Why a lot of 8-bit (or alike) developers think we loved excessive difficulty?

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gauauu
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Re: Why a lot of 8-bit (or alike) developers think we loved excessive difficulty?

Post by gauauu »

aa-dav wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:24 pm And if we get back now to old games like Contra then it becomes virtually impossible to pass this 'test'
One of the things I loved about Contra back in the day was that you could play it two ways: you could use the code, have fun with a friend, and play through the game.

Or you could play through a challenging game as designed. And when you finally beat it without the code (or in one continue, or one life), you felt really awesome. And no, it wasn't impossible, we did it as kids, without the internet or walkthroughs or save states. Just a bit of practice.

Call me a n00b, but I could only beat Megaman (1) on the PowerPak with save states
Mega Man 1 had some difficult spots (like the yellow devil thing), so I definitely won't call you a noob. But other than that one fight, I really enjoyed the challenge level of the game.


My point isn't to brag about what games I'm good at (I'm pretty mediocre at a lot of games) -- it's to say that many of us enjoyed the challenge of these games.
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RJM
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Re: Why a lot of 8-bit (or alike) developers think we loved ass rape?

Post by RJM »

dougeff wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 3:11 pm Arcade games were made hard so you keep putting quarters in.

I think part of the problem is that game developers have played their own games 1000x, and it doesn't seem too hard for them.
I have a cool story about this.
For my last game, I decided to make programmatically generated 32 levels with growing difficulty.
Even though I played it 1000x times I still couldn't make it through the end w/o cheat codes moving me to a certain level, it was so hard.
I thought it was going to be too much of a challenge for people and they'll give up.
Little did I know, just a week after the initial release someone made it to level 23 and discovered a critical level loading bug,
that could only be found if you played levels in "linear" order. Just 2 days later, after I had sent him the fixed version, he beat the game.

I guess some people just enjoy the pain and suffering while playing these super hard games.
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aa-dav
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Re: Why a lot of 8-bit (or alike) developers think we loved excessive difficulty?

Post by aa-dav »

gauauu wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:55 pm And no, it wasn't impossible, we did it as kids, without the internet or walkthroughs or save states. Just a bit of practice.
Don't get me wrong. I did this in my childhood too. Contra II was easier, Contra I harder, but I beated them in childhood in normal mode.
There were not so many options: to play with sticks in the yard, for example.
It's really cheat mode where you can train skills with 30 lives to do this. And this is very interesting example: with 30 lives Contra still stays very hard (in modern times) to beat. But 30 lives could bring you to a lot of levels by medium skills. This is good example of 'easy level' which stimulates to gain skill while learning and seeing a lot of levels above first two/three to keep interest in these times. But 30 lives were not infinite and moreover - after gameover they were resetted to 3. So you still need to gain skills and try. Eventually this lead to tryings to beat it in normal mode.

Anyway I was talking about modern (after 2005 of so on year) times. And now game like Contra (especially without 30 lives) is no way for me after 30 minutes on the first two/three levels. I have more enjoyfull things to do now and they are not sticks on the yard.
Pokun
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Re: Why a lot of 8-bit (or alike) developers think we loved excessive difficulty?

Post by Pokun »

Incidentally I suck at shooting games and have never beaten any Contra game (except Contra Force which is easier).

For Rockman 1 (which I consider more of a platform game than a shooting game) I don't think Yellow Devil is that hard as he is extremely predictable doing the exact same pattern every time. Though some moves he makes requires fast reaction speed, you only really need to jump over blobs coming close to the floor and one block higher (Rockman 3's Yellow Devil is a different matter as he has a second form of blob-attack which basically requires Rush to dodge). I always had more problems with Iceman and Fireman who both has some undodgeable attacks (or so I used to think). Especially the second time when you fight both of them right before Dr Willy. I remember my method to beat the game was just to keep energy reserves high until Fireman, then just go berserk soaking up all damage from them and fight Dr Willy with low energy. It's doable since Dr Willy is fully dodgeable, although not easy.

Now I know that if you are close enough to Fireman he only shoots whenever you shoot, so he was only undodgeable because I shot at him too rapidly and from too far away. Iceman is destroyed from just 3 shots of Thunder Beam so it's possible to defeat him and teleport out before you are hit by his opening attack.
psycopathicteen
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Re: Why a lot of 8-bit (or alike) developers think we loved excessive difficulty?

Post by psycopathicteen »

I think some developers gave their games excessive difficulty because they wanted to show off their programming skills.
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