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Thinking about Unlockables in game design.

Lately, unlockables have been avoided since locking content/settings behind unlockables restricts what players have access to when they start a game. Players should have the freedom to play the game how they want right? Imagine how shitty a player would feel if they don't get to play that cool character they saw in the video. What do you mean I can't play this mode until complete all these challenges? I want to do it now!!!

I understand the sentiment, but unlockables do something extremely well that a lot of other mechanics can't. "Encouragement".

It's hard to think of a greater reward than "more content". Unlockables give the player just that. It's a strong motivator to play more of the game if you know you'll get some more stuff to play with.

They give a strong sense of progression. Even if the singleplayer experience is a little weak, making it so you earn new stuff as you go can add so much to it.

Plus, unlockables encourages players engage with the depth a game has instead of just reaching the credits and putting it down.

My favorite example of this is probably Kirby Air Ride. If you know about that game, you have probably heard people sing high praises about the City Trial mode, but that's not the part I'm talking about here.

Kirby Air Ride has a racing mode called... "Air Ride". It's the first thing selected on the menu screen. You open it up, start playing, and you'll see just 8 tracks to select. After selecting a track, you are given 1 vehicle to select before you start the race.

It's the most barebones experience ever. Your options are egregiously limited. Worst of all, Air Ride isn't even that good! The controls are super simple, the copy abilities barely do anything to racers, and while you can unlock more vehicles, they're super unbalanced!

Yeah, Air Ride is an unbalanced and lame mess at first. After playing one race, you almost certainly unlocked SOMETHING. You're brought to a challenge board that shows off which challenges you completed. Some challenges unlock things like new vehicles, kirby colors, settings, and more!

You try out whatever new thing you unlocked and WABAM! You have cometed more challenges! Even though Air Ride is a lame mode with little content, a player can easily get intrigued by all of these challenges. What else do they unlock?

So lets say you start doing these challenges on purpose now. There's a lot of variety there. Some are time trials, some make you perform specific tricks with copy abilities, some ask you to use specific vehicles.

Some force yoy to learn a ton of things about a track like, "Use every boost pad in a lap!". Now you have to explore the track to make sure you hit them all.

These challenge make the player engage with the mechanics and reveals a TON of depth without any of it being a tutorial. Through these challenges you learn copy abilities can give you big boosts of speed when used right, you learn the the many different routes you can take in a track, you learn how to go as fast as possible with each vehicle, you learn the strengths and weaknesses of them all.

In the meantime, you keep unlocking more things. The game opens up more and more to you. That initial roster of a single vehicle balloons to 15 and now you know the intricacies of each one. You learn the nuance of every track. Suddenly, there's all this depth that the player would have likely never appreciated if the game just gave them all the settings at the start.

Nothing makes a player "get gud" faster than unlockables. Old fighting games would hide extra stuff behind unlockables and it forced you to get better at the game just so you can mess with that content. It's a genius way to make a player learn and engage with a game.....

Now, I understand the drawback. The freedom is restricted for this to work. Multiplayer games would get shunned to hell for hiding content behind unlockables. I believe in a multiplayer experience, players should have access to whatever they want, but when they go into singleplayer unlockables should absolutely be utilized.

and when I say unlockables I don't mean collectibles or stat buffs or items or whatever. I mean actual parts of the game you just don't have access to until you unlock it. I think it's cool I want to see more modern games do it.

Y'know, most of the shit that gets locked behind microtransactions would have been super cool as just unlockables. Shame.

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Straight up, you hate a character because they debuted in a bad game, that’s a trash take. Yes, this is about Ingrid. Even after getting more clear answers as to why, I am just more confused. If SF6’s handling of Ed, Luke, and A.K.I, FANG’s successor are anything to go by, I know for sure she’s gonna get new fans. I think she’s kinda cool after seeing what she has in store in the future after looking at her debut and gameplay in an older title.

Edit, because I didn’t know if I wanted to go there, but screw it, I’m going there: I’m convinced that with how flimsy the weak reasonings for people hating on Ingrid is purely typical fandom misogyny.

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Was at my sibling's place today so I got to play on their Xbox (they have a 360 so I can play SFxT).

Check out the colours I made:

INGRIIIIIDD! i don't play lili tho so i can't use it...

I can play Kuma quite well, though, so I made this funny colour (and two normal ones, just a black bear and a blond one)

I just thought their hair looked similar tbh

I didn't actually save this one, I just liked the phrase "smurfing cunt" honestly.

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INGRIIIIIDDDDD!!!

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Figured it out, I needed to uninstall the app, register on browser and then reinstall and log in.

I have a Discord now yay

Tried to set up a Discord so I could actually discuss things with people (DA messenger is terrible, hardly anyone who wants to talk has Tumblr), but the app is so buggy I can't even register an account -_-

so idk what to do lol

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Play Darkstalkers.

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Tried to set up a Discord so I could actually discuss things with people (DA messenger is terrible, hardly anyone who wants to talk has Tumblr), but the app is so buggy I can't even register an account -_-

so idk what to do lol

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Saw another cat.

This one was very chill, didn't meow or run away or anything. Big lad, too; really thick tail and grumpy-looking face.

Cat I saw on my walk home from the library:

They were posing on the sidewalk and when I tried to pet them they politely jogged away.

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spin this wheel of all the pokemon. you now have to fight this pokemon. just you and it, bare-knuckle

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finally settled on how i'm gonna draw him for the rework, more sprites probably coming soon :—)

Been considering revisiting an old project I started before I got a Tumblr (or any social media) – a pocket Darun Mister from Street Fighter EX:

Compared to some of the other stuff I made at this time, these older Darun sprites are actually quite good! I still think they need some reworking (mainly I want to redo the belt), and I never even finished the spritesheet back then...

Posted this on my DA, too...

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Play Killer Instinct.

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Yaaay! Tux has a full idle animation!

I don't know about you, but I think I'm getting better.

Now all I need for a full Tux character is moveset plan, and literally every other animation.

Let's be honest, I'm not giving the guy voice acting.

(I know this is misleading, but this post is not a MUGEN character announcement. But I'm doing pixel art again! Yayyy!)

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lost my >170 win streak in solitaire 😔

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let's break into houses with mama

Orange breaking into a home

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Fanhua - #ZanEvolutionButouden

I was gonna save this for the gallery mode ingame, but I'll spoil this once... Hope you enjoy a good taste of Fanhua!

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Y'all know that I'm an SNK stan. But there's another game that I will champion is Killer Instinct. KI is very underrated and doesn't get talked about as much. PLAY KI.

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Haunter.