Doin’ It and Doin’ It and Do It Again
Back in 6th grade, I had a tae-kwon-do teacher who was from somewhere in far east Europe (I don’t remember which because 1) I didn’t ask him, and 2) I was 12, cut me some slack). His location of birth is relevant because it gave him a cool accent, which unfortunately was turned into a droning whine while I was doing training exercises. There is only so many times you can do back kicks (which I hated then and still do today because I am seriously not convinced they could every do anything more than awkwardly foot-paw someone’s thighs and not actually hurt them), especially when you are 12, shorter than everybody, and don’t relish the idea of being really tired when they put you in padding way too big for you and make you “spar” with someone, which you know is upcoming after this eternally-long exercise.
Ahem. Anyhow.
Instead of saying how many of whatever kick we’d be doing, the master would bark out “ONE MORE TIME!” in his unique accent, and my level of preadolescent irritation would rise precipitously. I wondered more than once why he couldn’t just count like the other masters, and also, why that phrase got under my skin so much more than the plain fact of having to do X number of kicks. He wasn’t any harsher than any other masters, that I can recall - just yelled “ONE MORE TIME!” instead of normal counting.
Why do I remember that as being so obnoxious? It’s not just his accent - that just made it etch into my mind more easily. It’s the plain fact of being told to do the repetition. So here’s my question - to myself, and to everyone -
When does something go from being fun to being repetitive?
A lot of criticism I hear about this or that game is that it’s “too repetitive” - which makes me wonder what the boundaries are. Certainly a game needs to have some repetition - core gameplay - or it’s a damn mess. But at what point do you expand, at what point do you constrain yourself? Certain games work okay with a single - or set - of systems, which can indeed be repetitive. Diablo II jumps to mind, but hell - what about Pac Man? World of Warcraft? What is Halo but shooting guys, and then shooting other guys? With this blurry definition… where do we draw the line?
Sure, we can say stuff crosses over when it stops being fun. But I don’t trust any eye-ball impression when someone looks at a game and says “looks repetitive.” I think you’d be bored watching me kill stuff in Diablo II, but hell, I’m having a good time. And even with open-world games like Saint’s Row, yeah you’re doing a million different things, but it’s more about the experience of being involved in it… I sometimes actually find those harder to get invested in as a viewer, because I can’t grab a narrative thread or sense of linearity… unless the player states a clear objective, I don’t know where they plan on taking things. Which is fine, but in terms of - as I said - simply eyeballing something for a sense of “that looks repetitive” (and by extension, boring) - leads me to distrust the sentiment.
Sure, I’ve played repetitive games and disliked them greatly. Halo bored me. Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter was a colossal disappointment. And even my much-loved Civilization 2 becomes a bit of a shore near the more technological ages (but then I just start over again). But where’s the distinction? Is there a definition - a line in the sand - that we can draw that separates good from bad as a rule, not just on a case-by-case basis?
I aim to give this more thought - but for now, I’m putting it out there. Whatchu think, world?
Tags: game design, questions