There are a myriad of preferences out there, and asking stores, publishers or developers to label their games for all of those--or even a significant subset of them--seems infeasible.

I may have been going overboard from the original topic's QT boss fights.

I am specifically saying interactive movies aren't traditional games, they aren't even playing by the same rules as SORRY (randomization ftw), randomization actually, that could be the missing link.

Servant refers to golf swings as early QTE implementation, ok I haven't thought a lot about it, but there are other examples. On-rail shooters, virtual rollercoasters, and scripted events that last longer than a microsecond. There's a chance to randomize them, but they're baked in like a chef would bake in the 1960s, the way they like it. Goodbye personal diversity :'|

In all these cases you're seeing a very specific type of game. On the broader spectrum there's QTE's as an alternate game-mechanic, not the entire game, while playing you see a very different game emerge, one that's based on reflex memorization rather than what you should already know. Going back to the QT boss fights, the climax of every story arc is usually a boss fight. It's a pretty important part of the game. Suddenly you have to think differently, play a different game, and accept it to enjoy it?

Look at how the drakengard 3 game plays. Look at the final boss, which works very differently.

You could implement a QTE that gave randomization, but would it feel like it had randomization? Even when it really does that'd defeat the skill and destiny aspects of the ingrained movie driven experience.

Consider this impossible anecdote for what I think would be comparable: Horror is a new trending type of game and Scaryfluff knows how to make a realistic fantasy game. Players ride through the forest on horseback. After about 2 minutes of voyage the horse stops, the camera zooms in on the horse and then there's a snap noise, the camera goes red. Scaryfluff knows loyal customers who dislike horror (and those that love horses) will forgive them later, even if they quit the game forever, right away. For the horror seeking customers, this is a delightful surprise they were tricked, everyone should play it.

Servant refers to golf swings as early QTE implementation,

Getting back to golf, we had a QTE-like feature that has been quite popular.

In Tiger Woods, several platforms gave a local friendly game the ability add extra spin to the ball. Basically push the direction on the stick and hammer the direction and it would give your ball a slight nudge of spin.

Then when the Wii version was introduced, we added a fun taunting system -- every local player could add spin to your ball very similar to a QTE. They could help you achieve an enormous boost ... or they could add a counterspin or otherwise spin away from your goal and you can curse at your friend for being a jerk in your living room. There were several other taunts like virtual air-horns and stuff but the spin was by far the most well received since in local play it made golf more fun.

I think Nypyren had the right description above. (Player = often hate but sometimes good; programmer = easy to implement; designer = unfortunate shortcut)

I don't like QTEs generally. Usually they remind me of the old pre-renedered games like Dragon's Lair where you must be mashing the right button the instant the clip ends to transition to the next good clip, otherwise game over. All you are doing is memorizing your way through the story tree and not really playing.

QTEs are also an accessibility concern. I've got a few friends and relatives who are paralyzed, disabled, or otherwise not able to successfully button mash. I know several quadriplegic gamers, several people with a disabled or even amputated hand, and they are mostly able to play games okay. But when it comes to QTEs or other mandatory button mashing, they don't have the dexterity for it. The game is instantly a no-buy.

On occasion QTEs can be fun. I particularly liked how you could taunt or help your friends in Tiger. But they should be an optional thing. Let players turn them off and don't exclude players from any content due to that choice.

... I apologise, but I'm honestly not entirely sure of what you're arguing there. Are you saying that "contains quick-time events" is a type of gameplay, and that games should advertise every gameplay element that it contains? If so, should developers mention that they have include lock-picking minigames in case someone doesn't like them, or air-control in jumping to warn off people who might want realistic jumping?

Again, I really think that this is something that's best handled on the consumer side, whether it be tagging games on services like Steam, writing user-reviews, watching Let's Plays, or looking for or starting up dedicated sites for elements that particularly bother you.

...I lean towards "quick-time event" in the case of Shenmue and "action-test" for Paper Mario.

Come to that, I don't seem to be managing to find a good definition for an "action-test", let alone as opposed to a "quick-time event"--do we have a reference for that?

Shenmue was the game that named QTE events - the lead designer coined the term for the first Shenmue. Similar mechanics (like the golf bar) pre-date Shenmue, but as far as I know, Shenmue was the first to do what we now call QTEs.

As for 'action tests', there's no real definition for it, because it was only coined a few years ago in this post by Spyparty developer Chris Hecker, to describe a feature he was implementing in Spyparty that was similar to something he saw in Gears of War ("active reload").

But similar features have existed for awhile such as the Legend of Dragoon example or, more similarly, the Paper Mario "stylish attacks" example.

(Visually they are different, but mechanic-wise they are almost identical).

That's a good point (something others in the thread have mentioned as well), and something that hadn't previously occurred to me.

That's something to think about and consider when designing your games, but not an immediate cause for rejection. Many games have action requirements that are accessibility concerns for subsets of your potential market. Action RPGs in general, almost all platformer games, first person shooters, and so on.

The important thing is that consumers know what they are getting before they buy the games - and the best way to educate them on that is the availability of gameplay trailers before release, and Let's Plays after release. Our current genre-labeling system doesn't work too well to describe gameplay except to label them under overly-broad categories ("RPG" covers way too broad a collection of games).

The primary onerous is, in my opinion, on the consumers to do ten to twenty minutes of research before making a purchase, though it'd be fantastic if that kind of information (colorblind friendly, deaf-friendly, seizure-friendly, controller support, parental content details, subtitle languages, voice-over languages, etc...) was easily available online.

Shenmue was the game that named QTE events - the lead designer coined the term for the first Shenmue. Similar mechanics (like the golf bar) pre-date Shenmue, but as far as I know, Shenmue was the first to do what we now call QTEs.

Ah, I feel embarrassed for having missed that--it's mentioned in the Wikipedia article, I believe, but I didn't recognise the name. ^^;

As for 'action tests', there's no real definition for it, because it was only coined a few years ago in this post by Spyparty developer Chris Hecker ...

Ah, fair enough.

Hum... Again, to my mind there's a qualitative difference between a golf power-bar and what I saw in that clip of Shenmue. There are similarities, I do agree, but if we take that too far we'll likely end up including things that are very much not quick-time events--after all, (if I'm not much mistaken) the combat used in Shadow of Mordor and similar games includes the hitting of specific buttons with tight windows of availability. If the game has a "use" button, and has a prompt that shows up whenever the player hovers over an interactive object, is that a quick-time event? There are similarities: both involve presenting a button-prompt to the player and both involve pressing a single button to have the avatar execute a complex action. The only real difference is the lack of a time constraint...

Ultimately, I suppose that we come to one of the problems with labels and categorisation when describing features that shade from one kind to another. In one corner of the space we might have a "pure" quick-time event: a prompted single button-press that's entirely randomised from a list of available controls, is presented for only a short time, and is not the main form of gameplay presented. From there we might shade in a number of directions: offhand, I see losing the randomisation and single-button nature to head towards golf-style bars; dropping the time-constraint and randomisation to head towards "use" buttons; and making the mechanic more central to the gameplay to head towards Simon. From there we could probably go further to reach standard action, adventure or puzzle-solving mechanics.

Looking at the Wikipedia article on the subject, the definition that they give initially could be read as similar to mine, but the fuller description that they provide makes it rather broader. (For example, while I do very much recall the presence of button-mashing quick-time events in Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (I found them especially annoying there), I don't think that I would have thought to use the same term for the "make this motion with the mouse" mechanic that they used in that game for some types of action, as the article seems to imply applies.

Some games seem to require the reflexes of a 10 year old to play !

The origional PS2 version of GTA San Andreas I could not progress in the game becuse of 2 of the QTE events that were built in.

(( In later editions they fixed the insanly fast timing ))

quick answer to Thaumaturge: Disclosure isn't as hard you think. I am specifically singling out movie aspects, because it's like mixing oil and water. Then calling it a heat source you can drink, when it does neither thing quite as well.

This is actually a pretty advanced subject, so I expect a lot of disagreement. I have a bit of a rant afterwards. But I'm going to need a serious challenge to the validity of any explanations I give.

I'll respond to any clear challenges.

Concept A: There is a distinguishing quality we can find in games that can't be found in movies.

Concept B: All aspects of a game are interchangeable, other than the set of rules defining it.
Giant spiders could be content swapped with pink elephants. The music, the textures, even the levels you walk around in, and yes, even the cutscenes.

Concept C: Given B. Changing rules changes the game. Two complete rule sets combined in one game still make two games.

Concept D: Given C. The actual game can change at any point.

Define trivial: little value or importance
Concept E: Any rules of a game that are trivial aren't actually part of the game.

Concept F: Given E. Rules that don't bar gameplay progress are trivial.


Are there any interchangeable explanations for what I've said?
If that's all fair and logical. If you want to test it, see if it's testable. I'll suggest a thought experiment.
Take a game. Your new 100% game could be about anything. But whatever it is, you would want to describe it as such, even if it's quicktime events.
A section of the game where you purchase goods can be a minigame with its own rules, you get a bigger better item if you play it well. You can skip it entirely, meaning this minigame is trivial and doesn't actually change the rules of your game.
Now for every estimated 10 minutes of playability add 10 minutes of movie footage. Your game is 50% game, and 50% cutscenes. Now you need to announce 100 hours of gameplay includes 50 hours of cutscenes.
Now make a subsection of your game have a completely different mechanic where you jump between platforms. In order to survive you need to do something the game's never asked you to. You must pass this to progress. It's another game stopping you from enjoying the original. So you have 45% of one game, 5% of another, and 50% cutscenes.
That 5%, the 45%, and the 50% are all providing different quality, and exist separately. But ultimately the player is forced into the learning curve of yet another game.

Most importantly of all. Your customers will recognize your game is 95% cinematic in this scenario. 5% of it has a platform challenge that several players may never actually pass.

In the end, satisfaction matters.

Imagine the same scenario, but without announcing the primary mechanic or the amount of cutscene footage. Some developers believe players are looking for "novel experience" novel meaning new, for many players that is not cutscenes and QTEs, they've seen those. They didn't get anything. They even lost time because of this.


The game industry is very similar to the food industry. In the USA food is close to 40% corn, the animals are fed corn, and then the animals are consumed at 5x the necessary quantity. 85% of U.S. corn is genetically engineered, 91% of soybeans as well. How much is arsenic? How does tap water differ after consumption compared to filtered water? Have dams affected our food and water supply? These sort of questions are guaranteed to be dodged by any officials even when the answers are blatantly obvious.

The schools were corrupted, food pyramid. Sugar for millenials. Fat culture, commercialism.

As others have pointed out, the quicktime events are easier. This is our fat culture, commercialism.

We need to nip it in the bud before the first really truly physically addictive games are devised. Trend setting companies will end up regulating themselves and relying on more aggressive commercialism to compete. We want to know how much of your game is a movie. We want the truth.

I don't care if it's a movie about dolphins. I only care if it's a movie or a game. The dolphins are interchangeable, the amount of game isn't.

If the game has a "use" button, and has a prompt that shows up whenever the player hovers over an interactive object, is that a quick-time event?

That's already been labelled context sensitivity. It's actually a positive and someone actually confusing the two is exactly what I'd expect in fat culture.

Whatever the definition of QTE I think the real issue is expected gameplay vs actual gameplay. If I'm expecting that I will have a significant amount of control over PC movement and attacks to battle some boss but it turns out that I don't then of course I will be disappointed. But if I knew what to expect the battle to be then maybe I could sit back and allow myself to enjoy the experience for what it was meant to be.

It makes some sense to expect people to do some research into the games they're looking at and to expect developers to make available some description of what kind of elements to expect within a game. But then, if I already know that the climactic battle at the end of each chapter is going to unfold as the sort of QTE that we're discussing here, has an important piece of the game been spoiled? Would it have been spoiled anyways if I knew I was going to need to avoid the primary attack then search for the weak point during the cool down period, and repeat?

I think in the end it's a bit of a marketing problem, not a gameplay problem.

If the game has a "use" button, and has a prompt that shows up whenever the player hovers over an interactive object, is that a quick-time event?

That's already been labelled context sensitivity. It's actually a positive and someone actually confusing the two is exactly what I'd expect in fat culture.

That was a rhetorical question directed at my categorizing Shenmue QTEs and Spyparty action-tests under the same umbrella; I don't think Thaumaturge was actually comparing the two, except as an example of intentional absurdity to make a good point about trying to discretely categorizing features that exist on a continuous scale.

@Thaumaturge: I wasn't trying to directly comparing QTEs to golf action-bars. In the golf action-bar thread, I compared the golf action-bar to Spyparty action-tests, and in this thread I compared the QTEs to Spyparty action-tests; they are related, but I agree that they aren't the same thing.

I kinda group the entire category that they are all under, under the "action test" label, though the Spyparty developer may have been using the term differently - he may have even been referring to the specific widget design as the 'action test', come to think of it, since both Gears of War and his own use the same general bar interface (GoW bar, SpyParty bar).

While the "pure" Shenmue-style QTEs may be poor design in general gameplay because they take players out of control (usually, but aren't required to) and can break immersion ("Press X to pay your respects..." - CoD: Advanced Warfare), QTEs may still work well for mini-games like armor forging or spellcasting or some other feature. But even if QTEs as a whole aren't worth of a designer's toolbox, the larger umbrella they are under has some useful tools like {Legend of Dragoon, Paper Mario, Gears of War, and Spyparty}-style timing interactions that shouldn't be discarded, as long as the developer weighs the cost of user accessibility (which applies to many game mechanics).

Abstractly, QTEs actually remind me of Whac-A-Mole, come to think of it. You have a short period of time to take an action, but you don't yet know which action you'll be required to take until the last moment.

If the game has a "use" button, and has a prompt that shows up whenever the player hovers over an interactive object, is that a quick-time event?

That's already been labelled context sensitivity. It's actually a positive and someone actually confusing the two is exactly what I'd expect in fat culture.

That was a rhetorical question directed at my categorizing Shenmue QTEs and Spyparty action-tests under the same umbrella; I don't think Thaumaturge was actually comparing the two, except as an example of intentional absurdity to make a good point about trying to discretely categorizing features that exist on a continuous scale.

.... (truncated)

Yeah, I didn't exactly acknowledge his meaning then. But I understood. I'm hoping for some responses to what I wrote. Although I'm no elegant writer.

While I'm still thinking about it. I might as well point out the "fat culture" I mention is a compressed commentary on letting big companies [figuratively] feed the masses out of convenience, in turn profiting from long-term consequences as they thwart themselves and grow in dependency.