@@asterling4 Please study rhetoric again, that's not at all what an appeal to authority means. An appeal to authority is, and I quote: "Appeal to authority fallacy refers to the use of an expert’s opinion to back up an argument" . If you weren't so focused on being condescending, you would have noticed that the only way of making an appeal to authority is to appeal to the position of a person or institution of authority, which I never did. Hence my question of "which authority did I appeal to?" If i'm making an "appeal to authority" as you are so sure of, then just answer that simple question instead of dodging it with inaccurate definitions. It's clear that you are either being dishonest here, or you straight up don't know what you are talking about. Probably both. On the other hand, yes, I know as a fact that he has not published anything because I checked all his contact info before making the comment (which, again, is not an appeal to authorty in any kind, lmao, stop using terms you clearly don't understand).
@@asgoritolinasgoritolino7708 ......yeah, nice try. you're appealing to the authority of having been published. any more attempted gotchas? i can do this all day let's get back to the point you're trying so hard to avoid. _you agree with everything in the video._ that, or you don't know enough about game design/writing to provide _any_ argument against it. you have no counterpoints, so you rely on fallacy. give me just one counter-argument. just _one._ i'll engage with you; i love to talk writing and game design. say _literally anything_ that addresses the points in the video, since you're so determined to discredit it. _actually say something that discredits it._ i'll wait
Хобби
Hope you can find somewhere else to make videos if you aren't happy with RUclips. Always interested in enjoy them.
Great vid! Love your takes on game dev/storytelling. Please don’t stop making content. If not youtube, let us know where to find you
There's no decent alternative at the moment, so I'm just chatting on Mastodon.
Your videos are always a treat. Thanks for this one!
Noita is a great example. Yes you die a lot, and its not fun, but magic and bugs within game are indeed tools that help you expirience/create a story.
This would be perfect for a MMORPG.
Great stuff!
If you're jumping ship from youtube, I hope you'll continue to make more videos like this wherever else (and give us a link so we can follow)
software developers and programmers who go to a halfway decent school are taught to adhere to a user's "mental model" when designing a UI. everything has a UI, games are practically all UI. "invisible" UI, which is easy to understand and unobtrusive, depends on what the user already knows. where do they expect the back button to be? where do they expect the "x" to close a screen? what do they think this spell will do, if they've never seen it before? as much as possible, adhere to the mental model, or your game will be considered frustrating and confusing.
so that's a large part of the sameness of magic systems across different games. it might not be the most fun, but it definitely works for getting new users to not give up 30 seconds in. there is a point at which good design and UI is more important than writing, and that is the only point that every player is guaranteed to reach: their very first ten minutes or so, when they're fiddling with controls and trying to figure the game out.
so the challenge of applying this advice has to do with balance. how do you design something new and different without fucking with your user's mental model? how do you set them up to intuit your new magic system, while still creating something carefully suited to tell your story? writing does have to come second to the game being any kind of playable.
the first time someone ranks up in your korean martial arts game, did they know that they were getting sent back to level 1? did you surprise them with it? if they did know, how did you tell them? more deviation from the mental model means more tutorials/exposition, unless you want to make players really annoyed. actually, either option has a good chance at making players really annoyed. getting the tutorial right is good game design, and there are lots of good game designers out there, but even the best games don't always nail it. the more deviation, the bigger risk of fucking up an otherwise great game.
and then a lot of big studios take this to the extreme with the safest possible gameplay, bc fiduciary duty to shareholders. legally, they can't really take risks. i agree that more experimenting with this, and more intentional writing and decision-making, would be awesome to see. it'll have to come from indie studios with a diverse talent pool or the budget to fuck up over and over.
You talk a lot about game design and writing, but you neither have any game or writren work published.
Kinda sus
and yet he makes excellent points so often. appeal to authority may be enticing, especially when you want to dismiss someone out of hand, but it isn't the be-all end-all of discussion. judge the content by its merits.
@@asterling4 Which authority did I appeal to? I think you clearly don't know what you are talking about. An "ad hominem fallacy" maybe. But my point still remains. It's easy to talk about what developers and writers should do when you are not one of them, when you haven't been on their shoes.
Basically this is not a voice of experience, it's the voice of an idealist who hasn't accomplished anything, which tbh doesn't inspire much trust.
@@asgoritolinasgoritolino7708 ohh, ok, you don't know what appeal to authority means. (...or ad hominem.) sorry for not explaining.
it's a rhetorical term. essentially, an appeal to authority is a way of sidestepping the use of reason and fact, by basing a claim on someone's position or an aspect of their character instead of defending the claim itself. (when the claim is false, it becomes what's called a "character lie," which is a term that you might be more familiar with. ik some of this is a little obscure if you haven't studied rhetoric, so dw too much about it.) there's some debate about whether it's technically a fallacy, because there are circumstances where it _really_ makes sense to trust expertise, but it's absolutely not a substitute for a real argument.
what you say in that second comment, that nothing he says is trustworthy because he hasn't published anything (...which, by the way, is completely unfounded. you have no idea whether he's published anything lol) is an appeal to authority. and while it might seem like an attractive tactic, it stops working if there's nothing else to back the claim.
if you had a counterpoint, you would make it, but you haven't. all you can contribute is vague distrust. there are definitely things that this video misses; in my own comment i talked about the concept of the "mental model" in software design, which contests his simplification of the problem. i'm curious to see where that conversation will go. he invites people to share their own takes in the comments because that's how you get solution-oriented discussions. so if you think he's wrong, say why he's wrong. otherwise you have literally nothing except a really lazy appeal to authority.
@@asterling4 Please study rhetoric again, that's not at all what an appeal to authority means. An appeal to authority is, and I quote: "Appeal to authority fallacy refers to the use of an expert’s opinion to back up an argument" .
If you weren't so focused on being condescending, you would have noticed that the only way of making an appeal to authority is to appeal to the position of a person or institution of authority, which I never did. Hence my question of "which authority did I appeal to?"
If i'm making an "appeal to authority" as you are so sure of, then just answer that simple question instead of dodging it with inaccurate definitions. It's clear that you are either being dishonest here, or you straight up don't know what you are talking about. Probably both.
On the other hand, yes, I know as a fact that he has not published anything because I checked all his contact info before making the comment (which, again, is not an appeal to authorty in any kind, lmao, stop using terms you clearly don't understand).
@@asgoritolinasgoritolino7708 ......yeah, nice try. you're appealing to the authority of having been published. any more attempted gotchas? i can do this all day
let's get back to the point you're trying so hard to avoid. _you agree with everything in the video._ that, or you don't know enough about game design/writing to provide _any_ argument against it. you have no counterpoints, so you rely on fallacy. give me just one counter-argument. just _one._ i'll engage with you; i love to talk writing and game design. say _literally anything_ that addresses the points in the video, since you're so determined to discredit it. _actually say something that discredits it._ i'll wait