One occurs when the player attempts to give an input that would ordinarily make the avatar run over a ledge. There are two particularly noticeable moments where an input X shifts some usual output Y to a different output Z instead. Let’s consider two aspects of the gameplay in The Last Guardian, and how we can make sense of them using nudgy controls. In the end we will see that control schemes should not be judged solely on how “tight” the controls are, but rather on how well the control scheme reinforces or even helps establish the narrative of the game. I will also show how the difficulty of directing Trico is the direct result of trying to control a character while there are many nudges taking place.
In this article I explain how we can view the boy’s hesitancy as instances of nudges that are sometimes player hindrances and sometimes player aids. Criticising The Last Guardian for having frustrating controls while praising its narrative does not make sense because the frustrating controls help form and reinforce the narrative of the game. The nudgy behavior is a good thing as opposed to a detractor from the game overall because the behavior establishes and reinforces the overall narrative. However, I think this highly critical review of the game’s controls is misguided, since both the boy’s and Trico’s behavior can actually be explained by nudgy controls, once we add a few new ideas to the model.
It is true that the boy often hesitates in situations that surprise the player, leading to failure, and also that Trico is relatively difficult to control. Many reviewers, such as IGN and Game Informer, have claimed that this game suffers from a clunky control scheme, and that “platforming as the boy is occasionally spotty, but Trico’s inability to consistently follow your commands drags the experience down more than anything else.” The game is about a young boy (to whom I refer as “the boy” and “the avatar”) who wakes up in a mysterious place away from home, and must escape with the help of a giant beast (Trico) whom he tames throughout the course of the story. In this article I consider the case of The Last Guardian, which pushes the idea of a nudge beyond what our current model can explain. For the remainder of the article I will assume the reader is familiar with the previous two articles, so I would suggest reading those first if you have yet to do so. All of these ideas are covered in depth in the previous two articles in the series, and so I do not focus on them here. Player hindrances are instances in which the player’s actions are disrupted, forcing the player to fail where they otherwise likely could have succeeded. Player aids are instances in which the player is assisted in accomplishing tasks that she potentially could not accomplish without assistance. In Part II I defined two different types of nudges: player aids and player hindrances. In the Part I I defined exactly what a nudge is, and discussed a variety of types of games that maintain narrative consistency through a lack of nudges. In the first two parts of Nudgy Controls, I defined an important way that a game’s controls can preserve narrative consistency in a game: through “nudges.” A nudge is an instance of player input X, which usually yields output Y, instead yielding output Z, where Y would potentially undermine narrative consistency and Z maintains narrative consistency. A Comprehensive Theory of Majora’s Mask.There's something haunting about Trico's design, his fur dancing in the dark, his eyes burning bright with strange colours one second, menacing pitch black the next. "I can still hear his heavy breathing, the rumble of his movement somewhere off camera, the fear in his anguish. "This feathered pastiche of mythical beasts gives The Last Guardian a chance of being something special even though its protracted, troubled development means the game really doesn't have any right to be," wrote Wes - months before The Last Guardian was delayed yet again, this time from October to 9th December. Trico has a great heft about him, and issues odd guttural barks. You, as the small boy, are dwarfed by comparison. What's striking about the video is the impact Trico, the giant cat-eagle, has. The recorded demo shows an area that wasn't in The Last Guardian E3 build that Wes played and wrote about in June, but we have seen snippets of the area in trailers before.
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The Last Guardian footage comes from Japanese media monster Famitsu, and gives us our clearest look yet at what the long-awaited PS4 game is like to actually play.
A meaty 18 minutes of The Last Guardian footage, filmed at the Tokyo Game Show this week, has appeared online.