Can someone explain this awful game design to me?

[Anonymous No.7345052]

How am I supposed to know which path is correct? Why does the game not give me any clues?

[Anonymous No.7345061]

It's even worse in Lost Levels

[Anonymous No.7345072]

there are only 8 permutations of the path, unless my mental math is off, basically only 7 ways to do it wrong, 8 passes and you would solve it (unless you just repeat the wrong ones forever)

[Anonymous No.7345074]

>>7345052
It literally loops when you do it wrong, that's the feedback that you fucked up.

[Anonymous No.7345080]

>>7345072
>>7345074
The time limit will kill the player before they finally figure it out

[Anonymous No.7345083]

>>7345080
Then you better have a spare life, huh?

[Anonymous No.7345092]

>>7345072
How am I supposed to kinos that there is right paths? Someone could easily interpret the pic as 9 possible solutions.

[Anonymous No.7345093]

>>7345072
There should be 21 permutations from Mario's starting position at the top left since you have 3 choices with 3 options each, except you can't go from the floor to the top platform, eliminating 6 options

[Anonymous No.7345097]

>>7345083
Forced trial and error is not good game design. If a player absolutely has to suffer a death multiple times before beating a level that's bullshit. Especially in a game where a game over puts you at the very start of the whole game. This isn't like Mega Man where the game is hard but you can overcome it with skill before having to memorize a level's entire layout.

[Anonymous No.7345107]

>>7345097
>Forced trial and error is not good game design.
Says who?
Only when the penalty is guaranteed death is trial and error not fair. The time limit isn't so low that you can't figure out why the screen is looping and adjust. The only thing that the player has control over, the path you take between the platforms, is the obvious answer to figure out to try and change something.

[Anonymous No.7345108]

>>7345083
There is absolutely no skill involved with beating these levels. It's just constant guessing until you get it right, and you'll more than likely die multiple times before you finally guess all three paths in the level correctly. That's absolutely retarded.

[Anonymous No.7345113]

>>7345108
There's brainpower involved, assuming you aren't reading a guide. And if you are reading a guide for Super Fucking Mario Bros, shame on you.

[Anonymous No.7345114]

>>7345093
you're right, I suspected I was off, I was just eye'ing it now wondering if i was off by a power

[Anonymous No.7345115]

>>7345107
It's not that the player doesn't figure out that the paths are looping, it's that they have to guess the correct path THREE TIMES for each section. The timer in smb1 is also pretty fast btw.

[Anonymous No.7345118]

>>7345113
There is no brainpower needed for random guessing.

[Anonymous No.7345125]

>>7345052
>ask a question in topic
>answer your question in topic body
Why are people replying?

[Anonymous No.7345126]

>>7345052
Never play japanese SMB2/Lost Levels, it will break that turd between your ears.

[Anonymous No.7345127]

>>7345125
Because this board will actually defend shit like this

[Anonymous No.7345129]

>>7345092
>How am I supposed to kinos that there is right paths?
When you notice you're running the same sections over and over again.

[Anonymous No.7345132]

Mario has lots of dishonest game design. Boomers (subhumans) will make excuses all they want, but repeating castles is NOT good design. It doesn't take skill. This is not fun or clever. It is trial and error. It is very clear cut. SMB1 is filled with lots of badly designed moments like this. The fact that some pipes (but not all of them) can be entered? That's not skill, it's trial and error. Invisible blocks? Not skill. Random patterns from hammer bros, cheep cheeps, bloopers, and fireballs? Not skill. How are you supposed to know that shells and beetles can be knocked without trial and error? Sometimes the shells don't even work properly because the game is literally broken by technical limitations. Boomers know that this is true deep down, but always resort to childish behaviour to defend this meme game instead of growing up. It's pathetic.

[Anonymous No.7345135]

>>7345125
>he doesn't understand a rhetorical question is a method to instigate dialog
tiny brain, tiny peepee
>>7345132
children are better seen and not heard, silence babyboy

[Anonymous No.7345136]

>>7345132
0/10 bait

[Anonymous No.7345141]

>>7345135
>>7345136
>boomers have no response and can only do spergy insults
Thanks for proving my point. You're nothing.

[Anonymous No.7345142]

>>7345127
It's one of all too few variety of logic puzzles in the game, so yes I defend this clever design.

[Anonymous No.7345145]

>>7345141
>im a child! respect me!
lmao

[Anonymous No.7345146]

>>7345142
I would actually be okay with it if it was not timed. There's way too many solutions to guess through before getting a time over.

[Anonymous No.7345149]

>>7345129
I'd honestly chalk that up to game devs being lazy rather than a loop.

[Anonymous No.7345154]

>>7345142
I will defend it on the point of them wanting to add more levels but needing to save bytes, it's a smart way to add another level and keep that filesize down, every byte was sacred then, the entire game is 32 kilobytes

[Anonymous No.7345158]

>>7345154
ops image is bigger than the game

[Anonymous No.7345162]

>>7345141
It's obvious that you're only trying to make the entire argument against these levels look completely retarded. Otherwise you must really suck at video games.

[Anonymous No.7345169]

>>7345154
That's a great lens to look at this through. Yeah, they got pretty clever about that shit out of necessity.

[Anonymous No.7345173]

>>7345052
>I GOT LOST IN A MAZE WHAT A POORLY DESIGNED MAZE
That's you. What's what you sound like.

[Anonymous No.7345174]

>>7345118
There's brainpower needed in remembering the correct path.

[Anonymous No.7345176]

>>7345052
>be game dev in 1985
>want to end the level with something interesting
>make up a gimmick puzzle that catches player off guard but isnt hard to figure out after a while
>35 years later zoomers play it
>"OH NO NO BAD GAME DESIGN
H O W A M I S U P P O S E D T O F I G U R E T H A T O U T
WHY ISNT THERE A 2 HOUR TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO DO THAT
WHY IS THERE _CHALLENGE_ IN A GAME"

[Anonymous No.7345178]

>>7345174
You won't remember any path until you've tried every combination that doesn't work, and then you must do the same thing for the next loop, and the one after that.

[Anonymous No.7345183]

>>7345178
Almost like it's a maze, except it's even more fair than a traditional maze since making a mistake doesn't get you lost, it only sends you back.

[Anonymous No.7345186]

>>7345052
>be game dev in 1985
>want to end the level with something interesting
>make up a gimmick puzzle that catches player off guard but isnt hard to figure out after a while
>think about how kids will have a blast when they figure it out
>35 years later zoomers play it
"OH NO NO BAD GAME DESIGN
H O W A M I S U P P O S E D T O F I G U R E T H A T O U T
WHY ISNT THERE A 2 HOUR TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO DO THAT
WHY IS THERE _CHALLENGE_ IN A GAME"

[Anonymous No.7345191]

>>7345183
The only issue is that you are timed and will lose a life when the timer runs out. This sort of level design doesn't work well for Mario and it's purely because of the time limit. I would be completely okay with it if the game didn't punish me with a game over for not guessing all the right paths in time.

[Anonymous No.7345194]

>>7345186
It's even more sad that there are old men on the internet obsessively defending a Japanese electronic toy made for children from 40 years ago.

[Anonymous No.7345201]

>>7345194
>obsessively defending
"oh no no someone disagreed with my shit criticism!! better play "no u" and say they are obsessively defending their shit game!!"

[Anonymous No.7345204]

>>7345183
I'll give it some benefit of the doubt, it's not as bad in smb1 as it is in smb2JP. How the hell can anyone figure this one out on their own without multiple deaths? Until you finally figure out the correct path, each section looks like it has multiple solutions, and the timer is short.

[Anonymous No.7345210]

>>7345097
>Especially in a game where a game over puts you at the very start of the whole game.
>He doesn't know

[Anonymous No.7345212]

>>7345052
Wait until you get to Super Mario bros 3, specifically world 3 and it's end fortress, there is a selection of doors, only one will take you to the end, this filtered more kids back then than Mario bros 1 (world 7-4)

[Anonymous No.7345218]

>>7345212
you just know that's going to be his episode of "how were we meant to know"

[Anonymous No.7345220]

>>7345210
Having to use warp zones barely makes it better

[Anonymous No.7345223]

I didn't know what to do as a kid.

Now I almost always get it right on the first try, without remembering. It's always the most difficult/dangerous fork.

[Anonymous No.7345225]

>>7345204
I'm not even exaggerating when I say I would figure that one out within the time limit on my first try. I'm not even as familiar with SMB2j, so it's not a matter of having it memorized even, it's that there are only three easy to dodge firebars and very few lava pits, meaning I could keep advancing at a reasonable speed even if I take a wrong turn somewhere.

[Anonymous No.7345226]

>>7345220
There's a continue code

[Anonymous No.7345237]

>>7345176
>Create gimmick in level
>Give no effort to explain the gimmick
>Make the gimmick completely RNG
>WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE CONFUSED?! YOU'RE JUST SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO BASED OFF NOTHING!!!

[Anonymous No.7345242]

>>7345204
That's some indefensible shit right there.

[Anonymous No.7345251]

>>7345204
>take the dangerous path
wow, impossible to figure out

Only tricky thing is the hidden blocks

[Anonymous No.7345252]

>>7345225
Each section has paths that are broken up into more than one platform, and as you can see in the bottom half of the image, you have to dip down through the middle part of the path and then go back up to the top on the same screen. If a player knew nothing about this stage, they could assume that each and every platform affects the loop which means there are multiple paths to try with each screen. For example, they could understand that they need to dip down halfway and then go back up, but they might choose the wrong platform instead of the hidden blocks. Once they get that wrong they might try to just stay at the top or stay at the bottom. They might choose the top platform and then drop down to the bottom and go underneath the bigger piece at the end of the screen. They'll have to figure it out this way with each screen. They get about 300 ingame seconds, and they're about twice as fast as real seconds.

[Anonymous No.7345254]

>>7345251
See >>7345252

[Anonymous No.7345263]

>>7345251
Also keep in mind that the screen does not let you see as far ahead as that image does. You will not know that half of these paths are the more dangerous path until you make your first decision and run past them.

[Anonymous No.7345281]

There's so many faggots in this thread defending terrible game design because of their autism and personal investment in their nostalgia making any criticisms perceived as personal attacks.

Look you faggots, I was a child in 1985, I played this game and loved it, and I somehow eventually made it through this level because children have literally nothing but time to figure this shit out. Super Mario Bros was great.

Do I think OP's point about this being garbage game design it on point, regardless of the intention (technical limitations and the like)? Absolutely. I'm not shitting on the game or the developer(s) (remember, often these games were worked on by like 2 to 5 people). If you don't think that it is objectively bad design outside your narrow spectrum of the context, you're an autist.

See Don Norman's Principles of Design. It applies to this just as much as everyday objects. Visibility, Discoverability, Feedback are all lacking in these kinds of puzzles.

[Anonymous No.7345338]

>>7345149
No, it's pretty much a loop. Your brain is supposed to register.

[Anonymous No.7345359]

>>7345338
Not the poster you're quoting but... You're really going to sit there and tell me that you qualify for both

>play NES games
>have never seen repeated scenery used in an NES game

Do you really have the audacity to claim that? I'll give you an opportunity to walk that claim back, because any non-casual back then would have been conditioned by such games to not immediately assume that they were in an endless maze.

I know for this very reason I found myself going through every one of 4 to 6 paths in an "endless jungle" screen in the original Metal Gear before writing it off as a loop, and I did that shit recently. Like within the last week. I always assume lazy devs first, maze/loop second.

[Anonymous No.7345429]

>>7345359
Don't forget that Nintendo's guidelines for game development demanded consistency.

>>7345204
What the fuck @ part 2. That's romhack levels of bullshittery.

[Anonymous No.7345435]

In lost levels you just always take the most difficult path. That's the spirit of the game.

[Anonymous No.7345439]

>>7345052
Well, if it's any consolation...
All-Stars added a "ding-ding" noise when you take the right path:
https://youtu.be/d3PVDR9LpEw?t=1704

[Anonymous No.7345453]

>>7345429
Lost Levels as a whole is the origin of fanmade tier bullshit in mario

[Anonymous No.7345457]

>>7345052
my 7 year old self solved it with no guide or any idea it would happen.

[Anonymous No.7345460]

>>7345097
>Forced trial and error is not good game design
youre supposed to know all the answers the first time you play? plus there is a possibility you win it the first time, so its not a forced failure. filtered

[Anonymous No.7345469]

>>7345460
Filtered? I beat the game 2 months ago. I can sit through shitty level design, but that doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.7345483]

>>7345460
To answer your question, I don't expect nor want games to be extremely easy and tell me every answer right off the bat, but a vague hint about taking the more dangerous path would have made those looping castles far more justifiable. I enjoy hard games but I don't enjoy stupid game design.

[Anonymous No.7345552]

>>7345080
Only if you're retarded.
You're not retarded, are you?
Hell, the all-stars version has an unambiguous audio cue to let you know if you've fucked it up or not.

[Anonymous No.7345556]

>>7345052
>I'm too retarded to figure out a simple puzzle.
Zoom zoom.

[Anonymous No.7345575]

Literally jump twice, bro

[Anonymous No.7345712]

>>7345132
Why are you writing paragraphs about a game that's 20 years older than you are at 2:00 am? Don't you have school in the morning?

[Anonymous No.7345719]

>>7345052
Cognitive decline is one of the first symptoms of Tide Pod poisoning

[Anonymous No.7345727]

>>7345281
I don't think anybody's saying this is a great puzzle. But it is a simple one. Most people our age figured it out within the 300 second time limit.
We're just mocking the learned helplessness of the younger generation. My stepkids are in high school and don't flush the toilet after they piss. When I was that age I was roofing and painting and pouring concrete.

[Anonymous No.7345750]

git gud scrub

[Anonymous No.7345976]

>>7345132
You don't guess every path, you see it once and on the second attempt what you do is go through what you think the most involved route is - because the straightforward, easy ones would defeat the entire point - and work down from there, picking the 2nd-most complex/dangerous route. 2-3 loops total, 1 of which is simply spent realizing you're in one.

[Anonymous No.7346063]

>>7345204
How in the hell did I get past this? I 'm stuck on 4-4

[Anonymous No.7346079]

>>7345052
Pro tip for all zoomers and larpers: You can clear it by staying on top, you don't have to follow the shitty line, you can do it in 3 tries

[Anonymous No.7346081]

>>7346079
no you cant, it loops

[Anonymous No.7346119]

>>7345712
>writing paragraphs about a game that's 20 years older than you are at 2:00 am

This is the kind of people I want to be friends with IRL.

[Anonymous No.7346131]

>>7345226
Having to cheat in the game to make it fun does not make it fun.

[Anonymous No.7346134]

>>7346131
you might want to reword that

[Anonymous No.7346136]

>>7346134
It doesn't make it fun no matter how much you tell yourself cheating is fun.

[Anonymous No.7346138]

>>7346063
4-4 is the most clear case of "take the less beaten path", look at the little gap to the bottom they left for you, it would be so weirdly out of the way for you to go there...

[Anonymous No.7346146]

>>7345204
I'm never gonna be able to beat Lost Levels...

[Anonymous No.7346203]

Maybe it's just Mandela effect but doesn't the game do a little DING DONG whenever you choose the right path? Hadn't played it for years

[Anonymous No.7346275]

>>7346203
Only in All-Stars

[Anonymous No.7346305]

>>7345191
It works perfectly well, you're just a retard who didn't realize the stage was repeating.

[Anonymous No.7346315]

>>7345072
How are you supposed to even know it's a puzzle? Or know that the solution is to find the right path instead of a hidden block or something?

[Anonymous No.7346320]

>>7345237
Learn what RNG means. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.7346321]

>>7346315
If they didn't figure out it was a puzzle they died and would have to try again. Why are you so afraid or dying in a videogame?

[Anonymous No.7346324]

I count like 30 solutions just eyeballing it , only idiots say they are 8

It was just purposefully bad design so that you would call their hotline or read magazines

[Anonymous No.7346357]

>>7346324
It's 54. 3 branch points with 3 options each is 27, then the last decision is a 2 option on the way out. The order matters so the combinatorics isn't more complex than that.

[Anonymous No.7346475]

>>7345052
>Why does the game not give me any clues?

It does if you are not def. the game will make a buzzer noise if you go the wrong path. It will make a chime when you get it correct.

[Anonymous No.7346490]

All-Stars gives audio cues which is a helpful addition.

[Anonymous No.7346509]

>>7345204
The path appears more complicated on this map than it actually is. You don't have to hit all four of those hidden blocks, nor do you have to travel in a loop around them. All you have to do is to get to the upper path ahead of them.

[Anonymous No.7346554]

>>7345556
>>7345719
>>7346079
>You're supposed to know everything about this puzzle because...because...b-ecause you're supposed to know!!!

[Anonymous No.7346582]

Zoomers are stupider than my 8 year old sister was, it seems.

[Anonymous No.7346606]

>>7345052
The SNES version gives you sound clues.

[Anonymous No.7346708]

>>7345252
>If a player knew nothing about this stage, they could assume that each and every platform affects the loop which means there are multiple paths to try with each screen
I think the hardest/most unfair thing about this is just knowing how it works *at all*. If you think every single block represents a different path or you're supposed to find a hidden switch or something, I can see getting stuck forever. If you get the basics of what you're trying to do, it's not that bad. The audio clue in All-Stars (and maybe DX has it?) makes the concept fairly clear. SMB2J just is what it is, and it pulls crueler stuff than that maze all the time...

>>7346357
Well it's NOT going to be something like just running across the bottom, think like a game designer and you can eliminate most possibilities

in fairness, if I were playing this blind today (it's been a long time), pic related would probably be my first guess

[Anonymous No.7346715]

>>7346708
>in fairness, if I were playing this blind today (it's been a long time), pic related would probably be my first guess
whoops internetting is hard

[Anonymous No.7346839]

>>7345097
Well that's probably why they stopped doing it. Dunno what you want to hear

[Anonymous No.7346923]

>>7345097
You just have to accept that many 80’s/90’s games (mostly 80’s) have bullshit cryptic designs (Zelda II, CV2, Metroid) or artificial difficulty (Ninja Gaiden, CV, Contra) for varying reasons. A lot of this stems from rentals. Games would be easier in Japan, but made more difficult in America so that way you couldn’t rent Castlevania for a weekend, beat it and be done with it. They bumped up the difficulty so you wouldn’t beat it and eventually buy it instead. Everyone with a brain recognizes the Japanese versions as the true versions, since they’re the design that was intended. Very few NES games are actually designed well.

[Anonymous No.7347510]

>>7346606
Clues that you didnt wrong which is obvious. Instead you might think the issue I'd that you didn't kill all the enemies or find a box or something

[Anonymous No.7347769]

>>7345252
See >>7346509
It's not as complicated as it looks.

[Anonymous No.7347832]

>>7345052
If my 6 year-old brain could solve it than you can do it too.
>>7345097
I bet you are already boycotting games that don't include a trigger warning before each puzzle on twitter

[Anonymous No.7347945]

>>7347832
Your 6 year old brain didn't realize that it was a hundred percent random to figure out the right path

[Anonymous No.7347992]

>>7345052

The only way is forwards on a linear path, and it repeats until you get it right. It's hard to get it wrong unless you're a mong.

[Anonymous No.7348028]

>>7345097
>He doesn’t know there are continues in SMB1

[Anonymous No.7348030]

>>7345129
There is literally a sound effect that plays, telling you you fucked up or guess correctly.

[Anonymous No.7348039]

>>7345052
>How am I supposed to know
You are not entitled to know, you brat. If you can't be arsed discovering the path then you don't deserve to know.

[Anonymous No.7348043]

>>7348030
That literally doesn't play in the original version of the game.

[Anonymous No.7348045]

>>7345052
I beat this game in Kindergarten, without guides or any input from friends or relations. How bad do you suck?

[Anonymous No.7348048]

>>7347945
Like a maze, you mean? Dear God no, not a maze in a video game.

[Anonymous No.7348049]

>>7346923
>everyone realizes
No, only faggots play JP versions of games.

[Anonymous No.7348086]

>>7345052
Die

[Anonymous No.7348121]

>>7345132
>can equip Veronica with garters and other thot-wear
What did they mean by this?

[Anonymous No.7348129]

>>7345052
It sucks but because it's 4chan and we're supposed to shit on each other people will tell you it doesn't and you're a brainlet. A stain on otherwise perfect games. Luckily you can always just cheat or remember them from before and they're trivial levels.

[Anonymous No.7348141]

>>7348129
this is cope

[Anonymous No.7348174]

>>7348141
Okay I'm retarded I guess. There. I 'coped' I suppose.

[Anonymous No.7348191]

Modern gamer praises today's fucking obtuse actual artificial difficulty bullshit games and trashes old games where there's one fucking level you have to do a little experimentation on to get through it.
The fucking laughable state of modern "gamers".

[Anonymous No.7348212]

>>7348191
Don't pretend these blow if you don't immediately remember how to get through them. Especially SMB2's. Also no one was saying shit about new games. Can we acknowledge a fucking flaw?

[Anonymous No.7348214]

>>7346554
>I'm so fragile that the tiniest failure, even in a VIDEO GAME, causes me to whine and cry about how unfair the world is

[Anonymous No.7348215]

>>7348212
*these don't

[Anonymous No.7348220]

>>7348214
Why are you so defensive over these obviously shitty levels? Is it just because you want to insult someone else instead of the game? No one's saying these break the game or that the game isn't worth playing because of them. They just suck. The game would be better without them.

[Anonymous No.7348226]

>>7345052
We should call assholes like you this:
>arrowfags
...because it seems you think a game should tell you what to do, and where to go, each time, all the fucking time. It's like your brain has turned to mush, and you need your hand held every single time you power on your gaming device.

[Anonymous No.7348228]

>>7348212
I was saying shit about new games. Particularly how today's games have much, much worse fucking actual bullshit and you fucking praise them to the moon but "lol old games i can bitch about those and make myself feel good for being brainwashed into buying and playing shitty new games".

[Anonymous No.7348237]

>>7348220
>the game would be better without them
Maybe you're right. But the reality is that the levels are in the code. So either write a ROMhack to cut them out, or suck it up buttercup.