How Outer Wilds Makes Running Out of Stuff Fun

have you ever been in a situation in a video game we've got this really cool weapon or a mega health potion but you don't want to use it because it's got limited durability really rare ammo or you've only got so many of them and so you go the whole game without ever actually getting to use it at all all relatively you might find a really easy way to get items like destiny ones infamous loot cave so you just farm that for ages instead of actually playing the game resource management systems are one of the most effective tools in the game designers arsenal to control the way people play their game unfortunately they're also one of the most unpredictable with a lot of well-intentioned ideas sometimes having the opposite effect they were supposed to but I'm getting ahead of myself I want to break down how resource management works so we can figure out not just how to do it well but also how to avoid situations where a shortage or surplus of resources tricks players into playing in a boring way I think these systems can be best explained with the idea of pushing and pulling in games where certain resources are very limited players are pushed away from styles of play that are inefficient or risk them running out of a critical resource take Resident Evil for example which uses resource management to make even concepts like silly Spanish zombies and hillbilly dad scary the scares in Resident Evil don't come from zombies jumping out of closets but the creeping dread that comes with running out the only thing that will stop you from getting eaten bullets firing blindly at bad guys with your SMG here will mean you be out of ammo in approximately no time at all meaning that instead you've gotta line up headshots as well as finish off grumpy villages with melee attacks where you can both of these ammo saving tricks which require you to either let villagers close in or get into melee range yourself bring you closer to danger and so closer to interesting gameplay this is all lady by the fact that the game will sneak of the increased enemy health and lower ammo drops in response to your performance meaning you'll be constantly teetering on the edge of being an MMO without ever completely running dry keeping you in that great zone where you get to make tough decisions about what how are you gonna use to stay alive and what you're gonna try and save but also because having to kill enemies with nothing but your crappy knife takes bloody forever the flip side of this would be the idea of pulling where a player is drawn toward stars of play to make effective use of very plentiful or infinite resources in games like Dark Souls or Celeste finit resources are used to encourage players to explore and experiment Dark Souls is Estus flasks which is a bit of a tongue twister replenish whenever you head back to a bonfire so you can feel free to chug them in the middle of a doom boss fight or when you're exploring your new area confident in the knowledge that you'll just get them by later celeste sin finit lives means that players can experiment with finding alternate routes and secrets without fear of a game over or losing anything more than a few seconds of progress this helps to take away a lot of the pressure reminds players that failure is just another step on the journey to success by altering the strength of these two forces as well as playing them against each other designers can maneuver players into engaging with the game in a particular way while still letting them feel like they're in control by letting them come to this conclusion themselves for example in Islanders a very cute city builder your primary limiting resource isn't building materials or cash like you'd expect but space you need to build structures in order to get points but the more built up an island becomes the harder it is to find space for big complicated structures like temples which generate loads of points but a massive and hard to place or Hut's which only generate points away from populated areas each building you place needs to be considered in the context of the next hundred or so taverns towers or gardens you'll be putting next to it as you try to make the most efficient use of your dwindling space as possible pushing players away from strategies where they just play structures without thinking and in doing so creating some very pretty villages as well as encouraging a more interesting long-term strategic style of play health is a great way to encourage players to act in a particular way because running out means dying and people don't usually want that dooms glory kill system which seems that come up all the time in these videos pulls players into using it because it's an easy way to restore your very limited health keeping you in the fight for longer similarly in descenders a roguelike mountain-biking game you can gain extra health for completing bonus objectives then evolve doing lots of tricks or going really fast both of these strategies bouncing from glory kill to glory kill and pulling off backflips at death-defying speeds are the most fun way to play and thanks to a bit of developer fiddling they're also optimal meaning the players are encouraged to play in the way there's most fun it's even possible for a resource push and pull in different contexts in frost bunk a steampunk survival city builder that may as well be called running out of coal the video game you're never gonna have enough of resources like wood steel and of course delicious black gold pushing you into expanding your cities gathering efforts to heat homes research tech and not die pretty simple stuff what's more interesting though is manpower which starts off as a pulling force people are generally easy to come across and massively help your city because research stations gathering outposts hospitals and of course brothels all need to be staffed by people more people means more of those critical resources which means faster expansion and a bear chance of winning at least in the early game later on however the balance changes and survivors actually become a pushing force putting strain on your economy instead of helping it as the weather gets worse your city will be swarmed with refugees from neighboring settlements including lots of useless hungry children suddenly you've got more survivors than you know what to do with as each building only has a limited capacity for workers but even unemployed people need healing feeding and heating creating a great moral conflict and a pushing your infrastructure to the limits in order to do the right thing or turning away people you once would have begged to join because you got too many mouths to feed as it is by changing which resources do the pushing and the pulling games can shape specific memorable experiences out the same broad set of mechanics however like all things to do with psychology and manipulating people's brains it doesn't always work as we've already seen sometimes resource management systems can trick players into having exactly the wrong experience by moving them into gameplay styles that are exploitative boring or don't engage with the best parts of the game in the words of Soren Johnson lead designer of Civ for and awful trading company given the opportunity players will optimize the fun out of a game we can see this very clearly in the otherwise great subnautica as well as a lot of other games with survival and mechanics in subnautica the lack of food and water pushes players into exploring slowly making the world beyond the safe shallow seems scary and foreboding to start with the only way you can make half-decent foods and drinks is back at your base encouraging you to build a permanent place then and further hammering home the idea that the outside world is dangerous and they all need to prepare to survive it however these two resource shortages are easier to fix them and developers intended by making an early game tool that literally cooks fish for you stray out of the water the thermal blade you have an inexhaustible food supply that also restores a bit of water this means that instead of creating tense scenarios we've got to think on your feet and make tough choices to survive in scary inhospitable biomes you've instead just got to waste time killing and cooking peoples for a few minutes whenever you get packaged or thirsty eating cooked fish to restore vitals isn't even that efficient particularly for water but it is easy and it is free so players can't help but do it and in the process make the game less fun in Pokemon and a lot of other JRPGs the fact that you need exponentially more XP to level up is supposed to pull players to warns a new more challenging content that helps them level up much faster but this doesn't always work if there's a particularly hard boss like a gym leader blocking the way there's very little reason for players not to spend ages grinding away at low-level stuff until they can trivialize wherever's in that way completely throwing off the progression curve and in the brilliantly named void bastards you're encouraged to use stealth tactics and a bunch of cool gadgets like kitty wants to distract enemies and save on precious ammo but when you don't get given a new character you get a bunch of food fuel and ammo for free anyway removing any sense of tension the otherwise well balanced mechanics could create resource management both for the player and for designers is a delicate balancing act but when it's executed well it can create games that give players unparalleled freedom but also ones that suddenly direct them towards the best kind of experience which is kind of the best of both worlds speaking of worlds let's put everything we've learned into practice as we look at all the things that brilliant outer wilds does right and one major thing it does wrong the outer wilds is all about churning around a mini solar system in a little rinky-dink spaceship and while you're doing so managing your health fuel and oxygen which provides some great moments of tension as you jet around deep space and serving as a way to stop you exploring too much too quickly however what really drives gameplay in the outer wilds is the threat of running out of time some small spoilers coming up but I won't mention the story or show you any of the really juicy stuff so don't worry but if you do want to skip the spoilers then go to this timestamp here okay cool see you there see in the outer wilds each of the game's planets is on a strict schedule this comet travels in a weird elliptical orbit that brings it close to the Sun for about a minute bristle Hollow a hollow planet literally Falls to bits over time and massive tornadoes storm across the surface of giants deep lifting up entire islands into the sky but that's not all after exactly 22 minutes of play the universe kind of explodes yeah now this and the fact that you get to respond afterwards are pretty cool to the story so I won't spoil any of that but I do want to take a look at how by expertly framing itself around this time limit outer worlds compels the player into engaging with the game in the most fun way possible in order to get your head around the plot and stop the universe going boom you're going to need to visit each of the planets several times to truly put everything together we will never have enough time to explore everything you want to in a single loop finding an escape point used by mysterious advanced aliens that no my on the surface of ember twin points the way to not just a refugee city buried beneath the surface of a planet but also to to other escape pods scattered throughout the system there's no way you'll be able to explore them all within the time limit meaning you'll have to make some interesting choices in deciding which mysteries to solve now and which the leaf for later this not only helps build anticipation and suspense but gives each restart a sense of purpose as there's always a new breadcrumb trail of clues to follow and each planet is stuffed full of secondary details of plot lines the both flesh out the main story but also have something new when interesting to discover on repeat visits by having time as the game's main pushing resource you'll force to master the strange and unexpected ways each planet changes most also coming to understand all the hidden routes secrets and areas dotted around the map to get to where you need to go without running out of time because time is such a limited resource but death is merely a setback out of wilds pulls you into making these exhilarating and ultimately lethal journeys of discovery to get just one more pizza puzzle than all the universe explodes and you kick back to the home planet to start again it's a fantastic little gameplay loop and without it the game's brilliant sense of cult Sagan esque scientific wonder just wouldn't work if the game gave you infinite time or was simply static there'd be no pressure to push out into the unknown and to take suicidal risks in search of knowledge but if the punishment for death was too steep you'd be too scared to take the plunge and explore some of the game's most mysterious and interesting areas using these resources together outer wilds pushes and pulls you into exactly the position you need to be in to appreciate their game's scientific wonder to the fullest originally I plan to end the video right here however late in my outer worlds experience I stumbled upon a pretty infamous puzzle that kind of rubbed me the wrong way a secondary spoiler warning here for an endgame puzzle I'm gonna be pretty vague about it but you know go to this time stamp to skip it you know the deal by this point I'd explore every planet found out exactly why I need to do to finish the game and it was time to execute on the plan the first step however involves waiting on Ashe twin a desert world for a very specific time window that happens for about a second in a very specific place the people who've played the game before know exactly where I mean because this event only happened near the end of the 22 minutes cycle and it was only available for a tiny window when this big sandstorm was in exactly the right place suddenly a lack of time was a much stronger motivating factor than normal and that was a problem what was normally a really well-designed resource shortage pushed me into just waiting on this bridge for ages not really doing anything as going to complete side quests might mean I'd miss out on my window of opportunity I would need to wait for 10-15 minutes all over again I was in a bit of a conundrum playing in what seemed like the most effective way possible and taking as few risks as I could meant that I wasn't doing what the game was supposed to be all about exploring and discovering new and interesting places not just waiting around in alpohnse in these sorts of situations I'd almost always find myself picking the more effective less fun option just like Soren said but this time I decided to do something different so instead of playing sensibly and just waiting around for the sandstorm I went exploring finished a fun side quest that starts with these weird teleporting quantum rocks and actually had a really fun time rushing back to ash twin just in time to start the endgame sequence it was here that I realized that waiting around problem wasn't entirely the fault of outer wilds it was also a problem with me boring strategies mics at Nauticus food exploit or avoiding risks in outer wilds or even holding on to those too cool to use weapons in RPGs are nearly always gonna be optimal because they ignore two of the most important resources out there your time and your fun and while clever devs have gone some way towards mitigating these problems they'll never be able to truly fix the fact that efficiency and fun will always be at odds so the next time you catch yourself playing in a way that's more efficient or safer will is less fun maybe think about switching things up use those court limited items and don't rely on a single overpowered but boring strategy sure this might not be what the game is encouraging you to do and it's certainly not the optimal way to play but it is a hell of a lot more entertaining and at the end of the day isn't the best way to play a game whatever optimizes the amount of fun you're having and makes the best use of your limited time which is why when you see me playing a game badly I'm actually just optimizing fun it's not that I suck at games it's all completely deliberate stop looking at me like that hi and thanks for watching before I do my usual patreon spiel I've decided I may as well use this space at my 125 subscribers to promote some smaller and way better channels so I'm gonna do it like here from now on the first channel I'm gonna shout out is the brilliant first five a channel that's all about reviewing small games or the first five hours of bigger ones it's very neat twist on an established formats and Alex does a great job go check him out anyway let's get to the people they really matter my top tier patreon supporters who are Alex to launch a siren elmo 94 Baxter he'll bryan atari ani calvin han colin a man chill daniel matches Dirk Jan Karen bailed feats a lot Jessie Rhine Jonathan Kristensen Joshua binswanger leach - Lucas slack lunar Eagle 1996 makes window 54 Patrick Romberg Ray's dad Samuel Vander Plaats strategy in Ultima yerin mirin and Chao thanks for watching thanks for putting up with me once again as well as my slow release schedule I'm working on it I swear and to have a great day bye

Channel: Adam Millard - The Architect of Games

Views: 745,606

Rating: 4.9300542 out of 5

Keywords: Games, Gaming, Video Games, PC Gaming, Epic Games, Outer Wilds, The Outer Wilds, Subnautica, Celeste, Dark Souls, Resident Evil, Space, Resource Management, Food, Oxygen, Islanders, Descenders, DOOM, Void Bastards, Adam, Adam Millard, Architect, AoG, Architect of Games, Review, Critique, Analysis, Video Essay

Id: 4JlGzw4l6fY

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Hellknightx]

That puzzle he talks about at the very end with the sandstorm pissed me off when I finally figured it out. Not because it's difficult to figure out, or even obscure.

It pissed me off because I, like most people, had already tried to use "the thing," but it didn't work because the sandstorm moves you out of the way. I didn't realize that you had to do the thing with very specific timing, and that wasting time hiding under the bridge was the correct solution.

In fact, the game never even makes it clear that the tiny bridge will completely shield you from the sandstorm. Fuck that puzzle. I felt like an idiot for having to look it up, only to realize I had almost solved it on my own, and then thinking that "the thing" didn't actually do anything because it didn't work the way I tried it.

Especially because I had done everything else in the game, and that's literally the one thing you need to do to finish the game.

[u/RayzTheRoof]

I found running out of resources and time more frustrating than fun. If you've ever died while exploring the extremely complex planet with the settlement beneath the surface, you know what I mean. The samey-looking structures added to the frustration. Nothing fun about being in the middle of a text lot chain with crucial story info, only to be forced to die and travel to the planet and navigate to the exact spot again.

[u/cp5184]

What's the game at 13:50 with the toaster gun that looks cel shaded?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JlGzw4l6fY&t=13m50s

[u/[deleted]]

I legit think if outer wilds got released on steam, this would be one of the most popular games ever, it would be a smash hit success like shovel knight or bloodstained, i understand why they took the pay check, but they should have believed in their game more.

I played it a friends house and i loved it, but no way in hell am i giving epic a cent of my money, i don't want to support PC store exclusivity.

[u/Ademante_Lafleur]

That loot cave was something special. I think i spent more hours shooting into that cave than anything else.

[u/Khalku]

It's a fun game, it's cool how you progress by basically unraveling a mystery and not by unlocking abilities or tools, but... I can't finish it because I can't go into dark bramble. Place freaks me out.

[u/knighty33]

Spoilers ahead.

I found Outer Wilds a frustrating game because it has a lot of potential that the game ultimately never uses. I absolutely love how different it is and how they approached making the game where the only unlockable is information. Exploration is one of my favourite things to do in games and this is pretty close to pure exploration based gameplay. Unfortunately though, there's just not that much interesting information in the game. Very little of the information is actually required to get to the ending of the game and I'm fairly sure the only reason people will end up seeing almost everything is because of how diabolical the ash twin "puzzle" is. In my head I think all you need is the stupid knowledge about getting into ash twin, the knowledge of where the vessel is (easy to end up going there as one of the first things. Don't even need to learn about the anglerfish properly. I feel like moving silently was pretty obvious it's so video game trope-y) and the code from giant's deep which is the only one which feels like you actually needed to learn about. Basically everything else is a lore dump.

The planet design is so cool it's a shame that the end gave me such a sour taste in my mouth. Not only that but things like the quantum moon basically amount to a slight change in the ending sequence. I'm still very glad I got to experience the game (even if only for how much fun I had flying around, matching up my velocity with places and exploring them. Especially nailing getting into the sun station via spaceship) but I wish there were more interesting things to solve.

[u/epicgamesbad]

This was actually a great video, why is this being downvoted?

[u/Chet_Awesomelad]

Man, I heard about Outer Wilds and thought it sounded really cool. Then I tried it out and I just got lost and confused and generally kinda bored.

I explored part of a planet, then suddenly died (still don't know how that happened) and respawned back at the starting planet. I tried again, solved one or two basic puzzles, explored some ruins that really didn't hold anything particularly interesting, then I left the planet and accidentally flew into the sun and died again. After respawning, I decided to try a different planet, but I couldn't find anything of any interest or any landing spots. Then I suddenly got eaten by some kinda giant beast, and I respawned again. I still have no idea what the fuck is going on.

It basically seems like Myst except there are multiple open worlds, which just makes for an overwhelming amount of choice and information and not much direction and I still don't even know what my character's motivation is for exploring let alone the rest of the plot. It's all a little too hands-off for me. I like exploring but I'm not a fan of a game just dropping you in the middle of the world and saying "Figure it all out yourself."