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Thursday 18 January, 2007
So I've been taking my time going through the game trying to see if there's some deeper hidden meaning in the placement of everything, and I've come to a conclusion, playing the game like that is ridiculous. Playing through normally it's just as easy to spot why certain things are placed where they are. For example, power-ups like mushrooms and the sort are placed pretty much exactly where you'll need them, or if you get them and it doesn't seem like there's a use for them right there, there really is a use for them right there and you just need to find it.
Like specifically in the first mini castle in world 1 if you make it through the entire castle without being hit you'll ultimately be rewarded with a leaf granting you your raccoon tail and the ability to fly. But why would you need the ability to fly in a castle? Well if you happen to realize there is only one suitable area to take off from, and fly along the wall right there, you enter one of the first if not the first secret areas, and you receive one of the whistles for your effort.
Looking at it from the eye of developer made me think of all the thought that had to go into adding things like that to game. You don't want to put signs blatantly pointing to secret areas, but you need to give some sort of idea that this area exists otherwise people will never find it. Along those same lines you can't make areas too difficult that a person will give up on playing the game. Balance is a rather difficult thing to account for, and I hadn't really thought about how much background work must go into balance to make games as fun and enjoyable as they are.
On a side note, this game always makes me think of that movie, The Wizard where the kid is really good and video games, specifically SMB3.
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