PS5 has hints built into the interface (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 09:01 (1289 days ago)
edited by Cody Miller, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 09:07

So PS+ members on the PS5 get a built in tips and hints system in the interface. The example I saw was being able to pull up videos showing locations of collectable items.

This is bad.

We are at the point where enough players are expected to look up solutions that they put it as a part of the interface. Maybe it says something about the fact that the 'challenge' of things like collectable items just isn't that fun to begin with if people don't even want to do it themselves. Maybe it says something about players and game designers who aren't even expecting to play the game and discover themselves but be told along.

And yes you wrote the Portal 2 guide you're one to talk blah blah. The very first thing it said was that Portal was a puzzle game, and you really should do it yourself because that's where the fun is. Don't use the guide unless you are just hopelessly stuck. And even then, the hints were tiered such that they might help with one particular piece of the puzzle that doesn't click rather than spoiling the whole thing. And even THEN you had to go to the trouble of buying the guide in the first place. I tried really hard not to make it lame.

I get right now that everything is available on the internet and people look stuff up, but that was 'outside' the game. To put solutions IN the game is just… that doesn't sit right with me. If you think enough people are going to look a thing up that you put it IN THE GAME INTERFACE then maybe your puzzle is shit? Maybe don't design your game around something a sizable chunk of people clearly don't even want to DO themselves?!