That is just bad game design, and nothing inherently to do with having easier modes. There is a long, long, history of games having easy modes, and still being some of the most challenging games made, when you select the harder ones.
Comment on Anon fixes Super Mario Bros
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 4 weeks agoI can at least support baby mode for, like, extremely small kids and maybe co-op with that one person who’s never touched a video game in their life but wants to play along with the other three. You know, the kids are over at grandpa’s, and he wants to feel like he’s playing and having fun with them instead of just setting and forgetting them on the magic dopamine box, but he’s no good at it, so he takes the invincible character. I think that’s reasonable, inclusive game design.
What I take issue with is when baby mode drags down the difficulty of the rest of the game modes. For example, you as a game designer benchmark “normal mode” against “being literally invulnerable”, and so you now have to play hard mode to even vaguely feel any sort of tension.
Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I agree completely. Idk why they do it. They got filthy rich off kids 5-10 playing the shit out of NES games.
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 4 weeks ago
The way it works is this: The genius people make magic. It makes a ton of money, because people can recognize magic. Then the people with investment money get involved. Gradually, the genius people are outnumbered, the fun of their average working day declines, and they leave or simply get shouldered into some niche somewhere by the unimaginable torrent of motivated people who have something else on their mind.
No one involved in Mario, Zelda, Metroid, or Contra has been anywhere near the design team at Nintendo for decades. These guys own the rights to call it “Mario,” but if they weren’t making games where you can turn Mario into an elephant, they could be just as happy making sweat pants with writing on the ass. And the magic is off somewhere else, doing its thing.
imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
FTFY. But also nice one, I loled. And you’re totally right about what you’re saying too.
abfarid@startrek.website 4 weeks ago
I’m not sure if I’m missing sarcasm here, but Super Mario Bros. Wonder is freaking amazing. There’s so much creativity packed into that game, that almost every level they introduce a new mechanic that could easily be it’s whole entire game.