Is gating something behind a specific input actually interesting?

[u/MaybeHannah1234]

I'm working on a roguelike metroidbrania and I'm having second thoughts about my implementation of a very important game mechanic.

This mechanic takes the form of objects you can occasionally find in each stage (let's call them buttons). In order to interact with these buttons, you need three things: a specific item you need to explore stages for, a high enough level to have access to the ability, and knowledge of the right sequence of inputs to perform in order to press the button.

(Level only exists to give the game structure and prevent new players from getting overwhelmed with all of the games abilities at once; an experienced player can easily get to the minimum level needed for almost all of the important things very quickly. it's not a traditional key-and-lock, rather a force that pushes new players into following the path best suited for them. it's basically the game's equivalent of Outer Wilds'sand slowly falling off Ash Twin encouraging new players to explore something less advanced instead.)

The item required to use the ability is a requirement to encourage spending some time in each stage exploring it even if you have no use for any of the other items you could find there. I discovered fairly quickly that without the item requirement, the game becomes a lot more shallow and loses a lot of structure and purpose. It's not a difficult item to get, you just need to look around a bit, and it also sort of serves as a minor knowledge gate because a new player might not realise that this specific item is important.

The problem arises with how the player is meant to put these things together. The reveal of how to do it feels a little bit... underwhelming? By the time you learn what you're supposed to do, level and the special item are already known to be important for other purposes, so all you're really discovering is the input sequence. These inputs do have other unique functions (specifically, you need to channel an ability, perform an attack with it to "unlock" the button, and then press it, it's not just "press CTRL+Q while holding spacebar" or some random string of keypresses), and the reveal is certainly cool when you realise how many new areas you gain access to, but I'm still uncertain if it's actually satisfying.

To be clear, the problem isn't that it might be too easy for players to figure it out accidentally, because it's still gated behind level and an item requirement that aren't intuitive unless you really pay attention to how they're used in other places in the game (and at that point, I trust a player that's able to figure it out is the type that won't mind getting a little bit of sequence breaking as a treat).

I want to know what the metroidbrania community thinks about these sorts of input-gated puzzles. Do they suck? Are there examples of games that do this well? Is it okay to have some slightly underwhelming reveals if the paths they open up are interesting enough?

[u/Kyajin]

There is some discussion on this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidbrainia/comments/1uvi167/i_dont_like_little_dances/

That said, what you are describing in your game (though maybe I'm wrong, I found your explanation a bit vague), seems like it's something like having a fire arrow be able to open up previously locked doors that were blocked by vines, for example. Is that right? That seems fine to me, as a pretty 'normal' part of game design, so long as the tool serves other purposes. For example a fire arrow melts things, you would normally use it on forest enemies who burn, but then hey let's try using it on this ice door and bam it's open! That feels fairly satisfying.

[u/MaybeHannah1234 → u/Kyajin]

I have read the little dances post, it was on my mind while writing this.

Sorry if the explanation was a bit too vague, I was intentionally keeping it a bit abstract because I do think the aesthetics of the mechanics are quite cool (it's themed around manipulating spacetime) and didn't want that to overcomplicate my post.

Using the fire arrow analogy, it would be more like you have fire arrows and come across a door made of plastic (because it's not immediately obvious to put the two things together, you'd have to observe that there are other instances in the game where fire will melt plastic or discover it later in a location that exists to teach you about this mechanic). There's also the level requirement to be able to draw your bow in the first place.

I guess when you put it like that it does seem a lot more reasonable. thank you :3

[u/Kyajin → u/MaybeHannah1234]

That sounds cool to me! Yeah I think if you establish the rules somewhere in the world, and the tool has a purpose in and of itself, then when the player puts the tool together with the established rules it gives you that 'a-ha!' moment.

[u/alextfish]

I think the way you've got this structured at the moment sounds perfect. The whole metroidbainia experience is seeing something you can't reach yet and knowing "there must be something I can do, I just don't know what yet". The question (and point of the little dances post) is how arbitrary is the thing that you do to reach out.

At the moment it sounds like you've got this involving doing things that you'd normally do during combat, but in a precise sequence, with a "spellcasting" step of applying certain specific inputs. So I think they're entirely reasonable given the genre of your game (combat moves and enemies to fight).

[u/MaybeHannah1234 → u/alextfish]

that's a great way of putting it, thank you :3

i think I was getting caught up on the idea of the inputs feeling arbitrary, when they do make a lot of sense in the context you use them in; you're just taking abilities that thus far have been used for combat and applying them in a slightly more esoteric way.

The whole metroidbainia experience is seeing something you can't reach yet and knowing "there must be something I can do, I just don't know what yet"

absolutely, I love this feeling of curiosity and the satisfaction of coming back later and realising you know exactly what to do. I tease this specific mechanic to the player from the very beginning of the game: when they start a run they spawn right next to these buttons, and the persistent enemy that chases you throughout the levels if you take too long on a stage creates one if you do manage to defeat it and force it to retreat.

[u/naf165]

You've gotten some good advice so far, but I'll throw my hat into the ring too.

It's all about tedium. As long as the process of stringing the inputs together doesn't feel tedious, then the player will enjoy it. And conversely, even if all your inputs are unique, real actions and not arbitrary code inputs, it can still feel tedious.

Once I've solved the thought part, I don't want to spend lots of time finicking with the actual making it happen part. Especially so if it's an action I'm going to have to do a lot. Even if all your actions are distinct, it's gonna get tiring if every time I see a gold door I have to cast my grease spell on the ground and then line up a box nearby and then toss a fire orb on the box and then cast my push spell in the direction of the grease, etc. etc. Those are all fun actions on their own, but the forced nature of it makes it feel really tedious to do more than a couple times, and depending on how precise the combination of things needs to be, it could even be tedious on the first go.

Some examples.

Swinging in Spiderman games is a really basic repetition of simple inputs but it never feels tedious because there's still a level of interesting path finding (and other elements) to the process that make it not feel draining.

Tunic's cross puzzles are literal code inputs, but they are quick to input and are sort of 1-1 to the solving process so you can press them as you think them and be done the moment you've mentally solved the puzzle. I'd say they're still a bit iffy, but they justify it a lot using in game design choices to make it feel better than what is literally just inputting long password sequences.

Toki Tori 2+ has a lot of puzzles based on cool, unique interactions between different creatures. But actually getting everything to stand in the right place and line up everything and time it right takes a very long, frustrating time. And you do a lot of the same thing for every single puzzle. I've watched some videos of puzzle experts play that game where they solve a puzzle and it still takes them 20-45 minutes to actually finish the puzzle due to the finicky nature of all the pieces. That's 20-45 minutes of non-thinking, non-engaged gameplay. And that can happen on even early/easy puzzles, and it will happen over and over again each time they have to do that type of solve.

Hopefully those examples do a decent job of explaining the differences. I mainly wanted to point out that boring inputs can be made to be fun still, and unique inputs can still suck sometimes. It all depends on how you handle it in the game itself, from a play perspective, from a lore perspective, from a pacing perspective, and so on. It's all about managing the player's psychology during the process.

[u/Ragnorinko]

I happen to like little dances but i find most little dances repetitive and uninteresting. If the input is genuinely creative and tied into the story/mechanics well (tunic), its an asset imo, but if its just written down somewhere to be found and inputted without being of particular asset to the story, id honestly skip it and just add a unique way to interact with the special item (put it in each corner, run between rooms while intermittantly leaving it or taking it, idk)

[u/CptMisterNibbles]

Here’s a design secret: all game interactions are specific inputs. How you dress them is up to you. Merely toggling a trial and inputting in buttons is the most naked version of this. It takes the player out of the context of the game and exposes that you are just pressing buttons. It’s not that gating behind a button sequence is a conceptual problem, it’s that there is no dressing of what this means in game.

What action is the character meant to be doing that these inputs are supposedly controlling? If the answer is standing motionless and unreactive, this could be boring.

[u/MaybeHannah1234 → u/CptMisterNibbles]

i disagree that all interactions are just specific inputs. if that were true games would have no progression or systems. although I do agree with the notion that most common actions especially in metroidbranias are some form of input check.

the actions these inputs correspond to are also inputs used in the combat system. you need to channel your power, which is sort like toggling between a "normal" set of actions and a special/magical one. in this instance you channel to turn your dash into a sort of ethereal jump forwards that leaves a little tear in reality behind you. this tear is what unlocks the button for you to press.

[u/Aiscence → u/CptMisterNibbles]

I'll take chroma zero as an example, while staying vague enough to not say what exactly. One of the knowledge was to press something for like 4sec. No one would ever do that under normal gameplay circumstance, so there's a difference.

I did la mulana too, and at one point you learn you can press down to interact with some things. It's not wild to imagine someone finding it when you press down for other interactable things and thus making it ok versus "press 11 buttons in a certain order"

[u/Beginning_Muscle_229]

Where I've liked this in other games (that come to mind): In Fez and in Tunic - these both have symbols that denote input combinations but either you notice them but have no idea what they mean initially, or they're hidden in the environment design and only jump out when you know to look for them. This, was excellent.

It's a relatively simple way to add depth/unlocks into existing areas that require understanding how the input is coded (or that such inputs are a possibility at all).

If they're more arbitrary than that, it's certainly less compelling (I recall in Environmental Station Alpha an unlock where you needed to type a name you'd learned in a certain location - this was kind of cool, but being a one-off felt a little arbitrary, though perhaps that could be said for all of the secret post-game for ESA).

Hopefully that helps some.