Re: [GD-Design] Speed kills

[Brian H. <ho...@py...>]

Hakan,

> My result is changing the speed will not make a game harder or
> easier most of the time(Maybe in a few games it can make).

But that's not what your post was really saying.  

You're arguing that games can be improved in other areas to make them 
more challenging, which I agree with.  You also assert that even 
action games have strategic elements to them which matter as much as 
reflexes, which I also agree with.

But you didn't address my fundamental point, which is that when 
reflexes do matter, controlling the game's overall speed can have a 
drastic effect on difficulty.

If you have five seconds to aim and fire, you will almost always be 
more successful than if you have 0.2 seconds.  If you can run towards 
the edge of a platform but it feels like you're walking, the odds of 
missing that jump are greatly reduced.  If you can see that barrier on 
the race track with 3 seconds to react instead of 0.3, you will almost 
definitely avoid it.  If an enemy's punch takes 3 seconds to land 
instead of 0.1 seconds, you should definitely block or dodge it.

Obviously these situations are not the ONLY factors, but speed is a 
fundamental control on the difficulty of play in games, and yet it's 
widely ignored except as the occasional powerup.

Brian