More incentive talk

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 17:30 (4190 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by General Vagueness, Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 18:23

Those Portal challenges that were so awesome? Those were "incentives" to replay the level (quickest time, fewest portals etc. - they encourage you to play the exact same content but in a different way).

Would you perhaps concede that (as is virtually always the case) implementation is king, and that Valve simply got it right where others sometimes get it wrong?

I think puzzle games operate a little differently. The challenges aren't really incentives, so much as new puzzles. Ok, now beat this chamber using 6 or fewer portals. You have to think and solve a totally new puzzle. This is pretty different than giving rewards for tasks in game, since the whole point of a puzzle game is to solve puzzles, and the challenges are themselves new puzzles.

What about an incentive you can only get by doing something like that?

I think we are on a different page, since the challenges in Portal do not have 'gameplay benefits'. They ARE the 'gameplay' - the equivalent of adding an extra level to play. By the way, as far as I remember, advanced chambers and challenges were available to play right from the start.

The challenges and advanced chambers have you replaying some of the standard levels, with (shockingly enough) more challenge, which is something you like, and even without that you said you liked the challenges and advanced chambers ("Those things were awesome."), making them incentives. Also you remember wrong, you have to beat, for example, TC 15 to be able to do challenges on TC 15 and play TC 15 Advanced.