Blog: "Why Trial and Error will Doom Games"

[TeleProd]

I agree with the blog. It is just a question just a question of finding a consequence for "playing bad" that fulfills two conditions: 1) It does not make the game trial and error. 2) It is meaningful and feared. Trial and error does make the horror dissappear, but so does the discovery that there is nothing to be afraid of.

I can think of two ways to lessen the trial and error in a penumbra style game: Firstly, you can widen the gap between "all OK" and death. It means creating a feeling of danger but making sure death (and the following retry) is not very likely. Health is obviously one such method but awfully trite and probably not sufficient alone. In Team Fortress 2 (not a horror game) there's a melee weapon that makes you more powerful the less health you have. I think the idea could be used here: when your health gets lower, you become more powerful. That way, you can put the player in more danger and tension because they are more likely to survive it. There still obviously needs to be consequences to be afraid of. *PENUMBRA SPOILER* Also, a comparable method could be implemented to the part where you flee from the worm: it moves slower or faster depending on how well you're doing.

The other method is actually finding an alternative gameplay design for failing other than trying again. It would need to be something that the player wants to avoid, but at the same time something that doesn't warrant a reload. For example, on "death" you could make the player enter a maze-like or scary world. When they go through it, they emerge victorious from their encounter. For this to work, reloading and simply trying again should be the less attractive option. That exact suggestion might not work with all scripted encounters but searching alternatives for death is an idea worth exploring.

To wrap it up, I want to share an experience I had with Afraid of Monsters last night. For those that don't know, Afraid of Monsters is an horror mod for Half-Life 1 with a scary atmosphere and a lot of combat. Thinking I would do fine on hard, I selected hard (I have beaten Half-Life on hard several times, after all). Boy was I wrong. I had to reload A LOT. Even the slightest mistake, using too much ammo or just simply exploring too long with flashlight on could make the game VERY HARD further on. I continually exploited the AI (very possible and easy in HL) because I just couldn't finish it otherwise. Even so I had to use a cheat in the end, because there was a part I just couldn't humanly beat. I started at about 10 PM and thought I'd play until 12 AM. I eventually finished it at around 4 AM. I probably had the most intense and scary time of my life (competing with Penumbra). By the end I was a wreck. That was despite the fact that there was a lot of trial and error. In fact, I think it was because everything posed an immense threat of making you try again. It shows that I can have good horror with trial and error, although I don't prefer it.