Playing difficult games is like eating spicy food, says Spelunky creator
Playing difficult games is like eating spicy food, says Spelunky creator
Playing difficult games is like eating spicy food, says Spelunky creator
By Wes Fenlon
July 20, 2021
Summary
How difficult games should be, and how accessible they should be, is a perennial topic, and whenever it flares up it's a sign to log off Twitter for a few days.
"The real goal is to put the player in a state of focus about the game and to really care about what they're doing at any given moment. It's to make them feel the world existed before they arrived and that it will exist after they leave. To make it feel real. Winning or finishing the game in my opinion is not the main goal of a spiky game, even if that's ultimately what you're working towards."
Like with the heat in spicy food, difficulty is often the first impression you get when you try to play a game like Dark Souls or Spelunky.
"If you're just starting out on your spicy food journey, you can't taste the flavor, just the heat. And the pain. Similarly, spiky games generate a lot of enthusiasm from their fans, but for people who aren't there yet, they can just seem hard."
"The difficulty is only one part of the equation. It's the heat part of spicy food. I don't eat spicy food to feel pain. But the pain wakes me up, and it's the gateway to interesting flavors that you can't find anywhere else. The flavor is what makes spicy food good. And it gets easier and easier to withstand the heat the more you experience it."
The 'flavor' of spiky game design is that feeling of the game world being able to exist without you and the big, rewarding consequences around how you interact with it.
"Eat one and you'll make it that much easier to appreciate another. Same with spiky games. Learning to enjoy them will open up an entire smorgasbord of games to enjoy."
Reference
Fenlon, W. (2021, July 20). Playing difficult games is like eating spicy food, says spelunky creator. Retrieved October 06, 2021, from https://www.pcgamer.com/playing-difficult-games-is-like-eating-spicy-food-says-spelunky-creator/