Let me start by saying that ambient challenges aren’t going anywhere. Whether they’re used as game-length padding (Fable 3), to add to the tone of the game (Red Dead Redemption, Saints Row2), or to annoy the hell out of gamers everywhere (Gear of War, Soul Caliber IV), they’re here to stay. And that’s fine with me; well-implemented ambients can add another layer of depth and challenge to the game for the player that wants it, while not getting in the way of players who just want to make it through the main game/story. The problem is when ambients are poorly implemented.
Let’s start with Red Dead Redemption. On top of a top-notch main story, Redemption offers a diverse lineup of ambients. You can go treasure hunting, following vague to very vague treasure maps to bars of gold. You can go hunting, sharpshooting, flower picking. You can go bounty hunting. You can break horses, work as a night watchman, search for new outfits that give you various benefits. And all of this is pointed out to you. Pull up the menu screen and there’s a listing under Challenges. Pull up your map and it points you toward wanted posters, jobs, good hunting areas. There’s no hand holding; even if you know where the cougars are, you still have to kill them with your knife to complete one challenge. The rewards are great: money, fame, unlocked abilities.
On the other hand, Fable 3, a short game to be sure, is padded with two extensive ambient quests: Find (and shoot) 50 gnomes and find 30 books. Both challenges have their problems. The hunting of the gnomes is aided by a counter on the map screen that tells you how many gnomes are in any given location and how many in that location you have found. Because of this, I enjoyed the gnome quest. It was still a challenge (knowing which needle the haystack is in saves you time, surely, but you still have to go through the straw), but I never felt like I was wasting my time on it. The books, on the other hand, are another story (that’s a joke about books). For 25 of the 30 books, you’re given no direction. Nothing. When I finally gave up and went to the Internet, I found that I had walked right by most of them. But, because I was walking a foot to the right instead of a foot to the left, my avatar (I believe his name was Steve) had no idea a book was there. Granted your dog will sometimes point a book out to if, if he isn’t busy fighting/running around/barking at treasure/being hung up on a corner, but for the most part, you walk right past them.
Fable 3’s books commit the double mistake of a) not offering the player a way to narrow down the search and b) not offering a reward for finding them. The gnomes challenge also offers no reward beyond a completed quest, some seals, and some gamer score points. And that’s for, let’s say, 3-5 hours of game time per quest, depending on how Internet happy you get. Even Fallout 3’s bobble heads offered substantial stat bonuses in return. The quests aren’t bad ideas though, they’re just poorly implemented. Some sort of reward system would have made me feel like Lionshead valued my time as much as I do, as would a helpful way of narrowing the search down.
Bad ambient can even sometimes spoil a game. Soul Caliber II is my favorite Soul Caliber game, largely due to its extensive Quest Mode, that has you criss-crossing a map, engaging in different challenges (Don’t block in this battle! Use your mind to press the buttons! Blindfold!) for money and new weapons. But I stopped playing Soul Caliber IV after a few hours, largely due to its Tower of Souls mode, which has you climbing a tower and completing challenges for new pieces of equipment (armor, swords, hats). The difference is that the game doesn’t tell you what the challenges are. Instead, you’re given vague clues (Guard! Look to the stars! Embrace the abyss!). Here, there is reward, but no direction. You’re just told that there are things to unlock, and everything is unlocked differently. That’s no way to run an ambient challenge.
Of course, I can just run to the Internet to find out how to unlock new hats or find gnomes or dog tags. But I shouldn’t have to; that’s poor game design. It’s great that it’s an option (an option I used toward the later end of Redemption’s Treasure Hunt challenges), but it shouldn’t be a necessity, as it is with Soul Caliber IV and Fable 3. Video games, more than any other form of media, can be an immersive experience, but going to the Internet to hunt down a list that tells you where meaningless trinket #37 is takes you out of that experience.
Ambient challenges aren’t going anywhere. And I’m fine with that. But they need to be implemented in a way that respect’s the gamers and respects game design. A good ambient challenge should be a challenge and should have some sort of reward, beyond gamer score points. The gamer should be made aware of the challenge at some point throughout the game in a clear and concise way (this can be highlighted in the story or pointed at in the Achievement list or a separate challenge list). And the challenge shouldn’t require the Internet; it should be doable, in game, without send you on wild goose chases.
This isn’t a definitive list of requirements; some of Halo 3’s skulls were hard to find and Braid’s hidden stars are ridiculous in their hiding places, but then, they offered rewards. But these are things that designers need to consider when designing ambient challenges.
And please, don’t use them to pad game length. If your game isn’t good to begin with, having to find 50 gnomes/books/bananas isn’t going to help.
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