What We Learned From...

A podcast about playing games and learning from them, exploring design, controls, story, and overall experience in a quest to find really great games.

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Our latest episode of What We Learned From is about Armello!

We explore this board-game video-game, where it falls short and where it excels. There’s a lot of varied opinions in this one, and some more intense conversations than we’ve had in some past podcasts.

Join us next time as we go over Pokemon Sun and Moon! If you want to be alerted as soon as a podcast goes live, make sure you subscribe to the Youtube Channel!

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Our next episode is going to discuss Armello! Because it’s a fairly long game, and multiplayer, we decided to play a game of it together. You’ll find...some mixed reactions, here.

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NEW OVERWATCH COMIC!

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Earthbound is Really Annoying

Dox here. Now that I've thrown down my cards hard enough to them in the table like shuriken, let me back up and add some context.

I love JRPGs (even if I hate that we've somehow decided that we're going to label them by their place of origin). I've played a lot of them, thought a lot about how they're designed. What separates a good JRPG (Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, Final Fantasy 6, Wild ARMS 3, Chrono Trigger, The Amber Throne) from a bad one (Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Final Fantasy 8, Wild ARMS 4, Breath of Fire 1-3 (I haven't played 4 or later so I will reserve judgment there), Artifact Adventure, come at me scrublords I'm ripped)  is really important to consider, but can be difficult to pin down. I could shout my opinions about all of these games at you for several pages, but today I want to focus in on Earthbound.

Is this game good? Eh... It's not BAD, but I can't quite bring myself to call it good. I think it earns its place as required playing for any JRPG connoisseur, but mostly because it's different and influential. Don't let what I'm about to write dissuade you from playing it if you're curious; I can't guarantee it'll be *enjoyable per say, but playing Earthbound is certainly a *worthwhile experience for anyone studying JRPG design.

But when you do play it, brace yourself. Earthbound is one of the most intentionally annoying games I've ever managed to actually finish.

I re-played Earthbound in its entirety to prepare for this article and it confirmed how determined the game is to intentionally aggravate the player. So many things happen to you that require you to completely eject from a quest and run back to town or face crippling penalties. The game offers a lot of unique mechanics and ideas, then hamstrings your ability to actually use them. The game is full of tiny dick moves that build up over time. Effects that you need to be reliable are random. Items that take up a PRECIOUS inventory space and supposedly perform an important function just fail to work entirely. And oh god, the inventory micromanaging in this game can go fuck right off.

Let's take these one at a time, and let's start with homesickness. Ness (main character, statistically stronger than the other three party members in almost every way) will occasionally get homesick. And that makes sense, he's a 10 year old kid. It's cute and helps build character on a silent protagonist that we really don't know much about. It's also annoying for three reasons.

1) It pops up randomly, there is no warning when it's about to happen, and you can't prevent it in any way.

2) It utterly cripples Ness (reminder: your most important character in combat by far, your only healer through about 50% of the game), causing him to skip turns randomly. I've seen him skip four turns in a row this way.

3) You have to return to town to find a phone and call his mother to fix this.

So you get through the dungeon, fighting off groups of enemies that you can't outrun and often can't escape from once you're in the battle. The boss of the dungeon is in the next room, and you've got one more trash monster encounter to get through before you start the real fight. First turn of that fight, you see, “Ness started missing home.” You now have to decide between your primary actor in combat being at ~50% combat effectiveness for the boss or turning around, trudging back through the dungeon again to find a phone, and then coming back. HUGE waste of time. In the playthrough I finished to prep for this article, that happened three times. That tacked on a solid 30, 45 minutes of play time on that playthrough. Fuck homesickness.

I'll also give an honorable mention to Mushroomized, which is another status effect that cripples the victim and can't be healed in dungeons. With Mushroom it's obvious what enemies cause it at least, and you can actually prevent the ailment by killing them quickly.

Next let's talk about the unique combat mechanics with potential that are intentionally hamstrung. First, there is the ability to end fights against completely outmatched enemies before they begin. This is a great idea, I've never heard anything but praise for it, and it's often pointed out as something more games should do. I completely agree with that praise, but I really wish Earthbound itself actually let the mechanic matter. Based on what I've seen analyzing this mechanic, it only occurs when there is a 100% chance of your party killing enemies with normal attacks before the monsters can react.

The problem here is the Speed stat. Ness and Jeff have the highest Offense stats, meaning they do the most damage with their standard attacks. They also have the lowest Speed stats, meaning they will usually go last in fights. Because of this, weaksauce enemies who won't get anything done but a weak attack that deals 1 damage STILL don't get auto-killed because they go before your two heavy hitters. The fight was completely pointless, those enemies were never going to do anything significant to your party, but because Ness and Jeff are so goddamned slow you'll have to play out the fight anyway. Welcome to “just mash A,” the worst place for JRPG combat. It's only relevant when you get the drop on enemies.

Hey, there's another mechanic that sounds cool on paper that completely fails in Earthbound's implementation. Enemies are actual sprites in the game instead of invisible random encounters, and if you approach them from behind you get a free turn when the fighting starts. In theory this means you're paying attention to enemies and trying to approach them so you get that advantage, perhaps with stealth or with complex maneuvers. In practice, this is utterly impossible if the enemies aren't programmed to run away from you. Stealth is impossible, and enemies are almost always faster than you rendering tricky movement pointless, more likely to cause the enemies to get the surprise round instead. You can cause many enemies to flee from you by killing a boss monster in the area, but other than that the usual situation is that enemies within a certain distance will always catch up to you and fight you normally.

This is made all the more frustrating when the game shows how this mechanic could be very cool about a third of the way through and then completely forgets about it. There is a dungeon (the gold mine, for those keeping track) with encounters that mix very weak enemies who run from you (the Mad Geese) and “meh” enemies (the Noose Men) who charge at you. If you can get to the fleeing weak ones before the mediocre charging ones, you get the surprise round. This configuration is never repeated. Replace the charging enemy with something that's a real threat to your crew and you've got an EXCELLENT gameplay scenario that occurs outside of battles. There are ways to vary this up. Enemies who spin predictably (or randomly!) mixed with chargers. Enemies who give extra loot/XP charging through areas where precise movement is required to catch up with them. Slow enemies that your party can't reasonably fight to run from. The ideas are there, and the game makes no effort to utilize them.

...Maybe that's something that won't annoy the average player, but obvious potential never utilized really bothers me.

What IS going to annoy the average player is the fucking inventory though. Items don't stack and take up a slot in a PAINFULLY tiny inventory. Essential plot items and equipment eat up this room as well. If there were a few basic item types it wouldn't be a big deal, but the game throws TONS of random and varied shit at you. Dozens of different sorts of food, optional condements that are used automatically when you eat said food for boosted healing, battle utility items that deal damage or inflict status ailments (and, excluding Jeff's bottle rockets, all end up being less effective than standard attacks or low level spells), out of combat utility items, literal junk that doesn't do anything. I don't understand why a game with such a painfully small inventory and the clunkiest backpack management interface possible has so much STUFF in it.

I do see a reason for this kind of mechanic to exist: it limits which items a given character can use in combat. Deciding which character carries the items that revive killed characters, who carries items which remove status aliments, how many slots do you set aside for Jeff's bottle rockets, these are worthwhile and interesting choices that I think has tremendous potential for interesting gameplay. But so many item slots are used up for plot critical and/or equipment items, so much of the stuff you get exploring is junk, and even when it isn't junk it's hard to determine which item to use at a given time. (Pop quiz! Which item heals more: a lesser potion, standard potion, or hyper potion? How about a kabob, hamburger, or jerky?) Managing my inventory never felt enjoyable in Earthbound, and it resulted in me leaving a lot of loot boxes unopened.

...To bring this extended session of a grumpy old man yelling at clouds to a close: Some level of annoyance is acceptable in a game. The first episode of WWLF featured us uniformly praising Darkest Dungeon in spite of the high time cost of losing an adventurer. I still love Dustforce in spite of its demands for absolute perfection. I'll truck on in Sunless Sea even though failing a 95% favorable odds challenge sometimes causes me a tremendous amount of grief. What do those games do that  Earthbound does not? There are several answers.

Good games give ways of mitigating punishments. There is nothing you can do in Earthbound to prevent homesickness.

Good games provide mechanics that make you feel powerful or clever to assuage any lingering bitterness from other portions where the game hurt you. Earthbound pretends to give you ways to be tricky and then doesn't give you a chance to actually utilize them.

Good games make the annoying parts part of a buildup to a moment of greatness, never a moment of busy work. Inventory management in Earthbound was never anything more than a chore.

In the end, Earthbound is not a good game. And it's okay to admit that. It's still a game you should play, and a game someone less irritable than I can enjoy tremendously. Even if you can't enjoy it, one can still learn a lot from a not-good game.

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Play Overwatch® FREE November 18–21 on PC, PlayStation® 4, and Xbox One

If you haven't already had the opportunity to suit up and save the world as one of Overwatch's heroes, now's your chance .

Overwatch is free this weekend! We highly recommend you check it out. I’ll be there. ;) - Bell

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What We Learned From: Risk of Rain is live!

This episode features Dox and KQD, and introduces Lone, as they discuss the design and playstyle choices of Risk of Rain, a roguelike platformer with an increasing difficulty score from Hopoo Games.

Remember, you can hear these as soon as they come out by subscribing to the YouTube!

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Sunless Sea: The story of a perfect voyage

Dox there. Let’s try something here. A bit of short story writing. I’ve been playing a lot of Sunless Sea lately. It’s a game that’s capable of actually generating stories, rather than taking the player through stories already written. Here’s something that came from actual in game events.

The script in the logbook is efficient and clear, a touch feminine. The entries are mostly dry, straightforward accounts of past activity zailing the zee, the Opportunist having penned the memoir primarily as a way of giving advice to new captains based on her own experiences. One entry in particular stands out...

“The easiest way to find success as a zee captain is to be born rich enough to afford the finest ships, cannons, and engines. Alas, few of us are so fortunate; for the rest, my advice is to be carefully bold, methodically spontaneous, able to rely on a plan well laid out as well as seize opportunities as they are presented. You will have to make leaps of faith on the zee, but you would do well to check your safety harness before doing so. Now I will recount the story of one of my favorite voyages; one that I think exemplifies these traits.”

“This journey began after a standard delivery from the Salt Lions; the usual load of cumbersome basalt bricks filling up fully half of my ship's hold. Picking up the load marked the end of an unremarkable journey to the southern zee, seeking new ports and new opportunities. Returning to London with it was the start of a significantly more lucrative excursion however.”

“The usual Bazaar official was absent this day; instead I was greeted by two folk. One clearly touched by the Dawn Machine, so I had no interest in working for her. The second seemed an earnest enough man who promised twice the usual pay and other rewards besides should I take the stone to Irem for him.”

“The offer was tempting (and I could find no buyers for the stone any closer), but Irem is as far as one can go from London before falling off the zee charts. The stones' tremendous volume presented a problem for me: I would not be able to carry the supplies necessary to make the trip in what space remained for my hold. My crew and I would either starve or run out of fuel, probably both. But I could not simply sit on the stone; I needed that space in my hold. Throwing the cargo into the zee would have been a damnable waste. I needed to think.”

“I granted my zailors extended shore leave so they could be well rested for the journey ahead. While they drank and reunited with their families, I poured over my chart of the zee in my study. (In fairness, my son kept me company in the study, playing with a toy steamer and some zee-beast dolls.) I had mapped out the northern zee thoroughly and had a good idea of what would await. As I read, a plan emerged.”

“Mount Palmerson was on the way, approximately half-way to Irem. That fiery portal to Hell still smoulders to this day. With fire in such abundance, one could expect to see a surplus of fuel as well. In past voyages I had gone there to refuel; their priceswere actually lower than what I would find here in London. Knowing this, I decided to purchase most of the food I would need at Wolfstack before I set zail, taking only just enough fuel to reach Palmerson. About halfway there I would stop at the port of a group of curious little natives, befriended during previous voyages; my past benevolence meant that the place was a reliable stop for food. This would supply us with ample sustenance for the trip; the only remaining concern was fuel.”

“Once out of port, I set a direct course for Palmerson, stopping only at the mid-way port for more food. Palmerson was ominous and foul-smelling as usual, but the portal remained open and fuel remained plentiful and cheap. I took a moment here to consider our situation. Even after replacing what supplies and fuel we had used on the way, I did not think we had enough. There was certainly sufficient coal to get us to Irem, but I did not like our chances of getting back to a friendly port from there. Refueling at Irem would be unacceptably expensive, and I had nothing in my collection that would be of interest to the Iremi riddlers for supplies. (At least, nothing with which I was willing to part.) I needed to save fuel elsewhere.”

“Looking north to the ice-drifts, I found my solution. Exiting Palmerson, I set a north-westerly heading; indirect, but it put us close to the shattered iceburgs serving as a last warning for those foolish enough to cross that deadly northern border. Once there, I shut down the prow-light. It drinks nearly a third of the power produced by the engines; a price I am happy to pay in normal circumstances but could not afford with the stone weighing us down. The zailors grumbled, but zailors always grumble. In the end, keeping in sight of a place where they could safely swim if something went wrong assuaged their fears. With the light off and land far away they would likely have reacted rather violently, but with just one I was able to maintain discipline. They either did not grasp or did not care that taking shelter on those forsaken iceburgs would merely make for a slower, colder death than drowning.”

“We will land in Irem, and our contact will meet us to cart the cargo away for whatever strange thing they will do with the sphinxstone. If you will get a chance to go and will have the mental endurance to deal with the odd way time will tick in that place (even now in the lights of London I will not be able to write of Irem in a way that will make sense), I highly recommended you visit the place. Irem was, is, will be beautiful. I will use a small portion of the money we will make from the sphinxstone for a warm bath and decent food. The zailors of course will be too frightened to step off the ship; worried that they will be lost in a paradox that will erase their existence. Such fears will be overblown, so long as you did not wander too far into Parabola.”

“Relaxed and perhaps a year younger, I ordered the anchor raised. It would have been a simple thing to zail back to Palmerson and use the same route to return to London, but there was no profit in that; most of the echoes we had just made hauling the sphinxstone would have been spent on the supplies to get back home. Seeking more opportunities, I set a heading for the nearest safe (if not friendly) place: Port Cecil, nestled in the Principalities of Coral. There I traded tales with the intellectuals addicted to playing chess there, the coral-carved pieces granting the players visions of distant, perhaps imaginary places.”

“Eventually I found my way to the chambers of a tremendous, alien intelligence that made its home below the coral. A cautious woman would have fled the place before this eldritch intelligence with no body might think to try and take hers, but fearful zee captains rarely bring home much money. I spoke with this creature and it confided its melancholy desires to me. I can speak more of these later, but for this story all that matters is that I could fulfill one of these immediately. I presented it the tooth of an albino moray that had fallen to my ship's cannon in a previous voyage. It sent a rubbery-man servant to take the trophy from me and presented seven crates of pristine scintillack in exchange.”

“Scintillack is a luxury item likely unfamiliar to many who spend their lives ashore. It is simple coral, typically a dull gray hue. Trapped within, leaking out slowly, is a gentle silver light. I once spoke to a captain from the surface who said it reminded him of gentle moonlight. It can be crafted into magnificent jewelry--I myself have a set of scintillack earrings that I save for special occasions--or brewed into an expensive tea that I personally find distasteful.”

“This shipment alone could have made my trip terribly profitable, but while my zailors were loading up our bounty I pondered a possibility on my charts. For the moment, the Principalities lay not far from the Promised Sea, where the Fathomking rules over the drownie court. I had heard from a reliable source that the drownies covet scintillack and would trade dearly for it. However, it was out of the way, leading away from London instead of toward. My holds were now mostly empty, light on both fuel and supplies. I would need a place to resupply on the way.”

“Fortune was with me though; Khan's Shadow was only a short detour from the path to the Fathomking's Hold. Thanks to past conflicts with Khanate pirates and bad blood with British fleets, I was not exactly welcomed to Khan's Heart to resupply. However the rebels in Khan's Shadow were happy to take coins from anyone and offered quite reasonable prices for fuel and supplies. I would be able to use this ramshackle port as a staging ground for the next few weeks.”

“Ship weighed down by coal and hard-tack, I set out south for the Fathomking's Hold. As usual the reception was cold and damp; the drowned dead are not particularly renown for their hospitality. However, upon seeing the cargo I brought though their eyes lit up with desire. I owe the man who told me about the drownies' desire for scintillack a bottle of expensive wine now. They greedily took the crates, passing me a frankly ridiculous number of drowning pearls in exchange.”

“The pearls would have been enough to call this trip outright lucrative, but I thought to press my luck a bit more. I steered us back to Khan's Shadow to refuel. From that ragged floating city, one can see the lights of the Khanate proper. The next day, we were setting anchor in Khan's Glory, where the Khante's government decided policy for the rest of that rival nation. I brokered a meeting with the Taimen, the Khanate clan in charge of foreign affairs. Secretive and taciturn folk, but certain things can draw them out to speak. Certain pearls that I happened to have in excess. No one knows why, but a handful of drowning pearls draw the Taimen like moths to a flame.”

“With their undivided attention, I pleaded my case with them. I explained that the Khanate ships I had sunk in the past were the result of self defense. That I was simply a captain seeking her fortune, with no strong ties to London besides the circumstance of my birth. I had brought those pearls as a show of good faith, and that allowing me access to their traders could be mutually beneficial.”

“My first request was that they intercede with the Leopard clan, the rulers of the Khanate and the ones with the keys to the Nephrite district, where Khanate traders set up shop. They did so, and between Taimen pressure and favor I had garnered with gifts in the past, the Leopard finally acquiesced and gave me the ring that would allow me to trade with the Khanate freely. I then asked the Taimen to speak on my behalf to the White-and-Gold guards, who shadowed my every step in the empire like vultures. The Taimen agreed to tell them to reduce their scrutiny on me; after all, no spy would be so generous with their gifts.”

“I then zailed south to Khan's Heart, where I met up with my spy network. With access to the trade quarters opened and guard suspicion reduced, we were able to operate far more freely. I spent some time working with my spies to grow our connections in the city; trading a secret here for more information, threatening a reticent informant with tales I had gathered from the sea, and other such skullduggery that even now I should avoid speaking about candidly. Regardless, we were able to get an agent into the palace and sneak out vital intelligence that the admiralty back home would pay dearly for. God save her Enduring Majesty.”

“At this point, the zailors were growing homesick. I was beginning to miss my husband and child as well. Satisfied with the results of the voyage, I used my newfound access to Khanate shops to purchase a shipment of Perfectly Legal literature, which would fetch a good price elsewhere in the world, as well as enough fuel to see us safely to London. Course set, we set zail for home.”

“I recount this tale because I think it was one of my finest moments at zee. I could certainly recount tales of bravery and daring, and elsewhere in these writing I probably will. Times where I went behemoustache hunting in the southern zee, braved the jungles of the Melting Isles, or the one time I snuck the ship precariously close to Mount Nomad and lived to tell the tale. But this story exemplifies how a zee captain who hasn't the funds to buy the biggest guns and thickest hulls must think to be successful on the zee. Plan thoroughly. Zail boldy. Seize opportunity when it is presented. Take risks, but take them carefully.”

[whatwelearnedfromgames]

On Casual Games

Hey folks, this is Dox speaking. In future we're going to try to be clearer about which cast member is writing a given post; Bell and KQ have very different tastes than I do and I think it pays to be clear about this sort of thing.

So today we're going to do a long form article. Earlier, Bell reblogged this quote from @femhype.

"Animal Crossing, The Sims, and Minecraft are all worldwide sensations made by what one would now consider to be AAA companies, and yet, since not one of these games has violence as a core mechanic, each and every one of them has been criticized as not being ‘game-y’ enough.

The fact that the same criticism is levied at so-called ‘casual games’ and ‘casual gamers’ reveals a link between the two: games that don’t include violence as a core mechanic are perceived by the community as being fundamentally more feminine than games that do. Games with women-majority audiences, women-majority casts, and women-majority dev teams are frequently lumped in with this kind of critique.

Violence, goes the logic, is what makes a game masculine — and, by extension — being masculine is what makes a video game a video game."

I disagree with this statement on several levels. In this article, I'm going to focus on my opinions about the definition of “casual game.” The goal here is to start a conversation. Sound interesting? Read on.

First, a nit-picky thing here. Is Minecraft often considered a casual game? I've never heard anyone who's actually played the game call it casual. Minecraft is deep and wide as an ocean. It's one of the least casual games I can think of. Don't let the fact that it's popular with kids make you think it's a simple thing. Any time someone calls Minecraft a casual game, ask them if they've ever played it.

Anyway, what I'm going to focus on here is the definition of the term “casual game”. As I interpret the above quote, the primary assertions are:

1. Casual is synonymous with non-violent

2. Violent is a subset of masculine

3. Masculine is synonymous with hardcore (non-casual)

I have a -lot- of problems with step two in this logic chain, but they’re beside the point of this article. For now, I'll stick to giving counterpoints to each step. Note that me mentioning a game in this article is not necessarily an endorsement of said game. I’ll try to stick to games that I generally like or at least respect, but I personally don't have a lot of love for casual games so some of the stuff mentioned here isn't really my jam.

So, first we posit that casual is synonymous with non-violent. This one I had to go looking to find counterpoints, but they do exist. To find counter examples here one merely needs to hit search the casual tag on Steam. After a few minutes of browsing, I've found Star Vikings and Zombie Defense. With a quick look in my Kongregate history, I come up with Knightmare Tower and Burrito Bison Revenge. Someone more interested in casual games than I could probably name more and better games. The point here is that these are very much games about violence, but also reasonably casual games.

Let's talk about the contrapositive a bit. If a casual game is non-violent, then does that mean a non-casual game IS violent?

I've already mentioned Minecraft; the core of the game is gathering materials and building structures with said materials. I do not think Minecraft should be considered a casual game though; people sink a lot of time and effort into this game. That said, it doesn't really work for the counter example because it DOES include violence; zombies and creepers and endermen (oh my). Let's look elsewhere.

Dear readers, you need to all go buy and play Dustforce on Steam. This is hands down my favorite platformer of all time and it is criminally under rated. It’s also totally non-violent and hardcore as hell. You play as a janitor who is also a ninja. Your job is to go to levels (TOP TIER level design here) and just clean up while one of the best OSTs ever recorded plays. (I am actually listening to that OST right now as I write this; it's great for getting work done.) There are attacks, sure, but they all exist to help you clean up grouchy people who've been covered in dust or leaves, or tame sapient piles of junk or goop. There is no real violence on display here. Now, go watch this perfect run of one of the levels and tell me this game looks casual. This is one of the most grueling tests of reflexes, reactions, and judgement out there.

Next, let's talk about point two, violent games are masculine. We'll start debunking this with an friendly mass murderer called Kirby.

Look at this adorable sonofabitch. Pink, cuddly, with a high pitched voice. I love this guy. And if his name wasn't Kirby I'd assume he's meant to be a girl. This is not the hero of a masculine game. He's also not in a masculine world, with flowers and rainbows and little five point stars all over the place.

If you actually look at the contents of his games, you'll see that he also has as much blood on his nubby hands as the DOOM marine.

Joking aside, most Kirby games are examples of non-masculine games with a focus on violence. It's cutesy violence where it's implied that no one's actually dying, but still violent. And I think calling his games “masculine” would be ridiculous.

But Kirby is still a nominally male character. I don't think it actually matters in game, but we still give him masculine pronouns so I'll cede that point. That alone isn't enough to make a game masculine, but even so, we've got another example. Let's talk about Shantae instead.

These games are -excellent- and I absolutely recommend anyone who hasn't tried them go pick up Shantae: Risky's Revenge on Steam after reading this article. In Shantae games you spend most of the time traversing areas and beating up bad guys. The primary engagement is exploration, but along the way you knock out mooks and bosses who're trying to block your way. Shantae fights by using her hair like a whip and utilizing magic dances. This game both lionizes and satirizes aspects of traditional femininity. For example, you can buy shampoo to upgrade your basic hair whip's damage. You can call it a lot of things, but you're never going to catch a reasonable person calling this game masculine. And yet, you're going to kill a couple of hundred enemies in an average play through.

I could go on, but I think this is enough. The notion that being violence makes a game masculine is debunked by the actual evidence. I'll grant you that many--probably even MOST--violent games have a masculine tone, but that happens for reasons other than the violence on hand. As stated earlier, this point in particular irks me a lot in what it implies about masculinity and femininity, but I want to keep the focus on video games here.

Finally, we've got point 3: masculine games are hardcore. Let's start with a list of non-masculine, non-casual games. This comes from a brief scan over my Steam library and a bit of thinking about games from my past.

The Amber Throne. Ultimately, this game is about a conflict between a pair of women. Its battles will also kick your ass if you don't figure out how combat works.

Contrast. A game about a woman and her relationship to a little girl who is dealing with a difficult family life. Also, difficult platforming and puzzle solving. The casual crowd will not last long here.

Sim-X. I think there's a case for calling The Sims specifically a pretty feminine game series, but Sim City and other games in that line are quite gender neutral and are deep management rabbit holes if you want them to be.

Earthbound. Yeah, three in four of your party members are boys, but by and large this game does not give a shit about gender or sexuality. It's the story of some kids going on an adventure together. And by JRPG standards, I'd say this one is actually more hardcore than most.

Undertale (http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/). This game specifically set out to be inclusive of all genders and sexualities, and the game's content makes this unambiguous. Overall it's quite gender neutral. Now go fight Sans and tell me this counts as a casual game.

As already stated, anything in the Shantae series.

Now let's change gear a bit. Same general idea, but let's talk about masculine games that are also casual.

Reigns. Long live the ki--oops, he’s dead already. You're restricted to binary choices by the game's design, and the results often seem random. Super casual, but in the end this is a game about men doing manly things.

10,000,000. You're trying to escape a dungeon by killing all the monsters in your way and evading traps Indiana Jones style. You do this with a simple match 3 combat system. That's right, match 3, the most casual of casual games.

Soul Gambler. In this short adventure you make deals with demons, wager your soul on games of chance, and seduce sexy ladies. A manly pulp adventure, yeah! It's... also a visual novel. Match 3 might be the most casual, but visual novels are right behind it.

So, I think we've got enough evidence to debunk the “casual” definition originally posited. So that begs the question: if casual games aren't defined by being non-violent and non-masculine, what DOES define them? My answer: depth or difficulty. You only need one. A lack of both means that your game is casual. (As an aside, that's not inherently a bad thing! There are plenty of worthwhile casual games out there.)

Let's look at depth, first by examining visual novels. These games may have great writing, with richly detailed three dimensional characters in fascinating situations. Compelling stuff. But at the end of the day they have few (if any) actual game mechanics. If you step out of the game itself, all you're doing is exploring a tree of possible outcomes pre-determined by the game's writers. There's not a lot of depth there.

Let's take a more concrete example: Reigns vs. Crusader Kings II. These are both games where you control a monarch attempting to lead his kingdom to prosperity (or just not die violently). Where they differ is in how you make your choices. In Reigns, you generally only get to answer yes or no to your advisers, and you are always on the defensive, reacting to things happening to you with almost no way of pre-empting them. In CK2, you have a DIZZYING number of options available to you, and a skilled player who knows how to manipulate the systems can impose his or her will on the world. For example, one enterprising player made a horse the emperor of Rome.

Casual games lack depth; choices are simple and your path through the game is linear and predetermined. One way a game can set itself up as hardcore is by presenting players with a complex system that offers many choices for styles of play.

Next, difficulty. This is rather subjective of course; different gamers have different skill sets. Still, there's a nebulous bar of challenge; if a game is above this line it is too hard to be called casual. This is something we can go back and forth on. I'd say all Kirby games that I've played have enough challenging levels and hidden secrets to be above that bar, but there are reasonable people who would point to Kirby's Epic Yarn as a casual game because there is no way to die and reaching the end is trivial. I personally would counter that reaching the end with enough beads for a gold medal is REALLY hard in later levels, but we can debate that.

That said, there are certain games that everyone can agree are above that line. No one is going to look at the final level of Dustforce and tell you that game is casual. Even on the easiest difficulty setting, DOOM (both the classic version and the remake) will gleefully kill a complacent player. If you mismanage your funds in Sim City, you will end up in an unsalvageable mess. These games are too hard to approach casually; whatever skill the game demands will be tested, and those found lacking will be unable to complete the game.

So those are the two factors. To be casual, you need to lack both depth and difficulty. One or the other is sufficient; Doom doesn't have a lot going on for depth: point at the stuff you don't like and make them dead, the occasional map puzzle, and you're done. But it's hard enough to bring it out of the casual space. In a game like Stardew Valley you generally aren't in any danger. Even in situations where you are the result of failure usually isn't that disastrous. The game isn't difficult at all. But there are so many things to do that I'd say the “casual” label doesn't stick to it.

So, that's my opinion on the matter. As I said at the top though, my goal here is to start a conversation. The best way to do that is to ask some questions, so let's try that.

Do you think Minecraft counts as casual? Sorry if I'm harping on this, but seriously I don't understand how anyone who's played it for more than five minutes can say that.

When you think of a casual game, what comes to mind?

I'm not much of a casual gamer myself. Let's say I was interested in trying some casual games out though. What would you recommend?

Are there any examples I used above you disagree with? If so, why?

[whatwelearnedfromgames]

What We Learned From: The Count Lucanor is now live!

Our third episode of our game design podcast is live! We go into The Count Lucanor, a pixel horror puzzler with meaningful choices, fairytale themes, and goats you should never, ever trust.

Episode contains spoilers! If you subscribe to our youtube, you’ll get access to these episodes as they go live.

What We Learned From tumblr | Youtube | Twitter

[whatwelearnedfromgames]

The Nintendo Switch has been announced!

Looks like it’s going to have a home dock and a portable version, as well as multi-configurable controllers and various controller options. 

From the video description itself:

Introducing Nintendo Switch! In addition to providing single and multiplayer thrills at home, the Nintendo Switch system also enables gamers to play the same title wherever, whenever and with whomever they choose. The mobility of a handheld is now added to the power of a home gaming system to enable unprecedented new video game play styles.

Still set to release March 2017. This looks exciting!!

[bellisadinosaur]

I’ve been playing Anarcute for a while on my youtube and if you’re interested in checking it out, the playlist is here. This game has been an absolute blast and it’s the first one I finished completely for the channel! I really recommend it if you’re looking for something fun and adorable and not too difficult.

[whatwelearnedfromgames]

Of course, we play more games than we talk about on the podcast. Here’s one Bell finished recently on her youtube!

[bellisadinosaur]

When your friends are nice enough to let you keep playing Mei and they don’t point out that PotG should have probably gone to Pharah.

[whatwelearnedfromgames]

We’ve all got a learning curve, right?

[bellisadinosaur]

#MakeGuinevereARomanceOption2016

[whatwelearnedfromgames]

Episode Two of What We Learned From podcast is live! This time, it’s What We Learned from Chronicles of Teddy, a metroidvania-type game that we all had...an interesting time with.

If you’d like to see the infamous screenshot we used as a thumbnail, you can get a better look here (vaguely NSFW).

Also, if you want to see these earlier, subscribe to the YouTube channel! They generally go live there before I have them posted on our tumblr or Twitter.

[goldenglitch]

Elsinore Trailer - 2016

Happy Friday!~ To celebrate, we have a brand new Elsinore trailer. Give us a hand by reblogging! 

[whatwelearnedfromgames]

We thought it would be fun* to create trainer cards for some of our members! You haven’t met Lone, yet, but he’ll be speaking in a few upcoming episodes while Bell is off.

If you want to make your own trainer card, you can find the tool here!

*Bell made everyone do it

[whatwelearnedfromgames]

me, to the video game character whose actions I'm controlling: why are you doing that