Difficulty Vs. Accessibility: Video Game Debate

For a long time, I've wrestled with two conflicting ideas about video game design: Designers should be able to impose a singular vision on the player if they so wish and players should be able to play games however they want. I've seen other video game reviewers try to tackle this subject with some success, though YouTuber Mark Brown does an excellent job explaining it in his video about Celeste's Assist Mode (Highly recommend you watch it before commenting). And after watching, I think this is the best middle ground. So what do you guys think? Do you agree with Mark Brown that communication is key to maintaining difficulty with accessibility? Are games better off sticking to the designer's intent, or should players always be allowed to play the game how they want, whenever they want?

 

Lmao when I saw the title I was going to reference the Mark Brown video, yeah I agree that developers should communicate the intended way of playing VERY clearly in order to reach the intended audience but also be accessible to everyone else.

 

Wow you really love making these threads.

Cool

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With this post I have surpassed @Kraby in messages

 

Just something to talk about it

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I guess my only gripes with accessibility like assist mode is that it can skip large portions of content. Sure maybe some people are happier that way, but then why play that game at all then if you only like a few features out of it. And by giving people that power they can easily overlook parts of the game that they might have enjoyed. He even brought up that reason when he mentioned Cuphead.

 

That is purely up to the developers choice if they want to make that decision or not. And some people truely do want to play the game for only certain parts. Another example is the Danganronpa series which is a detective/visual novel game. In which while those two genres clash with each other the game has options to where you can tone down the difficulty of the investigation and deduction process if you only play the game for the story and vice versa to where you can turn up the difficulty if you enjoy the detective aspect. It is honestly a dilemma to whether you want to give the player or the develiper power. And there is no real way to perfectly balance it without leaning in the favor of one.

 

True, true. I’m fine with people skipping boring chapters in a novel, so I guess this isn’t too much different.

 

No the story is the same it is just the gameplay can be toned down or up, regardless it is to make the game more accessible to people that enjoy a good story.

 

That’s what I was saying, by skipping whole chapters in Celeste the player would miss important parts of the story. So if they were just playing for the story then there experience would also be ruined. I’m fine for people liking other aspects of a game over others, but cutting out huge portions of the game isn’t the best way to go for anyone. You get what I’m saying?

 

Yeah in no case should skipping parts of the game ever okay, especially in games like Celeste where the challange is directly integrated with the story it is trying to tell. I only am advocating for just a little push of slight changes like giving players the triple jump early. But anything further than that is harming the experience.

 

Oh ok, I gotcha. I think all special moves in Celeste are unlocked from the very beginning, it’s just that the game doesn’t tell you most of them.