u/Patient_Gamemer

We humans aren't rational. At least not 100%. We see, we read, we hear or we play something and we say "I like this" or "I don't like this", but it's hard for us to find a real tangible reason for that. Maybe that's why I like to think of the "why" i love or hate some stuff, to help myself find more stuff to love.

This War of Mine vs Frostpunk: I'm saying this cause I remember back in the early 2010s, where Minecraft and DayZ were all the rage and everything were sandbox survival crafting games (or at least that's how I remember it) and all of a sudden I saw "This War of Mine", a terraria-like game where the fantasy/horror setting has replaced by a realistic depiction of war and the time schedule was flipped: so instead of scavanging during the day and defending your stronghold at night it was the other way around. And me loving gritty war stories, promised myself to buy it one day.

However, years later, when I finally played it... I had to stop. I don't hate This War of Mine it's just that I suffer more than enjoy the game, which I guess was the intent behind it? This sensation has made me aware of similar games, more notably Frostpunk. And only decided to play when on 90% sale. And so far I'm loving it. I mean, I do like city builders a lot, so there's that, but still the dark hopeless ambience didn't strike me as much as in TWoM and here I think I do can control the situation, instead of being frustrated and almost scared at the game. So what's different?

Oh, and I've realized I should probably explain what these games are about in detail, for those unaware. If you already know you can skip this paragraph. So This War of Mine, or TWoM and Frostpunk are both dark survival games made by Polish developer "11 bit studios" (wow, between this, Darkwood and Stalker, eastern Europeans do love their depressing gritty survival games, huh?). In both of them you do have a base of operations where you have to manage cold, rest, hunger and sanity, while using resources to make it grow, while you also can send your people on expeditions ot retrieve more goods. TWoM is a side scrolling game taking place in warzone, that could very well be Bosnia or Ukraine, with elements of stealth. Frostpunk on the other hand, takes place in an alternate history where an ice age struck during the industrial revolution, and the games are about building cities surrounding a giant heat generator.

Ok, now on to speak of why I preferred the latter. For starters Frostpunk takes place in a much larger scale, so you don't emphatize with characters as much as in TWoM, which I think was an subliminal element of the game pushing me away. It's also way more accesible, with difficulty settings and even the option to save the game at will, to slowly get better at the game... but finally I think I've found the reason why I detest TWoM's gameplay so much: I've called it the "Doomed Playthrough" syndrome.

Doomed Playthough phenomenon: In case it wasn't clear by name, I mean that feeling of knowing your game is over, your run is doomed to fail no matter what. And while you could theoretically bang your head against a wall to try and succeed, realistically it's way easier to just start all over... which is problematic cause it would mean sink another few hours to an experience you already know. For starters this effect is negative cause we naturally prefer winning to losing, but I'd add an extra element which is that, once the run is doomed, there's little you can do to stop it. You're doomed to lose over and over and be miserable no matter what you do.

The first reason Forstpunk escapes this, I've already said, it's difficulty settings and savescumming. You can adjust your experience so that you know it will be tough but not impossible. I recall some reviewer saying "Frostpunk strangles but doesn't suffocate" and I'd say that's mostly true for the normal setting for a regular management game regular. In TWoM, however, the game does force you to live through your mistakes and be subject of the harsh reality of war, which is neat for a social messaging angle, but isn't good from a piece of entertainment value.

The second reason is, I've realized the existence of a single point in TWoM where the whole playthrough is destroyed. In Forstpunk you can make mistakes, sure, but none of them catastrophic. You placed a building in the wrong spot? You can delete with only a minor penalty in time and resources. Some people died? Chances are, they aren't even the 10% of your workforce. However, the emphasis on the looting/stealth sessions make TWoM a game where a single mistake can destroy your run, as if a character is killed, not only they're gone for good, you lose all their equipment and an opportunity to scavange. If you start a scenario with two characters and one is killed, you know that you're on borrowed time.

Other games with this problem: finally, the realization that made write this essay is that, TWoM isn't the only game where I have the problems stated before! Probably the first easiest example that jumps to mind is XCOM. I love the setting, the idea of being the commander of the Earth, I do have played XCOM:EU and enjoyed it, probably cause it's more laid back and you can play at your pace. But XCOM 2 demolishes me. Not just out of difficulty alone, but a combination of high difficulty, RNG and the fact that the game can easily snowball, plus the constant pressure the game applies on you through it's countdown mechanics. You either win every battle and the endgame is trivial or get locked or "doomed" to lose.

And the more I thought about it the clearer it was: let's say you miss a shot and don't kill an enemy. Ok, that can mean the aliens have an extra movement their turn, but if they brainwash your soldier or fatally wound them, not only you lose that soldier but have to sacrifice a turn to either kill them or save them, which means 2 soldiers less. And knowing you start a skirmish with 4-6 soldiers, losing only 1 or 2 means game over. And game over not only means that lose the reward of the mission, you also lose your men, their gear and their exp, and the aliens get an advantage to fulfilling their mission. Meaning that in 5 minutes, an entire 10-15 hour run can get lost.

Another similar problem I have is with classic Fire Emblem games, where the amount of units you have is predetermined by the story, so if you lose too many members you can lock yourself out of the ending.

How to fix this: savescumming is a game design dilemma, cause as Soren Johnson said "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game". From a gameplaywise perspective, loading a previous save is the best way to get through some challenge. You win a boss battle by a slim margin and barely get any resources? Better try again once you know the trick and demolish them. On the other hand some games are designed for the players to try and recover from their mistakes, but as seen here, that's sometimes impossible.

Funny enough, Mark Brown once even made a video about it and rewatching it's incredible how he arrived to a similar conclusion: many games revolve around emergent storytelling, but if the punishments are too severe, then you're creating an undesirable state.

How to solve this? Well, as the video says you shouldn't make punishments too severe, like how I said that Frostpunk doesn't an "instant loss" state, you're always given opportunities to rise again (theoretically you can lock yourself out of the ending for a bad playthrough, but for that you need a cumulation of screw-ups, not a single one).

But I want to add the possibility of self-adjusting difficulty or at least ways for the player to choose their battles. If the game is aware that you've lost something important and offers you smallest challenges, then losing a single battle isn't that hard. Xcom2 throws this out of the window cause the game is on a countdown and it isn't stopping if you lose a battle, so it normally means that 1 fuck-up = lose. The problem would be the difficulty purists that don't want to feel like the game is catering to them but, idk, dude, this isn't gambling or profesional sport, you're meant to have fun...

What about you? Have you ever felt this sensation when playing a game? The repulsion to continue playing knowing that you're locked in an unwinnable state?

Occupational hazards