Blog: "Why Trial and Error will Doom Games"

[naturon]

I mostly agree with you regarding the prospect of trial-and-error breaking the immersion of games. I disagree however that taking trial-and-error out of the picture would ultimately make the experience better. You can't forget that players are playing a game, and without any sort of chance of losing, the player has nothing to fear from anything he may encounter. You mentioned that making the player's decisions affect the world around him, both positively and negatively, and I find that is a very good idea. The problem is, this would mean that a frustratingly large amount of time would be dedicated solely to writing all of the possible consequences to your actions. You would have to take account for anything and everything that could happen, and I have rarely ever seen games pull this off. Regardless it is a noble pursuit, and it would be quite amazing if a fully engrossing game world is ever created.

That being said, I also love a good challenge. If I can stroll through the game without ever dying or facing any kind of hazard then the game better have an excellent story, and told even better. If you can accomplish this, then perhaps having no trial-and-error system might be for the best. I do mainly play games for an experience however. If the setting is great, the atmosphere appropriate and the gameplay immersive, then I don't mind it if I don't face any real physical barriers. If the game can incorporate let's say some powerful moments where the player must decide between something, and that you actually care what the outcome might be, then the feeling one gets out of making a "wrong" choice could be equally as frustrating as dying. This would have to mean that your progress is permanently saved as you go along, otherwise people would just reload, and choose the more beneficial option. Nice article though, very thought-provoking. I'm not exactly sure where my stance is. I love playing through challenging games because the fulfillment one gets from beating a tough section is very nice, although I also love more cinematic type games, based in story and atmosphere more than gameplay.