Does a Perfect Video Game Exist?

A perfect video game is a game that everyone on the planet can enjoy from the day they start playing it to the day they die.

I don't think a perfect video game will ever be made. Not every game appeals to every person. Each person is going to have their own taste in the way they experience a game, and what is ideal for me won't be ideal for anyone else. Nor should a perfect video game exist; if one did, it would make every other video game pale in comparison.

When I think of the closest thing to a video game can come to perfection, a few names pop up again and again. Minecraft is the first and closest example that currently exists. It can be played by anyone for almost any reason at all; the missing piece of narrative can be found on Youtube, in every person sharing the story of their Minecraft world with anyone willing to watch. 

 

 Skyblock!

Minecraft is such a joy to play. It's an infinite world that resembles a sandbox that has so much variety in the types of sand that it may as well be something else. The game can be understood immediately by anyone looking on, even for the first time. You can play by yourself or jump on a server to have fun with friends or strangers. When the game runs dry, all you need to do to reinvigorate it is download someone's map, install some mods, or even step away for awhile and let your mind wander.

I've built my fair share of Minecraft worlds since release. There's a whole youtube series on a modpack called Magic Maiden where cute little maids were perfect stand-ins for soldiers. Being able to command my own personal army while delving into a dungeon and completely wrecking the entire world as I went along is such a unique experience that I was still playing it up until 2018 when the Aquatic Update released.

In the past, I would have said that Minecraft was a wonderful game with a flawed experience in its gameplay loop. The end result was always worthwhile but it took a long time to get there. Mods in Minecraft's early life span were very popular to shore up some of the missing content and add in systems that could be in the game someday. 

Now, the game doesn't really have any glaring flaws. The worst I can say about the game is that you can't get more than 200 people on a server or that it doesn't run well on every computer.

 

Who put Touhou in my randomizer?!

Super Metroid is Nintendo's shining masterpiece of a platformer that did all of the right things at the right time. , but the game is designed to be played multiple times. You get better and better at it each time the game is played and the game rewards you for getting better. 

Super Metroid is one of the most ran games in all of speedrunning experience. The game has a functionally infinite skill ceiling. It's a game that anyone can get into due to the low skill floor. The amount of mastery you can express over the game and the sheer amount of competition that can be eked out of a game that is only 3 MB in size is quite astonishing.

Super Metroid only has a few flaws. The graphics are dated due to being designed for a CRT and the controls are kind of weird to wrap your head around. There's a concept known as the "Metroid Moment", where you can't figure out what to do so you start bombing everything you can see. The very end of the game has a door that you can save in, and can never go back. A proper update to the graphics via hacking and a control scheme that closer resembles Metriod: Zero Mission would fix nearly everything.

Super Metroid by itself isn't that interesting to me. When you strap on another game and randomize both of them, well... a thousand hours of my life have been very well spent. I have some friends that like to race against me and there's a niche speedrunning community around this ascended meme that I can poke at any time. It does help that both of the games are masterpieces in and of their own right; putting them together like this has to be the crowning achievement of ROM hacking.

The experience of running two games side-by-side and figuring out the best route to get from point A to point F is quite compelling. The technical skill to do this fast is also quite fun. The worst thing I can say about strapping two games together like this is that Super Metroid has roughly 40% of the time in any given run but requires far, far more skill to pull off at any decent speed. That and the bugs.

Courtesy of reddit

Mabinogi is my go-to for a general gaming experience. The sheer amount of content that you can pull out of an MMORPG that is currently 16 years old is something that only really happens in a game that's constantly worked on by a large team. The game is still putting out content to this day.

Mabinogi's combat system is quite unique. It is best described as rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock meets Dark Souls. Most of the skills have strengths and weaknesses, including the basic attack. You have to be aware of what each enemy is doing and have the game knowledge of what every skill does. Skills have massive penalties for guessing wrong. There are large charge up times and huge moments where you get stunned from an attack and can't do a thing.

Characters aren't broken up into classes like other games in the same genre. Instead, your character can learn every skill in the game. Characters are differentiated by the amount of training they want to do in a skill, and a lot of skills have learning requirements based on the level of other skills. Spend enough time using each skill and you'll feel like you master both the mechanics and the skill leveling system.

Mabinogi's crafting system puts Minecraft to shame. Every skill in the game can be trained, including life skills. Each skill has a minigame for processing or finishing a product, and the end results can be worn or used for other crafts depending on whether it's a utility skill, like carpentry, or a finishing skill, like handicraft. Enchanting is present in the usual MMO modifier style, but it's generally forgiving to use. Just ignore the pay-to-win reforging hammers added in 2016 and all is fine in the world.

Dungeons complement both of these ideas so perfectly that I'm surprised I haven't seen it elsewhere. You can enter an instance of a dungeon, fight off room after room of enemies, gather some of their loot, and pick herbs or mine ores along the way. You can get weapons, crafting items, or enchant scrolls at the end of the dungeon, but it's random so you're encouraged to try the same dungeon multiple times.

The story is something else. Mabinogi's entire world is steeped in Celtic lore, until it's not. One day you'll be working through the rolling plains around Bangor and hearing the story of Lugh, the Knight of Light. The next day you'll be exploring the icy land of giants or the lost desert of the elves. The story progresses from searching out the shadow world, to gods and alchemic magic, all the way up to divine creatures trying to corrupt everything in the entire land. Quality here is good and the variety has to be played to be believed. 

No old MMORPG is complete without completely arbitrary side content. There's a land of forever carnival called Festia that rolls the idea of carnival rides, christmas, and various other holidays together in a place you can warp to at any time. You can bring out your inner merchant

I really want to play Mabinogi again. Unfortunately, the game has bright white full-screen flashing that easily causes migraines if I see more than two. One of the reasons I played so much of the game was that there was a modding system that could change some of the client-side graphics. Flashing could be disabled, shadow mission instances could have maps showing where the orbs were, and there was a bunch of other useful effects that mods provide.

As much as I want to play the game again... I do not wish to torture myself. The modding system is updated sparsely, if at all. Some of the content is still a huge amount of fun, but some of it false flat compared to everything else the game has to offer. Ranking up skills require ability points, and when those are gone the urge to train anything vanishes.

There's also a few things that don't belong. Shakespeare does not belong in a game about gods and celts, and neither does alchemy. At least alchemy was worked into the story in a way that made sense... sort of.

This game is perfect! Except for, y'know, the bugs

I do think that a video game in a single category can exist, and maybe even cross across quite a few genres to pull in a lot of people. Minecraft is certainly evidence of that. I don't even think that a perfect video game should exist. There's a lot of value to be found in the flaws, quirks, and bugs that come with games. Sometimes the flaws can make the experience that much better. The bugs make things more memorable at the very least.

Reclamation Project - Part 5.5: Deciding how to move forward

Any time I sit down on a project that I'm interested in, I like to get ahead of myself just a little bit. The process works in a loop: I pull myself ahead a little bit to anticipate what's going on, compare that to the existing work, decide how long it's going to take based on previous steps and experience, and I make a decision. This process has some of the benefits of foresight, hindsight, and analysis baked into the work. There's a lot of value in trying to predict what I'm trying to do.

Sometimes that process runs into a roadblock. For this project, the roadblock was simple: I want to make a game, a platform, future games, artwork, designs, and self-evaluate all of that simultaneously. The roadblock was also far more complicated than I could have anticipated.

Building on top of a project that is a gibbering mesh of experimentation, prototypes, ideas, and eclectic half-built systems is sort of like riding a unicorn on top of a mine cart track in the dark. It's definitely possible to move forward because the unicorn glows in the dark, but it's bumpy, uncomfortable, magical, and I'm sure I could get to the end... but not without getting thrown off and hitting my head somewhere.

I've decided I'm going to take my base project and wrangle it into the one thing it doesn't have currently: plans. There's a lot of digging I've had to do just to get things in order. I've had to uncover ideas that are years old and try to tie them together in a nice bow. Some of the concepts don't work very well together and some of them work too well, so I'm having to segment out the different ideas that are basic and the ones that are game specific.

Essence HUD for Hyper Metroid Remake

I'm currently working on a design document to refine a lot of these ideas. They work pretty well in my head, and a good deal of them are based on working code. Taking the design and turning it into something real should take a lot less time than writing everything from scratch.

I would very much like to take this design and show it to others. If someone has the impetus to actually work with me in the future, it would be very, very valuable to show them a design doc so they can wrap their heads around how the systems are supposed to work and interact with each other on a conceptual level.

Once I have the base project built up I can go into detail on how to dissect and rebuild a level. I can also share artwork and the process of making it for a game with a particular design in mind without stumbling over everything. I'll probably release a working prototype with my avatar as the main character, so stay tuned for that.

Working screenshot of a broken UI image. Circa September 11 2020

Progress Update - January 2021

 I think this was inevitable.

It's one thing to tear apart a game. The entire thing is like a puzzle; I can pull out each individual piece, examine it, take a lot of notes, and put that piece in a box for later. I can break the piece down into the bits that comprise it, the process it was made out of, and identify every single limitation that was placed on it. I can even start making a new piece to slot back into the same slot.

It's another thing entirely to put the game back together. Games are built in a completely different way than you would build a physical device. Every single thing that exists is something that only works in your head. There are no properties to the game until we actually define what a game is. Even using another game as an example, we can make changes to the end result that turn the result into something unrecognizable.

...

Trying to put anything into words is difficult. I keep using analogies to try and relate what I'm currently experiencing to something concrete and real. That way of doing things has served me well until recently, where everything seems to be going right in a lot of ways that I never expected to happen. Today feels completely different than a month ago, and I think that's a good thing. Difficult words still mean the words come out instead of getting jammed somewhere and buried so deep that they can't come out.

I am finding myself with an abundance of time. A lot has improved in my life lately. I feel like everything I know has upended itself and I've been wandering around scattering pieces of thoughts and ideas around for so long that I lost track of where I wanted to go. It's hard to explain exactly what has happened... it feels like I can think now, and anything that I want to do gains 100% of my attention. I have been putting in maybe 30% until recently.

30% isn't right. 30% is all I had. I was spending so much time trying to figure out my problems, fix everything in my life, and move out of my absolute hell that was a series of migraines and sleep deprivation that led to more migraines and sleep deprivation, I didn't have time for anything else. My other hobby is giving me a lot of hope for moving forward. Let's focus on this one for awhile.

I don't just want to gather up my thoughts. That's all I've been doing for the past few years. Instead, I want to make new and exciting experiences and entire worlds out of the ideas that I've simply ignored for so long. I want to take other people's works that are both wonderful and terrible and make them into something great. I want to create a system that can work with all of that, and to build upon it in the coming months.

There's a lot of designs I have stored in scattered files, fragmented and disorganized. Let's turn those into a fully fleshed out design document. Heck, let's overdesign the entire thing so that way any game that wants to come into being can just pull parts out of the design and ignore the rest.

Some of the design already has working code. The code has more structure to it than loose files, but like everything else I've done for the past few years it's unfocused, unpolished, and hidden. I'd like to build a game on this system. Maybe ten. Who knows; I'm not one to pick anything and go halfway with it.

...

I'm not sure how I'm going to organize a design page yet. I have been putting off doing this for awhile; peeking into my creative process is something that I am not too keen on sharing, but it's better than languishing on the sideline or "suddenly pineapples" happens.

The end goal is to remake Alisia Dragoon. How do we get there? Plans. Lots of creativity. Lots of effort. Lots of love. A bit of snark and a blog to document it all.

Game Adaptation Notes I

I have a lot of notes about a lot of games that I wanted to adapt into a system at one point. Here's a posting exactly as they look like, just so you can see what I'm working with.

mDiyo
Basic Abilities
- Basic platforming
- Wall Jump
Hello! My name is mDiyo, and I have studied the likes of other characters in my style. I have the awesome ability to copy all of their abilities and take them for myself. Copying them directly is boring though. Why would I make myself another copy of Mario or Samus when I can combine them both into a single upgrade? For that matter, why would I want to combine multiple upgrades into a single item? Why wouldn't I?

Rule 0 applies: do whatever makes the most fun happen.

Basic Upgrades

- Float Jump
- Source: Various, Princess Peach
- Key: Pits
Have you ever tried to jump across a long gap and realized that the other side was just out of reach, no matter what you tried? Find yourself cursing the game creator and throwing your controller across the wall? Just hover across the entire screen, problem solved!

The behavior I would like here is to slow down the rate at which gravity affects a jump. That should allow for longer jumps that aren't just hanging around in mid-air for a long time, and give the player a lot more control over the jump.

- High Jump
- Source: Various
- Key: Ledges
I don't see a reason not to include this. It's a standard video game upgrade. If it doesn't fit, then it doesn't fit.

- Midair Jump
- Source: Various
- Key: Pits, ledges, or other places out of reach
This is also a standard video game upgrade. Most metroidvania games have one of these somewhere, usually at the beginning of the game. Metroid games are notable in that they don't just have a double jump, they either have a single jump or infinite.

- Dash Boots
- Source: Boho Youyoumu and Celeste
- Key: Difficult or awkward areas to traverse
Instead of a simple extra jump in mid-air, this ability launches the player in a direction from where they currently are. Clever use of this ability can move the player in L or V shaped directions

- Wall Grab gloves
- Source: Celeste
- Key: High ledges
Celeste pairs a midair dash with the ability to climb up and down walls, albeit with a stamina mechanic. All of Celeste is about tricky platforming sections and overcoming adversity; the mechanics complement that nicely.

- Dash Charge
- Source: Metroid series (Speed Booster)
- Key: Speed blocks
Run for a short, continuous amount of time and Samus will build up enough energy to run at breakneck speed. Her entire body becomes a shining mass of kinetic energy that is capable of destroying enemies and specially reinforced terrain in her way.

The speed booster has a hidden ability: Shinespark. If you push down on the controller you can store your speed and release it into the air, careening off into a new direction

- Flippers
- Source: Zelda series
- Key: Water
Can a character swim without fippers? Maybe. Can they swim well without flippers? Probably not.

Outsize of the Zelda series this is probably an ability built into the character or not present at all.

- Breathing device
- Source: Ecco the Dolphin, Maptroid
- Key: Oxygen
The breathing device allows the player long access in environments that would otherwise not be available. Deep underwater, space, hazardous gas, or anywhere else that doesn't have normal air applies. Ecco gains this as a story upgrade from the Asterite

- Barrier Suit
- Source: Metroid series
- Key: Heated areas

The Barrier Suit is Samus's most iconic look. It's also kind of a boring upgrade. Heated rooms do constant damage to the player while they're inside and having the suit negates that effect. It is nice to see particularly hot areas being dangerous instead of lava being no more than hot red water.

- Varia Suit
- Source: Metroid Fusion
- Key: Frigid areas

Metroid Fusion launched first on the US version. This was the first game that Samus had to deal with cold, therefore the badly translated name is the true source

- Gravity Suit
- Source: Super Metroid
- Key: Waterlogged areas

The ability to walk through water after getting the Gravity Suit has always bothered me a little bit. It's a perfect upgrade for a heavy tank kitted out entirely in futuristic armor and complements the rest of Samus's power set. For a magic-geared character however... I would rather have a full swimming mechanic and a way to speed through underwater tunnels in a much more well defined level.

- Hazard Suit
- Source: Metroid Prime 3

Protection from the hazardous effects of acid and fuel gel. Basically a replacement for the barrier suit with the additional bonus of protecting from acid rain. This would be nice at the end of Super Metroid where deep acid still runs through your suits.

Equipment

- Power Ring
- Source: Metroid Series
- Key: Combat, doors

Samus's main weapon is a beam cannon that can be upgraded. Each upgrade has unique mechanics, from piercing through walls to
- Charge: Hold attack to shoot off a concentrated blast of energy
- Ice: Freeze enemies in place. Primarily a way of making platforms out of enemies
- Wave: Pierce walls, attack enemies from places they can't get.
- Wide: Shoot 3 beams of energy instead of one. Beams tend to be as large as the player
- Plasma: Absolutely devastating. Pierces enemies and does massive damage

- Ice Ring
- Source: Samus, Metroid II: Samus Returns
- Key: Various platforming challenges

Samus Returns did an interesting thing by separating out the ice beam from the other upgrades. The controls in that game are a bit overwhelming; you need to use the touch screen in addition to every button on the DS. This is a fair bit better than the clunky weapon selection in Super Metroid, but I think we can do better.

- Magicannon
- Source: Dynamarisa
- Key: Doors

Samus uses missiles to open up red and green doors. Let's replace that with a cannon and upgrade it over time. Wrap regular and super missiles together in the same way that Fusion does, steal the R-button selection of beam vs cannon, and call it good.

- Grapple ring
- Source: Metroid series
- Key: Grapple points, platforming challenges

Super Metroid is the place where the grapple beam was used the most. It's also the place where grapple was very awkward to use. I need to do a lot of testing to see how useful this whole mechanic is. I'd like to do the thing justice and make sure it's a worthwhile experience instead of a clunky mess of frustration.

I think we should have a standard controller layout with beams on one button and support on a second button. Hold R to swap between normal and auxilary functions (Beams/Missiles and Ice/Grapple)

Mini Slime
- Source: Samus, Morph Ball

Morph ball is Samus's most iconic ability. What was originally a unique solution to a new design problem and a technical limitation on the NES turned into something that defined an entire genre. In classic Nintendo fashion, the problem was condensed and crystallized into a single action: turn Samus into a ball. Other companies would have two characters that could do different things, spread out the idea across multiple games, or even do something more sensible and make Samus crawl.

The best way to examine the Morph Ball is to pretend that it's a separate character from Samus herself. This isn't just a simple transformation; the movement, abilities, and hitboxes are all different. There are different upgrade paths, the controls are separate, and in the case of Super Metroid the ball can fit into places so small that you have to wonder where the rest of her mass went. There's only one answer: Samus is a magical girl!

[Any technology that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic]

All of Samus's abilities seem to be based on the idea of converting energy into matter. Missiles, bombs, and beams use energy absorbed from the world, enemies, or from Samus herself. Her suit is the catalyst behind this; while it's accurate to say that Samus is a magical girl, she also relies heavily on technology and training to make this happen. The only canon explanation is "Chozo science" so let's just stick with that.

mDiyo doesn't want to outright steal her identity, so let's take the mechanics and twist them into something else. I've been a big fan of slimes for awhile. Why not create a little buddy that has the power of alchemy on its side? A bit of springy things here, a couple things over there, and we can make some interesting, new game mechanics.

Mr. Slimey
Basic Abilities
- Basic platforming (poor)
- Command
-- Trampoline
-- Fling

- Acid Spit
- Source: Morph, Bombs
- Key: Destructible terrain, not obvious
Bombs are small but powerful energy blasts that can destroy terrain and reveal weaknesses that would otherwise not be present. Let's replace that with an acid spit that lingers for a bit. It's a bit harder to control, but

- Acid Rain
- Source: Metroid Series, Power Bombs
- Key: Destructible terrain, heavy
Acid, acid everywhere. Spread it out on everything nearby and let it flow through all the cracks.

This one might be a bit dangerous to nearby characters.

- Wall Climb
- Source: Metroid II, Spider Ball
- Lock: Large walls or ceilings

Spider slime~ Spider slime~ does whatever a spider does~
Shoots a flange out of its head~
Catches itself on ceilings high~
Look out!
Here comes the spider slime~

- Boost Ball
- Source: Metroid Prime 2
- Key: Half pipes, speed blocks, speed related puzzles

There's a great Super Metroid romhack called Ice Metal Uninstall that has a 2D version of the boost ball. It's a lot of fun to careen through the terrain from a standstill. It's reminiscent of Sonic's spindash, but less useful due to the level layout.