When are game features too many?
Some impressions after playing The Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown on the Nintendo Switch.
Gamedev Dairy is changing its name to The Solo Gamedev. Thank you for helping me make that choice! I was thinking that The Gamedev Solopreneur would be the best option, but I’m happy to go with the choice you accepted.
Unfortunately, I cannot change the domain name… Maybe for the better, won’t break all the links I already posted here and there. But now I need to get some money to buy myself a new custom domain 😉
Today, I wanted to share my impressions on some game design choices from a game I finished recently, especially regarding implementing too many features.
Yes, I will review a Ubisoft game.
But before I dive legs first into review hell, I want to point out that Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a good game! It has a fun setting (ancient Persia), it’s a solid Metroidvania. And like every solid metroidvania there's a map full of secrets to uncover, places to explore, bosses to defeat. Meaning: a lot of backtracking. Which I enjoyed every minute of.
And yet the game sometimes feel like a mess…
For example, one character simply vanishes from the story. She's mentioned at the end, but we don't get to witness her story. Very weird choice. Why create a character only to neglect her?
Game mechanic wise there's the typical mechanic of putting pins on the map. But then you are also given the ability to pin "photos" to the map. The former is a solution you can meet quite often in video games. The latter is an upgraded version. Upgraded because the picture will instantly remind you what was there, unlike symbols which will force you to visit these places once you forget the meaning you initially gave them.
Couldn't they just go with the photo mode. and ditch the symbols?
The other moment, I realized that this game has too much elements, was when I encountered a riddle, and funnily enough - had no idea which skills to use to solve it, mostly because I forgot what one skill was doing.
In a way, this one is entirely on me. Perhaps remembering all those skills and the combinations required to solve puzzles is just an unchangeÂable difficulty setting.
But when I'm playing Q.U.B.E or another portal-like I can't believe that I don't feel the temptation of searching for a solution online. It would be unfair to compare a map-jumping explorer game to a linear sequence of escape rooms, but maybe even a metroidvania should limit the amount of skills to gain clarity?
Speaking of mess… Just look at Artaban.
In dialogue, he covers his right eye
and on different occasions, he covers the other eye.
Is he…?
…hiding something?
…pretending to be disabled, so he doesn’t take part in the story events? (spoiler alert 😉)
…disabled only to cross a point off a checklist?
…was the dialogue shot a selfie and that’s why it’s inverted?
…a victim of not enough internal reviews at Ubisoft?
(intentionally, this was supposed to be a poll, but I cannot write these long sentences in a Substack poll).
I adored all 40 hrs I put into this game but yeah, the story wasn't it! I found the mechanics and gameplay satisfying and enjoyed the challenge.