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There was a learning curve playing the Tomb Raider remaster where I had to come to grips with the different ways you can jump, the fact you have to hold a button to grab a ledge in the air, things like that, but now that I'm used to it (mostly), I have to say

I think I like this system better than having everything be automatic

At least this way if I don't grab a ledge I know why

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Like there's just a button for "Grab this ledge when I walk off it"

No creeping up to an edge and hoping you grab it

Just push the button

It's so good

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Anyway you should try the Tomb Raider remaster if you're interested in weird 90s controls and also game design

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I was figuring out a puzzle and I looked at a potential solution and said "They wouldn't make me do that"

Then I thought for a second and said "Yes they absolutely would, it was the 90s"

Turns out I was right

It's not good or bad that they made the solution to the puzzle be whatever weird annoying time-consuming thing it was, it's just different and I think it's interesting that I cottoned on to what they wanted but almost passed on it because of how games today are made

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Honestly a lot of the 90s jank and slight player hostility really adds to the atmosphere

You are dropped on a ruin

You don't know what the goal is, so you just wander around

You flip a switch, but you have no idea what it did

Eventually you figure out the big puzzle of the level and how all the parts fit together

It's really satisfying because you figured literally ALL of it out

Some of that was intentional I'm sure but I also think some of that is just games in the 90s were like that and the industry has sanded a lot of those edges away

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For a while I've been a vocal proponent of a moderate amount of jank in games because that seems to be where a lot of the character comes from and this is really reinforcing that

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@coriander there's i think this constant tension between "easy to pick up" and "immensely functional once you've mastered them" to video game controls and most games really lean the former these days. probably because games sell better if they do

but yeah i dunno if it's the best all the time

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@coriander honestly? that tension exists in software interface design too haha

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@maple yeah like there's a learning curve and I still fuck up sometimes and I don't fully understand all the nuances of the controls (and I am playing with the "modern" controls rather than tank controls) but now that I know most of how it works it's like

It's not as clunky as I thought it was at first, it's starting to feel really nice in a way that only a complex control scheme can

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@coriander this is very true

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@coriander I think you're right. I feel like a lot of jank is something you can look fondly upon later. Like I can remember the chaos of trying to run away from an enemy in Tomb raider whilst fighting the tank controls and working out how to equip my guns. But I also know that eventually, that got really annoying.

I guess if I was going to do a rule it's try and make core interactions smooth as possible, but your other stuff can be pretty janky and it adds to the charm.

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@diffractie no yeah the combat sucks ass lmao

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@coriander this is why Crystal is the best pokémon game