I remember a time in about 1991 when I borrowed Super Mario Bros. 3 from a friend for a weekend. I wanted to beat it before I gave it back, but this being the relatively early days of console gaming.
The Table of Contents
When Progress Meant Commitment
Super Mario Bros. 3 had no save feature of any kind, so in order to reach the end, I just left my Nintendo on overnight a couple of nights in a row to maintain my progress until I could come back to the game.
When I finally beat it on day three or so, there was an added sense of triumph – not only had I beaten the game, but I had beaten the system by finishing it before I had to turn off my system and lose all my progress. As far as ten-year-old me was concerned, Raccoon Mario and I had just stuck it to the Man.
Learning Games Before Tutorials Existed
Along with limited save capabilities, most console and PC games I played in the late eighties and early nineties had little to no in-game tutorials, so I could plan on spending some quality time with the instruction manual before playing if I wanted to know what I was doing.
Playing missing Clear Direction
In-game nudges in the right direction were also rarer; I spent a good chunk of time playing The Goonies II and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES without a terribly clear sense of what kind of progress I was making through the game.
From Disorder to Clarity in Modern Games
Modern game conventions have changed to the point that experiences like these are rare today (with the partial exception of game manuals, which survive in reduced, increasingly electronic form). That shift from confusion to clarity made me wonder what we’ve gained, and what we’ve quietly lost.
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The Comfort of Modern Guidance Systems
Today, most games let you jump right in and learn as you go. For example, Spider-Man (2018) uses task logs, map markers, and path indicators to guide you, keeping navigation and progress straightforward.
What We Gained And What We May Have Lost
When these conventions appeared, I was thrilled to no longer have to leave the console on overnight, and I could swap between games without losing progress. No more painstakingly copying down long, cryptic passwords full of strange characters that never seemed to work when you needed them, thanks to Metroid. But it’s worth asking what’s lost if we expect every game to guide us so closely at all times.
Being Dropped Into Demon’s Souls
This week, I went back to play one of my favorite PlayStation 3 games, Demon’s Souls (**minor SPOILERS of the first few hours of gameplay ahead!**). For the first couple of hours, I was pretty sure I was doing everything wrong.
Mistaking Intentional Design for Player Error
Partway through the opening tutorial, I got my first glimpse of a serious enemy, Vanguard, and two strokes of a ridiculously large weapon later I was dead in someplace called the Nexus and only able to continue playing as a disembodied soul with half my health until (so the manual told me) I could defeat a major demon or find a way into another player’s game to help them with-op.
I picked the route back to the world that I thought would get me back to the area where I’d been so cursorily executed, but I wound up somewhere I didn’t recognize, where I died several more times as I kept
finding my routes blocked by seemingly overpowered enemies.
I became convinced I had screwed up somehow and that I’d missed some easier, quicker path to recovering my body and full health and continuing the tutorial and first level.
Realizing the Game Was Working as Intended
After about two hours, I finally found a survivable route to a killable demon and realized that I’d actually been following the path the game had intended. Vanguard killing me had been the intended end of the tutorial; that was the game’s way of telling me I wasn’t in Kansas anymore; making me play the next two hours at half health was another way of letting me know what kind of game this intended to be.
When Uncertainty Becomes the Point
The experience of floundering through the opening hours of Demon’s Souls, without a clear sense of the way forward or an option to reload where I thought I’d gone wrong, made me kind of anxious.
It had been so many years since I’d felt so unclear on what to do in a game (and this despite having read the manual) that I assumed it was unintended, that I’d wandered off the game’s path, no current-gen game would make me stumble around blindly like this on purpose, right?
Once I realized that this was the game’s way of dropping me in the middle of the action from the outset, though (just to be sure I did a web search to confirm that this was the case), I appreciated the experience a lot my character was supposed to feel overwhelmed and out of her depth, so the game had made me feel that way, too.
The Value of Mystery in Game Design
Sometimes, there’s value in not knowing exactly what’s going on, not having all the information, and not being guided every step of the way. There’s still room for these slower, more mysterious experiences in gaming, and some games are exploring them.
Recent titles like Tunic and Return of the Obra Dinn (2018) focus on mystery and player discovery, asking for patience, trial-and-error, and a willingness to figure things out without constant help. Still, these kinds of games aren’t the norm anymore, like they were in the early days of console gaming.
Is Uncertainty Still Worth It?
When does uncertainty make a game far more immersive? Have you played any old video games, or new ones that called for patience, trial and error, and dealing with unpredictability? Do you think these experiences are intentional or just accidental? When do they make a game better, and when should they be left behind?
What are the 10 hardest old video games of all time?
- Ghosts 'n Goblins (1985) has relentless enemies and limited lives.
- Batman: The Video Game (1989) has tight platforming and tough bosses.
- Ninja Gaiden (1988) demands platforming and enemy swarms.
- Mega Man 2 (1988) pattern mastery; Quick Man’s stage is infamous.
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987) punishing combat/leveling.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989) has a notorious underwater section.
- Battletoads (1991) speeder bike level spikes difficulty.
- Metroid Fusion (2002) offers challenging exploration and lethal bosses.
- Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! (1987) reflex-heavy pattern reads.
- Kid Icarus (1986) has tricky vertical platforming and enemies.
