Journal of Tormod Haugen

Even unfair can be fun in the end.

I don’t know where I stand around difficult games.

On one hand I enjoy a challenge - but on the other I like to have a fun time, not spend time doing the same bit of timed puzzle again and again. And in there lies the (first) answer. I don’t like to be forced to do the same part of a game repeatedly. I can sit a long time thinking, trying different things. I don’t have a problem leaving the game in order to wait for a (possible) solution to present itself.

I have a long list of games I haven’t finished. Among them are the classic Prince of Persia, left behind as I got tired of having to replay everything each time I failed. Most of the games left behind are not there because of their difficulty, but rather because they failed to engage me, became boring.

There are few, if any, of these that fall in the category of graphical adventure games. Oh, wait - I got a few from Sierra. I learned something from those. Save early, save often. They weren’t fun. They had fun parts, but also oh, no I think I need to start over again because I don’t know what I did wrong, and it might be four hours ago… parts. This is something Lucasarts (then Lucas Film) did right, no death - no way to block the game. They kept the fun it, and didn’t push the player out. But they still had difficult games. That were fun.

Difficulty is subjective. I enjoy difficult games that engage my sense of logic and creativity. And wonder. I don’t hold with the un-fun twitch games. And maybe that is what it boils down to. Fun? You can have fun while challenged, but not when plagued by an obstacle? Or rather; I can’t - unless it is fun.

There are another factor in determining if difficult can be fun. Fairness. There are two more factors that… or something. Fairness and design. Is the difficulty fair? Or is the not-fair-ness designed as such? Playing Civilization 4 on Noble is fair - no cheating. But then again, there isn’t any cheating on higher difficulty. It is just that the board is stacked against you. Prices are lower for the AI than for you. This is fair - as long as you accept it. If you don’t accept it, don’t play it. There is a limit to how good the AI can be made without giving it more resources or letting it cheat (know information it shouldn’t). If you are complaining about that, make a better AI yourself.

Then there is the unfair games. And not all of them are bad either. Erm - bad as in… fairly unfair in a fair way? Anyone know what I mean? No? Ok, I’ve played the (flash) remake of the Aliens boardgame. This game is unfair. You have lost from the start, just give up. But perhaps you can manage to get a few of your Marines safely to the exit of the first level…

I felt good when beating the third (and last) level of this game. It was just barely. But I did it. My brain beat the unfair odds of masses of Aliens against a handful of under equipped Marines. This is accomplishment. And fun. In spite of everything.

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This post is a part of Corvus Elrod’s Blogs of the Round Table for July 2008: Hurts So Good, or Yoda! My Safe Word is Yoda!. Other entries for this month are available below: