QuakeCon: Day 3 (Saturday)

07/23/14

The final real day of quakecon. I played League of Legends, Counter-Strike, and Super Meat Boy. The event of the day was some end-of-tournament matchups featuring Bawls chugging, Quake 1v1, and Quake CTF (capture the flag).

I was overloaded this day. I was recovering from the previous day, and the constant noise and people drained what little energy for people remained in my introvert self. I absconded from the event and focused on single-player Super Meat Boy until it was time to pack up.

Super Meat Boy is a lot of fun. People say it's hard, but it's designed such that death is not much of a punishment. Levels are short, how you died is usually crystal-clear, and the level restarts under a second after dying. So, it's hard without it really punishing you for failure, and so it's hard but not frustrating. Also, the levels usually have multiple pathways to success, so you're encouraged to try alternative means and change up your strategy. Further, all the worlds of a world are available to you at once, so you can skip a hard level and come back to it later. Lots of good design decisions in the game, overall.

Some aspects of this game's designs really tug at the obsessive-compulsive me that I try hard to fight back. For example, it grades how fast you beat a level (either you got an "A+" or you got NOTHING!). The first time I played this game, I played each level over and over until I got the A+ score.

And then it got worse, because getting an A+ score unlocks the "Dark World" version of a level. And you can get an A+ on those levels, too (though, I assume on those levels it's just for bragging rights).

Quite predictably, I burned out on Super Meat Boy very early on because of my approach to playing it at the time. This time, at QuakeCon, I had a better strategy. A level I beat is done for now, and I move on to the other levels. I can come back and unlock bonus content after I beat the game proper.

This philosophy led to a lot more fun. Though, I don't always practice it perfectly.

I don't feel I have much to say about the other games I played. Overall, I remember this day for the Super Meat Boy playtimes.