by Lujo on Thu May 09, 2013 10:39 am
Dislekcia's P.S. question is actually really important and interesting, I hope there's an answer.
And squirrelnest is right about what DD's theme is - it's a puzzle disguised as a dungeon crawler. You can't win an argument about going full puzzle for several reasons:
1) It's a design decision. From my point of view a terrible, wrong, counterproductive and contemptible one, and I've said this in various tones and volumes before. But the game is great enough that you have to respect it's makers and take it for what it is in pretty much any issue which boils down to "what is all this roguelike crap doing in the best puzzler ever?". For you, or me, or in my assessment 99% humans in the world, it's an issue, for them it's their decision. Maybe they would never have been as motivated if they set out a puzzle game in the first place, or not be as motivated not to work on a roguelike? Maybe if they didn't believe they were making a roguelike this awesome puzzle game wouldn't exist at all? Who knows what motivates them as people? Who has right to inquire? But we all want them motivated because outside of personal genre/taste prefferences they're pretty incredible.
2) Death makes the game addictive. True, it's the worst sort of way to make it addictive, and the game is probably one of the rare ones which don't really need as much artificial difficulty, but as a hook you in tool it works well enough that you can't take the "death as learning/motivational tool" argument out of the discussion. It's only partly right, but since it isn't 100% wrong you can't bypass it.
3) Beneath everything it's a matter of taste, even if it's not clear. Sure, various viewpoints get rationalizations, justifications, expirience and booksmarts brought up, but in the end you're telling the guy who's making a game (or has made the game) that what he wants is, for the lack of a better word, unreasonable or counterproductive. I've been part of this discusion before this thread, and in several incarnations on different issues, and I've yet to see enough reasonable evidence to support such a firm stance as the dev's have. On the other hand, just about any reasonable reason I've seen people come up with on the other side boils down to "Guys do you realize just how good a puzzler you've got here?", and get progressively more annoyed with the dawning realization that they might not. And in the end all that's left is both sides being bitter and resentful at each other, and with no real malice on either side. Which is why you don't debate tastes in general.
4) Marketing. Who's gonna believe another puzzler in a sea of puzzlers is the holy grail? But if you can market it as a hybrid between an acessible genre (puzzlers) and a hip hardcore übergeekluk (balkaneeze) it stands out. Fortunately it's as good as it is and very much more a puzzler than a roguelike so puzzle fans get hooked like files on sugar, while unfortunately when roguelikeness rears it's ugly head they get righteously annoyed as you just did (or would if you pursue the pointless debate instead of contributing about your expirience with the game such as it is).
5) Compromises - you have to make them. The ones allready made on both sides get silently brought into this kind of argument so both sides tend to start them at least slightly pissed off. One who's annoyed at stuff like limited lockers or death as such piles up frustration for a long time by noticing them chafe every time he encounters them. And if the dev's really wanted to be roguelike developers, I can imagine they've made quite a few concessions up until now. Enough to be at least mildly annoyed at anyone asking for more...
Well, that's it, hope noone takes it the wrong way. Cheers.
I almost got pwned by Shifty Brickwork!