Are Score Systems Still Relevant?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- 🔴 Get bonus content by supporting Game Maker’s Toolkit - gamemakerstool... 🔴
Arcade classics were all about high scores and personal bests - but can scores still be relevant when mixed with more modern game design? Let’s find out!
Find out more
Balancing Accessibility Against Depth in Assault Android Cactus | GDC Vault
www.gdcvault.c...
Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance)
Galaga (Namco, 1981)
Pac-Man (Namco, 1980)
Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981)
Frogger (Konami, 1981)
Space Invaders (Taito, 1978)
Shatterhand (Natsume, 1991)
Mega Man (Capcom, 1987)
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Konami, 1989)
The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1986)
Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (Capcom, 1992)
Luftrausers (Vlambeer, 2014)
Tormentor X Punisher (E-Studio, 2017)
Devil Daggers (Sorath, 2016)
Star Fox Zero (Nintendo / PlatinumGames, 2016)
Thumper (Drool, 2016)
Prey (Arkane Studios, 2017)
Opus Magnum (Zachtronics, 2017)
Bayonetta 2 (PlatinumGames, 2014)
Bayonetta (PlatinumGames, 2009)
Transformers: Devastation (Platinum Games, 2015)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (Neversoft, 2001)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions, 2015)
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (Bizarre Creations, 2005)
Assault Android Cactus (Witch Beam, 2015)
What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow, 2017)
Music used in this episode
Nectar (Blue Wednesday)
Beauty (Opus Magnum OST)
Blitzkrieg Bop (The Ramones)
Let’s Start at the Beginning (Lee Rosevere)
Cactus (Assault Android Cactus OST)
k. Part 2 - 01 untitled 1, animeistrash
Blue Wednesday on Soundcloud - / bluewednesday
Lee Rosevere on Bandcamp - leerosevere.ba...
Contribute translated subtitles - amara.org/v/C3... - Ігри
There is this one guy I see everywhere all over the world called "AAA". I see his scores everywhere on almost all arcades. HOW CAN HE DO IT?
He doesn't play any Capcom games though ,I guess he couldn't beat this CAP person
He, along with ASS, have managed to take up spots on almost any arcade game I've touched. They need to be stopped.
LOL
Honestly I'm more worried about this KAI dude. He only uses online-connected arcade machines, and somehow he's a beast at all of them! His name's all over Japan thanks to that...
On pinball machines, you often see MOO or BAO.
Something that often discourages me off score runs is that the score is just some abstract number. It'd be nice if more games had tangible ways to tell how well you're doing comparatively. In racing games there are things like ghosts to compete against, where you can visibly see your progress and challenge yourself to perform better.
In Hitman they at least don't just give you your points and tell you were they came from, but also show how they were calculated, so that you can logically think about how to get a better score instead of just trying harder to do what the developers want you to do
@@captaincrash9002 Hitman has one of the best scoring system although I don't care about leaderboards but it's a nice way to measure your mastery of levels
Yeah, and I also hate how it’s always some MASSIVE number that basically hyper-inflates the value of a point to where it just loses all meaning, and you lose sense of how close your score really is to others.
in mario maker speedruns, the game shows you ghosts of other players
Ssgmd4 (a flash guitar playing rhythm game) does a really good job of making it feel grounded. There is a set maximum score for getting a perfect run of a song so they just plot a bar showing you how close you are to bronze, silver, gold, and finally platinum (their perfect rank) if you're insane like me😂
Having a bar like a progress meter showing me how much I was improving made all the failed runs where I lost a combo during an easy section so much more palatable. It also helps that their songs are like 2-3 minutes average and 5 minutes max. Losing 1:30 to stormfield destroying your life again feels way better than making a wrong move 25 minutes into a turn based tactics battle and tanking your score.
I feel like scores are less relevant today because gaming is more than what it was at it’s inception, a challenge to see how good we were, and if we were better than our friends. A ton of games now are less about winning, and more about the experience. Less about the destination, and more about the journey. But I totally agree that scores give you incentive to really dig deeper into the games mechanics and really allow you to the play the game the way you want to. Awesome work as always.
Essentially, they're turning into movie-games
Little gameplay & too much cutscenes
They forget about gameplay density and turning every game into movie, 80% cutscene BS and only 20% you actually play the game
@@Aripuni1 >gameplay density
I see someone here watches The Electric Underground. :)
I’ve always felt that the most important quality of a scoring system is clarity and simplicity: it needs to be clear to players what is worth points and there can’t be too many things to keep track of in your score. This is the fundamental reason why scoring systems like Bayonetta’s can be frustrating, you did a cool thing worth a lot of points, but that isn’t the only way the game as scored - you lost points in other areas you weren’t keeping track of. The Tony Hawk scoring system is so effective because what’s worth points? Doing tricks consecutively. Your score is clearly shown to you as you build it, you can see exactly what adds to it each time and its easy to see when scoring stops.
This, so much this. It's also bizzarely enough sonic game improved on. In sonic adventure 1&2, screaming through the levels to do a speedrun got you a C because it wanted you to kill enemies, faff about getting rings and do some stunts. That just felt bad. In Unleashed and Generations, It's just speed and a tiiiiiny bonus from rings that matter. Much better.
Bayo's score is super-simple though. It's the combination of combo points accrued, time and damage taken. All graded separately for each battle and then averaged.
What's "Combo points" Though? The game never really demonstrates what that sort of thing means. Or explains *why* that should matter. Surely a quick kill is a quick kill.
..... the Stylish Action genre is about being stylish and not just defeating your enemies. It goes a step further than that. You're meant to learn how to make full use of your abilities and string them together. The entire scoring and grading system is designed to push you toward that intended ideal playstyle. If you feel the urge to just spam Punch-Kick-Punch to get battles over with, the genre is not for you.
And as for the "why", the game's purpose is very "game-y", but even within the story it makes sense. The player characters (Dante, Bayo etc.) are typically extremely powerful and make it a point to toy with their enemies, to look cool for their own satisfaction. They're not soldiers, they're not stealth operatives, they command near-godly powers and they know it.
That's all very well, but if the game is always vague as hell about what you should use and what counts, then it's just a lesson in frustration and will be utterly opaque to most players. I'm not saying I want the game to be just spamming moves for speed, I want to have a combat system where there's a reason to have all of these different moves to evade attacks, counter certain moves and generally deal with different threats. I found Platinum did a much better job of this, and scoring as a result, in Metal Gear Rising. It had a much more compressed moveset, but still had a lot of style and it was clear when you went into blade mode what the goal was, as well as the extra BP for dismembering properly.
I’ll tell you what the high score table is good for- my mom (age 58) is addicted to playing Titan Attacks, a space invaders clone, on steam. Every time she gets on the high score list for the day she uses the name field to send me a message like “hello daughter!” Or “moved in to the new house!” She sends me the message by taking a pic of her screen with her cell phone and texting me the pic. :) Her lifetime high scores table have become a little record of the positive events of her life the past couple years. It’s not the intended use of the system but it’s better than I’d ever hoped for when I bought her the game years ago, can’t believe we are still bonding over it.
Anyway, thanks for the great video,can’t wait for the next one!
This is super adorable! I love it! :D
this is so wonderful.
Pog
she's a true gamer
Oh wow that's awesome
Oh hey, thanks for the shout out at the end of this!
and now you are here
The crazy part of the MGSV points system for me was that you can get a massive bonus for leaving no traces behind. No witnesses, no cartridges, not a change to the area of operations other than your main objective.
8:00 This mechanic has actually been around for a very long time; DonPachi was the first game to use it.
Bummed you didn't talk about infinite runners.
Those games are built on the high score model of arcades, and saw popularity in modern smartphones.
Also, I can see music/rhythm games fitting into this discussion as well.
Hemang Chauhan The Hitman franchise also emphasises high scores and gameplay variation by giving the player a score (the cash for upgrades) and a title (for fluff)
no one cares about mobile
those aren't good games.
Infinite runners are designed around an extremely manipulative core. Due to the general lack of skill involved there's very little player improvement, so they present the illusion of skill by varying how far into the game they present the "kill" obstacle. A kill obstacle is an obstacle that's intentionally generated to be impossible to pass with your current position in the screen. It's carefully crafted to look dodgable, but it's not. They then vary the placement of this obstacle in a way that resembles natural skill progression (and of course plateaus out at intervals that on-staff psychologists deemed is optimal for extracting as much money as possible from paid boosts), but is completely artificial. It's a clever trick, I'll give it that, but it's not good-faith game design.
Canabalt, on the other hand, is an interesting example of scoring gone wrong. The way the game is intended to be played is presumably avoiding obstacles to go faster and faster, but the optimal way to play for score is to hit as many obstacles as you can to slow yourself down as the distances between buildings scale to your current speed, and the game is easier if you're slower.
Hemang Chauhan I agree with you that there are some mobile games that also deserves a spotlight in the world of gaming. For one the rhythm games of Rayark are absolutely amazing, especially their newly released rhythm game, Cytus 2.
I never really understood the point of the score system in Mega Man, it never saved or anything (I don't think).
Smash Hit for Android and iOS was _so_ fun, and the scores kinda mattered cos you got more balls and it made things easier later on in the hard stages.
How is this comment 10 hours old but the video is 1 minute old
Patreon
niu oh
niu cool
SMB3 still has score, Even Mario World had score, Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is the first game in that series that took the concept of score and started to alter it
4:51
Was thinking thegamingbritshow was going to come crashing in.
4:50 as soon as that music kicked in I knew what game. Had a grin on my face, so hearing THPS music makes me nostalgic.
Besides being a niche interest for completionists and leaderboard hunters, I think points could easily be replaced with badges or achievements, because that's their main function in modern games. Letter grades push you to try new things and generally create the same effect you explored in your hitman topic: replaying a level until you can perfectly clear it in the most interesting way possible, by giving you mentally the feeling of failure regardless of whether or not you passed. I feel badges and achievements encourage interesting and fun playstyles much more effectively than points can, even in games where points are the main focus.
The thing is: badges and achievements are finite, you get them and that's it; whereas points push infinite replayability, since there's pretty much no limit to how many you can get. It's kinda like speedrunning, in a way: you could always find a way to get a better score, but never a way to get more than 100% of achievements.
@@quadpad_music Took the words right out of my mouth!
10:50 I'm gonna stop ya right there on Opus magnum, it's not just the components the center takes up, it's every tile that is occupied at any given time, so the space those arms cover is also included in the area
Assault Android Cactus sounds super cool, I really like seeing games change up mechanics like that, even if it's only a minor tweak with big effects.
Vespula is one of the best bosses I've ever played in my life. Would def recommend. Go for S (or just no-deaths) score in all levels and the game is just magicall
That's basically what they were going for, they disliked how in other games, running low on lives made you play more cautiously and boringly. They wanted you to play *more* aggressively to play the game the fun way.
It's pretty damn hard, be warned.
Watched a guy play it in early beta and bought it immediately. Best pre order i ever did
Its brilliantly fun, especially in co-op. Its pretty damn hard though, but that adds to the replay value.
Slay the Spire has made me think about the way I'm playing due the the scoring system, too. You unlock special score achievements for playing in a special way, even if you didn't realize it. For example, if you visit a lot of '?' rooms in your run, you'll be rewarded with bonus points for reaching that threshold. When I discovered the game was looking for and would acknowledge specific behaviors, I started playing in sub-optimal ways to see what else the game might be looking for or encouraging players to try.
Great video as always, Mark. One thing I wanted to note (although I'm sure this was done intentionally for ease of visualisation): the "surface area" of your machine in Opus Magnum (3:04) isn't just the silhouette of the components when the machine is "off", but also the space that they travel through when it is working. So, for example, that long "groove" that the piston arm travels through near the bottom of your machine would be counted against you.
There's a difference between rank and score though, or at least for me. When i play a character action game, i don't care about how many points i get or if i get a higher score than anyone else, but i want that S rank. Also, i pretty much ignore arcade style games that are all about leaderboards, because of that.
That's why i think scores and rankings are not really the same thing.
Assault Android Cactus is such a superb game. I own, like 3 copies of it now. If I had an Xbox One I'd buy a 4th. It's honestly the pinnacle of twin stick shooters and you can feel the love and influences the dev team put into it. Was only made by 3 guys too which still boggles my mind grapes. I've been singing its praises for so long. it deserves a nice big boost in interest and sales. Thanks for covering it cos, man, next to no big UA-camrs really have.
SeaJay Really? That's pretty awesome. Don't think anyone's ever told me they saw one of my recommends vids, other than people I know. Thanks dude.
After looking into AAC, I have decided that I Want It.
In the meantime, I myself recommend the Bangai-O series.
Bad ranks at the end of game sections don't bother me because I think I should've done better. They bother me because they _imply that I played the game wrong._ That's why I never played a _Mega Man Zero_ game beyond the first one. Between the ranking system and Cyber Elf system (the latter of which having the in-game explanation that you were killing innocent living creatures to power-up), that game made me feel crappy all the way through, whether I struggled with a level or not.
That game really soured me on games with rankings. To this day I'm still too intimidated to give the DMC or Bayonetta series a go, despite owning entries in each. I did play _The Wonderful 101,_ but thankfully that game's atmosphere helped me forget about rankings.
To be fair, MMZ is suppose to be replayed after you're familiar with the level layout. Gotta Walk before you run.
Samir Malik showing up to say you were playing a game wrong...
Ok i have a question, arent games the enbodiment of "You should play how we (devs) say"?
No matter how many options you have, you cant go outside the boundries of the game, meaning you have to play as the game says. Scores are just the less punishing way of saying that.
So what i am getting from the comment is that you felt bad that someone pointed out that in an obvious fashion.
Also, and i am noticing this patern, people are very scared of challenge or more to the point when someone says anything middly discouraging, if that is the case you should not play games that challenge your mastery in obvious ways, but games that are silent about it. In that way your selfsteem and self worth are not wounded. Basically you should stay of games that tell you the truth bluntly and play games that "lie" to you about it.
Tadpole Treble does something cool with its scoring system. Not only are there rewards for getting S ranks, but there are also rewards for getting F ranks, or deliberately keeping your score down by playing just good enough to not die.
That Android Assault Cactus design is genius!
A game I really love has a cool scoring system. It's called Copy Kitty. You can copy powers from enemies, hold up to 3, and combine them into a super shot!
The score system can mostly be ignored, but there's an endless mode. There's a standard combo meter... but the twist is that you get a higher multiplier *the more different weapons you've used in your current combo.* So not only are you encouraged to kill lots of enemies without dropping your combo, if you want the highest scores you need to also switch weapons as often as possible instead of just finding a single weapon combination you like and sticking with it forever. It encourages the player to play in the flashiest way possible if they're going for high scores... the game is extremely flashy!
A game I want to mention here is Nocturne: Rebirth's style of "scoring".
It's a jrpg, but exp does not level you up until you "spend" it learning or powering up the various skills and passives. This is important because each boss of the dungeons have a certain Brave Clear requirement, where you get additional rewards for beating them at or under a certain level. This level is made known to you from the very start of the dungeon so you know when you'd overshoot, and it actively discourages grinding your way to victory.
I'd have mentioned The Wonderful 101 and musou games on this video.
W101 is another platinum game with a lot of similarities to bayonetta, but it's scoring system is balanced a bit differently; while bayonetta will give first-timers a string of really bad grades and only start giving encouraging grades to players who already understand how to chase grades, W101 calculates it's score in a way that, as long as you're somewhat competent, you'll be getting mid-to-high ranks most of the time, even if platinum ranks will still only be on reach of expert players, since bullheaded approaches to combat will typically result in a composite score of two very good results and one bad result, being calculated in a gold or silver.
As for musou; the "win" conditions for it's maps are quite generous; you have plenty of time and can take a lot of damage. getting high ranks, however, is relatively simple, but requires you to play a certain way; efficiently. kill a certain amount of enemies, within a somewhat strict time limit, without going past a treshold of damage.
Not that this in itself is anything special, but not only is the "correct way to play" easy to grasp and start applying, the musou games give you immediate, tangible rewards for getting S ranks, such as new weapon or character skin unlocks, turning those S ranks into more of a gateway into playing the game as intended rather than presenting an actual challenge.
I like arcade style shmups a lot and while I don't strictly do score runs eventually I did start playing with trying to get as high a score as possible, be this through forgoing safe play in order to get point items, reducing starting lives to not get hit with a negative multiplier or whatever else.
What's neat about that genre in particular (though it is something other games do too, recently Bloodstained comes to mind) is that they often tie your score either directly to your extra lives, giving you one every X points or indirectly by nudging you into basically playing in a way that gives you a higher score to get bonus resources in some way.
When I played through Astral Chain, I noticed an interesting feature in its scoring system -- pretty standard for a Platinum title, but if you set the difficulty mode to "casual" (which additionally unlocks a variety of assist options) then while the game will report your stats after each particular sequence, it _won't actually grade them._
I have a love-hate relationship with scoring systems in Point and Click adventure games. On the one hand they reward you when you go out of your way to try silly stuff and find interesting things, but on the other hand it sucks when you noticed you've missed something but don't know if it's something really cool like extra clues or dialog or just something stupid like putting something in a fire.
More Tony Hawk analysis please.
Yes, whole video please
You might be interested in Errant Signal's video on Tony Hawk, where he talks about how the gameplay mechanics and level design have significantly evolved over time
All of these videos are like mini dissertations that you communicate fantastically. Thanks for these.
I used to think I wouldn’t care about scoring systems but I found it just really depends on execution and certain games do it well for me
Personally I haven’t played a game that shows score averages opposed to just a leaderboard but I love the idea
Most impactfull for me is the feeling i get from a histogram being very different from my reaction to a normal leaderboard. Being one bar less efficient then average gets me motivated to try and make a better machine, seeing i'm ranked thousands away from the top doesn't make me feel or do anything.
Man you are incredible at making videos, I always feel like im on some sort of trip every time i watch your content, bouncing from topic to topic. Love your stuff man!
I’m glad Thumper got a shout out on this video. I’d love a full video on it alone
This is definitely one of my favorite videos you've done. Really made me take a step back and think about ways to integrate different difficulty settings within gameplay. Thanks for your hard work!
Also gave me a few new games to try and one to revisit!
I think scores are also very useful in endless mobile games like 2048, TempelRun and more to create a competitive local feeling between you and your friends :)
Wild coincidence--I just redownloaded Assault Android Cactus today.
I really look forward a video about the strategy genre. Maybe an RTS o a 4X. It's a shame that they have such a huge fandom but are often ignored around for having so different mechanics.
Anyway, awesome video, as always!
I think you're addicted to the word ''cheeky'', mate
Internet Boy But we need cheeky uses of the word cheeky, right? :P
Came back here after learning about P-ranks in Pizza Tower. It's a ridiculously amazing example of how scoring can trick players into playing levels in the most fun way possible.
2:31 Opus Magnum has a near-idenitcal scoring system as Infinifactory. it also looks like a similar game, albeit on a 2d plain.
think I'll be picking this game up! loved Infinifactory!
mwalsher I'll be checking these out then as well! thanks!
I just realized that both these games are by the same people! guess that explains that! ha ha
Same developer as well.
Been binge watching old GMTK videos and came across this one.
Reminded me of the original PS1 Tenchu Stealth Assassins game, that had a neat feature to the scoring system.
Since you had two styles of play: killing, or not killing, other than the mandatory target(s).
To prevent the scoring of stealth kills from hurting you, you could get a "never spotted once" bonus that let you have just enough points to Grand Master a level without needing to kill anyone.
Ghosting a level, like you were never there.
This was often much harder than normal as well, since you weren't eliminating possible vectors of detection throughout the map.
It also left an amazing feeling in a roleplay sense, in that you could feel like a vengeful shadow, killing only the deserving. Would be a cool concept to combine with a Dishonored style of "deaths influence later missions", too.
Assault Android Cactus actually cleverly combines a subtle competitive aspect to its scoring as well. In multiplayer, whoever gets the best INDIVIDUAL score is the android that gets to close out the stage proudly stating "I"m the best!". After only two stages, my friends and I quickly devolved in madmen trying to frantically take out opponents as efficiently as possible, quickly learning tactics about prioritizing enemies and clearing large waves as soon as possible all because we each wanted that sweet winning victory line. It's a small factor that changes almost nothing about the game and doesn't even show up in single-player, but it's a nice motivator for mastering the game's mechanics quickly if you play with friends.
Perfect Platinum'ing Bayonetta 2 straight up took that game from a 8/10 to a 10/10 for me. What an experience, you really feel like a God and get into a constant flow state.
Also, check out Dustforce, getting SS in that game will make you feel amazing.
Yeah I've found my self missing scores a bit lately. I think they're also good for roguelikes where you're not expected to win the majority of games. There's also a type of score you forgot; daily leader boards...as long as they're not full of cheaters which happens a lot.
I disagree on MGSV's score helping it though. It really clashes with a game that preaches about open ended gameplay. The only thing that matters is that you do a mission as fast as possible, and you'll get the S Rank. That really locks you into maybe two play styles at most.
I agree that MGS V’s scoring system is pretty poorly implemented. The factors that count towards score aren’t very well balanced. Like, one of the easiest S ranks in the game is also supposed to be one of the hardest missions: Infiltrating a heavily guarded enemy fortress. But you can drive straight through it in a jeep for an S rank. The bonuses for ghosting a mission (nonlethally) are usually so large that they alone guarantee an S. But you get points for every enemy killed, so if you lose the undetected and non-lethal bonuses, you can still earn an S by scoring lots and lots of headshots. An S rank in an MGS game for killing lots of people... WTF?
Indeed. I hate being judged for something I was free to do.
I really enjoy the approach that Ikaruga (Treasure) uses with score system.
The core mechanic consists in the idea that your ship can switch from white to black color and backwards. Enemies are black or white; if you are hit by a white enemy while you are in white form, his lasers not only won't hurt you, but they make you stronger, and the same apllies with black. If you shoot an enemy of an opposite color, your lasers deal double damage.
Now, the interesting thing is that in order to get score, you have to shoot three enemies of the same color in a row, (f. e. black-black-black), and if you shoot, for instance, white-black-white your multiplier is lost.
Playing to finish the game or playing to get a good score is sooo different, because in the second way this shoot 'em up is transformed into a some sort of a puzzle game where you don't have to shoot just ALL enemies, but in a specific, concrete order.
Ikaruga is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had, so I recommend you to check it out :)
Personally, I don't get much value out of scores, but I love ranking systems (often built on scores.) I don't (usually) care about moving up a few spots on a leaderboard, but pushing myself to perform better or faster to move up from an A to an S feels awesome.
+Mark Brown so many UA-cam channels go down in quality with time. I'm glad your bar is still set pretty high!
I love Assault Android Cactus and I had no idea about the S+ thing.
...guess I didn't love it enough to get there.
Different kind of love. Sometimes full completion isn't worth it.
A score system similar to that of Opus Magnum can be found in poly bridge. The leaderboard is about how low you can make your budget,but the game also shows you graphs for for how much money you spent, how much stress any part was experiencing at max, and what length of materials you used compared to other players.
Hi im marco, a long time watcher and first time commenter! Anyways.. I just wanted to say that ive been really loving💖these videos! But I think that by far the most impressive part is the audio quality! On this video and on all of your videos in this amazing channel I can tell that you push yourself to expand your limits and make your audio quality the best that it can be and I really appreciate it!👌Keep up the great work!!
Thanks!
I would love to see your insight on the topic of RTS games somehow. It feels like the genre is basically dead with some indie exceptions...
sad times for us RTS fans (as casual as i might be). MOBAs took large part of population, and short attention spans ruined us.
RTS just got turned into "mobas" even tho i hate that term their technically RTS with some mechanics smoothed out
MOBAs are like online hack and slash games, they are very far from what RTS represents. The only connections I can draw are that they came into existance through Warcraft 3 mod. Where in MOBA do you build structures, manage resource, command large amount of units? Just look at games such as Supreme Commander or Age of Empires, MOBAs are nothing like that.
There was a long period where it felt like many RTS devs were trying to switch to 3D, but most of those were more interested in showing off their unit models than being interesting.
Adam S. If you’ve played Total Annihilation’s commander mode you’d see where some of the beginnings of mobas came from
I had just finished S Ranking all of the Play+ levels on Thumper, and I thought I might have been wasting my time, given that it's been over a year since there were still people playing the game. Days later, this video uses Thumper as an example of using score systems, and now I feel motivated to keep playing. Thanks, Mark!
Could you speak about the Azure striker gunvolt series? That game's kudos system (wich is its score system) is making me aproach the game cautiously but at the same time with the more spectacular kills, in the other side we have Mighty gunvolt burst from the same devs in wich you need to finish the enemies in close combat
As much as I love playing Gunvolt, gv1 does have really boring levels unless you actually already care about score, and in general the Kudos system is overcomplicated and brutal, and yet the game lets you use luck-based equipment in runs.
It does do something interesting to try to push you towards scoring though: the crafting system is supposed to get you to grind stages to get helpful equipment, at which point why not try to do better to get more stuff? But not everyone falls for that like I did.
DoubleATam the stage I grind the most is first tsumeragi
Jeff Minter's games, particularly Space Giraffe, handle scores really well - both in terms of the scoring systems themselves, in the way that the player is incentivised to get higher scores, and in the out-of-game tools the player is given to help them better their scores, such as being able to start a game from a particular level with the best score they had previously attained on reaching that level.
Video from Ahoy and Mark Brown in the same day? Nice.
Glampkoo First!!!
love that you cover such a variety of games on here with equal respect and attention and bring attention to lesser-known titles.
I spent so much time spent replaying levels of Space Giraffe to get up my score a bit more, for example (Which, interestingly, had a dynamic start bonus system - talk about relics of arcade design, no-one uses start bonuses anymore - where getting to a level with three lives would set your start bonus for starting from that level to your current score). The dynamic graphs have to have helped me get into going after score there, where it would show you a graph against previous plays of the game, and what it considered a good score was, on a level by level nature, which combined really well with the dynamic start bonus system to encourage replaying for higher scores since you could see at a glance what levels you were under-performing on so where your improvements would best come from.
Saying that, however, scores, ranks, and the like don't tend to be my aesthetic when it comes to why I play games - But every now and then, like with Space Giraffe, I fall deep into the score rabbit hole and I'll just play a game trying to improve my score, or rank, or whatever. Even with traditional arcade games and pinball I didn't tend to give much of a toss about score except for where it helps you keep playing longer (first extra life after 20k then every 50k afterwards)... But the purer, for want of a better word, the game experience, the more likely I am to get into those score systems. Not necessarily enough to replay levels to grind my score up, but as the success of the clicker genre proves, there's an inherent human desire to see numbers go up, so, sure if I figure out how to clock up a high score and a more interesting aesthetic for me than score doesn't show up, I'll try and make those juicier numbers appear.
Generally, though - If I enjoy a game's mechanics, I'll look for excuses to play it for longer even after finishing it, until I've had enough of the game's mechanics (Though, contrawise, I do often put down games as soon as I'm no longer finding them engaging, and games writing is rarely good enough to keep me around), so while scores don't tend to be my aesthetic, I will happily chase scores if that's what the game offers me as what I can do if I keep playing it after I've finished the game, be that just a number to compare against other people's numbers, or a rank system. I tend to find it more engaging with mission systems or even achievements, but like with score for me those are excuses to keep playing a game I'm enjoying than something I often find myself actively pursuing.
The scoring system for rain worlds hard mode is an interesting recent example. At first it didnt seem to fit the narrative survivally world but it turned out to be a very interesting twist on the mechanics, and high level hard mode runs are super entertaining to watch.
So the question I have is "Why would I want S+ rank in Assault Android Cactus?" I do certain things in games that are completely unnecessary (hunting down every unidentified location in Witcher 3, for instance, or grinding out max job levels for all characters in a Dragon Quest game). But if I have to play "perfectly," within a certain margin for error, just to get a certain rank and no particular benefit, what's my motivation?
I remember going through a lot of the various time trial challenges in Diddy Kong Racing because it unlocked a new character that was just slightly overpowered. Getting gold medals in Blast Corps opened up some post-game levels. Those are motivation, but in my current old age, I'm firmly on the side of accessibility in games. I shouldn't need to devote unholy amounts of time to get the experience. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 is actually a really good example of balancing that: you can unlock a bunch of various things by playing the game as intended, or you can punch in cheat codes. And maybe someone will feel guilty to use a cheat code to get all the decks, but plenty of people don't because it's a video game and the purpose is to have fun.
If you have fun getting a high score, that's great. Online leaderboards or maybe a bonus post-credits cutscene (that is plot irrelevant!) are great for people who like them. On the other hand, though, I hate playing a game where I'm told that I'm rank 11,000,000,000. Maybe there should be an option to turn scoring off, that way you're not feeling constantly shamed for getting B ranks in Bayonetta? The online leaderboards in Super Mario Odyssey are also a good example of why they're a problem: someone finds a glitch, completely breaks the leaderboard, and what's the fun of even trying now?
This is honestly a matter of "developer intention" vs. "player enjoyment/desire." I feel what you're arguing is akin to the "Dark Souls should have an easy mode" debacle. Both sides of the coin have their good points. On one hand, you're discouraging people who may not have the time/skill/patience to put into the game while on the other the developers designed the game that way to be something that feels like an accomplishment to surmount.
Scoring systems can be looked at in a similar way. I adore the Bayonetta games, and the scoring system helped to push me to really master timing my dodging and always being aware of when and where enemies are attacking. It's the way Platinum designed the game to be played, getting so good at dodging and twirling around your enemies while kicking their asses with giant fists made out of hair that you never once get hit. Of course, one could argue disabling the scoring system to make it more enjoyable for those people who can't get that skilled at the game for one reason or another, but in a similar vein you could also argue that by including the option to disable it, you lose that desire and drive to push yourself to get better. Even if the scoring system is still there if you disable it at the start or before you've had the time to adjust to the feel of the game, how likely would you be to enable it again just so you can push yourself to nab that pure platinum trophy? Or the satisfaction of watching those bronzes and silvers turning into golds and platinums as your skill naturally improves? Getting a stone trophy the first time I picked up the game felt shitty, but ending it with golds was fantastic. If I could've disabled the scoring system at the beginning, I wouldn't have seen how I've progressed with my skill. Sometimes it's just that satisfaction of being able to accomplish what they once thought was impossible that drives people to get that S+ rank or that pure platinum trophy, something they wouldn't feel if they got discouraged at the start and disabled the scoring system cause they didn't think they were good enough.
All in all, both sides have fair arguments. Having games be more fun for more people by giving more options is a great thing, but also by limiting those options and encouraging the playstyle you feel best suits the game, you can push those persistent enough to get through it to improve themselves and give a real sense of accomplishment at the end of the game.
The question I have, though, is why do I want to get better at Bayonetta (or any other game, not just picking on Platinum here)? A scoring system is a great way to improve, at least inasmuch as one improves according to the devs' intentions, but what if I'm not here to improve but just to enjoy myself?
It's like speedrunning. Some people really get a kick out of playing a game over and over and over again to the point that they know every trick and glitch and shortcut that they can beat Megaman 2 in 15 minutes. I'm personally not worried about that. I'm not sure I've ever been worried about that. I suppose I must've been when I was a teenager 'cause I did unlock T.T. in Diddy Kong Racing, but now I'm in my 30s and have that whole "full-time job" problem and I don't find it enjoyable to have a game point and laugh because I button-mashed my way through. I recently played Tales of Berseria and after something like 80 hours of regular gameplay in which I kept amping up the difficulty and tweaking my battle styles, I finally decided to take on the final boss and realized, "I have no reason to beat this guy on Hard difficulty, especially because it's going to take a bunch of attempts and probably a couple hours." So I turned difficulty down to Baby's First Button Masher so that I could finally see the ending.
And, yes, actually, I'm exactly arguing that Dark Souls should have an easy mode. Dark Souls is kind of a low-hanging fruit on that particular argument, though, because it has almost no narrative to speak of, so cripplingly hard difficulty is a bit more justifiable. Not every game needs to be for every player, 'tis true, but if you, as a developer, craft a game with a narrative that you want people to see and enjoy, it behooves you to temper the difficulty. I've made all these same arguments about locking lore content behind raid bosses in MMOs, which is why WoW decided to make its cinematics accessible even if you've never entered the dungeon. And they made that decision almost a decade ago.
Because I paid money for a product. Does a movie demand that I pass a tightly tuned dexterity test before I'm "allowed" to see the climax and denouement?
Game developers complain about people going on UA-cam to watch Let's Plays and cinematic rips instead of buying their game. The whole "I don't have 100 hours to sink into perfecting your game for a 2 minute cutscene" thing goes right over their heads.
Lock irrelevant things behind skill tests and taxing grinds. Hearthstone, for instance, won't let you have a golden hero portrait until you've won a lot of games playing as that class (I think it's 500 ranked wins). That's completely valid.
If you're asking why there should be a reward at all, it's the fact of motivation. What's my motivation to S+ rank something if I get literally nothing for my trouble? Whenever I start a new game and I see that there's some ridiculous challenge, I immediately pull up a wiki or FAQ to see if the reward is worth my effort. Gwent in Witcher 3, for instance, is something I find tedious and unengaging. Thankfully, it also has no rewards that I care about, so I'm not pressured to play it, but if I choose to play it, the rewards are that I get a better Gwent deck.
Patrick Lewis
Ok, why should you get and s+ rank?
The fact that is completely optional make the whole argument moot. Enjoy the game as you want, since you do not care about scores, why bring up something that is completely optional? I mean in most of the examples you made, you COULD change the dificulty...so absurd.
Its contradictory, why do you feel bad about something you dont care, unlike your example of WoW, very few games actually lock anything behind a score now days (such a shame), since you dont care about scores, why do you care that you have a B grade in bayonetta? So its the fact that you are being told that you "suck" that bugs you? You want to be pampered or that the grade actually means somenthing, i.e locking content?
That seems to be against your argument.
And here is the even weirder part about your "argument" the game, that is difficult in your example, has no scoring system. And games like bayonetta care not about the grade, so even with a bad one you can still finish the game.
The "problem" that you are proposing is a bit strange. If the whole point of the game is to tell a story then its better, for you to read a book or watch a movie. Let me ask you this, what is a game? Not what YOU think it is, but what is a game?
It seems that you are mixing expectations and reality.
So in the end let me get this straight, its because you are "old" and have no time, that you go on and "rant" about how games should not judge your performance or challenge you. I know this may sound crazy but have you considered not playing said games but games that fit you current life style? a simple style with a lack of challenge.
eduardo diaz you literally asked my question and didn't answer it. Why should there be scores?
Great video :) I found out some of this first hand when I was implimentation highscores in Phase Drift. First time players where noticing the scoring system, but we're more focused on surviving. People who played for longer had highscores as a major motivation to get better. The highscores fit really well too, since Phase Drift is an arcade style game they felt natural. It could keep the competitive aspect because of online leaderboards
When you talked about higher grades being initially hidden to the player, I thought of Crash Team Racing. In the time trials, you can unlock the N. Tropy's ghost (and then Oxide's ghost) if you are fast enough, but you don't really know that in advance. And for me, when I found that out, the discovery of a this new mode really drove me to play until I beat all the ghosts.
I think the main source of motivation was reading on video game magazines that new characters could be unlocked by doing so, and some promised to be able to unlock Oxide himself, even thought that was not true. That generated a lot of hype, and I think this aspect in games was lost as I started having access to the internet, because of the far more easy availability of information.
Anyway, in CTR you could unlock N Tropy by beating all his best times, which made you think that it would have been the same with Oxide. It was really upsetting not to be able to unlock him in the end, but at the same time the satisfaction of having become so good at the game to be able to beat all the ghosts was incredibly rewarding. As a matter of fact, I found myself still trying to beat my best scores many years later.
I guess anyway that these kind of things are really worth it only for people that really enjoy the game, and want to get the most complete experience out of it... Which is anyway something that I have not felt for a long time, unfortunately.
Wrote the fastest multiplier in TIS-100, and that game's leader board system definitely sparked my interest for doing that. Very similar to that alchemy machine thingy you showed. On the other hand, I never cared about competitive ranks in Overwatch. And then, on the other hand, I had lot's of fun with Crash Bandicoot's built-in speed running challenges.
Trackmania has bronze, silver and gold medals on each track amd are relatively easy to acquire (although gold is harder, its still something achievable yo new players) but they hide a special green authors medal for the veterans and have the regional, national, continental leaderboards for the persistent, and a global lraderboard gor the gifted
I feel you should've mentioned the upgrade heavy games. Roguelikes and upgrade based ones where you're trying to launch yourself further every run. They're all about improving your score, but most of them do feature an ultimate goal admittedly.
I'm glad to see a great game such as Assault Android Cactus get it's due. I've known about it for a while, and it's so undervalued as a game. Love it!
3:02 The surface area score in Opus Magnum actually includes the space your machinery and the "molecules" you're manipulating pass through during operation, not just the initial state. Minor correction.
Awesome video overall! Love these GMT videos :D
Ive never heard of the Catus game untill now and I wish i had earlier
It's just been updated, now's the best time to get it.
I'm reminded of the scoring system in various Kirby subgames. In all of them, you need what is essentially a perfect score to get a platinum medal. For example, in the Challenge Stages of Kirby's Return to Dreamland this typically requires defeating all enemies, collecting all coins, not taking damage, and completing the stage with at least 30 seconds left. Doing perfectly in any of these regards will reward the player a special point bonus at the end, separate from the points given simply from collecting coins, defeating enemies, etc. All of the bonuses are needed for platinum, and improving your performance with each attempt until perfection feels extremely rewarding.
All of the subgames (and downloadable titles) I'm referring to:
Challenge Stages (Return to Dreamland)
Challenge Stages (Dream Collection)
Dedede's Drum Dash
Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe
Kirby 3D Rumble
Kirby's Blowout Blast
And to a lesser extent:
Team Kirby Clash
Team Kirby Clash Deluxe
While you did touch on Thumper, I'd like to expand upon it by saying that there are other rhythm games with online leaderboards to compare your scores to other people such as Lunatic Rave 2, so in addition to it helping in some games and not being useful in some other, it is still relevant in the rhythm game genre.
Thumper, how I love you for putting this in here, that game is a must play.
One of the things that makes opus magnum really great for me is that you're usually chuffed when you complete a stage, even if your machine isn't optimal. One of the reasons might be because you see this crazy machine you've spent time building and thinking about finally work. Seeing the score just makes you think about more possibilities on how you can improve upon what you made. You might bot even care about the score, but a couple levels later you get an a-ha moment where you suddenly understand how to do vetter at an previous stage.
Player driven scores is quite brilliant in a way, since the developer don't really have to think much about the scoring system. The players do all the work.
Hotline miami does the ranking system really well in my opinion
Agreed. I believe it's the only game where I actually tried to get the best rank on each level. It gave the game a lot more staying power as a result, which I'm all for considering how much I enjoyed the game off the bat.
reNINTENDO Yeah! After beating the second game, the first game didn’t seem as hard to simply beat, but getting all the a+ ranks has given it staying power like you said, to still be fun and challenging
I disagree, too much of the scoring system was opaque and only hinted at after beating a level. It needed to be streamlined a lot more.
Mantafirefly Yeah, what each of the score categories mean isn’t specified in game, but if you look it up, you can see that you can pretty consistently get high ranks if you either constantly execute enemies for high points, or keep moving for the wgole stage in one massive combo
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Hitman series. You've talked about it quite a bit but i think it's interesting how scoring works in that game, and is an interesting study of what works and doesnt work, and how the game uses score to encourage you to play a certain way, and teach you about penalties. For instance leaving a body out vs hiding it, you regain the points you lost by hiding the body, etc.
The Godzilla game for PS4 gave you a brand new ending with 2 new levels if you could get your G-Cells score up high enough, it was a super fun challenge between doing the objectives, doing side objectives, killing the enemy Kaiju, and collecting enough G-Cells to get the true ending which gives you 2 additional levels to play and the ability to unlock a new character.
A new Ahoy video and a new Mark Brown video on the same day? What did I do to deserve such a treat?
In the Battleborn DLC Levels, there is a point system where each time you complete side missions, the level gets harder and harder as you progress. But with a bigger reward at the end.
I think a scoring system can also be without ranking. In the Metal Gear Solid games, when you finish the game you get a rank based on your playstyle and is represented by an animal. Some are gonna be harder to get but you also don't feel like you are bad at the game when you get one of the easier ranks, it's a nice way to make you feel good, have your playstyle be acknoledged and make you want to play in a certain way.
and then there is Mario... where you still just have a score exactly how it was in the first game...
because why not
I know. I've never played attention to that score.
The diagram ranking is one of the most recognizable Zachtronics games' mecanics, present throughout all of their desktop games. Also, i want to mention the ranking system in Splinter Cell: Blacklist, where you have three separate scores, for each style of gameplay.
I like Dustforce because it locks later and harder levels behind different tiers of padlocks. Getting a better rank on the previous tier level gets you a key to the next tier. Also, the higher tier levels require some movement tech to reach in the lobby. Finally, when you do a run the game records it and submits a time into a leaderboard so mysterious people don't show up on a forum with godly times.
Assault Android Cactus is actually a really good twin stick shooter with clever writing and lots of playable characters. Highly recommended to anyone that wasn't convinced to check it out by Mark's praise.
Pinball high score initials, if you see them:
LFS = Lyman Sheats, programmer
BAO = in-joke about a terrible pin from the 70s.
MOO = in-joke about pins from the 90s.
NES = Neil E. Shatz, legendary player
KEF = Keefer, programmer
AJK = Bowen Kerins (his son's initials)
G G = George Gomez, game designer
PML = Pat Lawlor, game designer
SUN = the sun (enter on Dracula for a good gag)
There are more. If you find a pinball machine from the 1990s, enter MOO or COW and see what happens!
I LOVE these sort of games. Simple to understand but difficult to master, and addictive scoring systems!
I sincerely love these! Thank you for all the time and work you put into such videos!
Time to go reinstall AAC again and go fight Vespula.
Same.
I love when he says “cheeky.”
I completely disagree with the last point
The entire point of these systems is to show people they can improve and encourage them to play the game as intended
Hiding this away until people are already doing that, makes it completely pointless in that regard
People that already play to the fullest, will do so either way and people that don't will never see it
not a fan of the "everybody's a winner, don't make anyone feel bad, even if they did bad" mentality
You still get ranks while playing the game, y'know. Nobody's hand is being held.
I'm glad you mentioned MGSV. I was just about to comment that the score in that game actually motivated me to keep pushing forward and improve my strategy.
As was concluded with the mention of Cactus, score needs help because I can't even enjoy character action games without a friend to explain how it works. I always fail at finding the flowchart that transforms the game from "button masher with damage sponge enemies" into "fast-paced puzzle of punches" on my own, which prevents me from properly appreciating them
HOW DID YOU NOT TALK ABOUT HOTLINE MIAMI
LIKE WTF IT DOES ALL THE THINGS THAT THAT SHITTY CACTUS GAME DOES
Eh not everything. Before it was patched using the grasshopper's drill melee kill gave more points than you could get through combos. The leader board was unsecured and there were a bunch of bogus scores. If you knocked enemies down, picked up their guns, emptied it, dropped it, let them pick up the gun again, they couldn't attack you and knocking them over with a punch rewarded points making them infinite point punching bags. I also came across a bug where every time I punched a guy he'd drop a gun counting for points. Ended up with a screen covered in shotguns and rifles as I punched him in a corner repeatedly. Also chaining every kill in a level together even between screens doesn't give you any special reward. Though if you do get your score high enough it's shown in scientific notation.
you said it was before they fixed it so they made the score board work better, also emptying guns was a legit strat as it had both risk and reward the risk was that you would attract enemies and have less bullets. not only that chaining kills gave you a better score and helped you unlock secret levels, weapons and endings. also i feel like you haven't played the first game as that also does everyting he said in the video. also oldschool video games had bogus scores as they had to set records for the players to beat in the first place.
so here, don't go alone, take this L
The fix I referenced was the change to Carl's drill's points down to 1100 points. If I recall correctly before the fix it was closer to 10000. The examples I gave were to show that the score system was loose and could be broken by the player vs cactus's very controlled scoring system. Hotline is a fun game and doesn't need an angry defense.
You sound real proud of yourself for "winning" an argument in UA-cam comments.
You said it right there "a better score ... helped you unlock secret levels, weapons and endings." Unlike the Cactus game Mark spoke about, this punishes players who *don't* go for high scores by preventing them from fully experiencing the game as intended.
2:32 Funny how you bring that game up, since the first thing I thought about when I read the title was Shenzhen I/O, a somewhat similar game made by the same developer.
8:49 I bought Downhell on your recommendation some time ago and it does the exact same thing.
For new comers or if you choose to play safe, the only challenge is to keep the Gemhigh. While more advanced players want to get the Longest Combos for hight rewards. Both of these things keep the player moving and looking for enemies even if at a different speed.
For people not familiar with Downhell Gemhigh is basically a meter that goes down whenever your not collecting gems (dropped from enemies or breakable objects)
While the combos are counted by how many enemies you manage to kill without touching the ground.
EDIT: Also because combos are only shown after 5 enemy kills, I didn't know that they existed for some time.
Brilliant Mark, I've always thought little of scoring systems in modern games as very few games actually make me consider it, but tony hawk underground, pro skater, and beverly hills and Devil May Cry 3 are some of the few games that made me push for the best score. I've never really considered some of the aspects of scoring you discussed though, another take on difficulty is a brilliant observation and one I'll consider the next scoring game I play ^ ^.
I would also argue that survival games (Not the modern ones with all the hyper realistic elements and tribe warfare, I mean survival modes) are also a great example I think as it pushes players to survive the most days possible which creates an artificial difficulty level.
Great work! I'm not much into score-based games, but the one title that absolutely sucked me in was Resogun on PS4. Chasing high scores in that game is ridiculously fun and it's easily my favorite "arcade-y" game out there.
4:57
THAT FXXXXNG SECRET TAPE!!!
I REMEMBER THAT TAPE. OMG THE TAUNTING!
I was playing two player and my friend kept stopping me from getting that tape. To this day I haven't reconciled.
Awesome video. I’m a pretty casual player so I don’t ever care about S rankings or trying to get high scores, THOUGH i do tend to prefer to make all of my experiences deliberate and as close to clean as possible. That doesn’t necessarily mean a perfect run, but certainly not trying to run into the fray to get hit bc i can deal with a few hits just to become immune for a half second and get a few hits in. I think as you mentioned, the intended experience is the one which I’m trying to get as close as possible to. That’s partly why Ghost of Tsushima started to fall apart for me. I believe in the first act, they wanted the Mongols to feel like a force that could not be contained and that they were truly everywhere, and you would NEED to resort to more shadowy tactics to overcome them. However, when you are able to level up nearly all of your skills before you are into the second or even third acts and you have the repetitive timing down, the sneaking returns to the back of your mind unless the objective is forcing you to remain unseen. Sorry. Not score related. More on the intentional experience.
You can also use a ranking to influence progress thru the game like unlocking harder levels, skipping easier ones or increasing the difficulty in a dynamic difficulty game.
Hotline Miami also has some interesting score system that completely changes the game if you are aiming for high scores. To get an S, for example, you have to: diversify your weapons, be always on the move, chain enemies, finish the level quickly etc. This makes you play the game as it was intended by the developerts: by being agressive and really really violent (which also makes sense plotwise).
I was reminded of this video when thinking about Pikmin. In Pikmin 2 and 3, you no longer have the hard 30-day limit, but I like to aim for that time frame anyway. And to get it done in the fewest days possible, you'll have to master managing several groups of Pikmin doing different things at once. You don't have to, but it could be debated that is what the designers intended, and you have a high score list at the end of the game to drive you to do so.