{"id":2998,"date":"2010-07-09T17:37:37","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T21:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/?p=2998"},"modified":"2021-03-27T17:10:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T21:10:59","slug":"picking-the-lock-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/2010\/07\/picking-the-lock-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Picking the Lock-box"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"initial-letter\"><p><b id=\"header\">by [redacted]<\/b><\/p>\n<p><em>Desktop Dungeons<\/em> brings with it the old discussion about unlockable content. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s designed as a short game; <em>Rogue <\/em>by way of <em>Minesweeper<\/em>. Finish the game under the right conditions, and you get more conditions that facilitate further unlocking. The game is hard, so you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re only going to beat it some percentage of the time. As you get better \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or at least get further into the unlocking process \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the game gets harder, forcing the player to put in that much more effort for the next unlock.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a regular progression: play, play, play until you play well enough to meet a condition; then move on and play some more. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always another carrot, until finally there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. And look at all the time and energy you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve invested to get there.<\/p>\n<p>Since I downloaded the game, I have found myself in a feedback cycle. I imagine it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the impulse that a compulsive gambler feels. Hey, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only another ten minutes; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on a roll now; I know I can beat that boss if I just choose the gnome and conserve my potions. And so okay, I die. But this next time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make it for sure.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t healthy. By no measure on Earth is this healthy. And yet for about ten years this has been a popular way to extend the life of simple games. You might call it a sort of meta completion compulsion. Often large-environment games will riddle their worlds with stars and packages and honeycombs to collect, and unless you track down every last one you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not playing the game right. Often hardcore skill-based games will hand out letter grades for performance, and unless you earn the highest grade in every challenge, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not playing the game right. In either case, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re probably missing out on something. This unlockable business comes from the same place, but translates a little differently.<\/p>\n<p><b id=\"header\">( <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diygamer.com\/2010\/07\/picking-lockbox\/\">Continue reading at DIYGamer<\/a> )<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by [redacted] Desktop Dungeons brings with it the old discussion about unlockable content. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s designed as a short game; Rogue by way of Minesweeper. Finish the game under the right conditions, and you get more conditions that facilitate further unlocking. The game is hard, so you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re only going to beat it some percentage of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[179,646,849,133,907,27],"class_list":["post-2998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-articles","tag-compulsive-design","tag-diygamer","tag-game-design","tag-lock-box-design","tag-videogames","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7963,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions\/7963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}