Do Simple and Complex Games Coexist?

[Psionic Roshambo]

Othello a minute to learn, a lifetime to master!

I used to love that game back on the old systems, I think my Odyssey 2 played a pretty mean game of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello_(video_game)

 

[Foxi4]

You are aware that stating your opinion is very different from trying to win every single argument while dimishing other people's opinions? It is very annoying to read a guy that express the same thing on every single one of his posts, that he's always correct and what you think is crap. That "I'm the most knowledgeable guy on earth" gets old extremely fast.

tl;dr you're a suck up

Let's not make this personal in this thread and do our best not to derail it any further, Ryukouki no doubt worked really hard preparing the discussion topic and I'd hate to be the subject that takes it completely off the rails. If you have a problem with me or with my approach to discussions on the forums, I apologize for my conduct and you're more than welcome to send me a list of your postulates against me over PM - don't worry, they will all be addressed. As a content contributor, it's very important to me to provide you guys with a wholesome forum-going experience and if you think that I'm too feverishly defending my point of view then you are free to complain, but not here. I'm actually pretty bummed out that you'd say that, since it was never my intention to offend anybody, rather to cause a stimulating discussion.

 

[FAST6191]

We always suspected Guild and Gahars were dupe accounts. Now Foxi4 is the Guild duplicate account?

More on topic. Generally if your opinions can not withstand scrutiny then....

 

[Felipe_9595]

.......Whaaaat?

Listen im sorry but you people must have been playing some next SSB melee super korean hyper version coz you're seeing things in this game that no normal person is.
Please stop comparing the latest fighters to Melee. Tekken Tag 2 is better than Super smash melee in every single way. Every
If its taken you 14 years to understand how to play Melee, you're a bad gamer imo.

Yup, such a superior game, a shame that it isn´t in EVO, or MLG, pretty sad no?

Insulting me doesn't make your game better lol Dick fights dont win arguments ;V

 

[farmin]

In my honest opinion:

(Incredibly) Simple:

• Pong, Flappy Bird and other similar casual games with no complex mechanics driving them

Borderline (?):

• Games that are simple to play, but at the same time are driven by more complex gameplay mechanism which do not require player participation, for example racing games that are not simulations

Complex:

• Games with a complex gameplay mechanism that requires player participation in order to play them, for example Baldur's Gate, Fallout and most RPG's

Nice, I'd even go as far as to add an 'Obtuse' category for games like Dwarf Fortress or Dark Souls where extensive knowledge of the core fundamentals is so important that without it the games become almost unplayable.

 

[lampdemon]

I don't like it when games add complexity for the sake of being complex, I'll use a different example this time, like L-Cancelling in Smash Bros Melee(It was unintended in Smash 64 so it doesn't count). L-Cancelling is a way to reduce landing lag after a character does and aerial attack, so you'll be able to react faster, and if you don't do it, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. Simply having characters auto-L-cancel would have the same effect with pros in tournaments.

 

[Sakitoshi]

I don't like it when games add complexity for the sake of being complex, I'll use a different example this time, like L-Cancelling in Smash Bros Melee(It was unintended in Smash 64 so it doesn't count). L-Cancelling is a way to reduce landing lag after a character does and aerial attack, so you'll be able to react faster, and if you don't do it, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. Simply having characters auto-L-cancel would have the same effect with pros in tournaments.

the L-cancelling was eliminated on Brawl and everyone was whining because of that. some characters auto L-cancel, like Pikachu that can do an aerial forward-A and immediately do a ground down-A, and some others don't, like Link that takes ages to get his sword back from a aerial down-A.
I also think that players want games to be complex to add strategies(wall teching, Link's bomb jump), unfair advantage(not everyone knew about the L-cancel. glitched moves like Snake mortar slide and wave dashing) or simply for bragging rights(haha I'm skilled enough to do a reverse Hyrule jump and you don't).
the thing is that also exist some games that unexpectedly end-up being more complex than intended due to glitches and engine quirks, Smash is the perfect example.

also Foxi4 don't be hard with yourself. I don't think you were trying to offend anyone, is just that in a forum you can't add a tone to the words, and if you read thinking the other is being a dick you'll get his message like that. I think he read your post adding that tone even when you didn't intended to sound like that.

 

[3bbb7]

it really depends how people look at the terms simple and complex.

Simple could mean easy, or it could mean lacking lots of content (not necessarily in a bad way)
Complex could mean challenging as in gameplay difficulty, or it could just mean that it's an easy game, but there is so much content it's just hard to follow

They can coexist, in more ways than one, simple navigation and complex controls, complex storyline and simple controls, etc

 

[Guild McCommunist]

We always suspected Guild and Gahars were dupe accounts. Now Foxi4 is the Guild duplicate account?

More on topic. Generally if your opinions can not withstand scrutiny then....

My reach has no bounds.

Also Melee is a casual fighting game, get used to it.

To be fair Tekken is pretty dumb too.

Mortal Kombat/Soul Calibur master race.

 

[calmwaters]

Here's an idea: all games are simple. If they weren't, then we wouldn't play them... at all. I mean, do people really want to have spinach instead of *insert favorite food here*? And then, once you do get it, do you either eat a lot or barely any? In the case of spinach, you try to eat as little as possible. That doesn't mean it's hard to eat; it just tastes nasty. Then on the other hand, you eat as much of your favorite food as possible and maybe throw up or gain 20 pounds. Now this is really hard to eat, but it's just so good you can't stop yourself; and you make it easy to eat it. Bioshock: Infinite comes to mind here; I heard that was a great game and people couldn't put it down.

I like simple games. I'm not into raging because of how hard the game is; I rage about the amount of time spent with it. It's better that I only rage about one thing instead of two.

 

[FAST6191]

You say that calmwaters but I am going to have to disagree. Though I often joke that something along the lines of an action driven roguelike would see me turn into more of an unwashed recluse than I already am, and somewhat fortunately nobody has managed it yet, it is mainly complexity of systems that I seek there.

When a game then approaches physics as its basis I get more and more interested, if a game changes things such that my monkey brain can not handle it so well (four dimensional movement for example) then similar things happen.

 

[Foxi4]

Here's an idea: all games are simple. If they weren't, then we wouldn't play them... at all.

Spoiler

"It is simplicity itself"

Innit?

 

[calmwaters]

You say that calmwaters but I am going to have to disagree. Though I often joke that something along the lines of an action driven roguelike would see me turn into more of an unwashed recluse than I already am, and somewhat fortunately nobody has managed it yet, it is mainly complexity of systems that I seek there.

When a game then approaches physics as its basis I get more and more interested, if a game changes things such that my monkey brain can not handle it so well (four dimensional movement for example) then similar things happen.

You could've at least tagged me or quoted the post. Well enough of that. I could say the exact same thing; I'm a bit of a recluse and right now, this game I'm playing is turning me into even more of a recluse. The game is simple; defeat the dragons to unlock an ultimate weapon. Now the complexity comes in when even though I'm getting 2k experience for each creature I defeat, I need 70k to level up: once. But this isn't the experience I get from defeating the dragons; I get that from the little guys. Good thing the game mechanics are simple, otherwise I would've given up a long time ago.

All games are physical: just some are more physical than others. Four dimensional movement? Are there games where the in game characters physically get older the more you play the game? I suppose you would get a game over if the character got old and died from a heart attack. Hmm, I bet that game would peak your interest. I wonder how many years Mario would get older as he tried to save Princess Peach...

Spoiler

Innit?

Blech. As appealing as this might be, I, uh, am already playing a game like this. But the point is not to be overwhelmed by all this crap; just work on one thing at a time and it'll get done or be at a really high stat. And why is the human development level average? Aren't these people supposed to be pumping out children like you pump gas into your car? It'd be easier to increase your population so more of that arable land could be used.

 

[FAST6191]

I try not to quote people if it is but a little while after the post in question, I probably should have tagged though.

Four dimensions in this case is not time but free movement in four dimensions similar to how you might go from 2d to 3d, Fez might be a half example.

All games probably have some physics in there, I was saying I tend to prefer ones that would allow me to use everything from http://kinetic.org/Time_Machine_Poster.jpg
People joke that realistic virtual sex would be the end of the human race, I could probably deal with that. A realistic physics simulation, or indeed one I can tweak and watch everything fall apart because of, and I would be (even more) useless to society. Some supercomputer stuff is making slight inroads into this territory.

We may also have a different definition of complex and simple, yours seems to be more grinding than what I would call complex (which is fine if you like that sort of thing).

 

[calmwaters]

I try not to quote people if it is but a little while after the post in question, I probably should have tagged though.

Four dimensions in this case is not time but free movement in four dimensions similar to how you might go from 2d to 3d, Fez might be a half example.

All games probably have some physics in there, I was saying I tend to prefer ones that would allow me to use everything from http://kinetic.org/Time_Machine_Poster.jpg
People joke that realistic virtual sex would be the end of the human race, I could probably deal with that. A realistic physics simulation, or indeed one I can tweak and watch everything fall apart because of, and I would be (even more) useless to society. Some supercomputer stuff is making slight inroads into this territory.

We may also have a different definition of complex and simple, yours seems to be more grinding than what I would call complex (which is fine if you like that sort of thing).

That poster is amazing. A game with all that (or most of it) would be amazing too. I guess we do have two different definitions for what is complex. On a side note, I have trouble tagging people... but it's not that big of a deal anyway

 

[Ziko]

Nice, I'd even go as far as to add an 'Obtuse' category for games like Dwarf Fortress or Dark Souls where extensive knowledge of the core fundamentals is so important that without it the games become almost unplayable.

I know Tetris is a great example of Borderline because even though the controls are always simple, the game is very complex because of T-Spins and whatnot. Also, as the level increases, so does the speed and it can kill ya if you can't compete at those levels. I personally cannot perform well at Lv. 10! But yet, there's guys that can do way more than 10.