I don't like complicated games anymore

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I don’t like complicated games anymore. I don’t like if a tutorial takes more than 5 minutes. I don’t like if it seems necessary to actually go through a tutorial to understand how to play the game. I don’t like if the game has no tutorial but you gotta go read a wiki and watch youtube to figure out what the heck to do.

I don’t like crafting, spell-crafting, weapon modification, “builds”, big level-up trees, numbers, or menus with sub-menus and icons whose meanings aren’t immediately obvious.

I also don’t like casual games where you “get it” in 5 minutes.

I like games that are dead simple to understand, but have so much nuance that you can’t ever master it. I also still want to be immersed. I want to believe some fantasy. I want something to dive deep into, but I don’t want it to play “hard to get” up front. Ya know what I mean?

What kind of game is that? How do you describe that? And what kind of audience is that? Are you like that? Do you know other gamers like that?

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Reminds me of early titles such as Ninja Gaiden (NES),Half-Life,and Hitman or even newer indie titles like Hotline Miami, Katana zero, Celeste. The newer titles did a great job at immersion with the right sounds,music,and simple gameplay mechanics. Catherine was a favorite of mine that I played about 5 times.
It seems a lot of indie titles are inspired by those earlier titles that got the immersion right (At least for me…) I wonder if it is a generation thing.

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I just replayed the original two Turok games cause they remastered on steam. They still fun. They can be pretty challenging if you set them up that way. But you never have to figure out how to play the game. You just start running and it all comes naturally. And it never feels stunted, ya know?

It’s crazy that, these two games from like 1997 still feel better than most current games I’ve played. Even big AAA games. I think a lot of times developers feel a need to put more “stuff” into the games because, well you need to keep doing new stuff to sell right? But it seems to me there is a finite amount of keys and actions the human mind can map and recall, and if you exceed that then the game starts becoming work and not play.

I keep downloading and trying out new games from steam. Mostly indie stuff. 9 times out of 10 i return within 20 minutes because the character control feels stunted. Or it’s just tedious to do anything. A lot of times the premise of the game is really interesting and I want to get into it, but like, I dunno when it comes to games I guess I am trained to expect to be able to learn it easily just by playing. Nowadays it seems like everybody wants to copy dark souls and be obscure as hell (while not getting the basic combat absolutely perfect like DKS did, so that it’s fun and easy to learn through trial and error), or they want to make something more complicated than taxes. Seems like most the unity games in particular suffer from really clunky, non-fun character controllers.

I think thats the most important thing. The game has to feel fun right from the get go. I don’t care what kind of clever systems are in it – if it feels bad it is bad and I don’t want to to grind hours to develop a taste.

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I’m playing through Ni No Kuni on Nintendo DS right now. I wonder how you would feel about that one… it was I think a couple hours in before I had any decisions to make at all. The early game plays out as something between a movie and a comic book, with a lot of story and character development (and gorgeous Studio Ghibli artwork). The first couple of times you even get a dialog choice, your only choices are between “yes” and “yeah!” :stuck_out_tongue:

I remember thinking at the time that American audiences, in general, would probably not have the patience for a game like that. It’s just what I was looking for though, so I’m enjoying it immensely. (But to be fair, this is partly because I’m using it as language training rather than a game per se.)

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I never had much interest in japanese stuff like that. but i’ll give it a shot if it’s on steam.

I think the thing that a lot of modern games do wrong is they try to impress you before they hook you. Like Ubisoft keeps throwing these massive worlds at you, and before you even got grasp of the basic game rhythm they are showing you the one million things you could do and then saying, “now go! you’re free!” and it’s just stressful.

a lot of survival games and rpgs do this too. But the size and complexity isn’t a hook. It’s a deterrent if – at least to me – if you try to sell that as the hook. I really think you got to either get the play hooked on the basic gameplay pattern, or some story that you wanna get more of, before you start reading all the stinking rules of monopoly and expecting them to care.

Anyways, just ranting.

I give ni no kuni a try. Who knows maybe i discover japanese games is what i needed all along.

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Ni no kuni was fun for the first few bosses, but then the “fetch quests” got really boring for me. The only japanese RPG’s I really enjoyed have been Chrono Trigger, Tales of Phantasia, and Seiken Densetsu 3. But even the newer versions of Tales games and the secret of mana titles bore me because they’re just the same titles with different characters, colors, and better graphics. Most modern titles have pretty much been that for me. Same plots, better graphics, different characters, and a slightly more complex system.
It is crazy indeed that old titles had better character controllers despite the lack of access to game development at the time and harder code to work with. Insane. The programmers were genius.

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I don’t think they were any smarter, just more focused. If it’s not possible to put in all the extra junk, you just make what little you can do as good as you can right? People don’t change generation to generation, just the environment. I’m sure if they could have geeked out with total freedom they would have. But restraints mandate focus.

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It’s always in restricted environments where creativity thrives I think. It’s one of the reasons pixel art looks amazing. In restricting the color palette, and resolution, good pixel art is capable of making memorable moments in games. And as you said mandates more focus during the creation process. If you think about it, why you found Ubisoft games to be overwhelming with their big expansive empty worlds. They lack any focus or direction because of the unrestricted approach to development.

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I tried some new games on Steam, also I like to play on mobile device, but as author described, a long tutorials (especially on mobile) just annoy me. I tried a lot of games, RPGs, MMOs, Quests, and im feeling like hungry wolf now in PC/PS4/mobiles games, Some of modern games have very nice graphic, but I feel no soul in them. So I gave up, and playing Hearthstone, OSRS (but all game is tutorial, you need to keep 10 browser wiki pages open, every time, if you want to understand something) and some indie games, last was ‘My friend Pedro’. Also I very liked ‘Zelda: Breath Of The Wild’.

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I wasn’t impressed with Nintendo’s array of games before the Switch. I mean Nintendo was THE company that came up with Iconic Mascots! Mario, Megaman (Not exactly Nintendo but first played in NES), Starfox,Link, Metroid to name a few. I can’t think of such a mascot in the last 20 years from them. I started playing Breath of the Wild just a couple of days ago. I caved in and bought it off an Amazon sale. And my god, what a brilliant game. I read forums, saw videos, I pretty much know the end part of fighting ganon, but I made sure not to spoil the story for me. So it’s still fresh. What a game!

From the moving grass fields with their lush green colors and amazing shaders to the brilliant approach towards exploration rewarding you for the right reasons rather than just fetch quests or some dumb collectible to the great soundtrack to the neat mechanic of breaking weapons to explore new weapons and so many more features.

It makes me feel like a real world I WANT to explore. Just brilliant from Nintendo. They were the pioneers of the adventure/exploration genre from the first Legend of Zelda and I think they’ve done it again with Breath of the Wild.

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I played BOTW recently too. In fact I bought a Switch just to play it. Mostly I was interested in the graphics. But I enjoyed it pretty good. Still, after about 15 hours I was fine with putting it away for good. I felt like I’d seen and done it all, and what remained didn’t interest me further.

I personally thought the weapons breaking was tedious. Just me, but I prefer games where you just use like one weapon the entire time. I think Sekiro made a good improvement there over the Souls games. Of course that’s purely preference – lots of people complained about not being able to make their tank builds or mage builds or w/e – but to me that’s always fluff that distracts from the point. JMO, not knocking on game design at all there.

Back to BOTW, yeah they did just about everything right. Except the dungeons. Dungeons felt like they ran out of time and just tacked them on.

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For some reason I am thrown back to Nier: Automata, which played like any other Platinum game: fastpaced action that is easy to pick up but deep enough to throw you an occasional challenge.

The world was a simple and small interconnected one, no fancy expansive open world or day/night cycles. Exploration consisted of finding a secret passage between two sections or a secret weapon in some dead end.

The game occasionally shifts camera perspective with the sole purpose of making the game feel like another game. There are platforming sections, SHMUP sections, topdown sections á la Diablo… without affecting the control scheme.

Not bad for a game with a color palette that’s so subdued the dust on my old Xbox has more color variation!

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The Souls games never really hooked me too well. I don’t know if it was the “Git gud” community, or the constant dread and gloomy atmosphere with a really depressing/intense soundtrack, or the fact that you’re always playing a dead/someone who looks dead person. And I know people praise the controls of those games, but the overly realistic animations was hard to work with a video game camera for me. It looked like an action RPG, but played like some kind of fencing/sword swinging simulator. But that’s just me. Sekiro fixed that problem for me. I enjoyed the whole japanese aesthetic and the fact you play a super fast Ninja warrior. They should make more fast-paced games. Loved the grappling hook mechanic too.

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I play a mix of games.
That’s why I went back to playing dreamcast games, N64 games, and old school retro games, that I haven’t played yet.:stuck_out_tongue:

PS: Fantasy? I’ve got that covered. Check out the dreamcast version of Soul Reaver. Or the PC and PS1 versions if you want. And if you do, don’t watch playthroughs of it on youtube, otherwise it’ll spoil the story and immersion.

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The genre that I think best fits the description is the action-adventure genre, very closely followed by the action RPG genre. Probably any genre that starts with the word “action” would be a good candidate really… :smile:
Also genres where the name is derived from a single verb: shooter, jump…erm, platformer.

I enjoy these types of games a lot myself. I like being immersed and enjoying a good story more than power-gaming with a spreadsheet to make the ultimate build or speed-running or anything like that.

I recently enjoyed playing through Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice a lot. Combat in it is really simple so the gameplay definitely doesn’t fulfill the “so much nuance that you can’t ever master it” criteria, but it’s still a highly immersive game and has some really gripping storytelling.

Celeste actually fits the bill pretty much perfectly, if you’re into platformers. The controls are dead simple and the learning curve is almost non-existent, but it still manages to gradually ramp up the difficulty and complexity through level design so that you always feel challenged (well, after the first 15 minutes at least; the very beginning was a bit boring to me).

Audience type for these genres would probably be people who enjoy mastering a challenge and being immersed in a fantasy setting, but who just lack the patience (or time) for spending lot of time studying a complex system for a delayed payoff.

I have personally gotten less patient with games as I have gotten older for some reason. Could be partially because I’m more conscious about not wanting to “waste” my time, wanting to achieve things with my life, be a productive person. Also I think that I’m just more aware of the things that I tend to enjoy, so I don’t often see the point in persisting with something that isn’t fun to me almost immediately, when there are so many other things I could be doing with my time instead. Memento mori and all that.

Perhaps also atomistic learners could tend to enjoy these types of games more often over something like complex strategy games.

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I also agree that as I am older I am more discerning with what I play.

Especially on this forum. I mean, I assume if we are here we are into game dev and such. So we always have that frame of reference when approaching games.

It’s like, ok, I see what you’re doing. I know that mechanic. Or I see the skinner box or gimmick. So , at least for me, my patience can run out quick if I’ve “seen it all before”.

Which doesn’t mean I hate it. Sometimes I’ll play a genre game just for nostalgia even if I know there are no surprises.

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I think thread title is wrong
I don’t like COMPLICATED games anymore

You may think yo u don’t like complex games. But I bet, most of you actually don’t mind complex game.
But what you don’t like, is current trend of grinding, to achieve anything in the game, or walking from A to B point, to get to C, without particular immersive experience. Or crafting, exping for 5 hours, to get anything sensible. So I again bet, that is what you really don’t like and don’t have time for.

Hence the title should be
I don’t like GRINDING games anymore

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I think that the title actually is correct. Complicated as in difficult to understand. As in games with a steep learning curve, where you need to do a lot of reading etc. before you understand the systems well enough to start making smart decisions.

For example I tend to really dislike the process of learning the rules to a new complex board game by just sitting down for 20 minutes and reading the instruction book. The fun for me only really starts once I have a good enough understanding of all the different mechanics that I start getting a feel for the different dynamics and can start formulating effective plans of action within the system.

I think that this is closely related to the paradox of choice. When you have a very wide number of possible actions you could take, but you don’t have a good understanding of their consequences, you feel like you’re just shooting in the dark and don’t get to experience flow, feeling of mastery, fiero or any of those good feelings. In other words it’s more distress from being overwhelmed and/or boredom than eustress from feeling like you’ve “got this”.

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I don’t know, but I think game dev, is like ‘playing’ complex game. Requires lots of tinkering and problem solving.
I just can not imagine, someone who try make a game, not liking to play something more complex from time to time.
Besides times, when just want to put brain cells into the rest for a bit.

However,
Even minecraft can be very complex, and very easy as we make it.
Many MMOs doesn’t force us to do all stuff. Just open paths of options.
Long time ago I did play WoW. But I didn’t bother with crafting and mining, or fishing. These were completely optional.
Most games don’t require reading any docs, or stats, to play casually. Unless starting getting serious. Which become complex.

Factorio, KSP, From The Depths these can be complex as we make. But can be also simple. We are not forced anyhow, to make it complex. Sure, not everyone must like these type of sandboxing/construction games.

Then we have racing games. These can be as well complex. Is not just casual riding about. Rather racing against opponents and time.

FPS games can also be complex. Or DOTA, or LOL. But we can play them casually, without much stress, not bothering about ranking. More stress would imply haters chatting than game itself :slight_smile:

Playing tower defense can be relatively simple as well. Unless we want beat high score.

Tetris, or arkanoid can be simple and complex, if wanting high score. Will require little, or lots of focus.
Flappy bird anyone? Simple or complex? You would though single button can not make you anyhow stressful … :slight_smile:

Older games typically had just play and thats it.
Today we have tons of upgrades as the option. Get faster, get more health, get higher damage, get new equipment.
But even then, no one forces us to use it. But then we probably will struggle to progress.

Witcher 3 allowed us to play only story, or set for challenge, with fights. So such complex game for example, become casual and pleasant.

You can pick up crossword and sudoku. Choose easy or hard, as per liking.

If there will be hand holding on every step, no much of plying fun would be left. I better go to watch film. Or play game with tons of cut scenes.

So in my humble opinion, most games are as complex, as we making it to be.
In fact, many games feels they are dumbed down, in comparison to their ancestors. Which also leads to unfun.

In the end, game were suppose to imply some challange, to make it fun. Rolling ball down the hill forever, would be extremely boring.

In the end, I am glad we have options, to play different type of games, with different difficulties and challenges, literally for everyones liking.

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This. ^^^

Grinding is neutral. It’s great if you like the actions you do to grind (like kill low-level monsters in dark souls or search for loot in a survival game). It’s just grinding if it’s monotonous chore you don’t enjoy. That’s just semantics though because you can say any part of a game you don’t enjoy is grinding if you got to do it more than once.

Anyway, yeah the big thing I think is too much choice. It’s like meeting a person with multiple personalities. It’s overwhelming and you don’t know how to react. So what do you do? Smile and scurry away as soon as possible. That’s what it’s like when a game introduces itself by trying to impress with it’s range of stuff to do.

The very worst way to introduce a complicated design is to throw player into action and expect them to learn tons of new stuff all at once. Like, opening with a big firefight in a strategy game, but I can’t even figure out how to move and select units. Or even in a simpler action game. Don’t throw waves of nazis at me while I’m trying to get a feel for the controls. That’s not exciting, it’s annoying.

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