5 ms·

The discussion here reminded me of the "Cruelty Scale" (https://www.ifwiki.org/Cruelty_scale https://www.ifwiki.org/Cruelty_scale) It was originally created sp

by bsammon 29d ago

The discussion here reminded me of the "Cruelty Scale" (https://www.ifwiki.org/Cruelty_scale https://www.ifwiki.org/Cruelty_scale) It was originally created specifically in relation to text adventure games, but seems appropriate to a broader range of game types. The rankings are based on criteria like how far the game lets you go after making a get-stuck choice before you realize you're stuck, and whether that realization comes with clear information about what the wrong choice was.

johnxianren 29d ago
The delay is the real killer. You don't realize you're driving off a cliff until you’ve already hit the ground.
disillusioned 29d ago
Aha, but there's an added dimension to this Sierra-branded cruelty: A young 8-year-old me, playing Police Quest for the first time. Sits through the briefing. Gets the gun, the ammo, the briefcase, from the locker room. Grabs the car key. Heads out to the parking lot, gets in the car, starts driving... and immediately dies: "you failed to perform the prescribed vehicle walkaround." A bit of a "gotcha" for sharewareing the game, because said prescription was in a manual I definitely did not own (remember the games that would ask you for, say, the third word of the tenth page of the manual, as a form of DRM? brilliant.) NO PROBLEM: ASSIGNMENT RECEIVED: I WILL SAVE THE GAME EARLY AND OFTEN! Begin another playthrough. Lather, rinse, repeat. Play for several hours, carefully save scumming my way to glory: I have built a complex ladder of 10 save slots that I am slowly rotating through. Then the action gets heavier and heavier, and the saves come faster and faster, until the climax of the game, where you have the Death Angel cornered. "Radio for help." And there it says: "With what radio?" The one I had left back at the station, I don't know, 10 hours ago? But that's okay, because I can head back to the station and grab it from one of my convenient saves! No, no I cannot. I have over-indexed and let fear win the day and save scummed myself into oblivion. The earliest save is in a walking-dead state as well. I am toast. I died a bit that day. A painful lesson for an 8-year-old to learn. As Bennett Foddy says in his Getting Over It soliloquy, "When games were new, they wanted a lot from you; daunting you, taunting you, resetting and delaying you. Players played stoically. Now everyone’s turned off by that."
- 13hours 29d ago
  "use nightstick" - took me ages. I didn't know what a nightstick was, it's not a term known in my country
  - addandsubtract 29d ago
    Pressing random buttons before you know the language of the game your playing is peak gaming childhood for me.
    - hungryhobbit 29d ago
      Sierra games didn't use random buttons, you had to type phrases :(
      - a96 28d ago
        My memory says there's some of them that didn't. Mixed Up Mother Goose, Black Cauldron, and both Manhunter games come to mind. I can be wrong, though. Sierra probably also has a ton of games I don't remember at all. They did a lot of games. A lot.
  - wkfauna 29d ago
    I legit started learning English from King's Quest 4. One of my first words was "Zounds!".
- Asooka 29d ago
  You could have also learned how to edit the saves to give yourself the radio :) . A tall ask of an 8-year-old of course, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Funny you mention Bennett Foddy's Getting Over It, because that's kind of how I "beat" it. After about 6 years of on and off attempts that always died around the church, I got fed up and edited the physics constants to make the game significantly easier. Since I used my own skill to hack the game and not an outside patch, I consider that "beating" the game in a sense. I am now thinking if you can pull off an adventure game where some puzzles require editing the save file. It would be pretty tricky to make it understandable to most people. Now that I think about it, I wouldn't put it past Deltarune to eventually have an easter egg that can only be reached from a save state, which is impossible to achieve through normal gameplay. I know it doesn't have one right now, because all the scripts have been examined in depth and nothing like that was found.
ryandrake 29d ago
One of the worst cases of this I played back in the 80s was Ultima V. To avoid spoilers, there's an obscure item that you need to get before you attempt the (very long) final dungeon, but the game only hints at its existence. If you neglect to bring it, you are allowed to play to the very end at which point it tells you that you are marooned in the final screen and cannot win because you didn't bring the item. Ultima V is still my favorite Ultima, but that part of it was ultimate cruelty!

by bsammon 29d ago

johnxianren 29d ago

The delay is the real killer. You don't realize you're driving off a cliff until you’ve already hit the ground.

disillusioned 29d ago

Aha, but there's an added dimension to this Sierra-branded cruelty: A young 8-year-old me, playing Police Quest for the first time. Sits through the briefing. Gets the gun, the ammo, the briefcase, from the locker room. Grabs the car key. Heads out to the parking lot, gets in the car, starts driving... and immediately dies: "you failed to perform the prescribed vehicle walkaround." A bit of a "gotcha" for sharewareing the game, because said prescription was in a manual I definitely did not own (remember the games that would ask you for, say, the third word of the tenth page of the manual, as a form of DRM? brilliant.) NO PROBLEM: ASSIGNMENT RECEIVED: I WILL SAVE THE GAME EARLY AND OFTEN! Begin another playthrough. Lather, rinse, repeat. Play for several hours, carefully save scumming my way to glory: I have built a complex ladder of 10 save slots that I am slowly rotating through. Then the action gets heavier and heavier, and the saves come faster and faster, until the climax of the game, where you have the Death Angel cornered. "Radio for help." And there it says: "With what radio?" The one I had left back at the station, I don't know, 10 hours ago? But that's okay, because I can head back to the station and grab it from one of my convenient saves! No, no I cannot. I have over-indexed and let fear win the day and save scummed myself into oblivion. The earliest save is in a walking-dead state as well. I am toast. I died a bit that day. A painful lesson for an 8-year-old to learn. As Bennett Foddy says in his Getting Over It soliloquy, "When games were new, they wanted a lot from you; daunting you, taunting you, resetting and delaying you. Players played stoically. Now everyone’s turned off by that."

13hours 29d ago
"use nightstick" - took me ages. I didn't know what a nightstick was, it's not a term known in my country
- addandsubtract 29d ago
  Pressing random buttons before you know the language of the game your playing is peak gaming childhood for me.
  - hungryhobbit 29d ago
    Sierra games didn't use random buttons, you had to type phrases :(
    - a96 28d ago
      My memory says there's some of them that didn't. Mixed Up Mother Goose, Black Cauldron, and both Manhunter games come to mind. I can be wrong, though. Sierra probably also has a ton of games I don't remember at all. They did a lot of games. A lot.
- wkfauna 29d ago
  I legit started learning English from King's Quest 4. One of my first words was "Zounds!".
Asooka 29d ago
You could have also learned how to edit the saves to give yourself the radio :) . A tall ask of an 8-year-old of course, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Funny you mention Bennett Foddy's Getting Over It, because that's kind of how I "beat" it. After about 6 years of on and off attempts that always died around the church, I got fed up and edited the physics constants to make the game significantly easier. Since I used my own skill to hack the game and not an outside patch, I consider that "beating" the game in a sense. I am now thinking if you can pull off an adventure game where some puzzles require editing the save file. It would be pretty tricky to make it understandable to most people. Now that I think about it, I wouldn't put it past Deltarune to eventually have an easter egg that can only be reached from a save state, which is impossible to achieve through normal gameplay. I know it doesn't have one right now, because all the scripts have been examined in depth and nothing like that was found.

ryandrake 29d ago

One of the worst cases of this I played back in the 80s was Ultima V. To avoid spoilers, there's an obscure item that you need to get before you attempt the (very long) final dungeon, but the game only hints at its existence. If you neglect to bring it, you are allowed to play to the very end at which point it tells you that you are marooned in the final screen and cannot win because you didn't bring the item. Ultima V is still my favorite Ultima, but that part of it was ultimate cruelty!