Distilling The Elements of Old-School Design.

Role-playing survival game is willing to take risks

By  Jun 15th, 2011 6:22 pm UTC

I find it funny when people use the term, “old-school” when talking about game design, as it is the only one I can think of that can be used both positively and negatively. Some titles strive to deliver that old-school feel, while others are condemn because of it. This leads to the point and question for this entry: what mechanics or design are considered old-school?

Several months ago I talked about how game design has become more streamlined and accessible over the years. During that entry I briefly touched on the theory that some elements of old-school design were in my opinion, either bad design or arbitrarily raising the difficult level of a game; for instance, a bad control scheme or hard to follow UI. Another example would be games that had no in game map whatsoever. I know that there are plenty of older gamers who are going to disagree with that last one, growing up with CRPGs that required graph paper to draw maps. However, this is going to be a point where we’ll have to agree to disagree.

With that said, I’m going to attempt to distinguish some of the positive mechanics of old-school design. First, is simply non linearity, whether that comes from progression in the story or available tactics to the player. Games like Demon’s Souls and Etrian Odyssey, give the player a variety of available options on how to progress in the game. In EO, there is no perfect party composition, and this is helped by having utility skills split across classes. While in Demon’s Souls, the player is free to improve their attributes however they wish and have three viable combat options with close, ranged and magic combat.

Depending on the type of gamer, challenge could be considered either good or bad for old-school design. Most games designed for that old-school feel, have enemies that are more than just a minor annoyance. In Ninja Gaiden Black , even the first enemy type you run into on normal can still take out the player if they aren’t paying attention. With Etrian Odyssey, mini bosses are scattered around the various floors with some so powerful that the player can’t take them on until returning to the floor several hours later.

With those high points mentioned, let’s talk about some downsides. Obscuring information comes in several forms with old-school design. It could mean anything from not telling the player what items or skills do, to hiding important information behind screens of text. There is a fine line between letting the player figure something out on their own and forcing them into a scavenger hunt for basic information.

Knowing how much information to give the player is always a challenge, as there are times that you don’t want to tell the player exactly what everything does. In the game: King of Dragon Pass, the player is required to make decisions base off of information, but is not told exactly how their choices will affect the village. This gives the game a unique feel to it, forcing the player to think like they are in the village instead of as a player using spreadsheets of information to determine the optimal route. This concept definitely deserves its own entry and I’ll be coming back to it at a later point.

The UI is a big deal when it comes to design; many older games use archaic UIs that make it hard to follow what is going on. I’m not going to spend too much time on this point as I’m already writing a separate entry on this.

As I lurked around the Internet after playing The Witcher 2, I kept seeing the same defense people threw out whenever someone had a problem with the game. That it was trying to capture that old-school charm with a bad UI, unresponsive controls not having a proper tutorial and so on. To me, that’s not having charm, that’s just simply bad design. Once again, an excellent example of this marriage between old school design and accessibility would have to be Demon’s Souls.

I know that I’ve been harping on Demon’s Souls for a while, but it is that good. For designers who want to see how to balance difficulty with accessibility, it is one of the best. My final example for this entry is a quick comparison between two RPGs.

Recently a new Wizardry game was released on the PS3 via PSN. For those like me who never played the series, it is another long lasting old school CRPG. I thought that I was going to enjoy it, much in the same way I loved Etrian Odyssey. However upon loading the demo, I found out that when they said “old-school” they really meant “old-school”.

The demo had no manual, no in game map, to create each party member I had to fiddle with stats until the game told me that I could create that character. The shop interface was obtuse and the final nail in the coffin came from a slow battle system. This was a game completely set in its ways, compared to Etrian Odyssey, which took the best parts of old-school design and tried to remove as much fluff as possible.

As game design continues to evolve, I can’t help but feel that the term “old-school” will begin to define more and more game mechanics. Who knows, perhaps someday, hiding behind cover to regenerate health, will be considered too old-school for the shooter market.

Josh

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  • Good post, and I agree. FWIW, in my admittedly anecodtal and limited experience, most of the “old school gamers” who grew up on a diet that included 80s CRPGs are *not* in the “I love to Map” camp, and prefer/complain about the lack of auto maps. It's interesting that the EO games' mapping is praised. I can't stand it and rarely do much of it anymore. I have terrible handwriting and I have never been comfortable drawing, and I recognize I'm probably in a small weird space as these things go. Too bad you couldn't have asked me about Wizardry: Labrynth of the Lost Souls ( 😉 ). I have been detailing my playthrough of the game on a couple of forums (where I am known for being a lover of “old school” gaming and also indie CRPGS; I have a huge GOG catalogue), and my verdict is “even at $15 I would be loath to recommend it”.

    You are spot on that it's old school in many of the wrong ways. Oh, be thankful for (1) the auto map (2) a teleport spell that smartly uses the map and (3) the ability to quick battle. We had to roll without such things back in the day (topic for anotehr time: I would argue quick battle is a must for a game like this, but possibly also that it indicates other design flaws).

    But even the quick battle is stuck behind a silly interface decision (L Stick Down + X? Couldn't just use R2? Come on. And I would prefer the ability to set default actions, because on later floors you simply must have a Bishop using the magic wall class skill every round, or you are about 10x more likely to wipe at every encounter). FWIW the full game has a short manual. It won't give you all the information you want, but it at least mentions the quick combat (you can also speed things up by holding down “O”). I've never understood what it was about console RPGS that insist on you having to push a button to dismiss every combat message. Personally, I'd rather have an option for “instant round resolution” where you can glance at a summary screen and adjust actics as necessary (“hey that ninja insta killed my priest. Maybe I should make him a priority target”). Wiz 7 Gold could zip through most more involved combat rounds (picture 20+ foes casting party-effect spells, e.g.) much more quickly than Tales can (though there were bugs there, heh).

    Speaking of that difficulty, it's a brutal game similar to Wizardry. But I find it much more so thanks to that Magic Wall skill (it blocks *all* incoming attacks/spells until shattered. Higher damage attacks, and possibly attacks with unpleasant side effects like stoning/draining/insta kill use it up more quickly). Many, many monsters at level 4 (of Shiin's dungeon) and beyond can easily kill your characters. The game is balanced around the Bishop's Magic Wall skill and in a bad way (you can't really live without it and you frequently won't live with it!).

    Most of the people I know who miss these types of games want them with modern trappings. Quest journal type systems. Proper maps. No “improper” information hiding (Wizardry was bad at this until the D.W. Bradley era starting at V; you never got weapon stats or anything and had to sort of gauge what worked best via use in combat. Ability score bonuses were hidden. . . stuff like that).

    For RPGs, we miss turn-based games, large-party games (though 6 was considered “normal sized” for ever, it's huge these days), 2d graphics (even for “faux 3d” games like Wizardry) and that non linearity (Wizardry 7 is probably a much better example for this, as it's not set in a single dungeon and builds upon 6 expertly. 6 had lots of information presentation issues, actually).

  • I also have horrible handwriting and when computers became more mainstream in the 90s, that was a godsend for me, and the teachers who had to read my writing 🙂 .

    I've been trying to get into older RPGs, I bought Temple of Elemental Evil and the Might and Magic set off of GoG. I just can't go back to older game design after being spoiled by so many improvements made.

    Have you played The Dark Spire on the DS? That game was closer to trying Wizzardy: LoLS then Etrian Odyssey was.

  • I have played Dark Spire. There were things about it I liked and things about it I did not like (ditto EO).

    I think with Dark Spire I was a little disappointed in the small party size and with some of the oddness in the character advancement system (what's with all the stupid ueless skills?). The interface vexed me (having to clear out the scrap metal periodically, e.g.), as did th elack of fast travel options (at least, I'm pretty sure I was ~ spell level 6 and didn't have a teleport spell or similar. Also, there is too much information hiding in that game. I should pick it up again, though.

    I love ToEE – it's something of a treasure. But a *really* flawed treasure, one that may or may not carry a curse that is causing the universe to attempt to eradicate you. It makes you hate yourself to like it, but if you can get through to those shining moments it really shines. It did a couple of nice things that this kind of turn based game should make careful note of. E.g. It “collapsed” like initiatives for like monsters into simultaneous turns (that is, if 3 orc archers all roll 13, and 13 they all act simultaneously). I would argue that it should have been more generous in that, that is, collapsed the orcs at 15 too. And if there is an Orc Berserker at 14? I'd have them all move simultaneously. Only casters/special ability users and PCs would get unique initiatives in that respect.

    But yeah, about those issues. . . the 3d engine and the turn based mechanics sometimes clashed in really weird ways. It was possible to get stuck in encounters because enemies in out of site rooms were “activated” (but not particupating in combat!). Fleeing was practically unpossible. Some of the animations were neat (but tne Monk had some really weird ones) but having to wait through all those animations while combat played out got a little tedious. Getting your party from A to B suffered from “you must gather your party before ve. . .you know what, I'm just doing this to mess with you” pathfinding issues that plagued the IE games (to a much greater degree than many recognized, IMO).

    What else? The game sometimes deftaulted to certain actions if memory serves. Like if you moved a long distance it did a run or whatever. But ti didn't in other, more necessary, places (like it should default to 5-foot stepping if you are moving while adjacent to hostiles).

    And the bugs. Bless Obsidian, but they've had a hard time getting that right (I don't think it's entirely their fault; I suspect it's “do this work on this publisher's schedule or don't do any work at all”, e.g.).

    The M&Ms will be hard to get into because they are so weird as well. Especially the first two, they have a lot of quirks before Isles of Terra (III) settles into the sereies formula (from then on out). It's much more approachable, FWIW, though still rough in that old school way.

    I hold out hope they (GOG) eventually get me a usable version of Wiz 7 that has somehow ditched the combat speed bug.

  • I had the same problems with Dark Spire, one thing that I noticed about it and from what you described from Wizardy, was how vital magic was to succeeding.

    When I played DS every turn I casted a sleep spell that would render almost the entire group powerless. I honestly can't see how anyone could beat the game without having magic in their group.

    In my recent attempt at playing Etrian Odyssey 3 I went: Gladiator, Prince, Arbalist, Beast Tamer and Phalanx. Which if you didn't play meant that I did not take a dedicated spell caster or healer. Instead I'm relying on the utility skills of my group to see me through. That ability to customize is what I love about the Etrian Odyssey series.

  • Yeah, magic dominated Wizardry as well (also Bard's Tale). Magic seems to fade pretty hard in Wiz 8. I don't have a mage so I lack the magical focus skill. First time I ventured onto level 9 I had a terrible time of it. My front line guys aren't hitting often or doing mcuh damage. I'm burning through 4-6 level 9 super nukes a fight, and still getting beaten up (magic wall is a must, and yet now inadequate. I hate the way it dominates the tactical game). So it's back to level 8 to farm.

    Oh, that's another problem. The game isn't gear dependant. It's entirely gear driven once you get into the mid levels of Shiin. Leveling ceases to matter outside of giving you more hp (well, I believe level affects bishop Appraise chance, exorcism chance, and thievery skils). Your stats hit their growth curve maxes and sit there. My Samurai has a Bushido blade. On level 6 or so (even to level 8 really; but it's the level I had to explore the least on the way to the bottom) he frequently hits and does 300+ damage a round. level 9? When he hits, it's usually for well under 100. The Bushido blade is out of date, and I need to farm superior, rare drops to upgrade. It is my only option. This is a HUGE departure from the US Wizardies, incidentally. I mean, gear matteed there. But it wasn't too hard to get +2 longswords and +3 plate for all the front line characters e.g. (and a diadem of malor. -2 ac! Woo!). And characters could be effective without that top of the line gear (ninja especially. Much like Deathstars, ninja could do well without being dressed up). That tradition continued in the series more or less.

    One of the things about EO3 I liked was how many synergies you could put into play. I need to pick it back up again; I was relying on my Princess for healing and doing ok. I think I'm running Ronin, Phalanx, ???, Princess, Arbalest. Something good for binding is the class I can't recall. I also need to give EO3 credit for having more information available to the player; in EO you didn't know what skill levels would bring new abilties; that was horribly obnoxious. I really liked my Arbalest. I think when I put it down I was too tired to begin the process of farming up to fight the next boss.

  • Anonymous

    Wizardry: LoLS actually DOES have an ingame automap. It's an item you have to buy from the store though. You find some of them in the dungeons as well.

    And while the game's lack of a proper manual is sort of regrettable, be sure to talk to all of the NPCs in town. They tell you quite a bit about the game's mechanics.