I agree. I've seen this mentality pop up on various boards. Someone complains about difficulty and inevitably some clown puts on his rose-colored glasses and pulls the "you're not a REAL gamer" card. Whoop-dee-doo. Like being a gamer is actually some kind of credible accomplishment to begin with.

Back on topic (kinda): I do appreciate games like Another World and their significance in gaming history, but find the trial-and-error gameplay to be really annoying. I remember games like "Janitor Joe" or "Willie the Worm" being awesome when I was a kid, but I definitely don't wish that current games would go back to that level of simplicity, nor do I feel like playing games with gimped gameplay mechanics is some kind of "gamer rite of passage."

That's not to say that there aren't older games that still outshine today's best offerings (as evidenced by many of the games here on GOG) -- I just wish people would stop confusing "difficulty due to technological limitations" with "greatness."

I completely agree that claiming someone is not a "real" gamer because they find a game too hard is stupid. But as someone who often enjoys very challenging games, I can say that they have become something of a rarity in recent times. That's why you hear these complaints; people who used to have tons of such games to choose from now have only a few. It's the same lament we hear from other niche audiences, like fans of space sims or old-school adventure games. Very recently we've seen a bit of a resurgence of hard games, for example Dark Souls or various indies like Super Meat Boy, so hopefully fans of a stiff challenge won't be feeling left out as much.

I don't agree that games have "no real excuse to be controller-smashingly hard unless the player wants them to be". Designers can make their games as hard as they want. If you don't want to play a controller-smashingly hard game, don't buy that game. That quote implies that all games have a responsibility to pander to those who don't want a very challenging experience, but that's simply not true. I think that games should be made for both audiences, but they can be different games; not every game needs to target both. We wouldn't say that a film has no excuse to be hard to understand unless the viewer wanted it to be.

I should stress that I am NOT saying that all games should be hard. But they don't all need to have an easy mode either.

There's two fundamental problems with that line of reasoning, however. 1) Because developers usually want a game to appeal to as many people as possible within the target audience, and hopefully outside of it.. making a game unnecessarily difficult or frustrating is only going to turn away many potential consumers who might otherwise want to play the game. And 2) many games that LOOK like they should be easy, are in fact not the case.

A perfect example is Super Mario Galaxy. At it's most basic, it is indeed a very easy game with fairly simple controls. This is complicated by the disorientating design of certain levels, but the real "challenge" lies in the fact that a good 70% of everyone who has ever played Mario Galaxy will never see it through to 100%. That's bad design insofar as I'm concerned because it's basically a huge wall preventing it's target audience (children) from seeing everything possible. If you can't get all of Mario's Stars, you'll never get to play as Luigi, and if you can't get all of Mario's you REALLY won't be getting all of Luigi's, since they're typically several times harder.

One last note, however, that I didn't quote. It's true that all games don't need an easy mode, but some games are so ridiculously hard even on Normal, that they really should. If Normal Mode is basically Hard Mode Lite, then it isn't a Normal Mode, and unfortunately some developers don't seem to understand this. Mega Man 9 had some design choices I think should have been questioned or tested a bit more before they pushed it out, and that it didn't need both Hard and Harder Mode but no Easy Mode. They learned their lesson and Mega Man 10 included Easy and Hard without having to buy them.

Honestly, I don't see these as problems with my line of reasoning at all. My argument was that developers should design their games to be as easy or as hard as they like... difficulty levels shouldn't be expected as a matter of course by the players. If a developer does indeed want their game to appeal to as many people as possible, then yes, they probably shouldn't make it really hard. But if they want to make a really hard game that will only appeal to some players, that's fine too. It will probably not sell as many copies, but the developer might be totally fine with that. Players don't have some sort of right to an easy mode in every game.

Regarding your second point, it's totally OK to criticize a game for being too hard, especially when difficulty is uneven or poorly balanced. I'm not trying to excuse bad game design. I simply don't like the idea that players should be the ones to decide how difficult a game is. If a designer wants to put in several difficulty settings so the player can choose the difficulty, that's fine, but it shouldn't be required for all games. There's room for games of all difficulties.

I also see no problem with games that have a "normal" mode that's still quite hard. Who's to say what a "normal" level of difficulty is? The designers can set the level of difficulty, and then players can decide if they agree. Again, if players find these games too hard, they don't have to play them.

*after re-reading the your last post several times*

What I'm seeing is a rather disturbing double standard. Gamers shouldn't expect an Easy mode, yet most games include a Hard mode. They shouldn't pander to those not wanting a challenge, yet they're already pandering to those that do.

This idea that games don't need to have an Easy mode... People are so quick to judge a game because it's "too easy", but will quickly say how "fun and challenging" something is when it's really hard.

That doesn't leave any room for those that don't agree with this to argue, as their complaints will be swept under the rug or "flamed" by the ones who think challenge is everything; it isn't.

*EDIT* I've changed this as I didn't like the way it sounded. There hadn't been a response yet, so I figured it was fine. I really shouldn't have allowed myself to get so riled when I initially read the latest response and I apologize for the need to edit this several times.

I think I haven't been explaining myself very well. What bothered me in your original post was the part about how games shouldn't be really hard "unless players want them to be". To me, this implied that players have a right to choose the difficulty of a game, that it would somehow be wrong for a designer to make a game that was very hard without including an easy mode. But I don't agree; I think game designers should be free to set the difficulty as they please. Players do, of course, have the right to choose which games they want to play.

It was simply an issue of players versus designers. As the ones making the games, I don't think that designers should be forced to do anything. They should be able to make whatever they want.

Designers shouldn't pander to either. They should just make the game they want to make. I certainly never intended to imply a double standard. I don't think that a challenge necessarily makes games better. But it do think it's OK for challenging games to exist, just as it's OK for easy games to exist. And I don't think that all games have to be both.


This is a different issue, and I completely agree with you. I don't think any game should be dismissed simply based on its level of difficulty, and I certainly never meant to come across that way.

All I wanted to say was that I don't think game designers should have an obligation to please everyone with every game. And this goes both ways! If a designer wants to make a game with almost no challenge at all, that's fine. it might turn out to be a really interesting game. Or maybe I wouldn't like it because it's too easy... but I'm certainly not going to demand the designer add a hard mode. I'll just play something else.

Anyway, I apologize if I offended and / or angered anyone with my posts, which probably weren't very clear.

Here's a quick summary:

Designers who decide to make hard games (or easy games): that's cool
The idea that ALL games need to be hard (or easy): not cool

Well then you apparently never played gamed during the katateka and prince of persia phases

That's fine, and I appreciate the chance to discuss it. I have trouble getting my point across sometimes, but I'm glad we're able to see each others points irregardless of how much we agree, cause that's how we come to understandings. :p

I played the original Amiga version growing, up, it wasn't until I found a dos copy that I learned the hard way about the new area, and now I do complete run throughs of the game on the occasional basis, because I love it so much. Here's some tips for a beginner:

If it moves and isn't your buddy, chances are good it wants you dead

Don't skimp on force fields

Don't kick the guy holding you until the other is past your gun (trust me)

In the hall way, create a field on the left center pillar, then one on the right of you so you're in between

Supershoot the tentacles

time the rocks

inch the fangpits

That should help if you keep them in mind, if you want a game that makes this look like a cakewalk, look up La-Mulana, hardest game I've ever played, but very gratifying when you make progress.

Kill the other guy first, then proceed to get held.

Run like hell through this hallway - you'll get shot on the next screen near the water, but if you've been doing everything correctly you'll restart from this screen and the hallway shooters won't trouble you anymore.

Most importantly: if you died and found out the last checkpoint was too long ago so that it's a chore to retrace - stop whatever it is that you're doing and try another approach. Checkpoints only activate on a correct playthrough that won't get you "stuck", so if you instead try to polish the long segment to perfection, you WILL eventually get killed.

Yeah that section of the game is less linear so there can't be too many checkpoints. Otherwise the player wouldn't be able to backtrack to certain areas when needed. But it means it can be frustrating when you're figuring it out for the first time.

Try "I Wanna Be The Guy", a free 2D Try-And-Die Platformer game. I didn't get past the first screen with the giant cherries.