Why people enjoy punishing games like Spelunky

[BboP]

This is a long post, and there's no tl;dr either. I would appreciate if you didn't skim through it though, thank you.

Spelunky, along with a bunch of other indies like Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, Dustforce, are extremely punishing games. Now, a casual player tends to loath these games for their punishing difficulty, and may even go as far as to call them unfair or demand an "easy" difficulty.

Now, what many of those people never bother to think about is... why are there people who like these games? What is the appeal? How can you enjoy dying constantly? The easy answer to this would be that it's challenging, therefore it's fun.

Problem is, that's a crappy answer, and there's a lot more to it than just "challenge = fun".

Spelunky REQUIRES you to die, multiple times, in order for you to get better. Before you bash the game can call it unfair, think for a second... why did you die? Most importantly, what can you do to prevent such an error from happening again? It's this thought process that encourages the hardcore audience to try again and again. Every time you get further into the game, you begin to feel more accomplished each time, encouraging you to keep playing and playing.

This is what gets people addicted to such games, and the main reason people call it out on being too hard is that they never bother to give it another chance. Trust me, I've felt this way before for many games. Dustforce requires extreme precision (more than SMB) and better control of your character in order to get good and earn those perfect ranks. I abandoned that game shortly after playing it for several hours.

Months passed, and I decided to give it another chance. I realized why I had been doing poorly in my previous runs, and decided to keep playing. I started getting better, perfectly ranking almost every level, and getting top scores on several community-made levels. The more you play a game like this, the more you begin to appreciate it's difficult challenges and intelligent level design.

I just bought Spelunky the other day in hopes of it bringer a similar experience, and I'm absolutely confident that it won't be a disappointment.

Hopefully this post will make you view games like these in a clearer, or even in a more positive way than before. Thanks for taking the time to read. :D

[S_Blackheart]

lol

[BboP]

Indeed.

[SN2TS]

Actually the game is quite easy once you've mastered the controls. You can finish it in 3 to 4 minutes, if you get a good random seed...

[EddyDecapitated]

Hey TC, good post. I think you should add Volgarr the Viking to your list. If you haven't played it, I highly recommend it. Easily one of my favorite games of 2013. I believe you would enjoy it.

[Steven of Astora]

I agree completely. I guarentee this game will give you an incredible amount of satifaction if you try to complete hell and the otehr brutally difficult acheivements. I just completed the last one today and i can say that i've never felt so fuffiled in achieving something in a game.

[SLAVA UKRAINI]

引用自 jtsn：

Actually the game is quite easy once you've mastered the controls. You can finish it in 3 to 4 minutes, if you get a good random seed...

Yeah but then you're just speedrunning. How about trying to get the highest possible score by ghosting every single gem? Or doing a eggplant run? Or a 0-money run? Spelunky is about challenging yourself. I don't think you've seen any expert Spelunky video's yet like BananasaurusRex who did the first ever Eggplant run a couple of months ago or BaerTaffy who just does insane stuff on a regular basis.

BTW. The game is way too challenging for me, I don't have the patience to become good enough to do a 3-4 min speedrun let alone any of the tougher challenges. :(

[starwindlancer]

I would argue that there is also a level of nostalgia that causes players to enjoy games like this. Back in the beginning (it feels weird to say that), games used to be punishingly difficult like this as well. It was more out of necessity than anything else, as it was a way to add playtime to a game that could only be so large due to programming and media storage restraints. This gave rise to the phrase "Nintendo Hard".

Games nowadays are much less challenging, both for the ability to draw in a larger audience and no longer needing to extend a game artificially like before. But since a good number of older gamers were raised on Nintendo Hard games, seeing something like this reminds us a bit of what it was like back then when we were so much younger.

[micah1880q]

The feeling of Learning and growing is a powerful motivator.

[april6e]

I like rogue likes in general because I enjoy games with unique gameplay and tons of unique content/hours of gameplay.

Rogue-likes fit this bill perfectly with random generation (dozens of hours of fresh content) and unique gameplay (dozens if not hundreds of items and randomized gameplay elements interacting with each other to provide a new, unique experience everytime you play).

I hate the difficulty aspect of it though. And unfortunately, every rogue like is insanely hard because apparently, indie developers don't understand what a casual gamer is.

[D_Rock]

I bought it because it was only $3..I quickly realized spelunky, super meat boy, mark of the ninja etc. type games are just not for me(i'm a stoner not a thinker)..I'm going back to my safe zone ( moba's and fps's )..

[degenerate]

A few years ago I was playing a lot of console games and at some point I realized that we were all spending $60 to play through an 8-hour interactive movie. There is generally very little challenge in mainstream games these days.

I think some people play video games as a way to escape into alternate worlds. They enjoy the stories and worlds more than they enjoy the gameplay aspects. These are the people that want easy games. They don't want to have to repeat sections of the game over and over again, because they are playing for the story.

Other people enjoy the challenge and problem-solving aspects of the game. You have to analyze, learn from your mistakes, and work hard to succeed. As long as a game is well-designed, the challenge is fun. Dying over and over because something randomized or unavoidable is not fun.

[ExtraSpectre]

引用自 jtsn：

Actually the game is quite easy once you've mastered the controls. You can finish it in 3 to 4 minutes, if you get a good random seed...

It takes more than good control to get those kind of times.

Probably only a handful of people in the world are good enough to beat the game in 3 minutes.

[Goose]

I guess that games like Dustforce, Super Meat Boy, Isaac and Spelunky kind of appeal to a very specific type of players who like to be challanged. These games are all fairly well-known not only because they are all solid games but also because how hard and challenging they can be at times.

They don't "hold your hand" from beginning to end like some of the most recent games. Dying in these games it's a way to learn the ropes and that's part of the charm.

There's a market/player-target for every genre I suppose.