Hello everyone!
What do you think are some well-crafted games?
By that, I don’t mean well-crafted in terms of story or concept, but the actual execution regarding overall design like UI, modelling, painting, animation, audio, which may include how well it supports the story or concept, of course.
Just to name a somewhat recent game, I think DmC: Devil May Cry is a very well-made game.
Especially effects and lighting had a huge impact on the game’s atmosphere, which completely suited the concept.
Jumping back and forth between the demonic realm and the normal world transforms the whole scenery with the former including distortions of architecture and reddish lighting with sparks and highlights everywhere.
The models and textures (including mesh and texture animations) seem definite with their own style, which I would say is a good thing, compared to the overused voxel look, for example.
As player, I like to see games that has a visual identity, where UI, models, texture, lighting and overall art respect it. StarCraft is a good example that comes in my mind.
Well crafted implies more the just a pretty visual interface. You’ve got to have mechanics and game play that work nicely together too. In fact, these elements are more significant then visual appeal.
A well crafted game also needs a perfect difficulty curve and engagement curve.
Gotta go with the Blizzard classics. Warcraft (the RTS), Starcraft and Diablo to include the most recent versions of these games.
Combine great combat mechanics with fast fluid animations and excellent sound. You “feel” it when the Tauren Warrior warstomps, the Barbarian splatters monsters or a Colossus is laser beaming the crud out of your stuff. Even when the graphics were pretty crude by today’s standards, the gameplay was visceral.
The mechanics are fairly easy to pick up but take the most talented players in the world to master. In my opinion they definitely qualify.
As an interesting comparison, what do you think the difference was with Warcraft 2? Both the original and the third instalment could be considered well crafted. I never managed to finish the second one.
I really loved FTL.
But for AAA games I think one of the most beautiful games that made everything feel customly crafted for the game was Darksiders. I still have not played the sequal because I had a hard time realizing what would be different from the first game.
About Warcraft 2. I loved that game and couldnt get enough. I played both sides all the way through and even bought the expansion pack and played through that completely also. The only expansion pack I ever bought back then.
I really liked WC3 also.
Exactly. Dwarf Fortress is in the same boat. Terrible UI and non-existent art, but it’s probably the deepest game that will ever be made.
The big issue is well crafted for whom? There are plenty of times where fluid animations really matter, but the rest of the time they are just nice to have. Sometimes music can be melodies and fanfares, but sometimes it’s role is to be passive and ambient, without having attention drawn to it. So much of seeing something as well crafted is finding little details of polish. If that polish happens to be in a place you notice, then you are more inclined to perceive it as well made.
I haven’t played StarCraft (will take a look on youtube, though!), but this makes sense.
The better visual elements fit to each other, the more convincing the game.
I totally agree. I did mention sound, but programming matters a lot, too.
For me, there are three important layers: visual quality (how it looks), auditive quality (how it sounds) and gameplay quality (how interaction “feels”). Of course, “gameplay quality” includes things like difficulty and engagement curves.
On the other hand, I don’t think those factors are more significant overall.
I like to compare this to getting into a relationship with someone.
You don’t necessarily focus on the other person’s looks all the time when you are together, but in most cases it most certainly had a crucial impact on actually choosing to interact with and getting to know that person.
The same is true for games: If you don’t like the looks/sound of it, you will probably not even come to a point where gameplay matters because you are not going to experience it anyway.
And even then, let’s say you give it a try anyway: As long as it is not relevant to the story, you would probably choose a well-crafted game over a game that isn’t polished.
I haven’t played those games, but from the insight I had, I would completely agree on that. The overall design is very well fitting to the concept of player immersion.
Of course, this also contributes to the immersion. Being able to jump into a game easily is important to not repel anyone, but afterwards, knowing things about a game that you can apply makes you want to “use your knowledge” / “use your skills”.
But have you had those opinions before playing it?
Actually, I was thinking about naming Darksiders II as an example in my original post.
Needless to say, I think Darksiders II is very well-made. Darksiders I already had good design, but I think Darksiders II has some incredible atmospheric elements to it and I’m still trying to figure out how they achieved that. I think that the soundtrack has a huge role there actually and that it’s much more important than it might be at first glance.
Those are two different things, in my opinion:
focus of the player and his/her preferences (“There are plenty of times where fluid animations really matter, but the rest of the time they are just nice to have.”)
design fitting the concept (“sometimes it’s role is to be passive and ambient”)
I don’t really think details of polish makes a well-crafted game. I think it is more about how convincing the game is, which doesn’t necessarily come from a range of polished details. In many cases, those will be overlapping, but they don’t have to. For example, Angry Birds isn’t exactly rich of polished details, but I would still consider it well-crafted, because the design greatly supports the concept, leading to a convincing game.
I’m pretty happy with Mad Max and also liked Shadow of Mordor quite a lot. By no means are those my all time favorites, but I think they are very well crafted in the sense that they have rather few “rough edges” imho.
I’ve had a lot of fun and suspenseful moments with the DayZ mod in the past, but “well-crafted” is not an attribute that I would use to describe Dayz (neither mod nor standalone).
So like @hippocoder said, there is more to it than being “inoffensive”.
Shadow was fun, but not particularly well crafted. The difficulty curve was messed up. The QTEs were just annoying. The mechanics didn’t fit well together. Nor did the mechanics and theme fit the setting.
Sure I’m picking holes at the games weak points. But you are asking for the best of the best.
This is probably going down a semantic rabbit hole, but craftsmanship has almost nothing to do with “the idea” or the design. It’s entirely about the skill of the people who made it, divorced from inspiration. It’s the last part that’s the clincher, because without inspiration, it’s hard to see the bigger picture, so you’re driven almost entirely by skill. Even with inspiration, skill isn’t evident, but people get swept up enough that it’s hard to notice. Angry Birds is a perfect example, because even though it has a decent premise, it’s still evident that there wasn’t that much care and attention put into the levels.
I was thinking more about the polish angle than about gamedesign questions from the start. Maybe that is why we disagreed on Shadow of Mordor.
By the way I generally don’t like QTEs in games, but I found the way Shadow of Mordor did them pretty good. For people who haven’t played it: You get struck down in a fight and have to quickly execute a QTE that requires a bit more skill than just “press x to not die” (move the marker with the analog stick inside a closing circle in time and then press the correct button) and if you manage that you get back into the fight with a scripted sequence where your hero does something impressive. The next times you die in that fight though the QTE gets harder to execute untill it is impossible for you. I liked that mechanic because it gives you a slap on the wrist for not blocking in combat but still gives you a chance to save the situation that you just screwed up. It requires some actual skill and quick reflexes which I find translates well to what is happening in the fight.
But still, I really could do without QTEs in games and I’m not gonna claim the game is perfect. But overall I was pretty happy with Shadow of Mordor and played it to the end. Can’t say that about too many games these days.
We could think o polish vs well crafted, the same way we’d talk about a chair. A polished chair is smooth and well varnished and all. And well crafted means it won’t break, you can stand on it and it wont even creak.
So it’s kind of the look and feel vs solid game mechanics.
Thanks for your replies! Very interesting thoughts there!
Actually, I mean both. At least if you think of polished and well-crafted like this (which is pretty similar to my understanding):
Yes, to some extent, this topic is opinionated, but I guess, especially when it comes to games being well-crafted (vs polished), it’s not that opinionated. Because in the end, you could actually get statistical data on games concerning their impression on the players. By that norm you could measure how well a game’s components fit together. Of course, the group of people you would check is opinionated also, but at least you could relativize those opinions.
This sounds very stressful. And, in a way, very fitting to what you described. If it’s just a last split second when it is decided whether or not your virtual character will die, it should be stressful, shouldn’t it?
Same goes for the zombie dogs in the Resident Evil series. You will have to rotate the control stick mad to get those dogs off of your character quickly.
Interesting statement. I highly disagree.
Except for the first half sentence, which is why I will completely agree to disagree here.
Thanks for naming it! I will have to check this one out. My fist impression is very ambivalent.
For the most part, it looks rather standard, but some of the screenshots I’ve been looking at show some interesting sceneries.