Simply having fun isn't the best way to make a game. Its like playing with cheat codes

I'm pretty sure you are in the minority here. Not everyone approaches video games as an exercise in masochism.

I find that game developers who focus on making their games challenging tend to get in the way of me having fun with their games...

I'm pretty sure you are in the minority here. Not everyone approaches video games as an exercise in masochism.

I find that game developers who focus on making their games challenging tend to get in the way of me having fun with their games...

If you are talking about casual games such as plants vs zombies, even they also have some challenge to test the player regardless of the skills they lack in.

Not to be rude but tell me one platform game that removes limited lives and that it managed to please both hardcore and casual gamers alike. Shovel Knight doesn't count because it uses treasure as a life system.

But even then, the only reward the player gets for all that is just an achievement which really doesn't do much of fulfillment.

But how is it different from playing a game that enforces the presence of limited lives?

While finishing the main game is a breeze, completing the game 100% is a challenge.

Okay, fair enough.

(I imagine, however, that one-hundred-percent completion is something that many gamers simply don't bother with.)

Mastery and challenge may not be universally necessary, but it is essential to balance the game so that you don't get bored of it after a while.

Again, you seem to be assuming that people are playing for mastery, which I believe that not all are.

You seem to be a "challenge" player: for you, the reward in playing a game comes from overcoming a tough challenge, and completing a game without it just isn't fulfilling.

However, there are other types of players. For example, there are "explorers": people who play games simply in order to experience the game-world.

I've seen forum-posts written by people who discuss the use of mods to disable combat in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (I think that it was), allowing them to simply explore the world. Not as something to do after playing the game, but as their primary means of playing the game. They prefer it that way; combat--the main challenge of the game--makes the game worse for them.

Even that aside, however, remember that not everyone has your skill-level, or your free time. If someone wants to play a platformer but doesn't have your skill at them, nor the free time to earn it, surely having unlimited lives allows them the opportunity to play the game and progress, without being kicked back to the main menu every five minutes?

Not to be rude but tell me one platform game that removes limited lives and that it managed to please both hardcore and casual gamers alike.

That's my point: a game doesn't have to appeal to both hardcore and casual gamers alike in order to be successful. You like playing old-school platformers with limited lives, I like playing Rayman Legends where I get a fun experience with no worries about lives. Both types of game are commercially successful, so clearly both markets exist.

I find it somewhat offensive that you keep insisting that my favourite type of game shouldn't exist, just because it doesn't appeal to your sensibilities. There is plenty of room on this earth for both types of games to co-exist.

Even that aside, however, remember that not everyone has your skill-level, or your free time. If someone wants to play a platformer but doesn't have your skill at them, nor the free time to earn it, surely having unlimited lives allows them the opportunity to play the game and progress, without being kicked back to the main menu every five minutes?

As I've said already, platform games are well balanced. Those who want challenge would obviously want lives in it. Again, since lives are so easy to get in platform games, it won't take that long to get like 200 of them. Seriously though, check out the Super Mario games to see how easy they are to get them. If there is no problem with getting lives and no harm in having them, then what is the point of them not existing? For someone who hasn't played a game will obviously need to spend more time than the one who has and once he does get used to it, he can be just as good as every other gamer.

I assume that you know of the mobile gaming existence to which there are games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds that are very casual. Even those games have challenge in them. The levels are made to complete within a certain time and so even the lowest skilled player can easily master Angry Birds and Candy Crush despite their level of difficulty gradually increasing.

Heck, even Plants Vs Zombies is still challenging despite it being easy because the game puts some curves at you during your progress.

However, there are other types of players. For example, there are "explorers": people who play games simply in order to experience the game-world.

Minecraft has that exploration value and leaves little to the ones who want challenge. Terraria fixes that issue and ends up being better than Minecraft.

That's my point: a game doesn't have to appeal to both hardcore and casual gamers alike in order to be successful. You like playing old-school platformers with limited lives, I like playing Rayman Legends where I get a fun experience with no worries about lives. Both types of game are commercially successful, so clearly both markets exist.

I find it somewhat offensive that you keep insisting that my favourite type of game shouldn't exist, just because it doesn't appeal to your sensibilities. There is plenty of room on this earth for both types of games to co-exist.

If you love Legends, more power to you. But even if it did something like Ducktales where you had lives based on the difficulty level, it still isn't that fun because the levels are hardly memorable except the ones incorporating music in them. It fails to satisfy Rayman fans and instead caters to the ones who haven't played Rayman. I guarantee you that if you played Rayman 1 instead of Legends, you would probably say the same thing as I have. Again, if you like the game, good for you but for someone who hates it like me, I got my reasons to insult the game.

I guarantee you that if you played Rayman 1 instead of Legends, you would probably say the same thing as I have.

I did play Rayman 1, and I never really liked it - much like older Mario games, I don't have sufficient interest to invest all that time in a challenging game. In fact, I have pretty muhc exactly zero interest in bashing my head against difficult levels in *any genre*, or wasting time farming lives in easy levels so that I can tackle the challenging ones. It's just not a part of gaming that is worthwhile to me.

Not all gamers are the same - if they added lives to Rayman Legends, you might be happier. I, on the other hand, would be less happy. Which is why I have to reject your blanket assertion the 'all platformers are improved by the addition of a limited lives mechanic'.

I assume that you know of the mobile gaming existence to which there are games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds that are very casual. Even those games have challenge in them. The levels are made to complete within a certain time and so even the lowest skilled player can easily master Angry Birds and Candy Crush despite their level of difficulty gradually increasing.

Heck, even Plants Vs Zombies is still challenging despite it being easy because the game puts some curves at you during your progress.

Lives have almost nothing to do with challenge. I Wanna Be The Guy and that subgenre of super-hard platformers very rarely have lives as anything other than a score mechanism, and there's no question they're anything but sadistically hard.

Minecraft has that exploration value and leaves little to the ones who want challenge. Terraria fixes that issue and ends up being better than Minecraft... [Legends] fails to satisfy Rayman fans and instead caters to the ones who haven't played Rayman. I guarantee you that if you played Rayman 1 instead of Legends, you would probably say the same thing as I have. Again, if you like the game, good for you but for someone who hates it like me, I got my reasons to insult the game.

Minecraft has 30x the copies sold and is a cultural phenomena. Both Raymans met critical acclaim and they sold around a million copies apiece.

You like what you like. If your opinion is that Rayman Legends is bad or that Terraria is a substantial improvement on Minecraft, you're in the minority. That's fine. But it's a game design forum, and Rayman Legends was a commercial success and approved of by gaming critics. For game design, that's a success. For those looking to produce a successful platformer (either commercially or critically), Rayman Legends and the original are both good models to work from. In a platformer fan forum you might find a lot of people in agreement. But if we're looking at what makes a good design, or how you create a successful game, the fact that you dislike this convention isn't particularly meaningful.

I guarantee you that if you played Rayman 1 instead of Legends, you would probably say the same thing as I have.

I did play Rayman 1, and I never really liked it - much like older Mario games, I don't have sufficient interest to invest all that time in a challenging game. In fact, I have pretty muhc exactly zero interest in bashing my head against difficult levels in *any genre*, or wasting time farming lives in easy levels so that I can tackle the challenging ones. It's just not a part of gaming that is worthwhile to me.

Not all gamers are the same - if they added lives to Rayman Legends, you might be happier. I, on the other hand, would be less happy. Which is why I have to reject your blanket assertion the 'all platformers are improved by the addition of a limited lives mechanic'.

While I do agree that Rayman is hard, the Mario games can easily be beaten with just using a power up that can be achieved. Infact the games are well balanced that in world, even if you only want to get a specific power ups, you can manage to stock up extra lives in the end.

If you love Legends, then you should have noticed its game design flaws by now. The problem with legends isn't just not having lives in them. The problem appears on the other design aspects of it. Making the characters incredibly gullible for no reason when the previous games added humor at reasonable points of time. But this one tries to make humor everywhere and its executed poorly. Then comes the problem with the level design where everything is just given to you.

Hidden doors are always noticeable when the point of them is to be well hidden and as a result, fails to motivate the player to explore much. You might think that the player might be fine with this but the problem is that you need to get certain collectibles to unlock more levels and as a result, it frustrates the players more forcing them to complete everything as much as possible instead of them playing the game straightforward. So the game forces you to get the collectibles which should instead be optional. So what does this have to do with the doors not well hidden? Its something that the player cannot ignore if he wants to make more progress so obviously the player is forced to go to every hidden door to get items which again are needed inorder to make progress.

I love the way how the original Rayman allows you to go to newer levels and then requests you to 100% the game to give you the best ending since adding more content is time consuming, a good ending would suffice and that is good game design. Giving players satisfaction regardless of the reward is important. What does Legends give you in the end? Pointless items that are better off as achievements than the actual game items. Sure, you get more levels if you give it to them, but a good design would be to make it optional and head to the next level.

You can argue that some games like Super Mario 64 or Rayman 2 did what Legends did but here's the problem. They are 3D games. The worlds are bigger and the levels are in the form of short tasks that easily motivate the player to explore more of the levels than actually being forced to get requirements to go to the next because you haven't experienced the whole level yet so it is a good game design to divide the level into small sections.

While its not the same for Rayman 2, the collectibles are always in front of you for the most part so getting them is a breeze. Legends does the exact opposite where instead of just breezing through the level, it forces the player to explore more to get rewards which are barely satisfying.

I agree that not every platform game is hard and not every one loves hard games but a level of discipline is needed inorder to enjoy a game. Again, what is the point of not having lives when they are easy to get in the first place.

I played Ducktales on medium and I had a fun time with it. If I played it on Easy, its bound to be less fun with no lives.

I gotta say, Kid Icarus Uprising did something very unique where the player can adjust the intensity of a level to get either less or more rewards in the end. Its just a shame that its not a platformer and even then, the sections are not well designed. If platform games were to have this mechanic, then I would agree that having lives would be pointless.

Lives have almost nothing to do with challenge. I Wanna Be The Guy and that subgenre of super-hard platformers very rarely have lives as anything other than a score mechanism, and there's no question they're anything but sadistically hard.

Some games like Super Meat Boy do have lives on certain levels of the game despite them being hard.

That's fine. But it's a game design forum, and Rayman Legends was a commercial success and approved of by gaming critics. For game design, that's a success.

Game critics don't tend to do good reviews these days. Sometimes, games are targeted towards them instead of the actual market and is recommended by them which is then assumed to be a good game. If Legends was given to someone who has played all the Rayman games, the review would be different.

Gamespot barely makes any of their reviews sensible because of how badly they review games most of the time. Also, even if the reviews are great, that doesn't mean the game sold well as there are lots of critically acclaimed games with poor sales in mind like Brutal Legend for example.

Rayman Legends and the original are both good models to work from. In a platformer fan forum you might find a lot of people in agreement. But if we're looking at what makes a good design, or how you create a successful game, the fact that you dislike this convention isn't particularly meaningful.

I don't think Marketing and Game Design are the same thing and with that in mind, even the games that have bad game design sell well like in the case of Cooking Mama which has several flaws but sells well.

I'm not saying I dislike the convention. The point I'm trying to ask is if the lives are easy to farm which is far less frustrating than forcing the player to get items which reward the players to newer levels which reward you with little to no satisfaction, what is the point of not having lives?