Designer Player Trust Building
Darren Torpey's Notes:
- The running mechanic in Mirror's Edge was all about managing players' expectations
- The red-items-are-for-actions mechanic was there to offset what could have been a crushing lack of confidence in a player's mind that taking long jumps, etc. was worth the risk
- Sometimes games explicitly develop the expectation that they will betray the player's trust. See: Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
- (I Wanna Be the Guy is another good example of this)
- Conversely, surprise is also important to a lot of good game design
- Portal is a good example of balancing surprise and trust successfully
- Like Mirror's Edge, it develops a strong visual language to communicate with players
- Having a regular reward schedule can help a lot
- Consistency is important: e.g. a random green turtle will not explode (in Super Mario Bros)
- Breaking the 4th wall can also be a part of player trust
- In Donkey Kong Country, the game teaches players that where there is a banana, there is something to keep you from dying while jumping or tumbling to grab it
- We inherit trust from past games we've played
- But as designers, it can be tricky knowing what games your players will have played and what they've learned from those games
- Advanced example: Far Cry 2 teaching players to say "fuck it" and accept a high level of chaos is a really great triumph of player trust — when it works (which for many, it doesn't)
- It's important to let players know why they failed — or they may stop trusting the game to be fair and understandable
- It can help a lot to give players an explicit "out", for example: time-rewinding in Prince of Persia and Braid
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