How much responsibility does the game developer have for making sure the players play the game correctly?

Started by the-pi-guy, Jun 20, 2022, 03:37 PM

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the-pi-guy

A lot of games get praised for cleverly instructing the player on how to play. Super Mario Bros has Mario start on the far left of the screen, so the obvious direction is going right.

Bloodborne got heavy praise for teaching people how to play Demon's Souls/Dark Souls. I think this kind of implies that maybe Demon's Souls didn't have people playing the game "correctly".


There's obviously always a wrong way to play every game. Every game is basically designed to have players figure out how to pass some obstacle, otherwise you're probably just watching a movie.

At the same time if everyone is doing something wrong, I would say that's due to the devs.

There seems like there should be some kind of balance between hand holding and being too obtuse.

Legend

Go on youtube and find small channels with lets plays. The average player misses so many things and it's often painful to watch.

I'd argue every dev is painfully aware they have a responsibility to make sure players can play correctly, it's just easier said than done. Handholding the player with lots of text isn't even a guaranteed solution since players will just ignore text they consider irrelevant.