Suppose we have a game where, by design, you can only save in certain spots, but those spots are quite frequent. (Thinking something like Super Meat Boy or Celeste in terms of save pacing; no save mid-level/room, but each level/room is extremely short, with most taking less than a minute.) Then let's suppose there's a situation where you can get softlocked, stuck with no way out other than quitting the game and reloading (in particular, death is not an option, as there's nothing that can kill you). Would you consider this bad design?

Alternatively, we can look at games where saving isn't quite as frequent, and there I am actually aware of a couple; one in Bard's Tale 1 where it's used as a trap (though it may be possible to escape, in some versions), and one in Dragon Quest/Warrior 1 (where accepting the final boss's offer to join him will intentionally softlock the game; note that this was changed in remakes of said game). How do you feel about the situation here?

A related topic is the anti-softlock. In this situation, you can't continue the level, and while there is a way to die, you actually have to either wait or work in order to do so. How do you feel about this sort of thing? (This mechanic I first saw in Mario Maker troll levels, but I've personally encountered it in a couple troll ROM hacks.) Or, taking that Bard's Tale 1 example, in at least one version that trap takes you back to the start of the level and prevents you from moving; I think that if you try to move forward enough times, the game will eventually let you. (Alternatively, you could just wait for a random encounter or use intra-party combat to try and get a party wipe.)

Anyone?

You mean the game goes MAAUAUAUAUAUA you lose because you did not pick up that potato in the second room eighty hours back?

I am not able to see how any kind of softlock could ever be a positive element in... well, everything, really.

No.

I'm thinking more along the lines of "You screwed up the puzzle. Time to exit the game and reload your last save (which was at the save point right before the puzzle)."

Well. Plenty of games around with "press [button] to restart", like DROD. As long as everything is kept quick, I think it's fine... but then, is it even a real soft lock? While it's true you technically cannot finish from a certain position, including a reset or quickload function by design (and not just for comfort) doesn't really make it a proper dead end, imo.

What if the game doesn't have a reset or quickload function? In other words, this would mean that:
* On modern systems, you would have to exit out of the game and start it again.
* On retro systems (especially consoles, but also early computers), you would have to reboot the computer in this situation.

No issue with that, as long as the game makes it obvious when you've gotten yourself into a situation where you can no longer progress. What I consider bad design is when I'm left forever wandering around -- not knowing whether I'm missing something, I hit a dead-end, or I've encountered a bug. There's no hard limit for when it becomes bad design, but the longer I go between auto-saves the more frustrating it becomes -- especially if I have to go back through unskippable cutscenes, long conversations, etc. That's definitely bad design. It's bad enough that I failed a puzzle or challenge. If the game then makes me jump in a pit of lava so I can restart... that's just pouring salt in the wound. If you mean exiting completely out of the game and back to Windows, then restarting the game -- that would be extremely poor design.

If you just mean exiting the current session, going back to the main menu, then selecting "Load"... eh, that's not the most elegant solution, but I've seen far worse. Being able to reload during play is ideal -- whether it's a Quick Load or just pulling up a Save/Load screen. Getting stuck in a situation where you have to hard reboot your system is definitely a poor design decision. Even on very early systems where you could make the argument that good game design principles hadn't been established yet, I can't see how a developer would have thought it was okay to put the player in a situation where the only way out is a complete hard reset of the system.


In general, I don't necessarily consider intentional soft-locks to be a bad design decision -- as long as the player can discern that he or she is in such a situation. I can think of a few scenarios where it might be desirable to leave the player in a soft-lock situation after a failed challenge or puzzle and allow the player to reload when desired, rather than immediately going to a "You Lose" screen and forced reload.

Another intentional softlock situation:
* You reached the end of the game, reached the final boss, and defeated it (or accomplished whatever the main objective is). At this point, the game displays a message like "You win!", and then softlocks, with there being nothing more you can do, Does that sound reasonable?
* (I've also been thinking of another way a game can end; at some point, you reach a kill screen, or a level that's outright impossible to clear.)

That would be a huge fault and an enjoyment killer for me. Outright bad design, and if it was intentional it would just be sadistic! XD Also: no, it is not reasonable. Why would anybody reasonable "bug" your system?

I agree with Enebias - it just seems like poor design to me.

In most cases, it's bad design, easily fixed by adding death or a restart/go back condition.

It can be forgiven in older games. While I don't consider a "Game over"/"the end' screen necessarily a softlock as you did, but "back in the day" such as on NES it was expected that you'd press reset on the console in many such situations... though many games were coded to return to the main menu or even loop to start again. Newer games, of course, where that isn't that expectation, it's unforgivable.

SAVABLE softlocks should result in physical punishment of the developer, unless it was really a rare odd bug that was hard to test for.