post #14: Game Review: Minecraft Dungeons

      I feel almost certain that i started writing a review for this game a couple of weeks ago, but now I'm not sure where I've placed it. In the mean time, I'll write from what i can. (It's been a week and some change since I was all in on Dungeons, so some things may have shifted off into miasma -- as such, the review will be fragmentary)

[^^ drawing of the arch illager -- the 'final boss' of Minecraft: Dungeons ^^]

      ... in theory, my sense is that it would be generally fine for a game to have a definitive best set of equipment. the issue that causes with Dungeons, though is not that there *is* a objective best (there is, it's the verdent cloak), but that the game falls off into being almost genuinely unplayable the second you so much as stray away from the image of perfection. i'll touch on this later, but the game's systems vastly incentivize speed to the expense of that the default game experience is sluggishly slow. i don't know what the best fix would be, but i imagine it would have to do with tweaking the numbers, where the best can still be the best and remain where it is, but the default needs to be raised in some kind of way. otherwise it's just a 20$ farming-for-verdent-cloak-with-good-enchantments simulator

      ... The Tower is fine but is unfortunately not that replayable. For those who don't know, the tower is a procedurally generated dungeon/boss rush challenge, where you clear floors of enemies / bosses, and each time you ascend, you can switch out your current gear for gradually scaling procedurally generated gear (or opt instead to receive points to power up your gear in the future). the procedural generation, from what i understand, resets every week, but throughout the week will remain the same. In this way, it's perhaps more interesting than most rogue-lites as the replayability changes some of the ways you can interact with the game. For example, the static nature of the enemies and loot means that you can iteratively learn what items you'll be offered when and what you'll have to fight with them. That is to say, the gameplay loop incentivizes approaching it as if it were a puzzle. (However, like solitaire, some weeks are easier to solve than others -- and sometimes it feels like it's not possible to get anywhere at all; it's frutrating in these cases that you would have to wait another week before you're able to try again).

      I maybe intoned it earlier, but to clarify, the static nature of the challenge means that you're less easily able to brute force it via rerolling until you get a good start (in Balatro terms, that might be hard sending it each run until you get good early jokers or blind skip rewards). Basically, the tower is mandatory Balatro set seed runs. (If you manipulate your save file or download one from another person, you're technically able to share your seed -- again, the Balatro equivalent would be the way you can share your run's seed once your run is over [and anyone else who uses your seed would effectively get the same run], but that in Dungeons it is not natively built into the game systems and requires a little bit more jerry-rigging to figure out).

      ... In general, the scaling in the game is +_+ ,,, this is especially visible when you start ascending into the upper diffculty Apocalypse plus levels (what is, like, NG++ bonus difficulty mode). Constantly having to trudge uphill is unfun, but then the second you try to do a mission at even the slightest bit below your level, it's lick rock lee without his weights but in an unfun way where it's so much not a challenge that it's not even worth it [plus you can only progress your equipment's power level by playing at the highest difficulty available]. Bogglingly hard or trivially easy. Biting my tongue to get through it or imagining stakes into the telletubbies.

**At the same time, I think there's clearly some kind of appeal to the ridiculous difficulty and inchingly slow progression as I played the game for like 40+ hours and it never really changed (I mean people play league of legends too, so). Life is easier to get through if my biggest op is the shitty progression of Minecraft: Dungeons.

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      ... Enchanted mobs are a neat idea in theory -- like, woah! that's a pretty cool and logical escalation of the inherited game systems of minecraft that open up new planes of interaction and imagination. In practice, though, they make the game into a rage game. (I wanted to play an RPG/rogue-lite; I'm all for games that play with genre, but for brain-turn-off games like this, I think my volition mattered -- or I would like if it did). The biggest culprits (and it's not even a competition), are the enchantments, Chilling and Deflect. Since I haven't said yet, enchanted mobs are mobs that have bonus effects applied to them (these are randomly selected or not when the group of mobs is spawned in -- they can stack [up to how many, i don't know]). The bonus effects are generally variants of the equipment enchantments available to the player. Examples of enchantments available to players and enemies include Rush (where the character's speed increases by a percent [maxing out at 90%] for a short time whenever they take damage), Burning (where the character has a small aura around them that applies a constant DOT burn damage), Gravity Pulse (where every 3 seconds the character magnetizes all nearby enemies to them), etc.

      Chilling and Deflect are the most annoying because, more than any others, they prevent you from playing the game (the third worst is probably gravity pulse, but the range is still thankfully at least somewhat small). Chilling slows down enemies' attack AND movement speed by I think something like 20 or 30% in a HUGE radius -- like, I'm pretty sure they don't even have to be on the screen and can still slow you down (annoying because then that means you don't know where they are slowing you down and thus you can't even kill them to stop the effect). Deflect is fairly self-explanatory, reflecting all enemy projectiles back at them (what's annoying is that the max PROC for the player is 40%, but monsters have a default of 100% effective deflect). This is relavent because ranged combat is the only genuinely feasible way to clear levels that are of a higher power level than that of your gear; so if enough deflect mobs spawn, you just have to reset. Additionally, since the damage/health ratio for the player is wonky in comparison to for monsters, it's VERY frequent that you will shoot an enemy that just spawned, it be revealed that it has deflect, and the projectile instantly bounces back to you and one shots you (using up one of your lives for what's realistically a bs reason).

      I don't think I can adequately explain how fucking angry these enchantments make me. Like I want to scream at a wall. LET ME SPEAK YOU FUCKERS! STOP GETTING IN THE WAY OF MY ABILITY TO PRETEND AT HAVING AUTONOMY VIA ENGAGING WITH FANTASY AND FICTION!!!!

      ... On much of a similar note, spiders equally make me want to rip my face off. As with Chilling and Deflect, they remove your autonomy. Realistically, they're only a reliable annoyance for the first 10, maybe 15 hours -- i.e., before enchanted mobs become common place. By the time you get to Apocalypse or Apocalypse+ difficulty, they're trivially nothing. Except, that is, if you so much as ignore them for even a second, in which case it's crash out all over again. Even though they're super squishy by that point, their ability to stop you from playing the game remains the same. To clarify, by stop you from playing the game, I mean that they shoot a web projectile at the player, which, if they hit you, freezes the player in place for several seconds, where you're only able to spin violently in circles and ~maybe~ attack guys that run into you, if any get close enough. (It's frequent, however, that when you get frozen you'll then end up dying anyways since you're no longer able to run up and kill the ranged enemies who now can freely pick you off). Like I actually hate the spiders and think they should not be in the game the way they are. I have done physical bodily harm to myself as a result of the mechanics they throw onto the player (which, to be clear, is my fault -- need to find better outlets to stim which are less self-harm-oriented).

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      ... I'm not sure why I came back to it time after time. To put it frankly, it's a veritable skeleton of a game. Yet. It's also fun in its own way. Playing (raging at) Minecraft: Dungeons was something for me to do while wilting in the dusty breeze of delirium I've been collapse in since the start of the year. The autonomy the game provided me was I think one of the biggest parts to it. I'm in grad school right now, and this most recent semester has been the most painful one yet. Week after week, the matrices of institutional power choked me out and told me I was disallowed from living, from having a voice -- jointly, my personal anxieties had ratcheted up to where I was losing the ability to eat or even leave my room. I felt angry at being derided and helpless and sad and alone at how little my anger and mere being matter to the system I was pincered within. But Dungeons let me experience a fiction of simulated freedom. Dungeons was a space where I could play at having control and could pretend that my actions could be heard by others and, even further, effect change in the organization of the world. This is why any threats to my autonomy that erupt within the game get read as so traumatic. However, they also let me imagine a fantasy where they didn't exist, and pretend that if only this fantasy were so, then all my problems would melt away (the fantasy of a controlled and fictional scapegoat -- what if scapegoats really were the problem, then I wouldn't have to face the sloshing rot I've got eating at my veins). Realistically, even if spiders and annoying monster enchantments weren't part of the game, there would likely be other things that got in the way of my having a totally free reign of control and autonomy. In fact, I know they wouldn't be, as the current build of the game has many other anti-autonomous infelicities.

      I will now briefly run through some of the other elements that have intervened in my autonomy:
   >>>  The general jankiness of the moving is annoying. Since I've only recently started playing the game, I'm not that read up on the development history of the game. My understanding, though, is that the updates have mainly focused on mending speedrun skips and ways in which players are able to flex their autonomy to supercede even the inent of the game's internal systems. It's fine to patch out speedrun skips -- albeit a bit annoying -- but what's irksome is that the current version of the game still features a significant number of basic movement bugs that get in the way of playing. These include the player occassionally freezing in place when walking up stairs (this applies to both stair block and slopes of full blocks, each of which the player is supposed to ascend automatically) *crash out* and the player sometimes clipping through the ground while traversing non-horizontal terrain (which sometimes fixes itself but sometimes ends up being a softlock).
   >>>  While I haven't palyed all of the DLC, I purchased and started playing the underwater one (idk the name off-hand). As will likely not be a shock, the underwater movement is a slog to play through as you move slower and, even further, your normal movement options (such as the roll) are essentially disabled due to you having to permanently swim and the altered movement system that comes with that. It feels more like a gimmick than anything. I can't imagine an entire game being designed with this movement system. (I'm trying to be agentive, thank you very much).
   >>>  In addition to the one DLC I purchased, there's two DLC levels that you can try for free. Furthermore, all the DLC enemies are possible spawns for the Tower, regardless of what DLC you own. For what reason, I don't know, but several of these DLC-unique enemies are essentially spider reskins -- i.e., guys that remove your autonomy in different ways. Not sure why we're trying to innovate on ways to stop the player from playing the game. Examples include the iceologer (the mob famously not added to minecraft due to the ever controversial mob vote) which can freeze the player in an ice block, where you have to spam click your character model to become able to do things again, and some wind guy that I don't know the name of which constantly casts a spell that knocks you up airborn if you are in range of it. Very frustrating.
   >>>  In general, many cheap kills that maje me rage. The whole interaction with the locket that makes mobs join your side and using it on a creeper (it's ai breaks and it giga sprints over and one shots you, even when it's literally allied with you) sends me into a screaming tantrum everytime it happens. (Gen).


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      ... One I guess positive affect of the game being so infuriating to play is that therefore encourages you to speedrun it. (Now, we can have a conversation for if a game is good because it incentivizes you to play it less, but that's besides the point for right now) With that, I would say there's likely a difference between a rogue-lite like Isaac which incentivizes you to play it less (in the sense of your run being shorter) and Dungeons which incentivizes you to finish individual, more or less already existing levels quicker ;; this conversation would also be right to consider the reward of developing mastery over a game's systems -- that this perhaps can be the appeal of a game in and of itself... but that's besides the point. Being able to zoom, zoom, zoom around and through all the enemies in the levels you've learned the spawning patterns of-- the thrill of being able to do this once you're maxed out, spamming your artifacts off cool down and such-- it is quite fun and make me produce much dopamine. *Here's a video showing the high end of what speedrunning type stuff can look like in Dungeons; not quite subway surfers, but i think it's close enough to deserve a shout*

      ... Based on my play experience and where I was in my relative life while playing it, I think Dungeons is a pretty snug fit for a game to play while listening to what I've been calling "crushing" music. I don't know how to describe crushing music, but it's basically harsh-er drone and gabber-esque stuff. The brain-crushing end of stimmy music. (I would link my playlist to show what I'm talking about, but as it's through YT music and most of the songs are ones that I've uploaded to my library, the majority of it won't show up). Rage rage rage. And small steps forward that can't be overturned.

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      ... The dlc unique weapons and trinkets are neat, in theory, but, again, don't matter at the end of the day bc the best gear is just that much better. That said, I found some of the trinkets fairly fun to use when playing through the Tower. It seems like there's potential for some neat builds with some of them (however they are kneecapped from being able to realize any of that -- even in the hermaneutic environment that is the Tower -- bc you need to get giga lucky for to get the required rolls to do anything with them synergy wise). Speaking of, the system for enchanting equipment is in general too volatile for my liking. You have no way to express control over what enchants you get, only being able to reroll individual bad enchantments one at a time and hope you get lucky (at a high and increasing price; not even able to rerolled the whole slot [of 1-3 possible enchants] and thus providing extremely diminishing returns. Further, there is such a big difference between the enchants, where some are unusable and some are essentially necessary (I'm looking at you Bow Bursting and Tempo Theft for ranged weapons ,, or alternatively Accelerate for also ranged weapons). The highs are pretty high, but the lows are most of what there is. It's also got that skinner box-type flow where you're incentivized to keep checking the enchants of every piece of gear you get, even though the vast vast majority of them will be unusable. Also annoying that the unerring power scaling means that once you inevitably do get equipment with good enchants, you'll have to pay a maintenance fee and do occassional chores in order to be allowed to use them (or you could try and get two sets of equipment you alternate between while the other is at the dry cleaners [i.e., blacksmith], but i never did that, so idk).

      ... I haven't played much of the ancient hunt gamemode. It seems neat enough. I like the idea of the rune sacrifice system, but it's a little bit too unintuitive for my liking (I'd rather not have to tab back and forth between the game and the wiki; with this, i have to). Also, I think it (or something. but I'm scapegoating the ancient hunt gamemode bc I refuse to accept my ineptitude) for some reason glitched my game so as to break one of the beginner achievements so that it's now not showing up as even being obtainable, which is annoying. (Now everyone thinks I don't know how to finish the tutorial 😥, says my negative self talk).

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      ... Some of the environments are more fleshed out than others. In general, I think I like how the game adapts Minecraft's world generation systems and general aesthetic -- it both holds true to its predecessor and innovates in generally cool ways. The mechanic of hidden chests, though, i don't understand at all. How it works (I have NO idea how) isn't well communicated imo. The effect of this obscurity is that I end up running around the entire map, checking literally every corner of the map -- even trying to walk into walls and such -- and then usually finding a whole lot of nothing. I get spurred on by the idea that there could be hidden chests such that I waste time looking in places where I guess they can't spawn and have never spawned anything at all. The alternative to this is that I give up on the mechanic entirely and just skip to the end of the level -- in which case, like what's the point of having a mechanic if it's so hard to figure out that people try to avoid ever dealing with it [and the it is literally something that's supposed to be a reward for the player]).

      To be charitable, though, I realized in the last stint of my playing that if you look at the map (not the mini-map or whatever that you see overlaid on the screen when pressing 'tab,' but the map you get when pressing 'm'), it looks like there's an indicator for if there are secret chests on the map and how many of them you've uncovered out of how many there are in total. Also, for the two or three days during when I got my algorithm to recommend me Dungeons-related content (an incredibly micro-niche of videos that both have low view counts and which are largely from several years ago), I found a video that showed a reliable hidden chest spot on the Desert temple map, where you roll kind of out of bounds and can then also find a bonus hidden room with a diamond-tier chest depending on which variant of the map tile you get.

In general, though, I stand in alliance with the YouTuber Fir's critiques of games employing intermittent reward systems (i.e., hiding rewards inside of stuff; Fir centers his critique on the rock break moons from Mario Odyssey) -- it's not the type of game design I enjoy dealing with.