What are some of the biggest examples of bad game design you’ve seen?

[TFT-A9]

A lot of games have pretty fucked camera, so that's hardly a unique issue.

It's been over 2 decades since 3D games really became a thing and they STILL can't get this shit right. At this point I'm pretty sure they deliberately set out to fuck it up because jesus fucking christ.

 

[Francis York Morgan]

Speaking of that engine, Oblivion's totally broken and game-ruining levelling system combined with the strict level scaling. Hit level 11? Every goblin is now a troll with 3 times the hitpoints, fuck you. You had to metagame and make really bizarre builds to make sure your stat increases kept pace with the more powerful enemies and it was no fun at all, not to mention immersion-breaking when you get shaken down for pennies by bandits wearing armour worth more than the Imperial treasury. Just sell your helmet dude and retire.

I've always summed up my issues with Oblivion to people like this:

Any game that punishes the most basic reward a player can receive in the genre is trash.

 

[Furret]

Well, I can tell you what Gamefreak's response likely is to anyone asking for a Challenge Mode to be properly included:

"You already have one. It's called the Battle Tower."

But the Battle Tower SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS. It's just a repetitive grind against rando trainers who have a semi-competent AI (and in some games, cheating). In the newer games, you will sometimes get to battle a recognizable trainer like Red and Blue in USUM or Leon in SWSH but I hardly ever get to that point because it's such a fucking slog. Oh, and this is how you get BP. What's the BP for? Oh, you know, all kinds of wonderfully useful items that are limited in-game like the items needed for specific trade evolutions like Rhyperior or Magmortar. Or, in SWSH, items that allow you to manipulate your Pokemon's stats and abilities to make them more viable in the metagame. Considering that money is practically meaningless in these games after a certain point, I don't understand why they can't just have this shit be something you can buy with Pokedollars. It would lower the barrier of entry to competitive play (something they've been trying to do for awhile now) and I bet it would help cut down on the number of hacked 'mons being used if they didn't make it such ass to manage these various attributes (some of which are invisible, to those who aren't in the know). But Gamefreak will never do that because a) acquiring BP is the only reason anyone would put up with the Battle Tower and b) it might force them to actually develop a real postgame which is what they lean on Battle Tower to be.

To be fair, the Battle Tower can be interesting to build teams for because it has a different set of rules, but once you have a setup that works it's really boring. You're just doing the same thing over and over until you either make a mistake, find a team you can't beat, or get fucked over by RNG. How some people have the patience to get Battle Tower win streaks in the thousands is beyond me.

 

[Francis York Morgan]

To be fair, the Battle Tower can be interesting to build teams for because it has a different set of rules, but once you have a setup that works it's really boring. You're just doing the same thing over and over until you either make a mistake, find a team you can't beat, or get fucked over by RNG. How some people have the patience to get Battle Tower win streaks in the thousands is beyond me.

I confess, at least part of my salt over the Battle Tower is that it keeps coming back while the cooler, more interesting World Tournament from Black & White 2 has remained buried. If I'm going to be grinding out wins against the AI, at least make it against trainers I might have an interest in like the Gym Leaders or Champions.

 

[Furret]

I confess, at least part of my salt over the Battle Tower is that it keeps coming back while the cooler, more interesting World Tournament from Black & White 2 has remained buried. If I'm going to be grinding out wins against the AI, at least make it against trainers I might have an interest in like the Gym Leaders or Champions.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the PWT. Why was that cut? Unlike Challenge Mode, nobody seemed to have a problem with how it was implemented. In fact, it seems like it was a really popular addition.

 

[Unyielding Stupidity]

To be fair, the Battle Tower can be interesting to build teams for because it has a different set of rules, but once you have a setup that works it's really boring. You're just doing the same thing over and over until you either make a mistake, find a team you can't beat, or get fucked over by RNG. How some people have the patience to get Battle Tower win streaks in the thousands is beyond me.

There's also the fact that in those Battle Tower facilities, the AI tends to cheat as your winstreak gets higher. Ranging from hitting three-OHKO moves in a row and other absurdly low odds, to constantly giving the AI teams full of Pokemon that hard-counter your team.

If your team can deal with everything except one specific thing, expect to get nothing BUT that specific thing as your winstreak gets high enough. Hell, even if you bring a team of hacked Wonder Guard Spiritomb into a Gen IV Battle Tower, the AI will start using Pokemon with Fire Fang purely because of a glitch that causes Fire Fang to hit through Wonder Guard.

 

[Furret]

There's also the fact that in those Battle Tower facilities, the AI tends to cheat as your winstreak gets higher. Ranging from hitting three-OHKO moves in a row and other absurdly low odds, to constantly giving the AI teams full of Pokemon that hard-counter your team.

If your team can deal with everything except one specific thing, expect to get nothing BUT that specific thing as your winstreak gets high enough. Hell, even if you bring a team of hacked Wonder Guard Spiritomb into a Gen IV Battle Tower, the AI will start using Pokemon with Fire Fang purely because of a glitch that causes Fire Fang to hit through Wonder Guard.

That's what I meant by "a different set of rules". The Battle Tower will fuck you with RNG every chance it gets, so most of the strategy centers around minimizing the effect luck has on the outcome of battles. It's pretty interesting to read about, but I can't be bothered to actually try these strategies myself.

 

[Fields Of Rye]

Back for another "tales from the porn genre" and today we've got a good one

This is an old game called "another dimension" and it's the CREEPIEST SHIT I've ever seen. For starters, it's development started in like, 2006 and it 3d from the side, which means this was from someone with proper experience. It was also fully voiced, and given the theme of the game was brutal violence that's not a good thing. If you told me the audio was recorded at gunpoint I would fully believe you.

the only proof this game even exists is my memory, a 240p video, and various forums being like "yo is this shit real". It's shit you'd expect to find on the deep web. Anyone who genuinely enjoyed this game needs to be shot and killed.

But anyway onto the math.

yes you heard me right.

The game made you do math.

Not normal math, but EXTREMELY DIFFICULT PHD level mathematics. And if you get it wrong your character was killed. As in, "starved to death at the bottom of a pit". Or "dissolved feet first in weak acid over a period of weeks".

I wish I could get a fucking screen shot of it but I'm not downloading this cursed shit and I can't find the thread where I read about it.

People even apparently went to their fucking university professors and finally one guy got the answers. Of course by then people had figured out how to access the debug mode and skip it, but still.

Shits weird.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

Back for another "tales from the porn genre" and today we've got a good one

This is an old game called "another dimension" and it's the CREEPIEST SHIT I've ever seen. For starters, it's development started in like, 2006 and it 3d from the side, which means this was from someone with proper experience. It was also fully voiced, and given the theme of the game was brutal violence that's not a good thing. If you told me the audio was recorded at gunpoint I would fully believe you.

the only proof this game even exists is my memory, a 240p video, and various forums being like "yo is this shit real". It's shit you'd expect to find on the deep web. Anyone who genuinely enjoyed this game needs to be shot and killed.

But anyway onto the math.

yes you heard me right.

The game made you do math.

Not normal math, but EXTREMELY DIFFICULT PHD level mathematics. And if you get it wrong your character was killed. As in, "starved to death at the bottom of a pit". Or "dissolved feet first in weak acid over a period of weeks".

I wish I could get a fucking screen shot of it but I'm not downloading this cursed shit and I can't find the thread where I read about it.

People even apparently went to their fucking university professors and finally one guy got the answers. Of course by then people had figured out how to access the debug mode and skip it, but still.

Shits weird.

fuckin sauce. for the love of god, SAUCE.

 

[Furret]

Back for another "tales from the porn genre" and today we've got a good one

This is an old game called "another dimension" and it's the CREEPIEST SHIT I've ever seen. For starters, it's development started in like, 2006 and it 3d from the side, which means this was from someone with proper experience. It was also fully voiced, and given the theme of the game was brutal violence that's not a good thing. If you told me the audio was recorded at gunpoint I would fully believe you.

the only proof this game even exists is my memory, a 240p video, and various forums being like "yo is this shit real". It's shit you'd expect to find on the deep web. Anyone who genuinely enjoyed this game needs to be shot and killed.

But anyway onto the math.

yes you heard me right.

The game made you do math.

Not normal math, but EXTREMELY DIFFICULT PHD level mathematics. And if you get it wrong your character was killed. As in, "starved to death at the bottom of a pit". Or "dissolved feet first in weak acid over a period of weeks".

I wish I could get a fucking screen shot of it but I'm not downloading this cursed shit and I can't find the thread where I read about it.

People even apparently went to their fucking university professors and finally one guy got the answers. Of course by then people had figured out how to access the debug mode and skip it, but still.

Shits weird.

You're telling me this is a porn game? What the fuck happens in the porn segments if this is the plot? Do I wanna know?

 

[IamSpechal]

While I loved Far Cry 5, I hated how the game seemed to be deathly afraid of you getting bored. You can't go half a mile without getting in a drive-by shootout with Peggies.

Also, tying the resistance points to scripted story progression made it go by way too quickly.

The worldbuilding was excellent, Ubisoft, but that game needs to be patched with a hefty dose of Adderall.

I hated all the endings of that game. But that's not game design I guess.

 

[ArthuriusMartyrius]

Batman: Arkham Origins had some truly horrendous game design when it came to doing challenges. A lot of the descriptions were really vague, so there might be one challenge that says that you need to complete a stealth segment without being detected but what it doesn't tell you is that it can only be completed via main-story-related stealth segments i.e. side missions and free roam don't count for some fucking reason. Additionally, some of the challenges are literally impossible to complete outside of certain story missions and several of those need to be completed to unlock upgrades, so if you rush through those missions without completing the challenges, you are shit out of luck because those upgrades are now permanently locked.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Not the EA releases, the older one. It had an AI that made trying to play single player or small-group-of-friends extremely taxing, because the AI was dumber than a bag of hammers.

This is the game I didn't just rage-quit, but rage-uninstalled, because during a mission where I was playing as Republic vs Droids, I was lining up a shot with an EMP gun on a destroyer droid. Out of fucking nowhere a clone trooper charges in and THROWS HIMSELF INTO MY LINE OF FIRE. At point blank range. As I pull the trigger.

The explosion kills both of us, leaving me to stare, open mouthed, at the screen for a minute. Then I quietly quit out, and uninstall, and I've never played it again.

Holy fuck, was I pissed off.

 

[Fields Of Rye]

fuckin sauce. for the love of god, SAUCE.

The game is called "Another Dimension". As far as I know the only forum left up is the Unregistered line forums. Feel free to download it if you can find it. Back when I heard about it, it was on Mega Upload. Fucking weirdo. Just go watch the resident evil death scenes or something.

You're telling me this is a porn game? What the fuck happens in the porn segments if this is the plot? Do I wanna know?

The Plot: Basically the warp in Warhammer 40k IIRC. Beneath a thin veil of reality lies horrific torture. Apparently there's even somewhat friendly NPCS later on where its basically revealed they don't really "get" its torture. And the only "good ending" of the game has you being an assistant to one of them who feels sorry and sends you back.

Porn is a generous term. It's gore. Fall in spider web. Get diddled by spider? No, Get eaten by spider. Slowly. Fully voiced.

 

[Furret]

Porn is a generous term. It's gore. Fall in spider web. Get diddled by spider? No, Get eaten by spider. Slowly. Fully voiced.

Jesus, I hope the voice actors got paid hefty sums of money for that.

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

I hated all the endings of that game. But that's not game design I guess.

I already know the endings, but I did the one where you walk away for the fuck of it the other day and what the fuck was that.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

Back for another "tales from the porn genre" and today we've got a good one

This is an old game called "another dimension" and it's the CREEPIEST SHIT I've ever seen. For starters, it's development started in like, 2006 and it 3d from the side, which means this was from someone with proper experience. It was also fully voiced, and given the theme of the game was brutal violence that's not a good thing. If you told me the audio was recorded at gunpoint I would fully believe you.

the only proof this game even exists is my memory, a 240p video, and various forums being like "yo is this shit real". It's shit you'd expect to find on the deep web. Anyone who genuinely enjoyed this game needs to be shot and killed.

But anyway onto the math.

yes you heard me right.

The game made you do math.

Not normal math, but EXTREMELY DIFFICULT PHD level mathematics. And if you get it wrong your character was killed. As in, "starved to death at the bottom of a pit". Or "dissolved feet first in weak acid over a period of weeks".

I wish I could get a fucking screen shot of it but I'm not downloading this cursed shit and I can't find the thread where I read about it.

People even apparently went to their fucking university professors and finally one guy got the answers. Of course by then people had figured out how to access the debug mode and skip it, but still.

Shits weird.

I think I found a clip of it. I watched all the deaths on a compilation. Brutal and twisted. Deviant.

(no spoilers needed for this clip - this one death is clean. The VLC conversion eliminated her little body, probably a good thing. We get a few upskirts w/o panties)

Headphone Warning: Little Girl piercing scream. I fucking hate that sound. I won't play this for that reason alone.

edited: removed file. might have been fuxxored

 

[Furret]

I think I found a clip of it. I watched all the deaths on a compilation.
(no spoilers needed - this one death is clean.)
View attachment 1856255

It's possible that my computer is just having a stroke right now, but the clip isn't working for me. It's just 8 seconds of silence with one second of music at the end. No visuals at all.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

It's possible that my computer is just having a stroke right now, but the clip isn't working for me. It's just 8 seconds of silence with one second of music at the end. No visuals at all.

I may have been editing it at the time. Should be a platformer background - 2D with a girl scream, text on screen at the bottom and a short piano arpeggio.

Here is the link:

Spoiler: Warning: Not Safe For Life - Xvideos.com link

https://www.xvideos.com/video11267051/another_dimension_all_deaths

 

[Furret]

I may have been editing it at the time. Should be a platformer background - 2D with a girl scream, text on screen at the bottom and a short piano arpeggio.

Here is the link:

Spoiler: Warning: Not Safe For Life - Xvideos.com link

https://www.xvideos.com/video11267051/another_dimension_all_deaths

I've refreshed the page a few times and it still doesn't work. Might just be an issue for me though.

Also, that's not as awful as I thought it would be, but it's still pretty bad. Who made this?