Last week, I started to play Bloodborne (Playstation 4, 2015). As Dark Souls and Demons Souls, the new From Software game has an extreme level of difficulty and challenge. Every simple wrong move could put you six feet under and, every time you die, you lose all your progress. Add to this equation some monsters with weapons and the stage is ready for the fight.
This is a game where you need patience to learn small details to survive. A friend of mine even questioned me why people like to play this kind of game. It’s a “ludic masochism”, he sad. Check the trailer below:
Well, the gaming industry is plural and we have games for all kinds of players. Bloodborne fits in a category of high-challenging games, and an example of it is the great difficulty of the narrative. Jesper Juul (2013) helps us understand better this ecosystem and how people play this kind of “torture”. The author teaches us that “games are a perspective on failure and learning as enjoyment, or satisfaction” (2013, p.45). To complement this idea, Juul (2013, p.56) also says that “we are emotionally affected by games, and we are aware of this before we start playing”.
This feeling of failure and victory are sides of the same coin. One thing is important: the game must have a plausible solution even for well-skilled players. An impossible game could be only a frustrating experience. Giving hints of progress is fundamental in this scenario. And it’s important to remember that the “problem with fictional tragedy also showed that it is failure that makes us feel responsible for the events in the fictional “JUUL, 2015, p.117).
I think we must play all kinds of games, from casual games to experiments like Bloodborne. In both cases, I try to identify how the experience of victory and failure is created inside the gaming world. This is a fantastic exercise for game designers.
Reference:
JUUL, Jesper. The Art of Failure: an essay on the pain of playing video games. Cambridge/London: MIT Press, 2013.
This is a game where you need patience to learn small details to survive. A friend of mine even questioned me why people like to play this kind of game. It’s a “ludic masochism”, he sad. Check the trailer below:
Well, the gaming industry is plural and we have games for all kinds of players. Bloodborne fits in a category of high-challenging games, and an example of it is the great difficulty of the narrative. Jesper Juul (2013) helps us understand better this ecosystem and how people play this kind of “torture”. The author teaches us that “games are a perspective on failure and learning as enjoyment, or satisfaction” (2013, p.45). To complement this idea, Juul (2013, p.56) also says that “we are emotionally affected by games, and we are aware of this before we start playing”.
This feeling of failure and victory are sides of the same coin. One thing is important: the game must have a plausible solution even for well-skilled players. An impossible game could be only a frustrating experience. Giving hints of progress is fundamental in this scenario. And it’s important to remember that the “problem with fictional tragedy also showed that it is failure that makes us feel responsible for the events in the fictional “JUUL, 2015, p.117).
I think we must play all kinds of games, from casual games to experiments like Bloodborne. In both cases, I try to identify how the experience of victory and failure is created inside the gaming world. This is a fantastic exercise for game designers.
Reference:
JUUL, Jesper. The Art of Failure: an essay on the pain of playing video games. Cambridge/London: MIT Press, 2013.
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