Level design pet peeves.

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Level design pet peeves.
by Ian A on 2010-05-24 (#61794)

A lot of NES games had those floors that looked like floors but you'd fall right through if you walked over them. In castlevania II, you could tell by throwing holy water every couple of steps. In Zelda II sometimes a flying enemy would drop fire that'd also fall through the floor giving you a heads up, but most of the time there'd be NO indication that ANYTHING was wrong. You'd either end up dead, or be force to backtrack anywhere from a small area to half the god damned level (here's lookin' at you Great Palace!)

I HATED this crap, which usually came off to me as lazy game design. Any similar things that you hated or would like to see avoided?

by Bregalad on 2010-05-24 (#61795)

Something I really hate is when they just re-use a background map as-is (or barely palette swapping it) instead of actually designing a new area.

by tokumaru on 2010-05-24 (#61796)

Bregalad wrote:
Something I really hate is when they just re-use a background map as-is (or barely palette swapping it) instead of actually designing a new area.

That is called level map compression! XD

by Ian A on 2010-05-24 (#61798)

Bregalad wrote:
Something I really hate is when they just re-use a background map as-is (or barely palette swapping it) instead of actually designing a new area.

Metroid was SUPER guilty of this! I like metroid a lot though.

I was a HUGE star tropics fan, and was really disappointed that the sequel reused tons of parts from the first, but with worse control.

by Bananmos on 2010-05-24 (#61799)

Something I always hated as a kid was the instant death from falling into pits design. And that especially goes for games where you die instantly from jumping a few blocks down instead of taking the stairs... Castlevania of course, is the prime example of this "falling from any height will never kill you UNLESS you happen to fall off the currently visible screen" philosophy.

Kid Icarus's vertically scrolling levels are even worse in this aspect, and I always had a grudge against this as a child... sometimes, the floor you stood solidly on has just disappeared a few pixels below the screen, and already it's an instant death area!

Then again, my all-time-favorite game Battletoads has levels like these too, so I suppose you'll always forgive a game that's good enough for this lame hazard. But it still don't make it right... :)

by Ian A on 2010-05-24 (#61800)

Bananmos wrote:
Something I always hated as a kid was the instant death from falling into pits design. And that especially goes for games where you die instantly from jumping a few blocks down instead of taking the stairs... Castlevania of course, is the prime example of this "falling from any height will never kill you UNLESS you happen to fall off the currently visible screen" philosophy.

Enemies who sole purpose is to knock you into those pits are awful too. The blue blobs in Zelda II and the medusa heads in castlvania have been responsible for numerous cheap deaths.

by Bregalad on 2010-05-24 (#61801)

Quote:
That is called level map compression! XD

No, I wasn't mentionning re-using metatiles or even groups of them, I was talking about re-using a whole screen. You can have your levels compressed while never re-using anything, I have that in my game (in fact my engine don't even allow re-using anything, if you try you'll end up having it the same as the original as the warps will also be the same as the original).
Quote:
Metroid was SUPER guilty of this! I like metroid a lot though.

Yes, and I always hated this game, this is only one of the reason, but it's definitely significant. Bad music, terrible control, poor graphics, the "your life start at 30 no matter which level you are" problem and the horrible beeping noise when you get low of energy probably complete the thing.
Without a doubt the most overrated piece of crap in videogame history.

That being said, there is also modern games I like, such as Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean, that did that (and I find it very lame, and totally inexcusable from games that were supposed to be the pinacle of technology when they were released). Hey even FF7 re-uses screens in mako reactors and underground tunnel (however that's just like a few re-used screens on a 200+ hand-drawn pre-rendered screens so it's really excusable).

by Disch on 2010-05-24 (#61802)

Ian A wrote:
Enemies who sole purpose is to knock you into those pits are awful too. The blue blobs in Zelda II and the medusa heads in castlvania have been responsible for numerous cheap deaths.

This also pretty much describes every enemy in the Ninja Gaiden series, as well.

Quote:
Yes, and I always hated this game, this is only one of the reason, but it's definitely significant

Agreed. Metroid 1 was terrible, I'm surpised the series exploded as big as it did.

Although pretty much everything from Super Metroid and on was completely awesome, so it ended up being a good thing.

by blargg on 2010-05-24 (#61804)

Bananmos wrote:
Kid Icarus's vertically scrolling levels are even worse in this aspect, and I always had a grudge against this as a child... sometimes, the floor you stood solidly on has just disappeared a few pixels below the screen, and already it's an instant death area!

amen! This violates your mental model, which says that the thing you were just on is still there, just a little farther down. It's the same annoying violation that games like Ninja Gaiden do, where they respawn enemies if you scroll their spawn point just slightly off screen and back on. Your mental model says you already dealt with that enemy, and that a slight scroll in one direction and then back won't cause any change in the world, and yet it does.

by tokumaru on 2010-05-24 (#61806)

blargg wrote:
It's the same annoying violation that games like Ninja Gaiden do, where they respawn enemies if you scroll their spawn point just slightly off screen and back on.

I hate enemies who can't remember they are dead.

by Bananmos on 2010-05-24 (#61810)

Yeah, "good" old Ninja Gaiden... I remember almost beating my controller to death before completing that game as a kid, and yet the storyline and the cool cinematic scenes made me stay with the game and forgive this abomination of game programming.

Then about a year ago, I figured I'd play through it again on a dull rainy day... I gave up at level 5, saying there's no reason to put myself through this sadistic crap anymore just to watch an ending scene I could just as well watch on youtube. Oh man did we put up with retarted game logic as kids back then! Guess everything wasn't better back in the old days...

(and I should again emphasize that Battletoads is my all-time-favorite that I still get a kick out of beating every few years, and I've completed the "Rainbow V challenge" in Viewtiful Joe, so I'm certainly not the one who'd diss a game due to difficulty alone)

Re: Level design pet peeves.
by tepples on 2010-05-24 (#61812)

Ian A wrote:
A lot of NES games had those floors that looked like floors but you'd fall right through if you walked over them.

They're trap doors, and they're not limited to the NES. Super Mario 64 has a few of them before you even get to the basement.

Bananmos wrote:
Something I always hated as a kid was the instant death from falling into pits design.

Would you rather have had the screen start rapidly scrolling for two seconds until the hero finally lands on something and breaks his bones?

Bregalad wrote:
I was talking about re-using a whole screen.

Don't ask me about the repeated screens in Super Mario Land world 1-1 that made me think I was in SMB1 world 4-4.

blargg wrote:
It's the same annoying violation that games like Ninja Gaiden do, where they respawn enemies if you scroll their spawn point just slightly off screen and back on.

SMB2 has this problem, but I find it slightly more excusable in the Mega Man and Kirby games. In Mega Man, enemies can be shot to produce power-ups, and in Kirby, enemies can be swallowed to make power-ups. Having permanent enemy death could leave a level unwinnable if you defeat the only enemy with a needed power-up and then lose the power-up before you need to use it *cough*Hammer in Kirby*cough*. And don't get me started on running out of money in Pokemon even after having defeated all trainers in the area, so I can't buy needed supplies.

More lists of pet peeves: No Twinkie | Fake Difficulty

by koitsu on 2010-05-24 (#61815)

Bananmos wrote:
Kid Icarus's vertically scrolling levels are even worse in this aspect, and I always had a grudge against this as a child... sometimes, the floor you stood solidly on has just disappeared a few pixels below the screen, and already it's an instant death area!

Funny -- my friends and I often use the taking-the-piss phrase "{person} pressed Down in Kid Icarus".

Re: Level design pet peeves.
by UncleSporky on 2010-05-24 (#61818)

If we're talking about NES games, the thing that annoys me most is poor physics. I've got a really hard time playing games like Castlevania when many deaths are due to a lack of maneuverability. Normally game balance should solve that but I still just have an issue with my hero playing sluggishly. As another example, try playing Castle of Dragon. Ugh.

I find things like reused map screens more forgivable. SMB1 reused both individual screens and graphical tiles in general and I don't feel like it suffered much for it.

tepples wrote:
And don't get me started on running out of money in Pokemon even after having defeated all trainers in the area, so I can't buy needed supplies.

Yeah, if you're talking about the first Pokemon games on Gameboy, your options are beating the Elite Four repeatedly (I think this worked, but regardless you had to do it at the end of the game), Meowth's Payday attack for like 10-50 pokebucks per fight (and he was only available in one version), or a spare Nugget and the Missingno trick which wasn't really a good idea for your save file.

by Jedi QuestMaster on 2010-05-24 (#61821)

Everything in Battletoads:

-whoever dies takes both players back to the last checkpoint
-lack of time to decipher what the hell is going to happen in the next part of the level, resulting in a trial & error game
-one-hit kills
-sudden incline in difficulty (Turbo Tunnel)
-terrible controls
-terrible physics (The Revolution) which is also guilty of the "platform is off the bottom of the screen, so you die" programming
-12 freakin stages that had to be beaten in one sitting (warps do help, though)

Yeah, this game sucks

Edit:

Bregalad wrote:
Bad music, terrible control, poor graphics, the "your life start at 30 no matter which level you are" problem and the horrible beeping noise when you get low of energy probably complete the thing.

Hey! I take great offense to that.

Hiro Tanaka is my favorite video game composer of all time! Why is it that when someone hates a game they also hate the music? I never get that.

by Banshaku on 2010-05-24 (#61824)

One thing that was not mentioned yet: disappearing platform... I'm pointing the finger at you mega man!... And they always put it back in all of them. This is my least favorite part of the game.

by Ian A on 2010-05-24 (#61837)

Banshaku wrote:
One thing that was not mentioned yet: disappearing platform... I'm pointing the finger at you mega man!... And they always put it back in all of them. This is my least favorite part of the game.

I was a big Mega Man fan, but it was full of crap like that! I hated those rooms of spikes, too, especially combined with those disappearing platforms!

Jedi QuestMaster wrote:
Everything in Battletoads
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Battletoads either. I've spent a lot of time playing it, despite its flaws. There's something there that grabs people and I have no clue what it is.

UncleSporky wrote:
If we're talking about NES games, the thing that annoys me most is poor physics. I've got a really hard time playing games like Castlevania when many deaths are due to a lack of maneuverability. Normally game balance should solve that but I still just have an issue with my hero playing sluggishly. As another example, try playing Castle of Dragon. Ugh.

I have the same problem with Ghost 'n Goblins. Every time you jump in the very first part of the game you're risking death because if a zombie comes out of the ground there's no way to avoid it!

Tepples wrote:
No Twinkie
Some of those are good, but I disagree very firmly with a lot of stuff on that list, many of which I think are conflicting. Also, Metal Gear Solid had some problems, but anything he said about it wasn't it.

by GradualGames on 2010-05-24 (#61841)

I see some gripes about what I would consider legitimate and fun challenges. I always enjoyed trying to figure out how to properly time jumps around on the disappearing platforms.

I dislike levels which seem "flat" and do not have much variety. Even if a game cannot scroll more than 2 directions, I'd prefer to have the sensation that I have "descended" into another level or "ascended" into one, giving you the psychological feel that the game has a vertical dimension, even though all gameplay is horizontal (like Castlevania). I haven't played much of the game, but the Bart Simpon and the attack of the space mutants had a horribly flat first level, for example. So, that's my pet peeve. Flatness.

by Celius on 2010-05-24 (#61843)

I have to agree with people saying Metroid 1 is way too repetitive in terms of level design. It's also a pretty bad game, but since I'm a fan of the series and it's nostalgic for me to play during the winter, I find it oddly enjoyable. I definitely agree with tokumaru about enemies who "can't remember they're dead" (I also find that's a funny way to put it ). I made sure to not do this in my game by having dead/alive bits for every enemy in the level (only takes 16 bytes for 128 enemies; I think that's pretty good).

I think something really annoying is in games like Metroid (I know another game does this too, I just can't think of it right now) where you fall into some sort of lava or poison mud and its nearly impossible to get out of before you die. Basically scenarios where its impossible to not get damaged or die by no fault of your own are not cool with me. Another thing in Metroid that makes me want to kill someone is when you walk through a door, the screen shifts over as you're still inside the door, and if an enemy is flying at you while moving into another room, you will get hit by it. Plus, since it's Metroid 1, you probably have 42 energy left and the enemy does like 45 damage.

by Bregalad on 2010-05-25 (#61849)

Yeah many people seems to gripe against what I consider fair challenges. Re-used screens and enemies who re-appear are really design flaw from the programmers, not a fair challenge. But I'm disapointed seeing people here hate spikes bottom less pits etc... Do you want a game which is all flat has no traps and is very easy to beat ?? It doesn't sound like it'd be fun for a very long time.

by blargg on 2010-05-25 (#61851)

Celius wrote:
Another thing in Metroid that makes me want to kill someone is when you walk through a door, the screen shifts over as you're still inside the door, and if an enemy is flying at you while moving into another room, you will get hit by it.

Not as bad as when an enemy gets inside the door with you as you change rooms. Then you get hit many times in a row, likely killing you before the doorway even scrolls to the center of the screen.

by UncleSporky on 2010-05-25 (#61854)

Ian A wrote:
Tepples wrote:
No Twinkie
Some of those are good, but I disagree very firmly with a lot of stuff on that list, many of which I think are conflicting. Also, Metal Gear Solid had some problems, but anything he said about it wasn't it.

I agree. He goes from criticizing hardware limitations to legitimate design complaints to simple personal preferences. Many subjective things aren't design flaws, otherwise if you didn't like RPGs you could call the mere fact that a game is an RPG a design flaw. In fact he effectively does, multiple times. Some people like upgrading their weapons in shops!

He frequently alternates between complaining that things are too realistic and not realistic enough. First something is realistic but too tedious to make a good game, then it's a mortal sin because there isn't a forklift sitting around somewhere.

A game with chesty women is not a design flaw. I don't buy games for that reason either, but some people do, and it's just a dumb generic complaint.

I think the part I found most humorous is the third page, where he talks about how too many games are adolescent power fantasies, citing The Sims as an example that people don't care about ruling the world. Are you kidding? That's the whole point of The Sims, to be god over these little people and force them to do what you want. It's almost the epitome of a power fantasy.

by RushJet1 on 2010-05-25 (#61856)

Ian A wrote:
Banshaku wrote:
One thing that was not mentioned yet: disappearing platform... I'm pointing the finger at you mega man!... And they always put it back in all of them. This is my least favorite part of the game.

I was a big Mega Man fan, but it was full of crap like that! I hated those rooms of spikes, too, especially combined with those disappearing platforms!

People think those blocks are so tough.. in Mega Man 9, I went through Plug Man's stage without ever dying, first try. You know why? Those blocks are damn predictable. The ONLY problem I have with them is in Mega Man 2, in Heat Man's level specifically, they spawn based on whether you're there or not, so sometimes they spawn too late / too early and your timing is thrown off, but it's only a problem near the beginning of that area (before the lava).

On the "no twinkie" articles, they were a fun read but I agree that some of his gripes are just gripes about preference. Most Metal Gear instances where they say "Press A to do something" are like jokes to the player and handled as such, not just poor design.

On the issue of Metroid, I agree that it's not really a good game. People like it (and usually its music) purely for nostalgic purposes. The only song I still enjoy listening to for the sake of listening to it is Kraid. The overworld theme is nice because of good composition but not because of poor volumes and flat technique.

by blargg on 2010-05-25 (#61857)

For its time, Metroid was a big break from the usual games. Just being able to go back anywhere was a big thing. Up until you fire the last shot that defeats Mother Brain, I'm pretty sure you can go all the way back to the beginning. The non-linearity of it, where you progress by being able to get to more of each area, was also fairly new. I actually thought the repeating screens had benefits in that you had to make maps. And then there was the fact that there was no text or talking during the game. Sure, Mario had little text, but you always knew what to do: go right.

As for stupid-hard aspects of games, this is where emulator features like save states and slow motion can make these games more enjoyable. So what if it's not how they were meant to play? If it allows me to go through more of the games of the time and half-enjoy the experience, it's a win.

UncleSporky wrote:
I think the part I found most humorous [...]

What's most humorous is the awful web page design when viewing articles, where it has some annoying frames at the top and bottom, along with detailed instructions about how to get around the problems they cause in order to print. If you have to explain to a user how to use your web page, you're doing it wrong!

by Ian A on 2010-05-25 (#61859)

I think Metroid is similar to zelda in a lot of ways, and I know people will disagree with me on this, but check it out.

Both Zelda in Metroid take place in large open worlds where exploration is limited primarily on your skill. In the beginning, in both games you lack a crucial item that severely limits your exploration (Maru Mari, Wooden sword). This makes sure you understand a little about how the game works before you go off and die, but is brief enough that if you have experience it's not very time consuming.

From then on you're free to explore in almost any manner you wish, acquiring power ups that slightly extend your exploration, rather than unlock massive areas. Bombs are extremely important in both. You can beat dungeons out of order in zelda. You can beat ridley before kraid in metroid.

Something that Zelda did right that I wish was in metroid, is a quick health refill when you don't upgrade your life. Trying to fill 5 energy tanks worth of health by killing enemies is just a time waster. Even worse, when you continue both start you off at low health, but in zelda there's at least that fairy pond.

by tepples on 2010-05-25 (#61864)

UncleSporky wrote:
[The No Twinkie guy] goes from criticizing hardware limitations to legitimate design complaints to simple personal preferences.

I called him on that in an e-mail, but he said he was criticizing games for consoles from the era in which the articles were written, that is, the PS2 and newer, not resource-constrained systems like handhelds, phones, classic systems, or $20 "TV games". Then I called him on a few complaints that would apply to DDR (no pause, for a good reason), WarioWare (wildly atypical levels, fake interactivity, and failure to explain, for a good reason), and NetHack (only save is before death, for a good reason), but he said the rules aren't hard and fast, and I seem to remember he called my examples overreaching.

As for The Sims: it's a matter of scope. You're trying to rule your neighborhood, not the world.

EDIT: Cracked's 7 Commandments is apropos.