This may be something some developers like to do… but it seems developers sometimes have a tendency to be cruel to their player.

What I mean is… doing very difficult gameplay, or punishing gameplay to the player.

For instance, some recommend making the gameplay start easy, and gradually introduce more difficult elements. This is important to not make your player rage quit before he gets more familiar with your game.

A beginner “cruel” developer might put hard bits right on the start.

Another example, is punishment/chore vs reward.

A “cruel” developer might make that in order to fight the final boss, you have to do the final level.

If the final level is difficult and long itself, you have a “chore” to do before you can try a go against the final boss which is probably the most difficult part in the game.

What if the developer let the player save right in front of the boss instead?

However, does this “Cruelty” has merit?

I mean, doesn't the player feel more rewarded the more the task is difficult to accomplish?

Making the game more easy and maybe even save more often, makes the reward seem less rewarding?

Does the player need to “suffer” to enjoy the reward?

A big issue nowadays, that many players don't have a lot of time to spend on games, so the “chore” is even more punishing, because you take into account the time you spend on the game.

So does developer cruelty still has merit nowadays? Does it has good value? Or the developer need to help the player “Waste” as little time as possible on your game?

There are basically three kinds of developer cruelty:

1. Completely accidental developer cruelty. “I didn't place a save point before the boss fight because I legitimately didn't consider the possibility that the player might lose the boss fight on their first attempt.”
2. Macho posturing on the part of the game developer. “Are you man enough to complete the ultimate challenge? Look how challenging the game is! No save point before the boss fight!”
3. Deliberately sadistic games for masochistic players. “Let's put a save point right before the boss fight, but when the player touches it, they lose all of their weapons and are teleported back to the beginning of the level.”

I can forgive category 1 because everybody makes mistakes. I can laugh at category 3, although I wouldn't actually want to play such a game. Category 2, on the other hand, is unforgivable. The relationship between game developer and player is the ultimate asymmetrical power relationship, since the player has no powers at all in the game unless the developer gives it to them. Making an unfairly difficult challenge is an abuse of trust and power, about as “manly” winning a fistfight with your newborn child.

One of PewDiePies videos that I actually like. It makes me wanna play the game and it is VERY CRUEL.

https://youtu.be/C1ObitoLwhM

@a light breeze Yet, isn't that what Darksouls exactly do?(number 2)?

I think the intro to NieR: Automata wins my prize for most annoying section. They have the ability to save in game, they have respawn checkpoints. But not on the intro level. Which can take half an hour to get to the boss assuming made no mistakes along the way. The rest of the game is fairly easy to clear on hard or above because not got to redo such a long section every time… So it just feels more annoying in the context of everything else.

a light breeze said:
Completely accidental developer cruelty. “I didn't place a save point before the boss fight because I legitimately didn't consider the possibility that the player might lose the boss fight on their first attempt.”

I do wonder why some developers still insist on having only-checkpoint saves rather than free save when they clearly have the logic? I can understand if the game only saves between levels because that is often much simpler (potentially just the player inventory, a few stats, etc.).

If a game is say 10 hours long, normally a few scenes I found that I personally found a lot harder than the rest of the game. Sometimes actually way harder than the bosses due to a combination of factors… And invariably it feels like there is a longish boring section before entering the room to die again, and often no opportunity to really get much more health, weapons, etc. between the checkpoint and death.

Also when there is only one checkpoint, a number of times I feel a checkpoint save screwed me. Because it saved a point with low ammo, low health, low oxygen, etc. making whatever is next feel impossible, and you can't easily go back to just before that happened.

This happens with some games with respawning as well, as sometimes you just get a crappy respawn. There is a few I took to killing with task manager in the hopes it didn't “save” and can reload somewhere sensible.

a light breeze said:
Macho posturing on the part of the game developer. “Are you man enough to complete the ultimate challenge? Look how challenging the game is! No save point before the boss fight!”

We have achievements for that though. Have them for either clearing the game without a reload, doing a particular level without dying once, etc.

I found it particularly annoying when they have the easy/normal/hard option, and hard would be fine, but in the game there is 1 or 2 “extra hard” bits and the save system makes them worse (sometimes they let you change the difficulty in game, but going down a level over something stupid also feels bad).

But isn't some of the chore/difficulty is what makes the reward more rewarding?

There's a few games where I've gone through tutorials which tell me, “you need to do X so click here” and then “you need to do Y so click here” but it leaves with no idea why I want to do X or Y or how it relates to the game. The tutorials go on in a similar manner for quite awhile without letting me explore the controls at all to try to figure out what to do.

Bad tutorials are just as cruel as the game being too difficult to start.

As a player, if I know a game is going to be punishingly tough, bring it on. So long as I know what the rules are and that they're fairly consistent and I have a sense that if I make a mistake or misstep somewhere the game is still possible to win, then I'm good for whatever the developer throws at me.

Because games are recreational tests of skill, there is no singularly correct answer to how cruel/forgiving games should be. Much like jokes, players' reaction to cruelty would depend on both the delivery and the players themselves. While some players would be disheartened by a gauntlet without checkpoints, some players feel a sense of pride and accomplishment in beating the gauntlet, some get to annoyed at the gauntlet to continue, and some push through to beat the developer out of a spite.

This is a good topic! I find that chore and difficulty are two very different things.

"Super-jewel-clash-turbo" makes it rewarding to play by having juicy animations and sound effects.
This is even though the early gameplay is easy, and the game is constantly a chore - it's monotonous, and you only really work to reach the next level.

“Hack n slash RPG” makes it rewarding to play by giving the player items and fluff as payment for a grind (chore).

“Story-driven FPS” has scripted rewards where the devloper tries to balance things out; empowering the player before big fights,
introducing the player new environments, game mechanics or weapons after beating tough sections (or exploring)

I feel like chore / difficulty and experience / gameplay can be mixed and matched.
I can't remember any specific examples, but I'm sure I've felt “meh” when being given ammo after completing a tough section.
Still, I think rewards can be more diverse than the challenge we put the player through. Obviously some challenges are more reaction based, and some depend on wits or intelligence, but they often end up feeling either novel or grindy. Rewards come in many shapes and sizes, and they range from superficial stuff such as a “clink” sounds, over cosmetic stuff on the UI, in the level and up to stuff actually affecting the player. This can be adding familiar items to the player's inventory, or giving them some new stuff to play with.

I think it's important to distinguish between “challenging” and “cruel”.

Hollow Knight is very challenging, but it's not cruel. It has extremely difficult boss fights, but you can attempt these boss fights as often as you need to without penalty, you can usually walk away from them and come back later, and once you've won a boss fight you never lose progress. And while it does occasionally sucker-punch you, it only does so rarely, and then usually not hard enough to kill you.

Trap Adventure 2, on the other hand, can't be described as anything but cruel. Not only does it sucker-punch you all the time, instantly killing you each time, but it also forces you to start over again from the beginning when you run out of lives.