Dance Dance Revolution
Okay, so I'm a late comer to DDR. I played one game at a movie theater about two months ago, and I was hooked instantly. Of course, I love music games. But the problems of dealing with the momentum of your body make this one very interesting.
For those who have played it, or know what it is, skip this paragraph. The game just shows a stream of arrows pointing up, down, left, or right that scrolls upward. Each arrow type is in a lane, and at the top of the screen is a matching marker arrow that pulses with the beat. When an arrow hits the marker at the top, step on the matching arrow on the platform. Sometimes there are two arrows to hit at the same time, so you jump to hit both. Some arrows are green strips that mean you step when the top hits the marker, and keep your foot down until the strip disappears off the screen. You miss arrows, you lose energy. You hit them right on the beat, you gain energy. That's it!
I'm playing DRR Max 2 on the PS2 right now, having borrowed it from a friend. I'm working my way through the Standard mode, which is quite difficult. There are long streams of off-beat quarter notes, half-note triplets, and occasional strings of 8th note arrows. When the tempo is higher, strings of quarter-note jumps can be difficult as well. I've even seen a few 16th-pickup notes. But these are the easy levels... the highest levels of the game are insane.
I find that recently I have only bought fighting games and music games. This seems to be where you have to go to get a good challenge. The more cinematic games like Splinter Cell are designed to be finished in 15-30 hours of play. So much work goes into the production of the visuals and story that it would be silly to make it too hard to finish. I'd personally prefer it if Hardcore modes were included more often. Some games are more extreme in this regard, such as the King Kong game, which has about 8 hours of gameplay in it. (I do have a bias toward mentioning Ubisoft games since I work there.)
Interestingly, the DDR type games sell very well, despite requiring investment in dance pads. Often you read about people who don't play many games, but like DDR. A friend of mine bought a PS2 mainly so his wife could play DDR. (yes, that was before an XBox version came out.) What this means to me is that casual gamers WILL buy hard games, as long as they are fun, and overcoming the challenge seems worth the investment of time. One thing that makes DDR acceptable to the mass market is that the easy settings are very easy, making the game accessible to everyone.
A game designer once made a remark to me about difficulty settings in games: "What does that say to the player when they boot the game and have to select easy? The game should dynamically adjust itself invisibly to the player's ability." I must say that this approach works very well for some games.
An aside: In my opinion, this tactic is used too often to tune the game so the user can succeed; I'd use it to continually push the player slightly beyond what they are capable of.
But in the case of DDR, I think it works better to use difficulty settings because it allows the player to set a goal for themselves, and the fun is in achieving that goal. If the game were to dynamically adjust so you succeed, you'd notice the arrow pattern changing to be easier, and would steal the sense of accomplishment. If it were to dynamically adjust to make it slightly harder than you can handle, you'd feel the game was changing the goal as you tried to reach it. Both of these approaches can work in other games, but DDR is fundamentally based around succeeding at one track at a time. Once the player passes a track, the goal then becomes to improve the number of Perfect (exactly timed) steps they get on it. This type of goal system is not suited at all to dynamic difficulty.
All this could be construed as a theoretical argument, but the size of DDR-related game and controller sales speaks for itself. :)
For those who have played it, or know what it is, skip this paragraph. The game just shows a stream of arrows pointing up, down, left, or right that scrolls upward. Each arrow type is in a lane, and at the top of the screen is a matching marker arrow that pulses with the beat. When an arrow hits the marker at the top, step on the matching arrow on the platform. Sometimes there are two arrows to hit at the same time, so you jump to hit both. Some arrows are green strips that mean you step when the top hits the marker, and keep your foot down until the strip disappears off the screen. You miss arrows, you lose energy. You hit them right on the beat, you gain energy. That's it!
I'm playing DRR Max 2 on the PS2 right now, having borrowed it from a friend. I'm working my way through the Standard mode, which is quite difficult. There are long streams of off-beat quarter notes, half-note triplets, and occasional strings of 8th note arrows. When the tempo is higher, strings of quarter-note jumps can be difficult as well. I've even seen a few 16th-pickup notes. But these are the easy levels... the highest levels of the game are insane.
I find that recently I have only bought fighting games and music games. This seems to be where you have to go to get a good challenge. The more cinematic games like Splinter Cell are designed to be finished in 15-30 hours of play. So much work goes into the production of the visuals and story that it would be silly to make it too hard to finish. I'd personally prefer it if Hardcore modes were included more often. Some games are more extreme in this regard, such as the King Kong game, which has about 8 hours of gameplay in it. (I do have a bias toward mentioning Ubisoft games since I work there.)
Interestingly, the DDR type games sell very well, despite requiring investment in dance pads. Often you read about people who don't play many games, but like DDR. A friend of mine bought a PS2 mainly so his wife could play DDR. (yes, that was before an XBox version came out.) What this means to me is that casual gamers WILL buy hard games, as long as they are fun, and overcoming the challenge seems worth the investment of time. One thing that makes DDR acceptable to the mass market is that the easy settings are very easy, making the game accessible to everyone.
A game designer once made a remark to me about difficulty settings in games: "What does that say to the player when they boot the game and have to select easy? The game should dynamically adjust itself invisibly to the player's ability." I must say that this approach works very well for some games.
An aside: In my opinion, this tactic is used too often to tune the game so the user can succeed; I'd use it to continually push the player slightly beyond what they are capable of.
But in the case of DDR, I think it works better to use difficulty settings because it allows the player to set a goal for themselves, and the fun is in achieving that goal. If the game were to dynamically adjust so you succeed, you'd notice the arrow pattern changing to be easier, and would steal the sense of accomplishment. If it were to dynamically adjust to make it slightly harder than you can handle, you'd feel the game was changing the goal as you tried to reach it. Both of these approaches can work in other games, but DDR is fundamentally based around succeeding at one track at a time. Once the player passes a track, the goal then becomes to improve the number of Perfect (exactly timed) steps they get on it. This type of goal system is not suited at all to dynamic difficulty.
All this could be construed as a theoretical argument, but the size of DDR-related game and controller sales speaks for itself. :)
posted by Almo at 5:46 PM
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