Although we got the silver medal in the Tencent minigame event, when I reviewed our core game experience, I didn't think the game worth further development. The main reason is that there are several unsolvable cursed problems in the direction of the combination of fighting games and rhythm games.
How to create a new game experience?
We usually add elements from other gameplay to existing gameplay to achieve the purpose of innovation, which can bring a brand new game experience to target players. For example, a recently popular game on Tiktok, Combat of Hero, adds the Roguelike element to the ARPG game, which reduces the difficulty of ARPG game operation and improves the randomness and entertainment of the game.
Combat of Hero shortens the duration of a single game and increases the random factor. It not only meets the leisure and entertainment needs of most users on Tiktok, fills the user's fragmented time, but also meets the needs of ARPG users to be able to focus on combat mastery to win the game. This innovation is a good example of the integration of different gameplay elements.
Does the combination of fighting games and rhythm games feasible?
What is Cursed Problem?
I would like to introduce the views of Alex Jaffe's speech "Cursed Problems in Game Design" in GDC 2019. He believes that there are also many cursed problems in game design, and these problems can't really be solved in fact.
"Cursed problem is an unsolvable design problem, rooted in a conflict between core player promises."
--Alex Jaffe, Cursed Problems in Game Design
The player promise mentioned above is defined as follows:
"Player promises is a game's essential experiences. Why the play came to play."
--Alex Jaffe, Cursed Problems in Game Design
For example,
Skill inflation problem occurs for evergreen competitive games or PvP games designers want to exist for many years. Games like this often have different players playing at different levels at the beginning. But slowly as the game matures, the audience matures with it. Players who are not good at this game might tend to leave, which will result in most of the players in the community might play incredibly well and new players to break in. This kind of game usually suffers from this cursed problem, because those players usually want a long journey of mastery, but they also want a stable, vibrant community. These two player promises are incompatible because a long journey of mastery naturally results in a rising skill pool, but a stable vibrant community requires a broad variety of skill levels. This is a cursed problem.
Notes: Actually, I think this problem can be solved by putting different skills level AI in matchmaking, which can help new players through the novice period. Thanks to the rapid development of AI technology.
Cursed Problem in Our Design
When we used our childhood clapping game as a prototype and came up with a combination of fighting games and audio games, we thought this idea was really great, and there were basically no games on the market that did this. But when we made the game and tried it ourselves, we found that there were several cursed problems that could not be solved.
Cursed Problem 1: Buttom Click Game Experience
Cursed Problem 2: Game Strategy
Cursed Problem 3: Game Objectives
Although we won the silver medal in the Tencent minigame competition, there are actually several unsolvable problems in the gameplay design of our game. It's mainly because many aspects of psychological needs conflict between fighting game players and rhythm game players. Owing to game rules simplification and online PvP support, we won this medal. But I don't think this game deserves further investment.
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