The "Difficulty" of finding your niche (Is Ghost Knight that hard?)
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- čas přidán 12. 06. 2024
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Why Dark Souls is the IKEA of videogames: • Why Dark Souls Is The ...
#indiegames #gamedev #gaming #gamedevelopment #indie #darksouls #cuphead #difficult
Honestly, the difficult spike was what made me keep playing the game! Kinda like dark souls, after crossing those archers, after the tutorial, felt like "okay, the game will start now so get good", and I loved that. The one thing that would suggest is making the controls a little more precise(a little bit like megaman x), so the player doesnt feel like was the game's fault that they died. Can't wait for future update!
Is quite unique haha in that not too many people wrote they like the difficulty but like most people wrote they didn't and also told me to get rid of like half of the mechanics and basically make hollow knight instead.
@@officialgrimwaregamesllc lol thats crazy hahahaha I like the game as is, it feels very unique. I feel like you explained it pretty well with your comparison to demon souls. Its a niche group of players, but a very devoted one. As for me, if there isnt a high skill celling, I get uninterested pretty fast. Oh yeah, maybe make the tutorial tombs stick out a little more. I got passed some of them on first playthrough!
@@extremepivotDX its interesting for sure navigating that kind of space and figuring out what feedback is the one that will make the game truer to your vision and experience.
But I do wonder if Demon's Souls were to come from something like Activision with a lot of market research/testing behind it would it have ended up the way it did. Probably not because they want to sell as many copies to as many people as possible and easy modes/hard modes are hard to balance/financially doesn't benefit them as they want to sell the most copies.
It's hard to believe that I cake-walk my way through an oppressively grim world and never loose.
I respect your stance of doubling down on the difficulty. You have a vision, and you're going to stick with it. Personally, I love difficult games and this game being so inspired by Ghouls n Ghosts and other 8/16bit gems is what drew me to it. I was on vacation when the demo released so I sort of forgot to play it, but I want to play it tonight
I played a game when I was a kid called Mission: Impossible. It was in the Attarii system, and it was said to be unbeatable. I had two friends who owned it. And those where the only two friends I had who owned an Attarii.
Like literally no one has ever beaten it? completely unbeatable? Or is it like one of those Custom Mario Maker levels where you have to do it perfectly in order to win the level and it could take like 300 tries.
@@officialgrimwaregamesllc they said that the game was set up so that it couldn’t be beaten. Not sure if that is true or not, but I do remember playing that game and many more at my friends house, and most of the games on Attarii were so difficult we never beat them
@@august3777 oh wacky, I'll look into that, that's not really my intent with this game though haha
Loved the Demo, felt like Ghouls 'n' Ghosts meets MediEevil. Looking forward to the full release.
15:42 Those games are always remembered fondly, I know an interesting weapon dynamics in Destroy All Humans 2. and it has a unique type of gameplay to it, psychokinesis and advanced alien weaponry are in your disposal and each weapon has different abilities that can help you out in different situations. For example, Meteor Strike and the Ion Denominator are area based attacks from the ground. The Ion denominator is able to kill enemies in an instant and will transmog ammo, but isn’t effective against stronger enemies. The meteor strike has a very wide area of effect but it isn’t quick enough to kill entire groups of enemies but can easily kill stronger ones and can cause distractions for you to get a breath of fresh air and hide. But it needs to be perfectly timed to work when you release the trigger. But the Ion Denominator will explode on your own will. These types of weaponry probably aren’t going to in Ghost Knight, but certain weapons are able to change gameplay and keep things unique.
Yeah there's like a "give and take" aspect to what you're talkin about...if you're constantly just "give give give" you become OP - which is a different type of game more of a power-fantasy.
As someone who acquired every achievement in Dark Souls 1 Remastered, you've piqued my interest. Downloading your demo as I type this.
Lets start of by saying Im a Darksouls fan, so hard isn't necessarily something that bothers me. The combat wasn't to bad, I found the jumping puzzles to be the most challenging tbh, especially early on when your not 100% comfortable with things like jump height and what ledges the knight can grab etc. The full reset from a single jumping puzzle makes mistake feels a bit much, especially compared to combat where you have several lives. I would also appreciate a bit larger of a collision box for the souls/globes. right now they can be a bit irritating to pick up, especially since they are physics objects. They often just slip past and roll into the acid, which isn't really that satisfying. its not really "hard" either, but rather just irritating :/
That said, my biggest issue with the combat right now is the infinite enemy spawn. This makes ignoring all enemies and jump over them vastly superior to actually fight anything, which I don't think was your intention? Darksouls combat might be hard, but its satisfying, and you feel a sense of achievement when clearing an area. here, there is currently no reward for actually fighting anything at the moment.
other then that, demo feels really solid! great work!
So, this part is not in the demo, but the carriage you walk past, will have a witch that will give you a free upgrade in the first level, there will be passive and active abilities and at each checkpoint you can swap out the different abilities. 1 of 6 passive abilities will be "ectoplasm magnet" type thing where if you're within a large radius of the ectoplasm orbs they will fly towards you. At the end of every level will be a boss, you get his soul to exchange for abilities in the next level. The "active" abilities will be things like charge attacks, or different weapon types, that have different trajectories as well as Upgrades to the armor (which increases your health)
It's in the works
Also yes, I you've given me a good idea for something I can do in the tutorial that's a bit less punishing to train up the player on those types of jump puzzles.
Played all souls games, DS1 about 3 times and never knew you could lure the boar to set himself on fire and die lmao
So I usually lured the bore to a fire pit near the front...trying to mess with the AI...but I also was like...oh alluring skulls? dahell is this?
and I tried it on other enemies later in the game which lured them to the location that you threw it...but yeah...secret techniques! haha
I love the difficulty of the game because:
1) The gameplay is fun.
2) I'm striving to get to the end.
But once I reached the end, if I'm being honest, I don't find myself going back again.
Maybe it's because I'm going through the same level the same; same moveset, same path.
At first, getting to the end was the reward I looked forward to after overcoming the tough challenges.
I believe that adding Easy mode is good because:
1) It's good for people just starting out.
2) I can enjoy the game without the frustration (at least it's less).
Maybe you could give Easy mode a sad ending, Normal mode a not-so-sad ending, and Hard mode a happy ending.
That way, there's different content for every mode.
Oh right, discovering secrets also adds replayability for me too. Like that secret Axe power-up. Secret paths would be awesome too, but don't make it too obvious though.
All great suggestions thank you! I like that idea of alt-paths...I dunno if replayability is particularly a design goal for me? I'll have to think about that one. I find myself going back to a few games to replay them mainly just to re-experience or re-appreciate the gameplay like Cuphead, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Silent Hill 1 2 3 and Resident Evil HD Remaster. Dunno what it is about those handful of games that just draw me in always, but do I wanna replay Batman Arkham Asylum again? ehh not really?
The idea I had during the loading screen to have a bit that shows you "how far away from the next checkpoint you were when you died" to kinda give a psychological push to say "oh man I was that close to it...maybe I can get further next run" like Cuphead.
@@officialgrimwaregamesllc Maybe Replayability isn't the word. It's more like Discovery.
Discovering neat little secrets that aren't required to finish the game but are awesome to go back and find.
That Progress Bar would be a great idea. Instead of showing the boss's health bar DURING the fight, show it WHEN the player dies.
You could add some taunting messages from the boss to add personality to him and motivation for the player to beat him.
I just had a thought; how about adding secret checkpoints to those hidden crystals?
everyone is going to define "fair" differently, but i would say that "fair" means that the difficulty can be overcome with skill and good gameplay, rather than having to replay a section multiple times until you learn.
in the dark souls gameplay, there were several instances where death was basically inevitable because there was literally no way for the player to expect what was about to happen. a more extreme example is "I Wanna Be The Guy" where it's basically trial and error, which feels cheap. you can be the world's best gamer, with perfect perception, reaction time, finger dexterity etc. and still die.
i think that it's the game's responsibility to prepare you for what's to come. it feels rewarding to use what the game has taught you, combined with your skills as a player, to be successful.
with regars to Ghost Knight, i think the element of fairness is mostly on point. most things are reactable, and deaths don't feel too bad, although i think dying from pits is a bit too punishing, compared to fighting enemies on solid ground.
i think it would be cool to have the option to jump from a ledge-hang, versus just the standard climb-up. in general i think having more flexibility in movement options along those lines would put the owness of failure more in the hands of the player.
Jump from ledge-grab...I LIKE IT! yeah right now you can either climb up or drop down...that opens up some interesting opportunities to maneuver between ledge grabs - YES! Great idea! thank you
Great breakdown, very good analysis.
Thank you, appreciate it! It was fun to revisit some of the games and really dig in to some of the difficult aspects of it to see how off base I was in my own design...if I was at all? But I think there's def things I can do to smooth out the difficulty curve a tad and there's always "easy mode" I think a big part of the frustration some people had was that the jumps are fixed-arc jumps with very limited air-control vs something like Mario/Hollow Knight/Ori - and its more closer to Castlevania/Ghosts and Goblins and part of it is I need to train people in the tutorial a bit more on calculating distance/dash because sometimes its better to do 1 jump + Dash...than 1 Jump and Double Jump.
I recently payed the demo and i did enjoyed it but there was a moment when it confused me. After the initial tutorial section, past through the tall door when zombies start appearing from the coffins for the first time. Since the music changed and the zombies and flying skeleton birds start spawning constantly left and right, initial i thought i had to defeat all the enemies that came in waves. Than i realized they would never end spawning so i moved through the level but more waves of enemies kept coming. So the frustrating part came from that confusion. So if there's one thing that could be improved is to communicate better what is to be expected from the player at certain moments through out the level.
ah, I can work on that, got a few ideas on how to communicate that. Thank you for checking out the demo :)
First I see of your channel. This might sound weird, but your game looks like it feels great.
Thats about it, trust your gut
Hard to do sometimes and it may not work out in the end, but part of the journey of game dev I guess.
I haven’t played the demo yet, but plan to. Great work btw! I’ve been watching your channel because it inspires me to dive back into game dev. I played Dark Souls and other titles for a period but put them down eventually because I’m not a fan of grinding in any form. It feels like an artificial way to pad the game experience and I think it detracts from enjoyment players could have to appreciate effort that dev teams put in their work. I think it’s okay for games to be difficult, but they should provide mechanics that make it possible to navigate puzzles and design elements without the expectation to die and restart… all of the time. I never finished any of the souls like games I played because there’s so little time and a lot of games out there. I’m sure there’s a ton of design, art, animations, fx, music, sfx and programming created by many hard-working devs that I never appreciated as a result. Which is kind of a bummer.
Its cool, haha you're under no obligation to play anything haha. I am curious though when you say grinding, what do you mean?
Do you mean replaying the same section over and over again until you beat it? Or like going around killing bores for 10 hours to collect leather to level up your leatherworking.
If its the former (replaying a difficult section over and over again until you achieve victory) How many tries is too many tries for you?
I finished all the souls/bloodborne/sekiro/elden ring, But I never found myself grinding for levels or souls, What's cool about those games if you know how to play them well enough (Not me) you can beat them without leveling up at all.
As far as the appreciation for art, animation, fx, music, sfx appreciation, I think I have a similar but opposite problem with a lot of games where they're touted as having 100+ hours of gameplay...but I'm bored after 2 so I never finish it because the core of the experience is quest-logs and chore-lists, which as someone with ADHD, I have to make lists for my daily life that I have a hard time sticking to in general. So I just give up then.
By grinding, I refer to both examples you mentioned. Anything that feels like the game is rigged to require playing for many hours by collecting enough items to meet an arbitrary quota, or having to restart over and over again from the beginning of an area in order to memorize the challenges and how to overcome them. I think some games use this as an excuse to claim the experience is rich, fulfilling and worth the 50-60 bucks. I don’t mind checkpoint setups though. They allow some degree of reward and accomplishment as you successfully progress to each one. I think having to try more than 2-3 times to beat a boss or area is crossing into frustration, where the game feels more like work instead of fun. I guess the gist is that after a long day of normal work, I want to experience games that don’t increase my stress levels. 😅
With that said, you are extremely talented and your development videos are fantastic. I worked as a tech artist, so I enjoy seeing you demonstrate experience in all creative areas of the process. You bring very refreshing glimpse into your thought process.
@@jakearcidi7337 So what you're saying makes sense for sure. I think it all depends what we all look for from the media we consume.
Some people have difficulty getting into horror movie genres because they feel too anxious so they prefer comedies.
A lot of that totally fine, everyone has their own preferences.
I kinda liken it to, if you're writing a death metal song with a bunch of growling, blast beats, and fast guitar riffs...and you get feedback like "hey can you make it less intense and slower and make it a pop/rap song instead" something that's more consumable. Its a generally a niche genre for people who enjoy that kind of thing.
And you as an artist/game dev think...am I completely off base with the design/gameplay I want to make? So there's a lot of feelings of failure to please MOST people involved in it as well.
Your thoughts on difficulty are why i just wish listed the game.
Thanks! Cheers!
This kind of game definitely needs to be challenging. Super Ghouls n Ghosts would be boring if it were simpler, and I love this kind of gameplay, I'll grab a copy when it's available! I'm loving your game, the art, and everything! Part of the reason I dislike the Souls games isn't so much for the difficulty (that's part of it) but I really dislike games where the enemies have such high HP that you know your only option is to pour 10 hours into getting better, just to then fight the next big enemy that takes 10 more hours. I don't have that kind of time and it draws me out of the game. Same thing for games like Monster Hunter, I hate grinding to get just a little stronger. Pair that with having to mine resources and other chores, the game loses all of my interest. I don't want to get off of work to do more work. When I was a kid though, I spent days on days on SNES games. I'd jump into every death pit to find all the secrets, and power ups, etc.
I really enjoyed playing the demo and the difficulty is reasonable in my opinion. When are you planning to release?
Q1 - 2025 is the plan
Man i've been following you for few months and your work is just an inspiration, i am curious about the game assets, do you make them low poly and handpaint on them or you sculpt them then export the normals to the low poly then handpaint them to get that broken edge look, also is there tutorials you can suggest to get environment to look that good inside the engine?
Depends on the assets, for characters I sculpt in Zbrush, bake in Substance painter, then handpaint over it in 3D coat
Environment assets, some I sculpt in Zbrush, some I paint directly in Photoshop and put them on alpha cards for background elements, some are tiling textures so I just map them onto the 3D object as needed.
Tutorials, there's tons on youtube as well as Artstation and Gumroad. I think either my 1st or second devlog, I mentioned a few specifics?
@@officialgrimwaregamesllc Thank you, i have a loooooong way to go
The game looks very nice
What this is crazy I beat all the Darks Souls games. You can get to a high level and you're almost un kill able. You should make the game as hard as you think it should be, most people just don't want to take the time to get in to a game. Have an easy mode for people who just hate harder games or games that need you to think to win. We won't play it on easy anyways. Everybody wins.
I played your demo, the game is cool but yeh the difficulty ramps up fast against swarms of enemies, and the mechanic of charging yourself to heal doesnt really work when youre trying to fight a horde of enemies that keep respawning, the game at that point can feel impossible. Also the game looks targeted to children more than an older audience so thats another thing you might want to take into account. I agree games should definitely be challenging but also people dont have all day to play these things and like myself just had to turn it off and do other things.
Looks like ghouls and goblins
I know I said that I was going to play the demo again, but unfortunately, I haven't had the time recently. I still want to leave feedback, granted, I don't know how much it will matter anyway. I do not like some things with the difficulty (not going to get into here since I still haven't finished the demo), but it's not because of the fact that you are trying to make a "hard but fair" game. I agree with you that you should stick to the core idea of making a "hard but fair" game instead of changing it into something completely different.
Yeah, I think if its hard like "Getting Over It" or "Jump King" that's not what I'm going for haha. But I do appreciate the virality those games have amongst streamers. There are for sure things I can do to make it a bit more fair and I did add an easy mode.
I found the difficulty a bit much towards the end. and having a cooldown when attacking added to the difficulty but otherwise I liked the game.
will work on that for the final build thanks for checking it out :)
Of the bat, the enemies move/attack too fast and there is a high learning curve due to the maneuvers you need to execute (early on). Personally, I don't think the demo was too cray cray, but I grew up with Gost 'n Goblins on the NES. I'm not sure if you need to change much, as the game's current difficulty seems deliberate. It's just the kind of game that keeps you movin', which some rly enjoy or, not.
There are some areas that maybe to some people feel like "gotcha" moments. I'd like to explore some additional ways and suggestions from some players that have sent some feedback and see how it effects the gameplay. One thing I was toying with is the idea that during the loading screen, you get a "cuphead-like" bar where you see the distance you got to and how far until the next checkpoint. I think just that little psychological trick for me helped me be like "I know how far I got, can I get further"
and yeah the bat I hear ya
I haven't played your demo yet, I just follow the devlogs/updates for now but I agree with NOT catering to everyone and making a braindead easy mode or game. A similar game/example I can give you is the 2D game Blasphemous, the art/presentation drew me in to buy it but playing it was kind of a let down after a few hours. The exploration was cool but the actual gameplay was way too easy, the main bosses took 2 tries at most and the only one that was a challenge was fun to attempt over and over because of her phase 2. They released Blasphemous 2 and after seeing nearly identical gameplay + difficulty I had no interest in buying it. TLDR challenging but fair games feel more rewarding and increase playtime as a bonus.
yeah Blasphemous felt pretty balanced, I rather enjoyed that one. I rather enjoyed the boss fights as well, they did have some pretty challenging platforming sections though
I enjoyed playing the demo at first but I guess it's just not for me. Every time I missed a jump I have to wait for a loading screen and the re-do everything I just did. If I made a mistake on the parts I already did, then I have to wait for another loading screen and do it again. So I just keep replaying the same parts over and over just to get one more attempt at the part I failed at. It got real boring real fast. I really wanted to like it, but I guess it's just for a different kind of player. Yes, I was even playing easy mode. Never finished. Only played for 8 minutes and got tired of doing the same thing over and over.
Difficulty is OK, but if I have to keep re-doing the parts I already mastered, I'm losing interest super fast.
Yeah, I gotcha, I'm workin on a few things that will hopefully smooth out that difficulty curve, and for some people it might not be for. Which is okay. There's like a certain tolerance bar for everyone where they throw in the towel. But I'm going to work on the difficulty curve a bit more for the full release.
@@officialgrimwaregamesllc Yeah, I understand it’s still a work in progress. I’m definitely going to keep following and try it again, because I do think it’s got a solid foundation. There’s different kinds of difficult. Right now, to me, it seemed difficult in the sense that failure means lost progress. I’m exaggerating greatly, but it kind of felt like you were running a marathon and at the middle you had to guess which cup the ball is under, and if you got it wrong you had to run half the marathon again to have another go at it. Maybe that’s the intent, in which case it’s just not for me. Difficulty is great, but I’d like to play the game and keep trying the difficult part, not start over every time.
You can totally tell this is a game inspired by Ghosts and Goblins and that is your niche audience. Don't worry about the other people until you worry about the right people. Dead Cells did this, but I think they went too far in making their game accessible, so much so that it's lost its spirit of what it originally was.
Fromsoft games really aren't as good as people make em out to be...really what's happening here is that normies are just finding out what a "difficult" game is lol.
The difference between you and fromsoft when they made demons' souls is that they where trying to clone ninja gaiden and had no idea how to design a fun game, where as you are designing frustrating gameplay on purpose and calling it difficulty. Fromsoft didn't know, and I swear, they still don't know any better and it's the reason why fans forgive their bad, unfun game design. Ninja gaiden is more difficult than any fromsoft game and it's also more fun than any fromsoft game. Try using ninja gaiden as your inspiration rather than fromsoft's clone games, you'll end up with a much better iteration of the gameplay.