How To Fail At Survival Games
Vložit
- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- Survival games are popular, so no better time then now to fail at making one, come along and I will show you the way....
Discord: / discord
Twitter(x): / theartindi
itch.io: artindi.itch.io/
Contact:
artindigames@gmail.com
Music:
Doh De Oh by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
O Fortuna by Carl Orff And Carmina Burana - Zábava
The difficulty ramp in survival games is often the biggest drawback in the genre, because as the player progresses the game becomes easier, any ideas on how a survival game could overcome this?
Well, one could have it so new challenges appear as the player progresses. While the player may have found a way to farm food, they could discover that there are better methods to do so, giving them a new goal. Or maybe as their tools improve, they find new areas which hold harder challenges.
Make it so that it starts incredibly hard so that by the time you have the best gear and best upgrades the game is still incredibly hard
how about making it such that at the start only weak enemies target player as the player isnt a worthy prey for the strong enemies, and as the player gets stronger, stronger enemies start to target the player
With singleplayer survival games why not just make it so easy that you don't even need to think about anything, after all games are made to give empowerment to the player, so give them a gun that doesn't need ammo and kill most things in a single shot, and give the players items that make them immune to most survival mechanics. If people say that it destroys the point of "surviving in the survival game" they are most probably sweaty masochist hardcore gamers that don't touch grass since 2004. (Obviously all of this is ironic)
You could make a survival game ambiented in some kind of dying world where it becomes harder to survive over time, being harder to find food, having to face stronger enemies and environmental adversities, that way the game starts easy so you can farm and such, and then the game slowly forces the player to explore, and think of new strategies to survive, there could also be a main objective to save the world that unlocks after it becomes harder, working as a badder, harder final challenge to win the game
As long as you start with punching trees then it's a survival game.
The true survival experience....
Terraria: *existential crisis mode engage*
LMAO!!
Minecraft: *punch log, stone, dirt, ore, iron, iron door, obsidian and a dragon*
@@TheMamaluigi300 Terraria is a game and not a torture method?
Dont forget to make all items expensive, even to the point of absurdity. A spear should be made of a stick, rope, multiple types of rare gems, a gun, the sun itself and 3 bottles of water. Overcomplicating crafting recipes is a sure way of making sure the player isnt looking on a wiki page for 99% of a playthrough and will lead to an amazing gaming experience!
Meta gaming life hacks
Note that the only way to get the three bottles of water is through the mass-production invention-tree. since they need water in the recipe, you only need the three, and waterskins exist with a higher stack size and efficency per item, the 100s of bottles per second of production means nothing
Don't forget the random tech tree that is always barring you from gaining anything from endgame at all because... fuck you!
Shot at the gun with a... crap.
literally minecraft divine journey 2
How to make a good survival game: make dwarf fortress.
How to make a bad survival game: make dwarf fortress.
ha ha
Why does that feel so true?
Dwarf Fortress is so complex, you don't need a wiki, you need common sense.
Dwarf Fortress looks boring.
@@alex.g7317 just try it. I think it is free to download. I can't reall hurt to try, no?
ahh yes my favourite survival factor RNG
a must have in any survival game.
It's simply wonderful
If any factor can kill you if get unlucky can happen, most likely it will happen over many times playing
Make it so that the best food only regenerate 10% of the hunger bar and you're always hungry, forcing you to eat pounds and pounds of food per hours
like when you have to eat as much as you normally would in a day/night cycle, but then also have to prepare food for as long as actual food would take to prepare. But the day/night cycle is only 5 minutes long. Overcooked 4.
If you eat too much though, you become slower and have a random chance to instantly die every tick. Gotta micromanage that hunger!
Or go the other way around: Make one type of food (that's relatively easy to find/cook) to restore 100% of hunger, rendering other sources of food obsolete.
@@EdKolis Even better, make the food spoil after incredibly short amounts of time so the player is forced either to eat it all and possibly die of overeating, or let it spoil and clutter up their inventory, possibly dying of starvation when in areas with no readily-available food.
Also let's model waste elimination. You need to go poop and pee every so often or you get a mental and physical debuff that increases until you do. And if you put it off long enough, you might have an accident!
Another tip to fail:
Promise the player that isolation is one of the main themes that gives the game its character...only to ruin it by adding shopkeepers, other interactable NPCs and in some cases, pets to the game with later updates. Bonus so if the pet is a miniature version of one of the bosses in the game.
Well the pets thing is understandable. We're social creatures. We literally go insane when isolated. Hence, Wilson the volleyball buddy. lol
Or in the sequel
Looking at you, Subnautica
This is the second comment that ends up making it so that Terraria might have failed. The other one said as long as you punch trees it’s a survival game.
Edit: It was “As long you start with punching trees it’s a survival game”
@@DrakonBlakethat doesn't necessarily mean that they're including Terraria. Terraria never once advertised itself as an "isolation" type survival game. From the very beginning a huge part of progression has been building up your town
"You will be alone"
starts game.
"Hello, welcome to this survival place, I will be your guide!"
:/
It’s important to have as many items as possible because it is super fun to carry around tons of items so you really feel like you are making progress.
Don't forget mandatory inventory Tetris! With separate weight and bulk limits for each container.
oh boy, the ptsd. lol
@@Artindi You could make a how to fail at items video or something talking about all the wonderful ways you can fail at how items in games should be used
Weight limit? What’s that? Sounds stupid.
listen these 2 dirty rags will REALLY help me survive
When I throw my small child into the wall due to hours of progress lost, know that you succeeded at making a survival game.
it happens to the best of us. :)
the "hey this tag kinda fits" nonsense is a scourge to anyone trying to find Immersive Sims on Steam. "My games about inflating tires! Let's see... oh yeah it's a simulation that's immersive! I'll tag it with Immersive Sim!"
Roguelikes too. Something in this game is random? It's a roguelike! The player character can die? That one's a roguelike too!
Despite terratia being one of my most played games i still dont know why it's considered a survival game
"Every shmup has bullets you need to dodge, right? Then they're all bullet hells!"
Not all milk is cheese and I don't want to drink chocolate cheese.
Worst part is that the community is the one putting these tags so you get a wall of nonsense under the summary.
me playing dwarf fortress on the side realizing it is indeed a survival game
it is in fact a survival game. one of the examples of a survival game that isn't first person.
adventure mode hype
@@zubinkynto soon, you will be able to keep adding corpses to the same monster's lair one at a time *with graphics*!!
love how this is literally just rust
You mean ARC?
Remember Minecraft didn't get popular because it was about the player's creativity and the way you can do anything and go anywhere. It was purely because it was survival. make sure that's all you can do and no fun mechanics or hazards. Because we all know that Minecraft has none of that. And oh make it feel like you can die at anytime and at any point. So the players are to worried about all your survival mechanics and not the rest of the game... Not because I was to lazy to add anything else besides some free models I found on the internet and a tutorial on CZcams. It's because my game is super complicated and deep.. not just RNG...
>make it feel like you can die at anytime and at any point
I wonder why Minecraft Bedrock isn't more popular than Java then, you can die at any point for literally no reason in that one!
@@iwontbeforgotteni too love the minecraft bedrock heart attack feature
Another great way to make your survival game annoying is making it so every tool degrades as fast as if it was made out of cardboard, so you need to get more resources just to fix the thingy you’re getting them with, or having to switch weapons after 3 encounters
In kingdom come deliverence you technicly have sleep and food meters but you get a free bed at the beggining, beds in inns are very cheap, you can eat food from random pots(the ones with food youtube) with no consequences, food is very common and also cheap and there are perks that even futher make it easier
I honestly don't mind these sorts of mechanics, it helps add a bit of immersion to a game. :)
@@Artindi Yes I really like "soft" survival elments that aren't very aggresive in their presentation
The key is to start your game with the player naked with no equipment and make them run around looking for anything to work with. It works great in non-survivor games too.
I kinda like the naked and punching trees phase of Valheim. But yes, I also like that it's very short.
Oh how fun it is when I search for a material for *2 hours* just to not find it!
So much fun!
The best part of survival games. :)
Could have mentioned that the only enemy should be zombies.
Pretty true otherwuse
Whoops, forgot. I guess I got used to only ever seeing zombies, must have slipped my mind. ;)
That temperature thing had me rolling
too many times. lol
Loving this series! I’m currently producing an RPG, and this series has been very helpful with learning what to and what not to do in game development! I wish you the best :D
happy I could help. I think.... :)
remember that this series's title is actually a lie and there is no sarcasm and this series is a guide on how to succeed
I made string! Umm...
a big step, just wait till they have to make a forge. 0.0
The first half of this video feels like a direct call-out to Don't Starve and I love it LOL
I've actually never played it, but I do want to. :)
@@ArtindiI frankly wouldn't recommend it, I haven't played it in years but I remember the first few hours just being trial-and-erroring through the game's different unknowable and unpreventable stopgaps (unless you watch guides) but the actual content was super easy to beat such that you could live forever
the original DS is boring, but have you tried RoG@@moogobIin
@@moogobIindo you happen to renember the dlc available when you played it?
I was worried this was going to be a big jab at palworld. But if there was one, i think its just, "bit easy on the survival side innit?"
And honestly I don't mind games like that, adds a bit of realism to the world. :)
You thumbnails always hook me even before i dive into how to fail gems
And this one was special, because I added shading. 0.0
I would like to fail at making an immersive world. I want to rival the Ubisoft.
Another tip to fail:
Is surviving in the wild exciting and tense with you having to travel between different locations, only stopping temporarily? Take it away by adding base building! Always add base building even if it's detrimental to your survival experience! Do you want to not play as human in a survival game to justify you not building a base? Whoa there! Can't get too creative here, can we!
I wanted to point out the need to include base building, but decided not to because there are other types of survival games that base building just wouldn't work in. But otherwise, yes, most of the time, base building should be a must. :)
Yep, got it. Add hunger bar and start making money.
My tutorial helped at least one person. :)
Oddly specific
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Failure is a part of success. If you never try, you'll never fail; and if you never fail, you'll never succeed.
I was hesitant to click on this video because I was scared that I would find flaws in my favourite survival games. I was right to be afraid.
which one was it?
@@Artindi Project Zomboid
OHOL :"I made string!"
I love how the thumbnail is palworld, it's accurate.
I like how you made the video itself harder by not defining "survival game" until the end. Yay grinding!
When players struggle to survive the game (not IN the game - just THE GAME) ... you did great!
Never understood the point of survival games as always online MMO-esk experiences. Surely, survival games in the DayZ sense are santisfactory in only so far as you go from naked in the woods to building a house or completing whatever story quest line. Once completing it, said game is basically over and sticking around is on par with messing around in sandbox mode after beating the main story and all the quests. To which you realise you could just be doing all of this in Mindcraft or something.
People who are looking for an MMORPG will seek it out but survival games are more "Arcady" in their appeal because the point of the survival elements is to remove them entirely from your checklist. If the end goal of a mechanic is to remove it entirely, then what is the point of the game post struggle?
A good question for sure. Very thought provoking. :)
i love spawning in lava pits it makes my day
Pretty sure you won't take this request but a niche gamer market that I love is idle/incremental games. I'd love it if you did a video on those! I'm very curious about what points there are to be made in that context.
After all, it’s not a survival game if you survive more than 10% of the time
But in shooter games you shoot more than 10 of the time. So really survival games should be called death games.
Ha ha, that's a good one. :)
Just because of one frame from this, now I want to make a platformer survival game lol. And not in the terraria sense
Could be fun! :D
Make sure to make make the tutorial 2 hours so the players can’t refund your game when they realize how bad it is, I mean you spent $100 to post that on steam!
I feel like this is a direct jab at ARK and I love it
I remember the survival mode for Fallout 4. While i like brutal survival mechanics, i dont like how they restricted when you can save, because losing a bunch of progress to death by jank isnt my idea of fun.
Also, remember; temperature should be unnaturally biome-locked. There should be an instant 20-30 degree change that happens because you're now standing on rocks instead of grass. And damage is the only effect of temperature so it remains a simple lock-and-key system rather than a complex system that makes you consider your environment.
Great video! Currently deciding if I want to make a survival or RPG, as they are my two favorite genres. These videos help a lot!
glad to hear. :)
Why not both? What if you had a class that determined what you are good at for both combat and survival? Being a Ranger can let you make traps to capture animals and opponents. A Warrior has a lot of stamina to survive longer in battle and against hunger. Also, physical acts like chopping trees or mining is easier for them. Mages could be a high risk - high reward class as the better spells in the game need special material components to cast. And to top this off, what if you could find other characters to join you? Making a balanced party will help round out your weaknesses, but you need more resources to keep everyone alive.
There needs to be a survival game that takes 80+ years to play and every day begins with an existential crisis.
This is isn't a devlog but I'm commenting anyway. 🌞
That sounds fun.... wait a second... :)
well The Longing takes 400 Days, so that might work
Bro got all Death Note near the end
Putting a fish onscreen while mentioning CoD was delightful.
Glad someone got that joke. :)
You should make a video called "how to make non-arbitrary inquiries into game design philosophy".
Don't forget, make a building system that rivals unturned but make the terrain so hostile towards the X line that the bases can only stretch a few meters before you're forced to condtruct three stories for the excessive amount of crafting stations.
Honestly, Survival Kids for the GBC is one of my favorite survival games. I also remember really really enjoying Sims Cast Away for the Wii. (weird, I know) Lost in Blue 2 is really good but gets a step down since they didn't balance the food/water aspect well. If it was a bit more forgiving then it would be there at the top.
Loved this video, I kinda just had to subscribe
As a rabbit owner, that's a fairly accurate hitbox
Rain world has got to be one of my favorites just in terms of how brutal it is, but most things are in your control, because predators can be killed, avoided, outsmarted, even tamed. If you compare that to something like ark, it feels like fighting a hunger bar as you collect materials that you don't know how to use yet.
Great video about Ark
I feel like half of this episode is just you accidentally throwing shade at Rainworld
I really want to play that one actually. But at the same time I don't because of how notoriously difficult it is.
don't worry there's an easy mode@@Artindi
Ooh! Ooh! Do an Immersive Sim one!
A lot of this sounds like post-beta Minecraft to be honest
No? are you mentally inept????
1:25 Dude's such an expert at failing he failed at it.
1:54 Man seems to have a certain game in mind
also make hunger need constant attention and take you away from core gameplay all the time
Mans just described Don’t Starve Together
How to fail at Idle Games - would love to see that :D
On top of the grinding, you *have* to add an Attrition mechanic, because who wants to actually keep the materials they've worked so hard to acquire? Food should rot (it's realistic(TM)!), barrels should leak, everything you make should degrade over very short amounts of time, and if it's not degrading fast enough then throw in a creature that'll come tear things down if you've got more than the bare minimum. Oh, and if a player wants to turn down or deactivate one mechanic, have their only option be to turn down or deactivate them all! Players who don't care to tackle monsters should not be able to enjoy the other survival mechanics at the same rate as players who pour their time into armor and weaponry.
(...this would be why the first mod we acquired for Raft was to TURN THE DAMN SHARK OFF. It's hard enough to gather supplies for expanding the raft without also battling lag from multiplayer across continents; we don't need to also have our progress getting destroyed every couple of minutes.)
Incidentally, if your game is not enjoyable with the monsters turned off, it's a bad game. I've played *7 Days to Die* in zombie-free mode for a good long time and found it pretty relaxing to gather supplies and make a base without worrying about enemies (aside from the occasional snake or other non-zombie wildlife). Currently playing Terrafirmacraft in the relaxation of clearing out large areas (chopping wood, breaking weeds, collecting random materials) with the day/night cycle off and regular Minecraft mobs off so my only threat is occasionally running across bears and needing to stop now and again to find food.
i feel like zomboid is the one survival game with constant death i've played extensively that i actually like :3
Deserved references to palword and rust👌
0:52 - You were playing Palworld and the Mammorest wandered into your base.
Hooray
Hooray
I actually liked what Fallout 3 did.
They already had a food mechanic, they just added a mode which made it more relevant.
(Which they stole from a mod, but hey ^^)
You completly forgot the story and lore ! But well forgetting to put any of those is already in its own a step to succeed at failing.
So let's suppose we bother adding actual plot to our survival game, you could either make it painfully simple such as :
- "you crashed in an unknow world but thankfully you are an engineer or go a magic tool gun so you had for goal to rebuilt an entire industry to build an escape vehicule"
- "You are an exile/prisonner who got thrown into the more obscure part of the world, this is your life now"
- "You are a survivor in a post apocalypse world, how it happenned? how did you survived? Why are you on that specific spot ? Who care, now go survive !"
Regardless of your choice don't forget to add the lore of a mysterious precursor civilization who mysteriously dissapeared, and always be cryptic about them to mask the fact you had no clue how to properly make world building, all that matter is they would leave ruins and artefacts for you to loot.
From there, 2 options are possible, either you barely cover at all the story, or you make it so covonluted than it break the feelign of isolation you started with and the Game Theorist start creating clickbait thumbnails about your game !.
... feel I might need some advices from Terrible Writing Advice
Will there be an indie fighting game video someday in the future? Gotta make the next Street Fighter 3 Third Strike or DBFZ-
How to fail at escape room games
I might just do how to fail at escape rooms. cause some of them really suck. :)
Alternatively, you can just make a big forest, put some trees, rocks and animals that, after harvested, respawn either instantly or after 20 years, slap a hunger bar that constantly depletes if you're not currently eating anything, and literally nothing else. You gotta survive, and it's just interactive enough to be a game, so it should be good to go, right?
Edit: forgot to mention the rocks are only useful for crafting simple tools to collect more rocks, you can make an axe and spear too but why would you when you can just punch everything?
LEGO Fortnite does pretty much all of this. Once you've crafted everything, there's no goal.
Bro literally described ARK survival evolved💀
Ayy
Ayy
"add temperature, but not in a realistic way"
Or... Add temperature, but in a REALISTIC way. It is definitely worth your time and energy to read EVERY paper on boundary layer modification due to hair and clothing under forced and natural convection rather than abstracting anything away. Remember, getting a PhD in aerodynamics, chemistry, biology and CFD in order to avoid abstracting away your wind resistance mechanic into a dimensionally correct but easy to understand form is definitely worth it.
u deserve a bajillion views bro
I hope so.
Oh cool you made ark
Woah really calling me out at the end there
Mental note, skip straight to the endcard of Artindi's next video
Stop it... get some help.
~Michael Jordan
"A one or two degrees too hot or cold from the ideal temperature, and you have around 30 seconds before certain death"
This could be a funny thing for a sort of non-serious silly survival game, but in the code the temperature between plains and desert would be like 0.35 degrees to make it good.
I feel like this is a callout to The Isle lol
> Spend 2 hours grinding trying to build a makeshift spaceship to leave a starter planet
> Guy comes by in a huge dreadnought complete with turrets and bombs
> Demolishes all of my hard work and ship, leaving nothing leftover to start over with
"Raiding is part of the game lol just get good"
Fun
no u
Was Wonder Boy all the way back on the Master System a survival game?
noted
Something you touched on, but could be delved deeper into:
The best way to fail at choosing a game genre is to choose a genre you don't play much because it's popular.
Well said. :)
Also, be sure to make everything cost exorbitant amounts of resources that are abundant and not interesting in the least to obtain. After all, what more could players ask for in gameplay than hitting an inanimate object for hours on end?
don't forget if the player makes a base. make sure it will always look as ugly with colors of
brown
add no cosmetic options except for like a table
you player will never see another color again
You just described ARK
another great idea is to add a stamina bar, so you can only run for about 20% of the time, even less when you're jumping, while you spend the rest of the time regenerating stamina and walking at the excruciatingly slow walking speed. traversing the map and exploring the world at a reasonable speed makes the game too easy and therefore boring. also, it reduces playtime, and since playtime is the only important measure, you don't want that.
how to fail at vr dev video next?? (pls)
Another tip to fail
Make sure to ignore all your player’s requests and add useless feature just because you can
Free, actually helpful information? But... that's not why I watch Artindi videos. What... what do I do with this? o_O
ha. I don't know. good luck. :)
2:35 this tangent hit too close to home. Too many good sandboxes I've seen neutered :
A moment of silence for the lost sandboxes....
another way to fail is to make it a walking simulator where you just walk.. and walk.. and walk.. an- since we reeeaaallly need to stretch that play time so players can't refund 'em. :D (DEFINITELY NOT TALKING ABOUT CERTAIN SURVIVAL GAMES ABOUT YOU NOCLIPPING INTO A BACKROOM OF REALITY)
0:55 you just described creatures of sonaria
Failing at making survival games is easy:
Step (1): Make a survival game.
Done, all survival games are thrash to begin with.
Im making an RTS, but everything I do seems to make the game more interesting and engaging. How can I fix this?
Stop production, hold till I get an how to fail at RTS video out.... might be a few months, but I gotcha. ;)
Add so much stuff to the game it becomes a TBS on all but the most advanced hardware.
The original blood one would have been better
Shut up!
yeah, maybe you right. :)