GMTK Mini - What's The Point Of Hard Games, Anyway?
Added 2025-09-16 15:00:13 +0000 UTCHey all! I'm hard at work on the first new episode of GMTK since my break. But I took a day to make this Mini video so I could join the game design discourse on Hollow Knight: Silksong.
I wanted to look at why the game uses a higher level of difficulty, and the different ways its implemented. Hopefully a good conversation starter!
Chat soon
Mar
Comments
"The economy forces you to make choices." One of the developers said so and i disagree. This isnt an RTS where you must choose between investing on one thing or another and the competition or time pressure will mean that you wont have time to gather resources to purchase everything. It is also not a game where resources are mutually exclusive (you can use the map, the benches, the fast travel without sacrificing one of the others). Its not a design choice that makes you choose. Its a system that promotes frustating grinding. Patch 1 introduced changes to the economy so im glad they recognize they overdid it. Hopefully they will tune it even more in future patches
Fran
2025-10-02 19:12:56 +0000 UTCSome pointers here, while i'm still going through Silksong myself (currently in Act 2): - You actually DO lose half your silk on death; it just works a bit differently from HK. This time, you 'only' lose the expansions on your silk spool, which means you'll always be back at base level until you've done the corpse run. It's a thing I didn't really start noticing until Act 2, when I had found a good amount of silk expansions already. - The game offers you some more ways to recover your corpse and resources. You can find these 'items' that let you recover everything remotely without having to retrieve it. Of course these items are rare, but they are there for you in a pinch if you lost a particularly large amount of resources in a really tough and/or far away area. It's another reward for exploration. Additionally, you can obtain a charm that retains a certain amount of rosaries upon death. - I would love to see an in-depth look into boss runbacks, because that's been a big point of debate as well with this game, especially in light of so many soulslikes now largely forgoing runbacks over save points right in front of the boss room (including Elden Ring). Some people argue that the runback can serve as a point of contemplation and resetting your brain, instead of banging your head against the wall continuously. It's a bit similar in that sense to farming resources in between attempts. Then there is also the argument that particularly engaging runbacks will sharpen your skills on the way to the boss. This is certainly true for the Last Judge runback, one of the most notorious ones so far. Speaking of that Last Judge runback: you used footage of that while talking about it's frustrating aspects. I'd argue that the runback can be considered part of the fight itself, particularly in this instance where it ties into the world building too. Like the boss fight itself, you can also improve your skills with the runback. I fairly quickly discovered a fast and consistent runback route that effectively avoids any enemy encounters on the way and it takes 30 seconds flat. By that point it truly wasn't a point of frustration for me anymore, but indeed a way for me to get in the right headspace and rhythm for the fight itself. Now apparently, there are runbacks later on in the game that are truly BS from what I've heard, because those include forced fights against groups of enemies each time. That does sound like them taking it a step too far. - Another big point of debate indeed comes from the tight economy and how everything costs money. I personally love how tight it is, because it forces you to make choices. It even ties into the game's lore, which I appreciate a lot. Same goes for what resources you find in which areas. They really made sure that it all makes sense within the logic of the world, over accessibility. It's risky, but I think it works. It has the add-on effect of you getting even more familiar with the world itself. Now I can imagine it really sucks if you die a lot and can't retrieve your corpse very well, thereby losing rosaries constantly. Thankfully, stringing the rosaries is a great way to bank resources and I now use that all the time. - Touch damage. Another point of frustration for many. Many boss fights become simply more difficult because even just touching them causes damage. It's a very 'old skool' approach that can become really troublesome in particularly chaotic fights. The Savage Beastfly and Sister Splinter both come to mind here. Now I personally wouldn't mind so much if touch damage didn't also always cause two points of damage. That does feel overtuned to me and is the one thing I'd like to see them tweak. - The game could really benefit from an 'easy' mode though. Nine Sols introduced one down the line as well. Exactly for the reasons you described: there is so much more to this game than tough combat and platforming and it would be a huge bummer if a large section of players wont be able to experience all that. Originally Silksong was meant to be the final DLC for HK and surprisingly, it still seems tuned that way in terms of challenge. I had honestly expected them to have tuned it down now that it's a standalone game. Even in terms of story it's perfectly fine if you skip HK and go straight to this, but the current challenge level does sort of expect you to have gotten one of the better endings for HK and played most of it's DLCs
SpectR0nn
2025-09-17 07:42:43 +0000 UTCThe thing I loved about Hollow Knight is exactly what you describe here... I was forced to try different combinations of charms, or just go explore and grind a bit more, or just plain take some time to get good, when I encountered a boss I couldn't beat. And that feeling of accomplishment when I hit the right combination that worked, combined with the feeling of my reflexes actually improving, is what kept me coming back for more.
Sean Corbett
2025-09-16 20:41:04 +0000 UTC
