How to make difficult fun: Donkey Kong Country Returns

Posted by Matt Arnold on Dec 1, 2010 in Games | 12 comments

The trend in the mainstream has been towards ease of playability. Slow slopping difficulty curves, if any at all. Upgrades and abilities increase at the same rate as the difficulty. Prince of Persia didn’t allow you to die. Games have constant check points. Alone in the Dark experimented with letting you skip levels. Even hardcore games like Bayonetta have a mode so easy that you can play with one hand.

Despite this trend, there have been some quality platformers that are incredibly difficult this year.  Most of them come from the indie world, starting with the great VVVVVV, the punch-yourself-in-the-face Bit.Trip Runner, and the succulent Super Meat Boy. Indie titles, at their low cost and niche target audience can afford to be hard as nails. They know their audience won’t throw down the controller and feel they wasted $60.

What is surprising is that Nintendo, known for “kiddie games” amongst the hardcore, have released some of the most difficult games this year – Mario Galaxy 2, Sin and Punishment 2, and now Donkey Kong County Returns. Donkey Kong’s default and only, difficulty setting is about as hard as any mainstream game this year and often rivals the indie hardcore platformers. 20+ lives will be eaten away many times. You will die as you see the finish line in site more times than you can count. However, it is always fun, always rewarding, and you always know why you die.

These are some design rules all games that wish to give the player a fair and fun challenge can learn from.

• It’s always the gamer’s fault: Meaning, the game should be polished and fair. DKCR is as polished a game as they come. Every jump is the right distance and all heights are uniform so you understand exactly how high a platform is relative to your jump. Enemy placement is also deliberate (as seen by the insane time trials) to prevent any blind deaths, ala Sonic. There are no bugs or glitches to kill you accidently. There is no randomness or luck. You know exactly why you died. This is important because if at any point a player feels like the game is against them, or their death was outside of their hands, they will get frustrated.

• The critical path should always be interesting: Freddie has complained that the problem with Doodle Jumper and similar games is that once you are good, the first 2 minutes of the game sucks. The reason being that the first 2 minutes present no challenge or new experiences what so ever. There is no part of Donkey Kong Country returns that is barren or without a small amount of challenge. You will only be forced to replay a minute or so of the level at a time. Even at its easiest, that path is interesting and filled with other challenges. This leads me too…

• Provide the player with alternate things to do: DKCR had like a barrel of monkey’s worth of crap to do in every level. Coins, Bananas, KONG letters, puzzle pieces, and enemies to kill. There are bananas, and coins to get. There are background elements that you can ground pound or blow into to get more items. What is best, that often these things often reveal themselves as the player is stuck. Since they are looking for an alternate route, they will stumble across new things to do.

• Have conquerable miniature challenges: If a section of a mine cart level is a 10 in difficulty, than DKCR will often have a series of mini challenges that are less difficult. This includes little things such as a series of enemies that are possible to all kill without touching the ground. There could be a line of bananas that you can try to get while barreling down the tracks. These are challenges that you may fail initially. However, every time you retry that difficult section of the level you also get a chance to beat smaller, less difficult challenges on the way. The pleasure of accomplishing a smaller challenge on the way to the big lava jump, takes a bit of the sting off when you fly your mine cart into the side of a volcano and explode in a fiery death.

DKCR gets mega points for this, because often, those minor challenges are carefully teaching you skills you need for later. Sort of like a quiz before the big test.

• Reward the Player has often as possible: Those alternative things to do and challenges are made even more fun when they provide rewards. DKCR is a reward overload. Bananas are everywhere. Almost any nook and cranny you will get something. Even the finish line comes in the form of a barrel with treats inside when you smash it with your big monkey fists. Even better, there is another level of reward if you happen to time your hit correctly and get a DK coin. You get to shake your wiimote as fast as you can and watch your multiplier soar giving you even MORE rewards.

Since High Scores simply are not enough for most gamers DKCR is simply packed with rewards: buying the key opens up a new level, getting al KONGs in a world opens a secret temple, doing all those temples opens up a super temple, completing that opens up a mirror mode, you get concept art, music and dioramas, etc. Almost any action you do has a reward; the bigger the accomplishment the more the reward.

• Make things easier… but not for free: Sometimes some gamers need help no matter how much they think they don’t. However, people like to feel as though they still beat the game fair and square.  DKCR has 3 items that give you extra health, slight invincibility and help you find the puzzle pieces. They however, cost banana medals; banana medals the player EARNED by being totally awesome at the game. See… the player isn’t cheating, but instead they are spending their hard earned cash.

Now at the easiest end, you have the free play mode which literally plays the level for you. This is the ultimate safety net incase a player is ready to call it quits no matter how well the game has helped them. However, even this costs something. If you let the game play itself, you will not get any of the collectibles or see any of the hidden challenges.

• Don’t waste the player’s time: If a player is going to be repeating part of the game 30 times, the game should limit the amount of time the player is doing nothing. A great many people complained about the checkpoints in Grand Theft Auto that made them redo long driving portions before the mission. They had every right to complain because this was a huge waste of time, nothing more. DKCR has checkpoints carefully placed as each level requires.

DKCR is streamlined to make sure not a second of the player’s time is wasted. When you die, the death animation is very fast, a simple fast transition screen appears, and then it shows you how many lives you have left.  There is no question “do you want to continue?”, instead the game instantly drops you back into the level. This is a common trend in hard games now. Bit.Trip Runner is even more streamlined as you simply zoom back to the beginning. Trials HD lets you press a single button to instantly start again. No load times, no animations, no wasted time.

• Punch them while smiling: People aren’t as angry if the game is cute or funny. This works with girls, so why not with games? This obviously doesn’t apply to everything. Demon Souls, Halo, Call of Duty and other hardcore games are as far from cute as possible. However they are spectacular, provide satisfaction with gore, or simply “pretty” with spectacular graphics and so on. Though, I think people are probably angrier when getting killed on Veteran Call of Duty than they ever are with Donkey Kong.

You will notice that Castle Crashers, Alien Hominid, Super Meat Boy, and loads of hard-as-balls games opt for a cute look. Mario is the same way. These games are friendly to look at. You trust them. I mean, how likely is it that a game with a monkey wearing a red neck tie will be impossible?  In DKCR when you die, the red balloon that Kong is holding pops. When you return to life, the 900 pound gorilla floats down to earth on a tiny red balloon. Honestly, you could be in the process of launching your controller at your wall, and you will still smile at that sight.

Any of these rules have exceptions, or variations. However I think it’s a pretty good starting point in discussing how to make difficult games still accessible and fun for the mainstream. They are also simply good design rules in general.

Donkey Kong County Returns is most definitely a great game. It is also one of the hardest this year, but despite what reviews say, you won’t ever get to the point of throwing your controller. You will be having too much fun.