Sorry for the late upload time on this one, there's some fairly GPU-intensive segments in this video and the encode failed a few times!
Deckbuilders are the future - from humble beginnings as ugly but promising rougelikes, they've grown to encompass every genre in a million different ways with no sign of stopping. From classic hits like Slay The Spire, to brand new kids on the scene like One Step From Eden and Monster Train, deckbuilders are going from strength to strength, and The Architect has been playing a LOT of them.
But what make a good deckbuilder? What separates one that's fun enough to give you hundreds of hours of experimentation from one that bores you after your first few runs - particularly when they all use the same mechanics? Well, the answer is pretty simple, and it comes in the form of the trifecta that is Identity, Synergy, and Strategy. What does that mean? Watch to find out.
Work is boring - at least, that's what we've been told. Satisfactory, Factorio, and other logistics games have got other ideas. Far from being boring, these factory or city building games turn regular chores and busywork into compelling, highly enjoyable gameplay, all without falling back on the sketchier tricks AAA developers sometimes employ. How?
The Architect has a few ideas.
With hard hat equipped, and a pot of builder's brew on the go, the Architect is ready to sketch out a production line that takes boring mechanics, and turns them into fun - and it all starts with our need to optimise things.
I was going to do a special 200 subs thing but between the political climate right now and the fact that 200 isn't a particularly important milestone - I'm going to give it a miss until 250.
However, I do still want to give something back to you fine people for supporting me and my crappy videos so we'll do a mini Q&A in the comments.
If you've got a burning question you've always wanted my misinformed take on - slap it down there and I'll give it an answer. I'll try and get around to everything but no promises!
Thanks for sticking around and supporting the channel - and if you have any spare money (or are looking for a better way to spend the money you give me) please consider giving some money to the ACLU, the Minnesota bail fund or any other charity that's helping with the fight against police brutality and systemic racism - two topics that are just *slightly* more important than video games.
Okay I've got to get back to work on this monster of a video coming up next! see you in the comments!
Hey! What’s up? It’s time for another fascinating instalment of The Architect Address, wowee!
Let’s talk about some videos that came out recently, huh? Well the first one would be, yeah that’s right, In Defence of Randomness, a video that has kind of been a long time coming. Work on this one started way back when during the video about into the breach and perfect information - I decided when writing that one that doing both a video on randomness and on uncertainty was going to be impossible in the space of fifteen minutes or so. They’re closely related topics but doing them both justice would take… longer than I’d like.
In the end though, I think it was worth the wait, letting the topic stew for a few years gave me time to collect a bunch of fun examples and really think this topic through. I’ve tried to sketch out my vision for codifying how randomness works a few times now and I THINK the two by two grid is the best of both worlds. Something about the input and output distinction never quite stood right with me because it just doesn’t quite make sense from the subjective perspective of a player. If you’re making games with randomness, go nuts and just use those, but I think controllable and reactable randomness are crucial for understanding how players are going to interact with this system.
Luckily, the video did pretty well so it was nice to see that I was meaningfully contributing to the discussion. Also, it was a really nice excuse to play a bit of XCOM Chimera Squad which is… really good! It’s not the XCOM I remember but if you’re looking for a way to see what all the fuss is about without the commitment of a 50 hour campaign or with the punishing difficulty it’s a good place to start.
I have a few gripes with the game and most of them stem from the fact that it’s built in the XCOM 2 engine but with the inclusion of a few rules changes that make it substantially easier. Giving everyone a melee attack is groundbreaking, and they’ve made action compression and bonus moves really easy to get, which have historically been hard to come by. Still, The world they’ve set up is really fun and the character’s unique abilities all push the envelope in interesting ways that the hero classes from XCOM 2 couldn’t quite do as well. Protip, if you’re thinking of playing this game, don’t pick Axiom to go on your squad, he’s complete junk, and definitely get blueblood because he just deletes entire rooms holy crap.
The other video released was Building Better Villains, originally called Building Better Baddies or Borderlands 3’s villain’s suck let’s fix them - it went through a lot of iterations and I’m still not totally happy with the final name because it’s a bit clickbaity but oh well. The video itself was born, as you might expect, out of me playing Borderlands 3 and finding that… wow, this story kind of stocks when it was basically the entire draw of the previous game.
The writing in borderlands 3 is.... Very weird. The game sort of made a name for itself by being wacky and a bit edgy and over the top, but they’ve sanded down so much of that identity that there’s not really anything left. Don’t get me wrong I think renaming the breed of small bandits from midgets to something less slurry is a smart move, but without the jabs at consumerism or the slightly grotesque sense of humour and even the dumb ironic reference jokes you’re left with.... Toilet humour? That’s about it.
The characters are weird too, everyone’s your best friend, you’ll meet these characters who have no reason to like you and have these massive business empires but you meet them in a cutscene and you’re instantly promoted to right hand man and secret confidant instantly. There’s a weird sort of Saturday morning cartoon vibe to the game and… not in a good way.
As for the actual video, it was a bit of a bastard to put together between needing loads of different bits of footage to use as examples and trying to wrangle adobe 2020 into behaving but I’m fairly happy with it. I always like doing more writing-centric episodes because they’re my actual area of expertise and I think video games for the most part are written pretty badly so it’s good to lay into some bad ones from a perspective of authority for a change.
I think that this particular video was needed because something I see a lot of on the internet is people getting really attached to or annoyed by certain characters, in particular villains and not really being able to articulate why, so they end up falling back on quite frankly wrong ideas like “show don’t tell” or ludonarrative dissonance that sound clever, but don’t really get to the core of why they feel the way they do, and what is my job if not to tell you how to feel about videogames, right?
Anyway, that’s it for this architect address, have fun until I, err, see you again I suppose, oh and play monster train it’s good! I’m having fun with that right now.
Villains are a crucial part of fiction. From Star Wars to Shakespeare we often fall in love with the antagonists of a story far more easily than we do the good guys, why? And what seperates a truly iconic villain from a run of the mill evildoer?
Luckily for us, the Architect has been looting and shooting their way around Pandora recently, and they've got a few thoughts as to what makes a video game villain, and how we can improve our existing crop.
RNG is a big sore spot for gamers everywhere, it doesn't feel great, takes away control, and can be seen as a quick and easy way to get out of making levels yourself - but Randomness is actually crucial to many of our favourite genres.
The Architect might have a cough (FOR NORMAL REASONS PROBABLY) but that's not going to stop them from getting to the bottom of how the oft-misunderstood art of creating chaos can make games more fun, tactical, and even more balanced!
Hello hello hello and welcome to yet another architect address! How are you all holding up with the COVIDs? Hopefully good, remember to wash your hands you filthy degenerates. Well, enough about that, it’s time to talk about the videos that got released in the last month or so.
First of the two is What’s the Meaning of Metroidvania. The idea of metroidvania as a genre has always fascinated me, because it’s not based around mechanics or a particular feel, but similarity to, let’s be honest, one game. Super Metroid. Seriously, the number of so-called metroidvanias that just don’t give a single crap about castlevania is staggering, the genre name sucks. I wish I had a suggestion for a better one, but I think it’s a little too entrenched by this point so we’re just going to have to deal with it.
As I explain in the video, it’s this very idea that, paradoxically, holds metroidvanias back. If we keep copying super metroid over and over the genre’s going to remain in its shadow forever.
This video was originally going to be all about what makes super metroid great, but it was only in playing other metroidvanias to use for comparison’s sake that I realised they were all… basically the same, and whilst a video about genre and the state of a fairly niche genre is less crowdpleasy, I’m reasonably happy with how it turned out in the end. Of particular surprise was the Ori games, the blind forest and the will of the wisps.
The blind forest is… such a weird game. It is gorgeous, the music is fantastic and there are some utterly inspired moments but man, every time it tried to actually be a metroidvania it turns into a weird frustrating mess, it’s such a shame to see - but that’s what made the sequel so great, it’s pretty much the same game but with none of the weird baggage. I really wish those games would give owls a break though, they’re the baddies in both games, owls are nice.
Overall, the metroidvania vid was pretty typical for one of my weird wanky genre videos in of that it didn’t do that great, but I thought the result was quite interesting, it’s a start of the conversation, and if one more person plays supraland as a result I’ll be happy with it. That game rules.
And the other game was What makes DOOM Eternal different. Doing a doom video is, let’s be honest, a bit of a crowdpleaser move but it is, surprisingly, a really fascinating game. Vast swathes of doom eternal are just… what were they thinking - they threw so many ideas at the game that some of them, in particular the story just don’t work at all, but when the game’s combat loop does click, it blows the more simplistic 2016 out of the water.
It’s been interesting to see the people in the comments talk about which of the two games they prefer because as I predicted, they’re split right down the middle. These two games are going to be a talking point for literally years, and I’m interested to see what shape the inevitable doom reboot number three will take because they’ve run out of games that everyone likes. Will they go the horror-focused direction of doom 3 or the mazelike doom 64, I can’t wait personally.
One thing I did see was a bunch of people talking about different ways to kill the marauder - I played the game before people really had the time to deep dive and break it, but apparently the marauder can be taken out really easily with a stunlock combo using the super shotty and ballista. It feels kind of like an exploit but I don’t know for sure. At least there’s a way to make him easy if you want to I suppose.
I’m still conflicted over which game I prefer. DOOM 2016 is one of the most hardcore pulse pounding games I’ve ever played… for the first four hours, and Doom Eternal’s combat is possibly one of the best fps systems ever, but only when you’re not being made to do other stuff. I dunno, it was fun to make a video about a specific game for once, and I’m glad to see it doing well.
That’s it for this month’s architect address - hope you enjoyed and I’ll see you around, bye!
Doom Eternal came out, and it's been a little divisive - some players love it even more than Doom's 2016 reboot, but some fans just can't get to grips with all the new features, crazy new story and weird focus on platforming - which is weird, because the games both look virtually identical, what changed?
Well, to find out, The Architect is going to need to do a bit of research on classic design wisdom, as well as the extremes of game design philosophy to see how both DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal use the same raw ingredients to approach very different themes and experiences.
Metroidvanias are a beloved genre that have been around for decades - but they've only gotten popular relatively recently. That's a bit of a problem, because instead of having years and years worth of games to be inspired by, most metroidvanias are forced to remake the classics over and over again.
Why is this a problem? And what can be done about it? The Architect has a few ideas, and it's going to involve a round trip across Zebes, Nibel, and several spooky castles to figure out what's up with metroidvanias, and what the genre is actually all about.
Well well well, what do we have here? Another episode of the architect address you say? Wow! Better catch up on the previous videos that have been released, huh?
Yeah, only two - unfortunately, I've spent the last month gradually moving house and so videos unfortunately got slowed down a bit - but as you can hopefully now hear, I’ve got a fancy new recording setup that makes me sound like a REAL PROFESSIONAL. So yeah- that’s something!
First up in terms of videos is Why Celeste makes us feel anxious. There’s a bit of an interesting story behind this video - because it’s gone through several iterations. So, I wanted to make a video all about the different ways the characters in shovel knight move, but I couldn’t really make it work, I’d already done a shovel knight video and Mark Brown turned out to be doing the same thing. So - I transitioned into making one about Celeste and other platformers like it which use negative emotions to make a point.
So, as you are probably aware, the video doesn’t really focus on the nitty gritty of the mechanics, because Celeste doesn’t do that much of interest there - what it does do, is leverage the design of Madeline’s core functions into creating a highly specific emotional experience, namely one that’s all about making peace with the inherently stressful nature of hardcore platformers. This was also a great excuse to talk about Getting Over It, a really great game that got kind of overshadowed by the likes of PewdiePie and Markiplier and made people think that it was a lame ragebait game.
Overall, whilst the video didn’t do that well, I’m pretty happy with making a unique take on a fairly established format.
Next, we’ve got What Makes a Good Secret. This video was a bit weird to make, because it’s really difficult to pin down any concrete argument that I could keep referring back to here - Ultimately, I sort of had to pin it down to the three vague types of secrets because otherwise it would just be me listing a bunch of secrets for 15 mins and that wouldn’t be any fun to watch, right? As a result, I ended up skipping a bunch of cool secrets like all the nutty ones in Environmental Station Alpha, Hell in cave story or the Legendary Chris Houlihan room in a link to the past.
However, the research process for this one was actually really fun - I loved going through a bunch of great games and hoovering up all the cool secrets I could find - going back to fez in particular was great fun because that game is pretty much one giant secret. One thing I did NOT find fun was trying to get the fucking lord of the fucking mountain to spawn. It turns out that the way breath of the wild’s event system works means that the glowy mountain that signifies the lord of the mountain’s arrival is actually pseudorandom, and I have hours of footage of me waiting on a tower for that damn thing to spawn on my hard drive forever now.
It was almost worth it though because man is that a cool sidequest. If you’ve not hunted him down in-game I recommend doing it because that two-headed weirdo is very fun to ride around.
But, my favourite part of making the secrets video was the super special secret at the end - good god did people both love and hate it and I am all about that. There’s something so special about messing with my audience that I will do at every possible opportunity, it’s entirely unprofessional and I just don’t care. Go and have a look at the secret if you haven’t already, it’ll be worth your time, promise.
Right - I’m off to get to work on the next video and if you take a look at this footage - you might be able to guess the topic! Ooooh! That’s a special patreon preview. That is of course assuming i don’t get distracted and do something else which is so often the case. Anyway, I won’t keep you - have a nice day, and I’ll see you around, bye!
Shh! Don't tell anyone, but video games have these things called secrets in them - and they're pretty cool! But what makes a good one?
Well, the Architect has been sticking their distinct lack of a nose in where it doesn't belong and has come to some interesting conclusions - namely, that a good secret is one that's meant to be found... It makes more sense than it sounds.
Nintendo are the kings of making fun, expressive platformers - but Mario's dominance has meant that his fun-first design has overshadowed different kinds of platformers, and that's a shame! Fear, stress, anxiety, frustration - all of these things can be used as the core emotion to build a game around, and doing this can lead to some great experiences - but how? and why? The Architect is going to double-jump their way into some tricky platformers to find out the answers to exactly those questions.
You Saw-
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 2010
New Super Luigi Bros - 2013 (the year of Luigi)
Super Mario 3D World - 2013
Super Mario Sunshine- 2002
Mario Odyssey- 2017
Shovel Knight- 2014 (Btw I got King of Cards for free from yacht club even though I already owned shovel knight so I guess that's my disclosure)
(Pictured: my messy-ass desk which is still getting organised)
What's up?
This is just a quick update to explain why this post isn't the next video, and some things going on in the real world.
In short, I moved into my own flat! And it's all thanks to you! (and the people who watch the ads on youtube, but let's be real you lot who actually give me money every month are the real heroes here)
Over the past week and a bit I've been moving into a place paid for entirely by the money I make doing dumb youtube stuff. It's been insane to think that The Architect of Games (which in retrospect is a dumb name I never would've picked if I'd known this was going to be more than a sideproject) has gone from me mumbling into a headset mic at less than a hundred people to something that's tolerated by an order of magnitude more subscribers, patrons and even actual game developers!
I mean, the videos still aren't good but I'm sure I'll get there one day. And I'll only be able to achieve my mediocre potential thanks to you fine folks.
As you can no doubt see I'm still getting some things like my audio setup done and doing what work I can on the new video - so that's going to be with you at some point in the next few days. Really, this has just been a way to emotionally manipulate you into accepting the fact you'll have to wait 3-4 more days to get your AoG fix - which, speaking of emotional manipulation, is the theme of the next video.
That's the kind of middling-quality segway your money is funding. Think about that for a sec.
Anyway, thanks for your continued support (and also your money) and I'll be seeing you real soon!
(But seriously, thank you so much this is literally my dream job and it's an honour to be able to pursue a love of video games professionally - just don't tell anyone I got sappy at the end, okay?)
We're back with the first Architect Address of the year!
Transcript:
Hello Folks, wow it’s been a while, huh?
Yadda yadda yadda I’m bad at these, you get the picture by now, but I’ll make it up to you by quickly running through the four videos that have come out since I’ve last had an opportunity to chat to you all and just go through my thoughts and any extra observations that I feel like making, whatevs. Let’s get started with...
How gameplay loops keep you playing. Whilst this ended up as more of a mechanic overview video where I just talk about a particular facet of game design, it originally started as a video all about the Supergiant games design process. Ultimately, I think supergiants games are so compelling because they nail those medium length loops, bastion and transistor are built around the loops between new weapons and story beats, pyre has the rites to sort of ground things and Hades is a roguelike which are all about loops. Buuuut, the tone of the video just came off as sort of sycophantic - I love Supergiant as much as anyone else but a video all about me breathlessly praising a dev that’s universally liked already… is going to get a bit boring. So I broadened the scope a little, got to talk about DOOM which is a fave of mine and Pikmin which I was really happy to have an excuse to go back to and all in all we got a pretty solid video that did alright out of it Nice. I’m a fan.
Then, we had how Platinum designs a combat system. This is probably a great example of why making a video all about a specific dev isn’t such a great idea. I think there’s some really cool stuff in this video and I’m a big fan of Platinum’s whole theme first design philosophy but man did this video just do… kinda bad. Like, really bad. Maybe it’s just because the topic isn’t super grabby or maybe because I explained things in a boring way, who knows. I’d like to revisit some of these concepts at some point, particularly about designing skill sets for characters but I’ll let the idea rest for now, because…. I’ve got to find a way to make it work, basically.
Next was 2019 Games you should have played, which was, predictably, a massive hit, yay! Seriously though, last year was an absolutely insane year for games, I had so many brilliant games on the initial list i had to cut to get down to 20 whereas in 2018 I kind of felt like I was padding it a little. between Baba is you, Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds and a bunch of others there were several 10/10 games of the year contenders in 2019 and it’s great to see so many utterly unique games coming out and blowing our socks off, and it makes me really interested to see what 2020 has to offer, eventually, given that literally everything is getting delayed right now.
Finally, there’s why Mystery games don’t need mechanics which is… ehhhh, I kind of hate that title because it’s just accurate to be technically representative of the video but it’s still clickbaity as shit. That aside, I did get to talk more about a weird theme I noticed in a lot of my favourite games from the 2019 list and that is how a bunch of them are about solving mysteries. Honestly, that’s really really exciting, because good mystery stories - and by that I mean mystery stories that don’t just steal the noire aesthetic are something that only a medium reaching true maturity can pull off - you need concrete narrative rules, a well of cultural ideas to pull from and a lot of other cool theoretical stuff I won’t go into. All I’ll say is that I think the next few years are going to be very interesting for video games and I can’t wait.
And as for the channel this year, what’s to say, we hit 100 subs, I finally made it my full-time job and things are looking better than ever! Seriously, thanks for all your continued support it amazes and mystifies me to this day, you do know that you can get the videos for free, right? Anyway, there’s your updates. HOPEFULLY once I’m done moving house and stuff the schedule can get a bit more organised but until then, I’ll see you in the next vid, okay? Right, bye?
Mystery stories, detective fiction, whodunnits- they're all a part of a nebulous genre of narratives that involves deducing clues and figuring out abstract puzzles before it's too late. We've got great examples in literature, cinema and even TV, but where are all the great mystery videogames?
Well - they're actually already here! 2019 was a bumper crop of mystery-focused video games, but what did they do differently that made them stand out from the unremarkable sleuthing games we had already? Put on your deerstalker, grab a magnifying glass and join The Architect as they try to figure out the answer once and for all:
2019 was a bumper crop for fantastic games, but that's had the unfortunate side-effect of meaning that a bunch of otherwise great or interesting games have been overshadowed by AAA giants. The Architect considers this to be a grave miscarriage of justice, and so - for the third time - is attempting to wrap up the year by telling you all about the games you should've played, but probably didn't.
One of the big things Platinum do well that I just didn’t quite have the space to talk about is the interesting way they try to make games accessible for people who might struggle with vision or hearing or both. Normally, so-called “hardcore” games don’t always cater to disabled audiences, so Platinum’s commitment to these audiences was really heartening to see during my time with their games, even if they’re not always successful- but more on that later.
In order for combat to be satisfying, and for all players to feel like they’re able to feel the way Platinum wants them to feel, games need to be able to communicate important information over the visual and auditory noise of combat. Often, just expecting players to pay attention to animations isn’t enough, particularly when there’s more than one foe on-screen or time-sensitive parries are involved. Even for people who have no trouble with visuals, sometimes there’s simply too much going on to spot every attack and opportunity to strike. Without properly signposting this stuff, more subtle attacks can get lost in the shuffle and so players will feel like they’re being attacked out of nowhere, even if they actually aren't, compromising the empowerment fantasy most Platinum games are built on.
The best way that Platinum fix this is, kind of counter-intuitively, to make each attack as distinctive, over the top and colourful as possible. In metal gear rising, countering enemy blows and knowing when enemy body parts are vulnerable to being sliced into bits with blade time is a huge part of the game, and so, these features are made as obvious as possible. When an enemy charges up an attack that can either be parried, they stop, flash red, make a noise and charge up for a little while before unleashing the attack, not only does this stand out against the fairly understated enemy palettes, but it also signifies which attacks can be countered and which ones can’t. Unblockable moves like the hammer soldier’s smash have a gold outline instead, and it’s usually a good sign that you need to get out of the way.
Similarly, when you stun an enemy such that they’re vulnerable to a blade time attack, there’s this big blue flash, which prompts you to press the button to start a little quicktime event where you can hack them into a million pieces. These big flashy moments help to subtly teach newer players that something turning blue means that it’s become vulnerable to blade time, and lets them gradually start working it into regular combos, chopping off enemy limbs to take them out of the fight and destroying armour to make baddies more vulnerable.
Not only do all of these status effects have a colour associated with them, they’re also accompanied by a Japanese symbol (which I’m unable to translate) to help distinguish them even further. All platinum games follow this pattern, enemies will make noise, flash a particular colour and do insanely exaggerated animations before they attack to make sure that players can spot the move and react accordingly. This strategy makes it easier to anticipate moves, but crucially doesn’t affect the tactical side of the combat at all - shifting things in a more conceptual direction rather than relying on raw mechanical skill.
However, it’s on that note that I do have to mention some accessibility areas where Platinum fails. A lot of their combat, and in particular the quick-time events (which are designed to be beginner friendly) are heavily reliant on button mashing and quick, repeated inputs. From listening to friends with RSI, chronic pain and related conditions, these segments can be a nightmare to deal with, even if the actual combat is perfectly manageable. Simply adding alternate control schemes such as holding a button down would alleviate this concern immensely, and allow an even wider audience to appreciate Platinum’s games.
We as a community have got a fair distance still to go when it comes to accommodating all possible players, but Platinum do appear to be leading the charge somewhat, in-fitting with their accessible mandate I talked about in the video itself.
I will admit though that I’m no accessibility expert and I could’ve grossly misread Platinum’s design- if I have, sorry! And please do tell me where I’ve gone wrong, this is a topic I didn’t really have time to research and so your feedback/corrections are very much appreciated!
Platinum games are a one of a kind studio- no-one else can make games that feel quite stylish and fun to play, and what's more, Platinum titles can be enjoyed by just about anyone.But how do they do it? Join The Architect, who currently has a cold, on a journey to find out how making deep games can actually make them more accessible.
Also I lied, you folks don't need a link to my Patreon, sike!
The Architect isn't the only person out there with a steadily growing backlog of games that's impossible to ever finish- and despite that, they still go back to the same old games time and time again, but what makes a game compelling, and what makes us get bored of a title long before we've finished it?
The answer, is gameplay loops, a foundational game design trick designed to keep you playing for longer, but that's not always a good thing.
And we're back with another Architect Address! I've also gone through the liberty of posting the transcript here in case people would rather read than watch:
Iiiiiit’s been two months since my last architect address and I guess… sorry about that. Yeah. I really need to get better at doing these, but it’s hard to find the time between working on actual videos and doing other stuff, I’ll try and do better in future. Anyway, what things do I want to talk about? Let’s start with a little bit of a thing I’ve been concerned about and that’s the number of videos I’ve been putting out
This year, assuming nothing completely crazy happens I’m on track to put out a decent number fewer videos in 2019 than I did in 2018, and I’m not entirely sure how to feel about that. On one hand, I think the videos released this year have been better, both in terms of content and production quality, but I also think that I really could stand to make more and generally have a better work ethic, particularly as I’m kind of shifting into making youtube a career. It’s a difficult balance to strike and whilst people will tell me I can take my time, I do think I need to up my game a bit and stop pissing around quite as much.
Speaking of which, let’s talk about the things I should’ve been pissing around on, and that’s the videos that have come out in the last 2 months.
First up, rediscovering the joy of exploration. Hmmm, this was an interesting one, namely in of the fact that it didn’t turn out at all like I expected. I was originally going to make a video all about why Skyrim’s exploration worked so well, but I ended up making one about why it didn’t work! What a world. In terms of my personal game design knowledge, this video was a pretty big learning moment. I’ve always considered making fun worlds to be about just having a space that has a bunch of cool stuff to see in and then letting the player go nuts, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In a lot of ways, it’s worlds that feel restrictive and intimate that are the best ones to explore, and working for those cool moments over a long period of time makes them so much better- like in the case of Hollow Knight’s blue lake, which is just a fantastic piece of design, I love it so much. Focusing on interesting stories the player can discover is much more important than just making a theme-park, who knew?
Next we’ve got Bat to basics. I’m going to be real with you here, that pun was the foundation of the entire video- I wanted to make something about stealth and it just didn’t really come together until I thought of that pun, I love it even in spite of how obviously terrible it is. Long story short with this one is that I freaking love the Arkham games, even Arkham Origins which some people cleverly noticed didn’t make it into the final video because it’s a bit rubbish and looks identical to City because it’s in the same engine.
They’re just so good at making stealth feel dynamic and engaging rather than a boring waiting around simulator. I really wanted to talk a little bit more about insta-loss stealth mechanics because they’re a classic gaming bugbear, but I actually couldn’t find that many examples, they’re so frustrating that I’ve tricked myself into thinking bad stealth mechanics are more popular than they actually are. Maybe there was a few years where a bunch of games got released at the same time that all did them badly, that’s a mystery to figure out because this particular gaming sin has all but vanished from recent titles and… well good riddance basically.
Finally, is how systems saved Zelda. It’s a bit of a clickbaity title because err, I never really explain *how* they saved Zelda, that bit got cut because the answer is obvious. This video is a bit of a departure because it’s focused on a Nintendo game, which as you can see from my 60fps footage was captured on a real SNES, and I definitely didn’t emulate it. Basically I’m too poor to buy a switch capture device so, this was my only option. Sorry Miyamoto.
Systemic games are fascinating for a whole host of reasons and I really could’ve done this whole video on Zelda or Noita or Spelunky, but it felt more natural to talk about the genre in broad strokes. I was surprised to see how few people had heard of systemic games before to be honest, and there’s a very interesting topic in what really distinguishes a systemic game from a sandbox or an immersive sim, but that is a topic for another day. This video was kind of bad timing on my part because a lot of the best systemic games are also stealth games- so I felt like I was repeating myself a bit with the Dishonoured talk, but hey, what are you going to do, right?
Aaaanyway, those are some videos that I made, as well as my thoughts on them. I hope you enjoyed, I’ll endeavour to get another one of these done by Christmas, hopefully I’ll have some stuff to talk about then! Bye!
Systemic games are a real enigma, they're revolutionary and important- but no-one can really explain what they are. To make things even worse, systemic games are also supposedly responsible for fixing the legend of Zelda!? What the hell???
Luckily, The Architect has you covered, and they've come up with a helpful way to explain what systemic games are all about without having to go through the boring business of redefining words.
The Batman Arkham games are beloved for a reason, they perfected cinematic action brawling, they've got great open world and some of the best baddies in videogaming, but there's one thing that The Architect thinks the Arkham series does that's gone under-praised, and that is the Predator sections.
The Predator mode in the Arkham games is a masterclass in tense, endlessly compelling stealth design, and that appeal is ultimately down to how the fine folks at Rocksteady tap into the same primal instincts that have driven games about hiding and seeking since the dawn of humanity. How does that relate to billionaires dressed up as bats punching clowns? Find out inside.
Fun fact about this episode- and a small part of the reason why it took so long, is that what was originally going to be a single video has split and mutated into three different episode concepts!
It all started with me playing Batman: Arkham Asylum for the 10th anniversary of the game and getting the idea to do a bit of a series retrospective. Long story short, all the different ways the Arkham games have shifted and changed over time to match changing design trends took so long to explain that I may as well have made the primary talking points into their own videos.
Enter: a video about open world design, and a possible upcoming one about how to make a fair and fun stealth system. Even with these videos either done or sketched out, there’s STILL room for an Arkham retrospective at some point in the future, it’s wild.
Anyway, because the real Arkham video won’t be coming for a while if at all (still not fully decided if it’s a good idea or not) I wanted to quickly break down my thoughts on why Arkham Asylum in particular was so damn good, and it might come as a surprise to some people that I don’t think it’s because the game “lets you *feel* like batman”.
I’d argue the opposite is actually true. The Arkham games, for those who don’t know, put you in the shoes of The World’s Greatest Detective- ManBat himself. You get to fight baddies with Assassin's creed style combat, solve puzzles, swoop around a vaguely metroidvania-ey open world, it’s good stuff. But the real appeal is the unique aesthetic and tone you get when the comic book style and mythos of batman is treated very authentically.
The game doesn’t play like your regular brawler, fights are strategic, with you either surgically taking out foes from the shadows, or dancing between mobs of goons to isolate and take down the heavy hitters. The combat is really quite basic, but looks incredibly flashy, with batman flowing from punching to counters effortlessly with a push of a button- creating a great flow-statey combat feel. The cast of villains, too, are far from being one-dimensional excuses to punch baddies, a large portion of the game is spent watching the back and forth between batman and his nemeses, all of which have themed areas. Killer Croc has a sort of stealth section, Poison ivy lives in a big plant, and The Scarecrow’s levels are platforming gauntlets taking place in a twisted nightmare mindscape. The game is spent bringing these guys to justice in epic fashion before a final showdown with The Joker- played by the brilliant Mark Hamill.
You’d think from this that the game - much like other superhero titles - is all about power-trips, and making you feel like an unstoppable crimefighting badass, but it really isn’t. Arkham Asylum makes you feel incredibly vulnerable. If you’re not paying attention, regular goons can take you out in a few hits, and a straightup fight with even two baddies wielding guns is usually suicide.
The world is relatively hostile too- there are very few safe rooms in the entire game, with your current bad guy as well as some minor villains like The Riddler constantly badmouthing you as you explore the world, as well as sending respawning goons to get you. Even Batman’s famous array of gadgets are relatively narrow in use and usually can’t incapacitate an enemy alone - you’ve really got to think on your feet to make the most of them as a tough enemy like a shotgun goon is baring down on you. These threats and enemies aren’t much more than an annoyance, but they all help to reinforce the theme that batman is alone and outmatched.
The game also goes out of its way to show you the tortured psyche that lies underneath Batman’s cowl through the aforementioned Sacrecrow drug trips- you get to see the murder of Batman’s parents, what would happen if the joker was put in charge of Arkham Asylum and get to grips with the fact that Bruce Wayne is just a costume Batman puts on, not the other way around.
These great moments, which often incorporate some brilliant meta scares like the game pretending to crash work so well because you’re a helpless observer- watching batman deal with this stuff with full knowledge of the context of these character beats. Just like how the free-flowing combat looks technically demanding but is actually controlled for the most part with two buttons, you’re simply watching batman do his thing, not stepping into his shoes. Even the mystery solving is mostly handled without the player’s input, with the only thing the player is required to do being following trails of fingerprints or chemicals.
This all helps to give us an outside, disconnected look at the character, both in his element swooping down on panicking bad guys but also in tense, dangerous situations where we get to see just how fragile (both mentally and physically) old bats is. Arkham Asylum doesn’t get you to feel like batman, even though that would be much easier- a game that lets you feel like batman would be a straighforward brawler romp- because batman is in denial about how much he’s actually helping, and how sane he really is.
However, what the game does do is the far more ambitious task of giving us a birds-eye look at the character of Batman’s deeply-wrought flaws. Flaws that we would never be able to spot from the more intimate perspective of a game that actually put you in Batman’s shoes, rather than an observer of his exploits.
Unfortunately, not everyone picked up on this, and over time - the series came to revolve around Batman as an unstoppable crimefighting force, rather than the broken, vulnerable person the best comics portray him to be. And whilst Arkham Knight in particular has its fair share of technical and gameplay problems, its this lack of emphasis on what really makes the dark knight tick - as well as how that psychosis is mirrored in all his foes - that affects the game most strongly, with the story beats lacking the emotional punch a much lower-key story like Asylum could conjure effortlessly.
Using video games to pretend to be another person is fine, but we’re kidding ourselves if we believe that’s all the medium can be used for - games can also be used to explore concepts, places and characters from a variety of vantage points simultaneously, and offer a unique connection to a story, even without giving players a personal stake in it. And nobody understood that idea better than Rockstar circa 2009.
Phew. I’ve rambled enough. Wouldn’t want to spoil the video in the event it actually gets made.
Okay, hope you enjoyed reading, and see you around!
The biggest gaming trend of the 2010's was undoubtedly the idea of an open, explorable world- but for all the games which jumped on the bandwagon- not all of them pulled it off well.
Now that open worlds are falling out of favour, The Architect dives into a bit of gaming history to find out where the fun of exploration really comes from- all whilst trying not to mention dark souls.
Just a quick headsup to say I decided to take a few days off for my health after getting a bit sick, so expect the next video in a few days rather than, like, today- which is when I originally planned to get it out.
On the bright side, I'm now back in action and I've come up for a killer idea for the NEXT video, so I should be able to get that one done nice and quick!
Thanks for your patience, just thought I'd keep you all in the loop.
Hello Patreon Friends! here's the latest video- there's a few error corrections I make in the credits section because I missed that some of you were giving me money! If you see me miss anyone's name again or just an error in general, feel free to let me know!
---
Violence in video games is a bit of a hot button topic right now- from angry journalists, to even angrier gamers- but have we been talking about video game violence in the wrong way? The Architect thinks we have.
Instead of looking at whether games contain violent themes and imagery, we need to go a little bit deeper and analyse the way we play games to truly get to the bottom of some of the industry's biggest problems, and a wonderful game called Wandersong can show us how.
Genre fusions are a bit weird, AAA devs seem to love lumping a bunch of genres together to try and appeal to as many people as possible, but the end result is often a watered-down version of two different games that happen to share a program. So how can we fix this?
Well, The Architect has a few ideas, and most of their inspiration comes not from gaming, but cookery- and how great chefs can combine ingredients with very different tastes by unifying them around a single shared theme. Yum.
Enemies in video games are one of the most obvious sources of great design, from the humble goomba all the way up to the likes of Prey's mimics. So why is it so hard to explain why we like these enemies so much?
Join the Architect in an attempt to find out the secret ingredient for a great enemy, all the while leaving a trail of bodies in their wake- but that's to be expected by now.
