What's The Point Of Hard Games, Anyway?

0:00 This week, the game design discourse is all about Hollow Knight: Silksong.

0:05 Which, don't worry, I won't show any footage beyond Act 1.

0:09 No spoilers here.

0:10 But, yeah, this is Team Cherry's much anticipated,

0:14 much hyped sequel to 2017's incredible Hollow Knight.

0:18 But pretty much the only thing people are talking about

0:21 with this game is its rather brutal level of difficulty.

0:26 For context, this is a Metroidvania about winding through

0:30 an interwoven map- looking for upgrades and secret passages.

0:35 There's nothing too strenuous about that.

0:37 But along the way you'll have to go

0:40 toe-to-toe with a huge cast of terrifying bosses-

0:43 many of which will put your skills to the test in a punishing war of attrition.

0:48 Now, the first Hollow Knight was pretty tough

0:51 at times- but Silksong seems to turn the dial further,

0:55 with even early and mid-game bosses- like the bullying Last Judge at the end

1:02 of Act 1- requiring dozens of failed attempts as you learn the patterns,

1:06 safe spots, and phases you must go through in order to win.

1:10 All of which has left some players feeling dejected and frustrated.

1:16 Review site VGC gave the game 3 stars out of 5- praising almost every aspect,

1:22 but trashing it for a level

1:25 of difficulty that feels "demotivating" and "sadistic".

1:28 And so, with all this chatter going on, I thought it might be interesting

1:32 to talk about the design of difficulty in games through the lens of Silksong.

1:38 To look at why game designers choose to implement a higher level of challenge.

1:42 And- crucially- how they should go about it.

1:45 I'm Mark Brown, and this is a GMTK Mini.

1:49 Okay- so the first question is,

1:51 why would a game designer choose to make their game hard, in the first place?

1:56 What can you gain by amping up the challenge?

1:59 Well, I think there are three main reasons to do it.

2:03 Number one is that the harder a challenge is,

2:07 the more satisfying it feels to finally overcome it.

2:10 If you breeze through a boss fight the first time you play it,

2:14 it might barely even register as something that happened.

2:17 But if you struggle against a boss for an hour,

2:20 slowly improving your skills, your reflexes,

2:23 and your knowledge with each failed attempt,

2:25 and then you finally topple that monster- well,

2:28 that moment of triumph is something you might never forget.

2:32 That's the idea behind the Dark Souls

2:34 series- creator Hidetaka Miyazaki says "I just

2:37 want as many players as possible to experience

2:40 the joy that comes from overcoming hardship".

2:43 And Hollow Knight: Silksong certainly plays into this.

2:46 When I finally beat the Last Judge, my palms were sweaty, my heart was racing,

2:52 my eyes were straining from not blinking- and I let out an embarrassing,

2:56 involuntary noise like "ahhh!" to mark my victory.

3:00 You don't get that with an easy game.

3:02 The second reason to amp up the difficulty is

3:04 to tie in with the game's narrative or aesthetic goals.

3:08 Like, if a game tried to tell you

3:11 that this kingdom is a place of misery and death,

3:14 a no man's zone where hope goes to die.

3:17 And then you play it and it's full of enemies who die in a single hit...

3:21 well that's going to be pretty dissonant.

3:23 So if you want to tell a story about suffering and failure,

3:27 then the gameplay should reflect that.

3:29 That's how Celeste works- the game is about hero Madeline stubbornly

3:33 persisting through hardship and setbacks

3:35 as she climbs a legendarily high mountain.

3:38 And so the player must also stubbornly persist

3:41 through hardship and, well, you get the idea.

3:44 Silksong plays into this too.

3:46 The game's world- Pharloom- is a withered, haunted land.

3:50 There is death everywhere.

3:52 Other characters are seen failing on their pilgrimage to the Citadel.

3:56 Main character Hornet must grow in strength and wisdom to succeed.

4:00 And so must you.

4:01 And the final reason for increasing a game's difficulty is

4:04 to ensure that the player approaches the game in a certain way.

4:08 Take the game Furi- a game about being patient

4:12 and observant as you dodge and parry every incoming attack.

4:16 Before exploiting a rare opening to deal some damage.

4:19 The game is designed as a brutal back-and-forth ballet of defence and offence.

4:25 But if you could also just run up to the boss,

4:27 dodge a few simple attacks, and then wail on it until it dies...

4:30 well you wouldn't have to do any of that stuff I just said.

4:33 And the game would be pretty dull.

4:36 So in Furi, difficulty acts like a teacher:

4:39 punishing you if you play it wrong, rewarding you if you play it right.

4:43 Where easy games let you get away with simple and repetitive strategies,

4:47 hard games require you to use every mechanic, every system,

4:51 every tool, and every inch of the level design.

4:54 And Silksong does play into this also.

4:57 You'll need to learn every boss's patterns, make use of every charm and tool,

5:02 and understand Hornet's moveset on a deep, molecular level.

5:06 So- I think those are the three main reasons to make a game more challenging.

5:10 To increase the sense of satisfaction.

5:12 To mirror the storyline.

5:14 And to discourage boring playstyles.

5:16 All of which turns difficulty into another tool that a game

5:19 designer can use to create the exact experience they want.

5:23 But!

5:23 But but but.

5:24 Big but.

5:25 A tool can't be used carelessly or thoughtlessly.

5:29 I mean- it's simple to make a game really hard.

5:32 Just put spikes everywhere and send the player back

5:35 to the beginning of the whole game every time they fail.

5:37 That's done- but you've now alienated 99% of players.

5:42 No.

5:42 Instead, difficulty is a careful balancing act.

5:46 We want players to feel challenged.

5:47 Maybe even frustrated.

5:48 But we also want them to get that moment of catharsis

5:51 from winning before they go all the way into rage quit.

5:55 Now, I think if a game feels fair- like

5:58 you can see how you might learn from your mistakes,

6:01 you can feel yourself getting better, you blame yourself for slip-ups,

6:05 and you have ample opportunity to repeat and improve- then the game

6:09 can keep you in that challenge zone for a long time.

6:12 And oftentimes, this is where Silksong lands.

6:15 I spent a long, long time fighting the Last Judge-

6:18 but I kept going because I could see a path to victory.

6:22 I was lasting longer and longer.

6:25 And mistakes were my mistakes.

6:27 But if the game is bull-[beep],

6:29 then the player is going to dip into frustration,

6:32 and perhaps even rage quit, much more quickly.

6:36 And, sadly, Silksong has a fair amount of BS.

6:41 Things like the long,

6:42 repetitive journey to the boss fight every time you repeat.

6:46 Things like unpredictable troll moves.

6:48 Things like boss encounters that use extremely random patterns.

6:52 Things like how the ammo for your secondary weapons don't regenerate upon death,

6:56 so you'll have to farm enemies to top up.

6:59 All of this stuff...

7:00 this is what pushes players to get mad.

7:02 To stop playing.

7:03 To write reviews where you call it sadistic.

7:06 And that also means it no longer fits one of those design goals from earlier.

7:11 The first one- where overcoming a tough challenge feels rewarding.

7:15 Because the player either doesn't overcome the challenge at all,

7:18 because they stopped playing.

7:19 Or they feel a different emotion when they finally win-

7:23 just sheer relief that they'll never have to do that again.

7:27 So as game designers, we can't think of difficulty as a single monolithic

7:32 thing that we can add or remove from our game.

7:36 But instead, it's a broad category that includes a whole

7:39 catalogue of different tools- each one changing the game,

7:43 and the player's relationship with it, in a unique way.

7:46 But there's another type of tool we can use.

7:50 And that's giving the player an opportunity

7:52 to change the difficulty in some way.

7:54 To decide just how hard or easy the game should be.

7:58 Perhaps the most obvious version of this is to provide difficulty modes,

8:02 or assist options that let you modify the game.

8:05 And Silksong- like the original Hollow

8:07 Knight- does not include anything like this.

8:10 Which, in some ways, is a shame.

8:13 Because, well- difficulty is a really subjective thing.

8:17 What's "challenging" is different for every player.

8:21 If you asked me to run a 100m dash in, say,

8:25 less than 12 seconds that would be a really tough,

8:28 but plausible challenge to overcome.

8:30 But it would be practically impossible for a young child.

8:33 And completely laughable for Usain Bolt.

8:37 Difficulty adjustments let everyone find a place where they feel challenged.

8:42 And also- there's more to Silksong than just beating bosses.

8:46 This is also a game about untangling an interconnected web of maps and areas.

8:51 And a game about understanding the deep lore of its storyline.

8:55 It would be a shame to deny people

8:57 of those aspects just because they can't beat the bosses.

9:01 It reminds me of Tunic.

9:03 My wife loved playing this game and uncovering its many secrets and riddles.

9:07 But she simply would not have been able to play it without the accessibility

9:11 adjustments that let you tone down

9:13 the difficulty of its crushing Souls-like boss battles.

9:17 But- with that being said,

9:19 Silksong does have one big thing that allows you to adjust the difficulty.

9:24 And that's being able to explore elsewhere.

9:28 You see, one of the bosses that pushed me

9:29 into the frustration zone was this guy- the Savage Beastfly.

9:34 It's not actually a very difficult fight- he

9:37 has pretty simple patterns to avoid and exploit.

9:39 But, he also spawns in loads of enemies who

9:42 just get in the way and drain your health.

9:44 The overlapping patterns make it almost

9:47 impossible to predict where will be safe.

9:50 But, instead of deleting the game and cancelling Xbox Game Pass,

9:54 I decided to just explore somewhere else.

9:57 I found new powers, more charms, I increased my maximum health.

10:01 And when I finally went back to the Beastfly

10:04 I was able to defeat it a lot more easily.

10:07 And in many ways, Silksong is designed around this idea.

10:12 The game is full of completely optional bosses,

10:15 and there are very few times where a boss acts

10:18 like a complete bottleneck to progressing further into the game.

10:22 I'll explore this more fully in the inevitable Boss Keys episode on this game,

10:27 but, basically: you can almost always go somewhere else and come back later.

10:31 Also- Silksong has a mechanic where you

10:33 lose your cash- your rosary beads- when you

10:36 die and you've got to go back to your cocoon corpse to pick them up.

10:40 It's a mechanic that, in most games that do this, forces

10:43 you to keep going back to the same area again and again.

10:47 But it's not as egregious as other games.

10:51 Like, in Hollow Knight 1 you'd have half

10:53 as much mana until you found your corpse.

10:56 Not so in Silksong.

10:58 You can also find ways to bank your rosary beads.

11:01 All things that make it okay to leave

11:04 your cocoon behind and just go somewhere else.

11:06 And perhaps you could even point to the way ammo works.

11:10 Like I said before, ammo doesn't regenerate on death so you'll

11:13 need to go and kill some enemies to top up your reserves.

11:17 This breaks the pattern of going back to the boss over and over again,

11:21 and may encourage you to just do something else.

11:24 In all of these ways- and more- Silksong is telling you that the solution is

11:28 almost never to just keep hitting your head

11:30 against a brick wall until you get through.

11:33 Instead, if you get stuck you should explore.

11:35 Go elsewhere.

11:36 Get more powers.

11:37 Maybe you'll find a friend who will help you in battle.

11:40 Or that one special item that will make the boss fight easier.

11:44 Or maybe you just need a break.

11:46 So, in a nutshell: difficulty is a tool

11:50 that game designers can use to craft a specific experience.

11:54 But, really, difficulty is a huge set

11:57 of disparate tools- which must be deployed carefully.

12:00 And finally, it's always worth thinking about how

12:03 to give players ways to adjust or circumvent the difficulty.

12:08 Right now, Silksong is still in my sweet spot- it's tough, but I'm surviving.

12:14 But how about you?

12:15 Let me know in the comments down below.

12:18 See you soon for a new episode of Game Maker's Toolkit.