Gaming Shout Thread

[Nag]

7 minutes ago, shinymcshine said:

Capcom - playing 1942 in the acarde in the mid-late 80s

 

Yeah... that was the other one that sprang to mind for me, not sure which came first... though I guess that doesn't really matter.

 

Capcom are one of those companies where, if you've spent any time at all gaming, you've probably played a Capcom game.

[one-armed dwarf]

My first Capcom game was The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

[Sly Reflex]

I think it was 1942 on the C64.

[AndyKurosaki]

I put Dino Crisis and Onimusha as my “Come on Capcom, stop fannying about and bring these back” options. Sure, Onimusha 1 got re-released on PS4. But I’d love to see the trilogy back. I’d also love the Onimusha Tactics game, which was Final Fantasy Tactics in the Onimusha universe. But I doubt they even remember they did that.

[Jimboxy]

15 hours ago, Jimbo Xiii said:

I think mine was Castlevania on the GameBoy, I can't think of anything else before that. I don't think I had any Capcom games on the Master System

Just realised that's Konami isn't it. I'll turn in my badge and gun now

[AndyKurosaki]

I wouldn’t worry. Capcom may as well do Castlevania. Konami has pretty much forgotten it ever existed.

[DANGERMAN]

9 hours ago, Jimbo Xiii said:

Just realised that's Konami isn't it. I'll turn in my badge and gun now

I honestly thought you were joking, it's a very old meme 

[Maf]

The “yellow paint to climb here” is back in discussion this week because of FF7-2. Some people say it’s bad game design to paint the hand holds. Other people say gamers wouldn’t know what to do without it.

 

My take on the problem is every game developer since Uncharted 2 uses this sign posting. Games do need to nudge the player in the right direction, but when every game does it, it takes the thinking and trying out of all games.

 

I know it sounds silly, but even if a game used a little bit of green grass on a hand hold instead of yellow paint, at least it would be a bit different and you would learn oh in this game I must look for this. Not saying that should be on every game, but different games should try different thing instead of defaulting to yellow paint.

 

I understand don’t fix what ain’t broke, but games need to try different things. 

[mfnick]

Meh, it just doesn’t bother me at all. Stuff like this never takes me out of the experience. Same with shimmying through cracks in walls and when people go on about Ludo-narrative dissonance.

 

Sucks to be you if it annoys you though, I can imagine it’s frustrating. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I think the issue with it is it feels like a band aid for how much visual noise a game these days have, and it also makes going through them feel a bit like pushing forward+R1 in an Assassin's Creed game.

 

But I've never liked any of the Uncharted games, and they all have that same issue with me. Too railroaded

[Maf]

I don’t hate it, but it does feel a bit “lazy”. Lazy in quote because it doesn’t feel like the right word but I can’t think of another.

 

But so many games do it. That or making things shiny. 
 

Pointing the player to things or like Dwarf says helping pick things out of densely packed levels, I think games do need it. But just using the same thing in so many games…it works, but is that the only solution.

 

I also think certain games shouldn’t have it at all. Games like Tomb Raider or From Soft games where a huge part of the game is discovering and mastering the environment, it should be trial and error. I can interact with this but not this. Etc

[HandsomeDead]

It's never been anything I'd get bent out of shape about.  I'm always aware I'm playing a game, I don't get taken out of a game by noticing this stuff.  I think it's aesthetically more pleasing if it communicates it's paths more organically, like the climbable walls in the Tomb Raider reboot where a good way of doing it because it still looked like the environment.

 

Oh, and Maf uses the same example is I make this post.

 

Also, doesn't FFVIIR already have some corny UI element at ladders and stuff.  Dunno why this wasn't brought up then because that's more egregious than yellow paint.

[mfnick]

Also much prefer that than having to use ‘detective vision’ modes all the time. Fuck having to press a button to apply a shitty filter all the time. 

[Nag]

Wondering around the same area for forty minutes wondering where the hell I'm supposed to be going "takes me out of the game" more than a bit of yellow paint.

[one-armed dwarf]

Having done two speedruns of RE4 I think its use is justified there, that is a kinda arcadey game anyway and while it's silly that some asshole is going around smearing ugly yellow paint on everyone's windows I sort of don't look at that game the way I'd look at something like Alan Wake, which is going for maximal immersion at all times. 

 

But I really think lots of other stuff needs to think more about scene composition. It's a lot harder with a free camera versus a fixed one, but there's no reason a game needs to have so much junk on the screen at all times and putting more yellow junk on things to help just feels like putting lipstick on a pig. That's my real problem, not the yellow paint by itself. Games are just often awful to look at. Let's have some more negative space in games, let a scene breathe a bit and have that guide the player's eye. In other words, follow the example of the most recent Zelda games and imagine that in 4k or something. Those games have a knack of laying out a scene that naturally shows ways through it, and enemies are lit up with bright primary colours. Even in the depths. 10/10 marks for Nintendo's visual language, 3/10 for Horizon Zero Dawn

[Maf]

Totally agree

 

I also think things like yellow paint has its place in direct design as well. Uncharted for example, if you’re having a cinematic set piece where you have to run down a tunnel and jump on a thing, well it’s important the player can do this first try. If the game is trying to approximate action scenes from cinema then you should be trying to make that scene as readable to the player as possible while they’re having to make frantic decision making, so paint the thing they have to jump on yellow.

 

But I do feel this one technique is used too much throughout games. Generally I’m on the side of the game should help the player so they have a fun time playing. But why does it always have to be yellow paint: 

 

I get it’s most obvious. And stands out easy compared to most things in games. But it is a bit like why have we settled on this design answer and that’s it

 

 

[Sly Reflex]

You're looking at this from the wrong angle, I think.

 

Sure they could just not bother and let you trail and error it, but nobody wants to get into a place where they have to try jumping up al the walls like they're playing the first Tomb Raider game. 

 

They could tailor the grab points to look in theme with the game. Some games for example use the tarpaulin hanging down or something similar. Which is what I think I would prefer if it was up to me. just make it look like part of the world so it stands out, but it's not garish. Maybe do the sheen thing so it glimmers or twinkles so it draws your attention that it's important.

 

I think the bright colour of yellow serves a few purposes. One is that it's super eye catching. Even if you take a break from the game as well you're going to want to inspect that.

 

Standardising it across games make games easier to read. Sort of like how nearly all loot colours follow the same progression, or Square/X/R reloads your weapon. Things sort of become standards for reasons as it allows players to jump in and get a running start to playing the game once they are literate.

 

The final thing I thought is that maybe it helps with inclusiveness with colour blind people, but apparently they can struggle with yellows bleeding into blues. As someone who has perfect colour vision this is maybe a conversation for someone that is colour blind, but the more I think about it it's not that often that the yellow is placed on blue. Maybe grey? From an accessibility point it might have some traction over other solutions that I mentioned above.

[AndyKurosaki]

I genuinely don’t get the reaction to the yellow paint in FF7 Rebirth, or any game whatsoever for matter. Because of my dyspraxia, I get frustrated if I get lost, or stuck. So I’m fine with this.

 

Better that, than something like Hogwart’s Legacy, where you ended up having to cast ‘Revelio” 15 thousand times, as it showed you where stuff was for a few seconds before vanishing.

 

Rebirth is going to be one of the most epic games of the year. Sorry, but people kicking off on Twitter because “It’s got yellow paint in it” just seems utterly ridiculous to me.

[Maf]

I agree with all of Sly’s points except the standardisation of it. Controls, yes. But for visual language I think that should continually evolve where as for a lot of years now in AAA it feels like devs just said “that’s the answer” and it stopped;

 

I don’t think anyone is saying FF7-2 will be bad because of yellow paint @AndyKurosaki, it’s just another game using this same answer. I think people just want to see new ideas, even in the smaller details like sign posting 

[one-armed dwarf]

I don't want my comment above to be framed like I have a problem with implementing visual accessibility options in games, it's anything but that. My issue is that they are already visually inaccessible in a lot of cases, yellow paint or not. The FFVII Remake games might have these visual aids, but they also do this really fun thing where the screen flashes bright white when Cloud swings his sword at things. Or the constant particle effects obscuring action. Detail is suffocating clarity. Yellow paint doesn't come close to fixing the issue, it's just an occasional work around. It's not just in intense action scenes either, tons of games have visual clarity problems even in traversal. The issue isn't about putting paint on things, it's about putting lots of bullshit on the screen in the first place which requires it. God of War Ragnarok has it really bad as well, the jungle areas might as well be white (green?) noise to me

 

 

Like, there are games now that I choose not to play cause I can't see wtf is going on in them. I dropped Nioh 2 because of this and have dodged other Team Ninja games cause of it. 

 

Like it's no wonder a game like this demands yellow paint so you can actually see what the hell is going on in it