
The story of the hardest platform game ever - archivator
http://www.pwnee.com/storyofapwnee/
======
icefox
A few years ago there was a mario competition to generate levels. When the
contest was over I downloaded the entries and tried out some of them. Quickly
I found that while they had successfully generated a lot of levels the levels
were not very fun.

A few years ago I started playing a lot of mario style platformers writing
down notes including what I found "fun" (for the day I would get around to
making my own platformer).

[http://benjamin-meyer.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-makes-fun-
ma...](http://benjamin-meyer.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-makes-fun-mario-
level.html)

Skip down to the "What is fun" section and you will find the first two items
pretty much say when you die it is not fun. Skill level doesn't necessarily
equal fun in a platformer game. That block that almost kills you and scared
you? Turnes out it was scripted and there was no way you could have died no
matter what your skill level was.

There are a handful of platformers on Linux and they all have the problem of
being too hard. The games in the first few levels are so hard that the player
quits before they can explore what the engine can even do or find the "fun" in
the game.

Maybe difficulty is simply the easiest nob to twist when designing platforms
which is why so many first time platform developer turn that first, but I
would have to think that the fun found in a platformer is not from the
difficulty, but in other aspects. No one would dare say that Mario 2 (japan
version) is better than Mario3 because it was more difficult.

~~~
city41
I have to disagree. I think making a hard game that is still fun is very
challenging. But when you accomplish it, it's an even better platformer than
the not-so-hard one. Take Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii) and Rayman Origins
(Wii/360/PS3). Both are very hard, especially DKCR. But they are very hard in
fair, legitimate and satisfying ways. Beating the later levels in DKCR takes a
bit of dedication, but is oh so satisfying when you get in the zone and find
that beautiful path through the level.

Also see Super Meat Boy. It's basically a hard as nails platformer where you
can and will die hundreds if not thousands of times trying to beat it. It's
another great example of very hard (it's way harder than both RO and DKCR),
but still fair, fluid, and "zen-like".

I don't think any automatically generated levels could ever reach the level of
flow that the games I mentioned have, though.

~~~
TheEzEzz
(pwnee programmer here)

Hard and fun are completely different things, I agree. I spent about 3 months
on the basic algorithm, making sure the levels generated were feasible and
interesting. The remaining 3 years have been spent making the game fun. The
real trick is tailoring the difficulty to suit the level of the player. When
you nail this correctly it leads to a very satisfying experience (and the
algorithm does have a sense of 'flow' when it designs level, although I can
understand that's hard to believe without playing the game)

------
Thoreandan
Seriously? "Ha ha ha fat chicks! Ha ha, theorem proved, bitches!" [image of
him doggy-style dry-humping a woman he assures you in the comments 'he has no
idea who that girl is'] ...The subject is honestly interesting, I'd like to
see the game-dev work he did, but this guy has a huge problem throwing sex
into it. Way to make women hackers feel welcome there, "bro".

~~~
jrockway
To be fair, this makes male hackers feel unwelcome too. I opened the page,
thought "I'm not being caught with _this_ open at work", and came here to
deride the author. That's nice work, Lou...

~~~
llimllib
I felt uncomfortable with it as a male hacker as well, though the story is
actually interesting.

Either he's actually naïve enough not to know that he's being offensive or
he's devious enough to be using it as troll bait.

~~~
jrockway
What's the advantage of trolling in this form? All he's achieved are a few
one-liner comments saying he's an idiot.

Victory?

~~~
llimllib
"all publicity is good publicity".

Piss people off == more visits == more sales?

~~~
kennywinker
piss people off == less links == less visits == less sales. clearly their is a
fine line, but I think the best link baiters lead with a premise that is
outrageous, and content that is pretty agreeable.

------
54mf
The author appears to have the maturity of a high school sophomore, but wow
does that game frighten me, in a Super Meat Boy way. Forget Microsoft, do a
Kickstarter to raise funds to hire a real artist and build some kind of story
around the game, then publish it for PC and Mac (on Steam if you can - good
luck with that meeting). If you're successful there, the publishers will come
calling.

The game mechanic is clearly there, but it needs a story and style. Again,
Super Meat Boy has the "ungodly hard" thing down, but without the distinctive
art direction and slightly disturbing story, would it have been as big of a
success? I suspect not.

~~~
psykotic
> Super Meat Boy has the "ungodly hard" thing down

SMB is very playable and does a lot to mitigate its difficulty. You can find
much harder platformers out there. An example is IWBTG
(<http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/>) whose creator also designed some of the
bonus levels for SMB.

~~~
joshu
I was totally expecting this article to be about IWBTG.

The thing about Super Meat Boy is that it's JUST A BIT harder than you can do
normally, but just a bit easier than you can deal with at your very best. So
it makes you want to win.

~~~
54mf
"So it makes you want to win."

YES. Mega Man 9 is another great example of this. Both games get incredibly
difficult, but only so difficult that one's inability to complete a level is
_their own fault_ , not the result of any "unfairness" on the part of the
level designers. It's too hard, then you get better, then you win. That's how
you make a great game, and SMB does it to a T.

~~~
joshu
It also makes me throw controllers across the room.

------
TheEzEzz
Hi all, pwnee programmer here. Thanks for all the support! I'm headed out to
our meeting with MS in about an hour.

I'd like to quickly add: I'm good friends with all the people in the pictures
(except the monkey). The humor was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and I
apologize if it came off as offensive. My 'wife' in the story is actually a
great guy I met in Thailand. I don't believe he would be offended by the
caption.

~~~
danso
Just want to point out that your perception of what is offensive is going to
be strongly skewed from the perspective of everyone else. That's just human
psychology and relative experience; because you're the originator of all the
humor and jokes, you know exactly where the wit stems from. Anyone who is not
you (or a close friend of yours) does not, and no matter how much you say "It
wasn't meant to be offensive, people who know me know it's my sense of humor,"
that's not a sentiment that strangers can judge. So they're likely to go with
their gut and have a negative first impression. Simple as that.

People on HN are most likely more tolerant/forgiving of this as long as the
hacking is good. I doubt that suits at Microsoft or any other corpopration
will be. There's just not much point in risking offending someone who has the
ability to ax a deal when the humor in question -- from the average outsider's
perspective -- adds absolutely nothing to the enjoyment of the explanation.

~~~
a3camero
I think I'm in that "more tolerant" crowd, but the pictures made me stop
reading pretty quickly. Just doesn't look like something I'll be interested in
even if the content is good.

~~~
balloot
Exactly my experience.

------
mootothemax
An interesting story sadly ruined by the profanity and sexist photos. Best of
luck, although I must admit that were I an investor, I'd want a signed
guarantee that there wouldn't be any hidden easter eggs along these kinds of
lines ;-)

------
glhaynes
Might be a good game underneath all that but the article made me say "yuck".
As a general rule, thin young guys don't look better when they comment on "big
girls".

~~~
TheEzEzz
It's actually a big man.

------
alexholehouse
I've never smiled so much at a game demo - the final video looks insane and so
much fun! I really like the various co-ops modes you're throwing into the mix.

Looks awesome - best of luck.

~~~
yread
Seriously, I thought meh just a hard platform game until I saw the bungee coop

------
mcfunley
Rape jokes at the top of the site for the crap you're trying to sell. You come
across as a thoroughly repellent person who deserves to fail miserably.

------
Tichy
Yeah - I thought we had agreed that we don't want to see that kind of jokes in
presentations anymore.

------
RandallBrown
The whole time I was reading it I just wanted him to stop talking and take my
money. He should release it on Xbox Live no matter what microsoft says. (I
think anyone can do it now right?)

~~~
54mf
Yes, through the Xbox Live Indie Games program (they might have renamed it
recently). Problem is, he wouldn't get the promotional backing that a "real"
game gets, both from MS and from a publisher. Those games hardly get any
attention, and good games often languish amongst 2-hour tech demos and
ridiculous Minecraft ripoffs.

~~~
RandallBrown
true, and hopefully microsoft comes through for him. But if it doesn't, he
should go the indie program and steam route. Put up a post on reddit, and make
his millions (thousands?).

That'll get their attention.

------
TylerE
Can we get a semi NSFW tag on this? It's a bit...edgy.

~~~
RandallBrown
I'm really glad I don't work somewhere that this wouldn't be completely safe.

~~~
TylerE
Well, I mean, there's an above the fold pic of a guy simulating sodomy, and
lots of F-bombs. Some of us don't work for startups, or even, _gasp_ , in
places with an HR department with no sense of humor and a sexual harassment
policy.

~~~
tomjen3
You work at a place where the word fuck on a website means it is not safe for
work?

~~~
TylerE
In a place where I wouldn't want my boss's boss to see me reading a site with
the word in 60pt type, yes.

~~~
jrockway
The higher up someone is in a company, the less offended they tend to be by
"fuck". We've all heard the word before. They even say it on TV now.

(At my last job, people were always worried I would get into trouble with my
"open source, fuck yeah" laptop sticker. But nobody actually cares.)

~~~
TylerE
Welcome to the bible belt.

------
fridek
Great story and the game is looking good. Do you plan to release your
algorithm (as a code or paper)? I wonder how much does it take to check if a
level is beatable.

~~~
archivator
I'm not the author, actually. I just ended up with that page as one of my tabs
and I'm embarrassed to say that I've no idea how I ended up there :/

Supposedly the AI would have extra knowledge from the level-building stage, so
the search space would be smaller than playing "normally".

~~~
glhaynes
I've long thought we'd see a web browser appear soon with a menu option to see
how the user got to that tab's location. I'd use that at least once a week.

~~~
esrauch
Isn't that just a back button? I supposed the issue is that opening a new tab
doesn't duplicate the back button history into it, but I think there are
extensions for that.

~~~
glhaynes
Exactly right - yeah, I should look for extensions along those lines, thanks
for the idea.

------
georgemcbay
His brilliant idea for infinite platformer levels came in 2009.. 3 years after
Notch released an infinite Mario Bros level generator as public domain and
numerous competitions had already sprung up around the idea.

Also the video shows elements that are way too close to existing Nintendo
properties for my liking and probably the liking of MS or Valve's lawyers. I
mean, taking ideas from other games is fine, by why are your fireball sticks
fireball sticks? I can't think of anything other than Super Mario Bros. when I
see that.

You can pay homage without ripping off (see, for example, what Jon Blow did
with Braid while also creating an actually unique game idea, in his own time,
without funding and without coming off an 8th grade misogynist in his pre-
release blog posts).

~~~
TheEzEzz
The fire spinners have been in the game for 3 years, and we've debated them
for 3 years. I can see both sides. They're clearly a direct homage to Mario,
but it's just one small piece of our game, and the overall package is really
nothing like Mario at all.

There have been a few procedural platformers over the years, which is awesome.
We're not the first to scene. But I believe we are the first to offer provably
possible levels that can scale to any difficulty, both casual and insanely
hardcore.

------
functionform
As a guy who opened this at work, lol. Not sure if he intended it to have a
sexist vibe, I got the impression he was single and poking fun at himself. The
game I will never play because I don't hate myself, but entertaining post for
sure.

------
Vermeulen
Why is it such an all or nothing approach to distribution? Getting on XBLA,
which requires a publisher (I guess he must be meeting with Microsoft Game
Studios then), is extremely unlikely for a indie dev's first game. Value might
be able to look away from the game's lack of polish if the gameplay is really
good, but even then there are indie games with a lot more polish and award
recognition that don't make it on to the service. Even without Steam/XBLA a
good game could still make enough money for a indie dev to make another game

~~~
TheEzEzz
You're right, I was over dramatizing things a bit. It's only getting easier
for small indie studios to get their games out and be successful. This really
is the indie golden era.

------
sakopov
I stopped reading about 3 "fucks" into it. Certainly not the writing style I
would consider reading. Good luck with the project. Looks interesting.

------
flomincucci
I loved the idea. Hope this guy makes it, because I wanna play that!

------
akukurt
im just offended..

there is an asian girl sitting behind me she's probably thought i'm the member
of sodomy club or something.

I just left her behind without any further explanation.

what a sad day to start. :(

------
ap22213
Oh. I was hoping it was going to be about Blaster Master.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_Master>

~~~
efnx
I loved Blaster Master. Though it's only half platformer, and that half didn't
seem to be the hard part...

------
Cyph0n
As 54mf said, it needs more polishing. Kickstarter is a great idea. You'll
surely find scores of hardcore gamers interested in funding a game that suits
their tastes. As long as you satisfy the elite gamers, casual gamers (like me)
will follow suit, just like we did with Super Meat Boy.

What I haven't addressed, 54mf has done already, so all that's left is a "good
luck".

------
NDizzle
It looks like a neat concept. I'd probably throw him a few bucks if he had a
kickstarter project.

~~~
killnine
Agreed on the great concept.

I'm in love with the idea of infinite levels, and playing a level that hasn't
been played. It reminds me of the thrill of watching a minecraft level birth
itself in front of you.

Agreed also, on the kickstarter project. My wallet is ready.

------
jphackworth
I was hoping this would be about Battletoads, which IMO is the hardest
platform game I have ever played. Even on an emulator, with the ability to
freeze frames and save/reload game state, I could not beat Battletoads.

------
SkyMarshal
I thought this was going to be about Contra, but then I watched the videos.
Makes Contra look like Hello Kitty.

------
chaostheory
I'm surprised he didn't go through the minecraft or kickstarter routes. The
game looks good enough now to sell.

------
jknl
Game looks amazing and article was a good read. I'm ready to pay for this if
it gets to PC!

~~~
TheEzEzz
I will gladly take your money, sir/madam! Things sounded pretty solid when we
talked to Valve, so a PC version will definitely be in the works.

------
United857
I still think the Super Mario Brothers Frustration mod deserves the all-time
title.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in6RZzdGki8>

------
knieveltech
Shut up and take my money!

