Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games - Kotaku Comments

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

John H. — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:11:12 MST

PimpOfSound: Well, I do what I can. The theme is unknown information that the player must either discover, or generally is not expected to know. Hidden information. Hence, "mysterious."

There are other games that have stories that are more mysterious. Indeed, looked at that way, there are mysterious things about the very games I've talked about that went unnoted, particularly in Starflight, which has what is perhaps the greatest story twist ever seen in a video or computer game at the end. But the article is about game design, and although I would have loved to talk about the twist, it wouldn't have fit.

John H.

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Doomstalk — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:12:35 MST

@JoDi: I will agree with you there. PSO is mysterious in more than one way:
1) Item drops are not completely random. Each enemy has a specific item that it drops, and the rate at which they're dropped averages out consistently for each monster.
2) Sometimes, however, it seems like good rares drop more often. Like Bubble Bobble, this seems to be a result of player actions.
3) Once a rare item is dropped, it remains unidentified until you take it to town. Like Diablo, this typically locks their special.
4) The story itself was really mysterious. :)

Doomstalk

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

ThePimpOfSound — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:09:32 MST

I was a little disappointed by this article. The author gave us a taste of the "verisimilitude" theory, and a good example with Mario 3, but then digressed to a whole lot of examples that were only mysterious because they contained random events and occurences.

I love Toejam and Earl as much as the next guy, but there's little about that game that makes me think there's a world beyond what's been presented.

ThePimpOfSound

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

sarusa — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:58:50 MST

John, your '20 (difficult|mysterious|etc) games' are easily the best articles on Gamasutra, and I read the news on it every day. Of course they're also punishing since it means I need to set aside an hour to read them, but talk about a nostalgia rush. And even better are the games I didn't have any idea about like ADOM (which I'd heard of, but hadn't bothered playing with), or the deeper look at games like Tower of Druaga which I had also played briefly, said 'WTF, this is annoying' and quit.

sarusa

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

GamerBunny — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:49:50 MST

Wow ... I didn't get to read the whole thing yet but it's definitely an interesting take on secrets and games. Well made, I'll have to finish reading it later.

GamerBunny

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

jeffx — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:02:17 MST

Talk about a GREAT article, and I was greatly pleased to see Bubble Bobble taking the #2 spot. I haven't read the whole thing yet (huge!) but Druaga and Deadly Towers would DEFINITELY be in there for me. Heck, 50% of NES games were totally mysterious. Mystery Quest, anyone?

jeffx

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

JoDi — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:00:00 MST

Really interesting article because I did not expect the use of "mysterious" to be what it was. I also have not played most of the games since Master of Orion, Wolfenstein, Sim City and such were the only games I played.

I think all they said about Diablo applies to PSO as well but that is online but more then other online games PSO was addictive in that Diablo way.

JoDi

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

alex4allofyou — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:00:39 MST

Where's Super Starfox? I thought that game was very mysterious and at time the 3D elements made it even more complex. OMG, a black hole!!!

alex4allofyou

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

ShaggyChrist — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:01:51 MST

One toot on my whistle will send you to a far away land,don't do drugs kids.

ShaggyChrist

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Tiger-Fever — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 08:42:46 MST

This was a really interesting article. Of course, I haven't played most of the games, but I enjoyed reading about the ones I knew about. I remember first finding out about the EV system when I got Diamond (I hadn't played since Red) and being astounded and then being unhappy because I hadn't done it since the start. Oh well, it involved too much math and I didn't really want to sit at my computer while playing pokemon.
When it was about a game I'd played, I found the article easy to go through, but when it got to something I'd never played before, I just ended up getting lost.

Tiger-Fever

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

kevinski — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 07:37:39 MST

I love Fred Savage's ridiculously dramatic "If he finds a warp, he can jump worlds!" line. Hahahaha...

kevinski

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

kevinski — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 07:36:53 MST

Actually, The Wizard only revealed how to get the fortress whistle. Still, I find it amusing that he was able to locate it with no problem, having never played the game before. Give me a break. And God...I feel like killing him every single time that he says California. God, that movie would've been infinitely more enjoyable without the whole mental trauma aspect.

kevinski

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

John H. — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 05:37:57 MST

Because I like to punish myself by responding to negative comments:

On Stop N Swop: Might have made it if I had thought about it. But... no, no, Rare hinted mighty big but backed out when it came time to make good. Automatic fail indeed.

On Baiten Kaitos: I tried to vary the things I discussed. The article is ultimately about unknown things in games, whether hard-coded or generated algorithmically. Baiten Kaitos is mentioned because of the latter. That doesn't mean there aren't any other unknown things about it.

On Rogue: Every game designer should know about it! I'd put it up there with M.U.L.E. and Super Mario Bros. (I may be a bit biased there, however.)

On the white blocks in Super Mario Bros. 3: I completed a warpless playthrough of the game recently and confirmed the warp whistle message on world 6. But I don't remember seeing the white blocks mentioned. It does seem rather un-Miyamoto-like to include a secret like that with absolutely no in-game clue. That's the kind of thing we expect from games like Tower of Druaga.

John H.

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

kingofallcosmos — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 05:03:11 MST

This was a really good read. I was shocked to see Barcode Battler on there. I bought it at a clearance store several years ago. Playing with the enclosed cards was fun, but I could never get any other barcodes to work. I should try it again. And here it is, over 20 years later, and I am just now hearing about the water maze in Marble Madness. From the sound of it, it wasn't in my Amiga version, but that is quite a secret.

kingofallcosmos

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name. — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 04:16:01 MST

It's not just the Effort Values that are mysterious about Pokemon, it's the utter complexity. It's basically an RPG with almost 500 classes. Even though only a few of those are really suitable for competitive play, you never know what to expect.

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Ilchymis — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:38:16 MST

I thought this was a phenomenal article. I thought it went a little overboard with all of the Rogue clones; especially since I had never heard of the game before this. I think I'll give ToeJam and Earl a shot instead, it seems just weird enough to be entertaining for a weekend with some friends.

Anyone else completely unaware of Bubble Bobble's crazy cryptic secrets? I knew about the God-forsaken "bad end", but had no clue about the secret stages, point values for powerups, or any of that other stuff. I think I'll go and see how far I can power through it now and see how things go. Such a great game.

Time for me to go finish the second quest in Zelda. I have no clue where anything is, and I absolutely love it. Then again, I haven't found a single weapon so far, so I should probably go and bomb every wall I can find for an hour or two..

Ilchymis

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Fitz Rhapsody — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 02:43:17 MST

@Nate128: Not to mention the fabled "Darryl/Gogo" connection!

And good lord, I hope my roommate doesn't see this. If he pulls out Taito Legends and makes me play Bubble Bobble one more time... or Rainbow Island, FTW

Fitz Rhapsody

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Augur — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 02:16:57 MST

@DaAznSaN: In defense of Baten Kaitos, the article ignored the most interesting things about its card mechanics. First is that in addition to normal weapon and armor cards, there were a number of seemingly useless item cards. Playing cards in a certain order, like sake followed by a fire card resulted in being awarded new card, in this case hot sake. Getting the best healing items in the game were linked to discovering these combos. Some simple ones (like avocado plus soy sauce -> tuna) were strongly hinted at in the card's descriptions. Others, according to the FAQs, took combos of five or more cards, some of which could only be obtained by combos themselves.

The other unusual mechanic was that cards change with play time. For example, green bananas become bananas which become rotten bananas. The change times vary from seconds for the magic beans to 50 hours for a mud card. Combine that with the combo mechanic and finding all the cards becomes a very interesting game in itself.

The game also had very innovative locations and the number mechanic mentioned in the article worked very well. The final boss is brutal and has an HP threshold where he starts unleashing the really bad attacks. After losing once I realized partway into the battle that I had the cards to attempt the "final straight sunrise," a run of cards from 1 to 9 ascending. Performing it does triple damage on a perfect attack. Completing it allowed me to finish the boss in one blow and was an extremely satisfying ending.

On the other hand, the story was terrible, the voice actors should be ashamed of themselves, and it has one of the worst ending sequences ever. Still, I'd recommend it for anyone who appreciates truly innovative fighting mechanics and level design.

Augur

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Erwin — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 01:01:31 MST

@Irenicus-the one and only: Yeah. When I saw that I thought I came across some lost John Nash papers.
@Kavatar: I have to look up some for myself because I like trying to find the undiscovered ones, but that doesn't mean games just shouldn't have them. What's really bad is when people just run through the code looking for things (here's looking at you, IWBYD). You kind of want things done and solved, but then the fun's spoiled.

Erwin

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Kavatar — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:34:15 MST

@Erwin211: I like that too, but I'm not good at finding secrets, and I hate discovering after I finish a game that there was all this cool stuff that I missed. So sometimes I actually prefer there NOT to be secrets. They're still cool to discover though, even if I do have to look up how to find them.

Kavatar

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Irenicus-the one and only — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:57:22 MST

@Erwin211: I love Pokemon, trade them too besides playing. Maybe tried a match or 2 when I was a kid, but never "competed" and studied the math behind it.

That screenshot in your link is just messed up in so many ways :P

Irenicus-the one and only

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Erwin — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:48:28 MST

@Irenicus-the one and only: Yes. It has the most loyal fan base I've ever seen. Just look at Games Radar's Pokemusings. But it is more complex than it seems. It's just not interesting:
[www.gamesradar.com]
@dowingba: Yes. One of the many problems with the movie:
Jenny Lewis the psychic.

Erwin

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Erwin — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:41:11 MST

ADOM sounds great. One of the best things about playing a game is finding out mysteries and secrets (although the best thing is to push the game to it's limit to see what happens. See any FPS). Unfortunately many games today don't feature as many secrets, instead just offering cheat codes, grunting and moving on to prep the sequel.

Erwin

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Irenicus-the one and only — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:35:23 MST

@AlKusanagi: lol

[en.wikipedia.org]) [www.roguetemple.com] [nitros9.lcurtisboyle.com] [www.roguetemple.com]

And for a free copy-google it!

I played this game as a kid very much, think I played it on a 286 or 386, maybe something older. I loved it, and it has come in many variations for many platforms, I really don't know much about it, just remember entering a room (square) with a door sometimes more (gaps in the square) and choose either lef, right or forward etc. And it all looked the same and was sometimes a headache :P

Shame they did not write about that game in the article.

Irenicus-the one and only

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Guizzy — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:32:39 MST

I actually had a Barcode Battler!

I might still have it, in fact.

Almost never played with the thing.

Guizzy

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Guizzy — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:29:47 MST

@AlKusanagi: Rogue is important in that it is the originator of a complete type of game: the Roguelikes.

Yes, Rogue is a pretty good game in itself, but it's its two main variants that actually matured that are more worthy of being played: the moria/angband branch and the hack/nethack branch.

Angband offers a more "power-gamer" game; with more obvious stats; it's more of a numbers game.

Nethack is more of a "discovery" game; it focus on having you discover how the game works on an intrinsic level. To actually beat Nethack, you need to know countless different things and learn to recognise a myriad of different threats. Heck, I've seen pretty much every spoiler on the game and I don't get even close to finishing it.

You COULD play Rogue, but Rogue is more random and unforgiving. There isn't always a way to figure out if something is a threat until you actually try it or use an identify scroll. And if you don't find identify scrolls, you're screwed. It's not a lot of fun anymore, at least, not compared to Nethack and Angband.

Guizzy

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Irenicus-the one and only — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:16:49 MST

@Nate128: People compete in Pokemon? wow.

Irenicus-the one and only

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Nate128 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:53:31 MST

I agree that Final Fantasy VI should have been included, particularly the second half of the game where you are free to roam the world as you as please finding the remaining members of your party. Who would have known that they had to sleep in the bed at a particular empty castle with a particular character in your party to trigger an in-game event without stumbling upon it by chance? The whole backstory with Shadow and Relm will always in some way be a mystery, too.

@Gunhaver: I agree. Pokemon to me became a series of ever-increasingly complexity that really, in the end, boiled down to math. If you want to be competitive at this game there's simply so much to know. That's the main reason I gave up playing it years ago.

Nate128

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Hylian — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:34:28 MST

Jack Thompson uses this theory for his lawsuits against gta (reference hidden sex scenes, lol)

Hylian

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

AlKusanagi — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:32:57 MST

What is this "Rogue" game that's mentioned on EVERY SINGLE PAGE of the article, but doesn't have a page to itself explaining just how it is apparently the most mysterious and awesome game ever, yet is not featured in the article.

AlKusanagi

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

globones — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:10:22 MST

I dont think the word verisimilitude applys to gaming at all. Fits more with Theatre, and film to some extent. The majority of games give players a limited experience in BECOMING the game's hero/villain . The appeal of games is creating and making your own personal experience, not merely observing. For the most part, IMO .

globones

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

dowingba — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:05:41 MST

@DZeroStar: There's also this movie called "The Wizard" that gives a pretty good clue. Well, they pretty much just show you exactly how to get the whistle. And I believe the movie came out before Mario 3.

dowingba

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

catapult37 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:13:13 MST

Good point about the white blocks in Mario 3... they might have been a mystery a very long time if The Wizard hadn't blown the whole thing. :-)

catapult37

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

chaos242 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:09:53 MST

Great read!

chaos242

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

unmarkedone — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:02:05 MST

For all the times when I think I've played all the greats, obscure and not, I see an article like this and realize just how much I really missed out on.

unmarkedone

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

JohnnyLA — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:38:11 MST

I think some of the Ultima series should be on there. :)

JohnnyLA

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Kaine — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:50:14 MST

That was a good article. I haven't played all of those games, but I always find information like that fascinating.
@Hylian1: Man, I had forgotten all about Stop N Swop until you said that.

Kaine

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Terrorsaur. — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:12:39 MST

@Green-clad Gamer Dude:
Now to see how many people get that.
@Hylian1:
Theres one.
haha

Terrorsaur.

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Hylian1 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:58:19 MST

Banjo-Kazooie should have been on there first and foremeost. Stop N Swop anyone?

Hylian1

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

DZeroStar — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:37:28 MST

The article mentions that SMB3 has no clue about crouching on the white block in world 1-3, but I just played every level of it recently on the Wii VC and I do remember there being a clue.

After a quick check on GameFAQs, I found the reference in a FAQ by Brian McPhee (Kirby021591). (Thanks, Brian!) You get this letter after you beat world 6:

"Greetings,

I am well. Please retrieve the Magic Whistle hidden in the darkness at the end of the Third world. I have enclosed a jewel that helps protect you.

Princess Toadstool."

There's another letter that mentions that white blocks have a special power, and a third that mentions the warp whistle in the desert world.

I think the idea was you weren't supposed to figure everything out on just your first play-through!

DZeroStar

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Gunhaver — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:50:33 MST

When I first heard about EV and IV (and the ridiculous algorithms governing them) I no longer saw pokemon as a game. I saw it as math.

Then I stopped playing.

Gunhaver

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Gouki4u — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:20:24 MST

After reading this article I think I need to play Adom.

Gouki4u

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Irenicus-the one and only — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:56:30 MST

I loved Bubble bubble on the nes. And the codes system :P I remember sitting days typing codes at random and get lucky as a little kid at the time :D Writing them all down on toilet paper or something.

The gameplay itself was awsome, but I agree with them in the article, still it was AWSOME! I would like to see it in more games :P

Diablo-
"why one would bother putting random maps into a game if their structure has so little real consequence to the player."

True but, I liked it, it gave the feeling of it being less repetitive, unlike WoW where I think that would have been nice to have. Maybe no real consequence for the player but still nice for keeping things fresh. And yes, Diablo was primarely about the loot, WoW is too in most ways a template for most MMORPG's, but I actually enjoyed Diablo 1&2's single player more then the MP of Diablo2.

Barcode Battler was spot on, anyway, I have yet to see a game as good as Pokemon when it comes to that "genre". Not even close, Pokemon is the only good game. Also I think he goes into EV a bit to much, but hes right, I liked the EV though, the "mysterious" element to it, sometimes you don't have to put stats to everything for the gamer, and it doesn´t affect the game experience a lot anway. Also the Lore is great, shame I have not played the new ones I only played red vs blue and gold vs silver.

In Street fighter2 I don't think I ever "learned" a move myself by hitting shit at random, maybe sometimes I discover it by accident but I don't learn the exact combination, and I also tend to read up on all moves anyway, meh I think hiding special moves is pointless myself. Fatality etc in Mortal Kombat I think is retarded, not just too hard to pull of but also pointless to hide, meh. Awsome game though, Street fighter 2 is still best 2d fighter for me, and the one I have fondest memories for.

Anyway, great article as usual :)

Irenicus-the one and only

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

underground_slacker — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:41:52 MST

...they talking about the matri- *agent snaps his neck, straightens his tie, then walks away*....

underground_slacker

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

DaAznSaN — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:24:52 MST

Awesome article. I haven't read every entry, but I have read about the games I am familiar with. Great to see Pokemon on there, too; game is a lot more complicated than some people give it for. I'm a little weirded out to see Baten Kaitos on the list; its game design lesson is not what I would have expected. :p

DaAznSaN

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

devmas — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:23:06 MST

I read this article sometime earlier this week. It is a fascinating article.

Most fascinating about it is the fact that many of the secrets they talk about aren't like "up up down down left right left right" or "Spectacle rock is an entrance to death" secrets, but are more like secret game mechanics that programmers through in there under the surface that is the game's interface...

devmas

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Irenicus-the one and only — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:22:08 MST

@Marlor: I loved it :)

Something that is similar but fails in Shenmue 1 and 2 that does the same with those scrolls, but you never get to finish it because Shenmue 3 isn't coming *Cries

Irenicus-the one and only

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Guizzy — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:15:13 MST

Oh, they've actually pin-pointed it.

The quality that differenciate GTA 3 and Saints Row from other free-roaming in cities games like Crackdown and Assassin's Creed.

Guizzy

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Green-clad Gamer Dude — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:11:31 MST

Oh wow, no mention of Stop n' Swop? Automatic FAIL.

Green-clad Gamer Dude

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Marlor — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:11:09 MST

One of my favourite secrets is Baldurs Gate's Big Metal Unit.

It's a suit of armour that can only be assembled my collecting items across three games: Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, and Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal.

It's especially fiendish because you have to carry a seemingly-useless item with you from the start of the first game in the series, right through to the last in the series to assemble the Unit.

Marlor

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:10:45 MST

Sheesh. It's long. I'm only on page 8.

But it's a fascinating article with so much information.

Really, I know a ton of you are only going to read the quote, but read the article.

It's fantastic.

Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Kavatar — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:06:12 MST

What a mysterious article.

Definitely an interesting way to look at aspects of games though. Good read, though I haven't played quite a few of the games so I can't relate to them.

Kavatar

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Mustakrakish — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:59:54 MST

This new word confuses me. Verisimilitude? Crikey.
But if it's a good thing, then I'm gonna use it to confuse everyone I know.

Mustakrakish

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

Irenicus-the one and only — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:58:48 MST

Gamasutra allways makes great articles, good site. Now I need to go down memory lane...

Irenicus-the one and only

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

OT79 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:51:58 MST

I believe they miss to mention Final Fantasy VI,maybe the FF with more secrets in the whole series(and every of them had many secrets,some very hard to find).I still remember the bug that allow you if you can escape from cracking the game,the possibility to have many weapons and items incredible rare.

OT79

Behind the Design: 20 Mysterious Games

brent_w — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:44:14 MST

Its very true.

I've noticed for quite a while I enjoy games with this quality far more than games I describe as having a "static" feel.

brent_w