Knowledge Based Games, and Why You Should Play Them

hello there I'm John Wolf also known as superdude or super whichever you prefer and I would like to talk about a particular type of video game progression that I think more people should experience most people who have played an adventure game have come across an obstacle that you simply can't do anything with be it a physical obstruction or a ledge that's just a bit too high you could not possibly do anything and clear this obstacle at this point in time so you move on and continue exploring the level until you come across some Treasure Chest that gives you a handy dandy power up aha you think this is just what I need to clear that previous obstacle so you go back there a good and smart little gamer and you clear that obstacle hooray you feel both strong as a result of gaining new power and smart since you figured out how to use your ability there are examples of this all over gaming I have been showing you Hollow Knights forgotten Crossroads but there's also the Legend of Zelda Twilight princesses Arbiters grounds where the way to the boss key is locked behind these silly wall grooves and this seemingly unrelated cog-shaped hole in the floor a room over which stops direct process through the rest of the dungeon no idea what to do with these things so you keep exploring One mini boss later and you gain the spinner which lets you grab that boss key and open that final door in one Fell Swoop in God of War 2018 you're walking through the light elephant Sanctuary with your boy and there are all these blue crystals all over the place in fact they've been all over the game up until this point so when atreus finally gets the special light Elven arrows that make these Bridges alight your brain is happy to finally put two and two together on that in the original Axiom Verge there are all these are the beginning of the game this is a tried and true method of progressing in video games and for some genres such as the zelda-like action adventure game or a metroidvania it is their bread and butter rubbing their face at the can achieve something give them that handy dandy power up and show them how it works use it later in puzzle or platforming settings win it every time but there is another method of progression that is a little less mechanical and a little more cerebral where rather than giving the player an item or ability with which to interface with the world in a new way the game instead pulls back the curtain and reveals possibilities previously unknown to the player this is what I will call Knowledge based unlocks here to after abbreviated as kbus and in my opinion kbus completely change how a game is experienced I hope to share with you some of my favorite games that Forefront kbus hope that you try them out for yourself and highlight why more people should make video games like this quick disclaimer for you because they are knowledge based unlocks if I tell you any of these unlocks I will have an facts ruined the thing and take it away from some of the game's Discovery as a result I will be talking about Vibes opening hours why the game is cool how the knowledge base unlocks help but not really talking about you know the mechanics even the opening hours may be considered spoilers to Die Hard fans of these games if I were to tell you so just know that going in if something sounds cool stop listening immediately and get in there try it for yourself if you need more convincing then please keep watching the video I mean it's not really YouTube If I tell you to stop watching so maybe just skip that section and go to them anyway the purest expression of what I'm referring to is a game where everything is learned information no one locks no items just Knowledge from lore down to every single mechanic and as far as I know no game goes harder in this regard than outer Wilds outer Wilds is an archaeological space exploration game where you're this small little guy called a hearthian who's preparing for his first day out in space you have a starting area where the basics of space traveler explained to you from piloting your spacecraft the various tools of the space-faring trade and how to travel in a zero-g environment once you find the lodge codes to your ship you can actually enter the thing where you are given your greatest Ally in orienting yourself for your mission the computer the computer logs locations and things you've learned about and gives you a sense of what you know and what there is left to discover after giving it a once over you're off to space to go wherever and do whatever so where do you want to go depending on your dialogue choices back home various planets may have been pointed out to you as you set out to wherever you choose you will very soon discover that there was this ancient alien race called the Nomi that seemingly took up shop all over your Galaxy they have some pretty sophisticated Tech but they're all gone now what happened to them where did they come from are they hostians involved to know my people did they know my find some way to leave this solar system entirely at its core this game is archaeological in nature you're staring at the ancient history of your people and the Nomi and trying to figure out how this all pieces together but another way the goal is to learn everything in the game from story threads to mechanics are out in space for you to discover for yourself and yes I did say mechanics learning gameplay mechanics in this way means it is up to you to discover how that mechanic works and experiment on your own not only that but once you have your head wrapped around it where do you apply this information it's a lot less obvious than use your new blasty power in the big bug buckinger path and this engages the player more than the alternative you both discovered how this works and what to do with it with your own brain now with the trappings out of the way I can tell you about my first day out in space and outer Wilds I went to the moon spoke to some old man sitting there and was staring at the planets in the sky as I wondered where I wanted to explore the game has only really presented me with one wrong answer dark Bramble dark Bramble is a mysterious hole with roots grabbing chunks of Rock if you suggest going there to the hearthy in the observatory he says to you I must say should you choose to go to dark Bramble be very careful no one's explored there before either for what you'll find are excellent reasons this place is dangerous in some Manner and I ignored all of that going inside I immediately discovered unimaginable Horrors beyond my comprehension piloting my ship and being generally pretty terrified of the situation I put myself in I managed to find one quiet location where I could rest a bit and explore I entered a hollowed out inside of one of those roots found on the outside of the Bramble on the very tip was something quite out of place on this planet and I was woefully unprepared to discover it I just happened upon a gameplay mechanic given that this was day one of my adventure out here I had no idea what I was seeing luckily when you find bits of information that are important to your greater understanding of your solar system the computer is updated with this information a little pin appeared on my computer detailing what I had found for the rest of the playthrough it was only near the end of the game looking over my pin board like a madman did I come to understand the significance of what I saw there and was finally able to complete the game after this is the experience outer wilds and by extension I am selling to you this is a game where everything is a discovery and the onus is on you to piece it together you explore your own curiosity to satisfy your questions and hopefully find some answers for the nomai and yourself this means to see the story you must be actively thinking about the information you're presented with as a result you are inherently more invested in what's happening in outer Wilds than in video game where information is delivered by cutscene and that allows it to cut deeper when it wants to speaking personally this game made me feel immense sadness Triumph fear and perhaps most often a deep existential horror on multiple levels throughout the entire game's run while I will say the game doesn't end in that place space has a way of making you feel the tininess of your own existence and this game has achieved that feeling like no other outer Wilds is the purest expression of kbus and this fact allows it to stick in your mind for weeks as you're trying to make sense of what you've seen piece together the threads and even after it ends you'll be beside yourself thinking about it for months to come I know I was oh and uh one more thing I purposefully left outer Wilds out of its frame so to speak there is a mechanic which you will discover within the first hour of playing which is structurally important to the entire game reviews will tell you about it other YouTubers will tell you about it watch any let's play and you would see pretty immediately what I've purposefully neglected to mention within the first hour I have neglected to mention this very crucial frame because it is the actual reason for your adventure you go out for the Nomi at first yes but you discover something greater soon after and it's that thing that I want to leave on set so you can have a rather strong Discovery all your own unsullied by me I hope you enjoy it I can sing the Praises of outer Wilds for probably twice the length of this video alone but it does have a pretty massive downside that any game with kbus has you can only purely experience it once games of this type are lightning in a bottle the first time with them is Electric in a one-of-a-kind experience but once you know the secrets to a knowledge based game you can unlearn what you've discovered cats out of the bag most games have this problem to some degree take for example this church in Dark Souls 1's the undead Berg what I would suggest doing is just circle around and block look for an opening hey did you know there's an Arcane spellcaster above you right now once you've seen them that's it you know they're there another fun fact once you kill them they never spawn here again this wizard is both out of place in this church and their presence is very important to the story of Dark Souls and they disappear after you kill them once brilliant this is partially the reason why members of the get good gang are constantly on the prowl for new Souls likes once you know the layout of enemies the Boss Designs the secrets a lot of the initial challenge is gone so you must search for more games of a similar ilk to get that same hit many games from many studios have risen to the challenge of stating the get good gang and some software is no exception but every game of this genre has that issue play it beat it maybe try some different builds if you're into that sort of thing on to the next in this way we can consider the level design and enemy layouts to be another knu I know I'm stretching here bear with me and this also suffers from the lightning in a bottle problem since most studios are chasing a trend when they make Souls likes they just ignore this negative feature of the design process and walk right over it they got money to make but one Studio namely the one who started the trend decided to take knowledge based unlocks for a ride and make a game where what is normally a weakness of the genre is played to their advantage seketto Shadows die twice is a uh uh but honestly sekado is really pushing at the boundaries of the genre conventions but let's call it what's easiest secado is a souls-like made by the genres founder from software back in 2019 it is a game where you play as Wolf the Shinobi who's put in charge of a prince named Kuro who is blurished with a bloodline of mysterious power that the villains of the game want for themselves as is protector it is your job to protect Kudo from anyone who at oh my God wolf oh my God wolf that's not helpful you walnuts Jesus you wake up from that massive loss very much not dead and sporting a whole new Bionicle arm that was passed down to you by the sculptor the very man who saved you from death in that field earlier from here Wolff must fight with everything he has to regain Kudo from those who would use his blood for evil you're not sure what they want his blood for at this point but who cares you're not paid to think you're a Shinobi so let's talk about how you actually fight in this game slashing this sword block enemy attacks and sometimes those special attacks that come from your prosthetic hand you have some items that could affect your stats or cure status ailments but not a lot with any offensive utility what you have in your hands is what you're fighting with as for defenses you have two bars that represent health and posture your health is pretty self-explanatory but it's the posture bar that is secado's innovation you see unlike in the other soulsborne titles where your ability to block a blow is determined by stamina and your Shield's quality levels sekado allows you to block infinitely and suffer no Health damage in theory what does take damage is your posture bar which breaks when it reaches capacity causing you to stagger and allowing the enemies to capitalize on your mistakes you can regain posture damage by sitting there and blocking but if you recall that's what got us here in the first place the only way to take an enemy's attack against you and turn it into a positive outcome with no downsides is not to block but to deflect the blow deflecting requires an accurately timed press of the block button moments before they would hit you forcing the enemies attack out of the way and shaking their footing this maneuver deals reduced posture damage to you and forces some of that possible damage back onto your enemy here we see the full picture of combat you attack when you can Blocks Your froze attacks with precision timing with the hopes of breaking their posture bar and staggering them and unlike your foes most of them at least wolf is a trained killer when that bar breaks he takes them out it is for this reason that the health bar is in that corner of the screen the posture bar is here all over the top this is the bar you want to destroy knock your opponents to their knees so you can end them right then and there there are some pretty important ramifications to the combat being this way for one it turns sekito into a rhythm game of feeling the pulse the enemies hits to deflect against them and return with a volley of your own the combat is Twitchy personal and fights can often be fought nose to nose neither side giving an inch until one drops dead and the victors declare another consequence of this is that the game is hard as balls each fight is a fight where you must internalize the Rhythm if you don't you'll lose there isn't some overpowered sword you can go find and come back with you have Kazuki motor you don't have any awesome spell to blow bosses down in one go you have shurikens and ax and an umbrella stat increases can only be gained through prayer beads and while some can be found through the environment the bulk of them are dropped by the very bosses you are struggling against so unlike in every soulsborne title before or since you can't grind to a higher strength than sekado you just have to internalize the fight and become better actually better as a person the knowledge unlock in seketto is rhythm twitch timing and an internalization of patterns that you both must recognize on your own and be able to act upon on your own you are unlocking the ability to play secondho and the game is constantly questioning if you actually do know how to play it if you make it to the end after they throw the actual kitchen sink at you it finally concedes yes you do know how to play sekado and the credits roll followed by an invitation to play New Game Plus now remember how I said mere moments ago that you just learned how to play sekado let's say we take that notion for a spin eh [Music] you see in most other Souls games new game plus lets you keep all your gear in the enemy's health and damage increase but the mystery of it is gone it's kind of just a run through the same game again but this time you're prepared you know what to do with yourself at all twists and turns sekito takes that idea and turns it up to 11. [Music] remember Sakura's a rhythm game once you have the rhythms down it's like your favorite song coming on at a dance and you already know the moves playing sakuro through a second time is like cheating every wall from your first playthrough smash them one by one first try without fail this horrible centipede guy who swings at you non-stop you remember the Rhythm it's block block block block block block block then he's gonna back up You're Gonna Wanna jump jump on his head repeat until he dies that's music baby you can transcribe that crap playing sekado again turns the experience into a power fantasy where your third eye is open and nothing can stop you and remember you learned this there was no grinding levels to get this power this is something you earned and you are now reaping what was sown you were a freaking Shinobi and you're gonna tear this country open until you find Kudo then do whatever happens after that I'm sure the game just ends once you get Kudo back who cares there is this video by Fitzroy animations that encapsulates this feeling in an animated music video I encourage everyone to give it a look though it is the entire game an animated song form so perhaps don't if you mind the spoilers else wise I definitely recommend it this song has been stuck in my head for years and years so in summation whilst kbus do make a second play through a less magical experience comparison to the first Sometimes you can lean into that and give your players something to look forward to on a subsequent playthrough like a secado the final game I want to talk about Blends elements of both games I've spoken about thus far the act of mechanics being given to you as knowledge like without a wilds and how it can use knowledge gain to enhance a second playthrough this game is none other than 2022's tunic tunic is an action adventure game made by Andrew schuldice where you play a little fox friend on an adventure through a voxel World from the outset you are told nothing about how the game works save One Thing Once you gain the stick you're told what the menu button is and from there how to set the stick to an equipment slot and that is it by button freaking you could see this flip action but that's the end of what you can discover by just button freaking get a key open a door and you find the first page of the manual the manual is well a manual for the game that you're playing right now it is a glossy beautifully crafted book which illustrates mechanics secrets and maps of the in-game environment as well as what you're supposed to be doing here this is where the kbus come from in tunic without this manual tunic is an action adventure game that absolutely looks up to Legend of Zelda and has some Souls like combat because there's nothing more hip than Souls like combat that is completely fine and the game would still have so much to offer with a vibrant world to discover all its own because the game tells you nothing of mechanics and instead places them within a manual which is collectible within the game World this changes the discovery of the game immensely it is very similar in structure to the see a thing get a power use it later system that we've spoken about already with metroidvanias like Hollow Knight but now those unlocks those powers are knowledge what does this yellow Square do it obviously does something and there are multiple of them throughout the game which you will find before you will realize what they do what about these Heroes Graves what about the purple room or any single item since not a single one of them is explained to you the manual will help you figure it out and now like in metroidvania you remember that you saw this elsewhere and want to go use your newly discovered ability over there and to be clear it's not like it's spelled out in the manual once you get the pages the manual is written in a foreign script so all you really have to go off of are pictures unless something is really important in which case it's in your chosen language so you still have to figure it out yourself and be willing to experiment with the possibilities you're presented with all the way to the end of the game you are getting Pages for this manual that are revealing entire new mechanical aspects that you weren't aware of and it is super amazing that tunic pulls that off in both sits first and 11th hours this game rules and beating it is a true treasure but then there's the second playthrough I know that tunic is considered an action adventure game officially but I think it is more metroidvania than people give it credit Metroid has a habit of presenting the game in an order to you which if you know it's ins and outs you just ignore and do it in whatever order you please now that you know nearly every mechanic that tunic kept blocked away from you you can use them out of order so to speak and do it in whatever order you want this first yellow Square yeah I know the song and dance watch unlike in outer Wilds where the second playthrough holds little new content for you if you're being thorough tunics second is a wholly new experience as the world presented before you is delivered in a remixed order just like sekado take the experience gained from a different game's worth of Discovery and curiosity and turn it back on the thing beat it to pieces with information you've gained out of order you cheater for this reason tunic is both a lightning in a bottle magical experience where you play it through to the end and it has more Delights to discover past that if you choose to go back for more tunic is as of my riding this right now the closest the game has come to the leading knu's weaknesses while keeping all of its strengths and I love it for that I hope you do too conclusions are stupid Let's Be Quick Knowledge based unlocks are like giving you the bow and arrow unlock but the bow and arrow is information and you have to figure out what it does all your own these invest you more since you are having to think about them what this information means and how to use it rather than say being given a slow down power in the same room as the super fast Slammy door these lead to lightning and bottle experiences and here are some of my favorites outer Wilds an archaeological mystery game that is the purest form of this experience sekado a truly difficult game to master that takes the knowledge gained from your first playthrough and uses it as a catalyst to make you feel like a Powerhouse in the second and tunic a metroidvania which blends the two game strengths into one cohesive whole tempering knu's one big weakness I am super dude thank you for watching hey thank you for watching the video This is my first real YouTube video outside of college and the first one that I actually wrote a script for I mean this isn't scripted but uh yeah thanks for watching let me know if you agree disagree hate me want to say whatever you want I don't care just say it in the comments uh sometimes I'm on Twitch same name as here and and um yeah I am super dude thank you for watching

Channel: Superdude

Views: 1,210,847

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Id: tkv05ZO7d8I

Length: 22min 13sec (1333 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 24 2023