After playing Viva Piñata for only about a week, Rare managed to punish me enough that I am finally convinced -- leaving their game is really best for both of us. I mean, let's face it. As a piñata breeder/gardener, I pretty much suck. Or at least it seems like that's what the dev team of this game wants me to think. And honestly, making me feel consistently incompetent is only one of a handful of issues that caused me to abandon it.
I admit, I'm disappointed. I had very high expectations for Viva Piñata. The first time I ever saw it was at E3 2006, and I seriously thought about buying an Xbox 360 just to play it. I was thinking about buying an entire game system just to play a single game, as there weren't really any other games that I was even interested in for the 360 at that time.
I've been a fan of Rare games in the past, and thought the premise and gameplay of VP looked really promising. As well, when the game was finally released, I heard a lot of good things about it from friends. "I'm an epic level 85 gardener!" one exclaimed. "Sounds fun," I thought. At that point, I decided that it was something I definitely needed to play. But... I never got an Xbox 360. So when I discovered that VP was being released for PC this month, I was overjoyed! I went to the local Best Buy and snatched it up the weekend it was released.
I played it for hours after work each night. Things started off well (even with the intrusive and abundant tutorial popups) and I was having fun. Although I was slightly annoyed at the clunky UI and problematic camera controls, I was pleased with the game. Exciting things were happening in my garden and I was getting all kinds of upgrades and rewards. I could sense a truly well-timed player progression. But then something happened. Soon I was being absolutely bombarded by all the things happening in my garden. I couldn't keep a handle on it all, and I couldn't figure out why I was doing so poorly. Not one of my piñatas was happy. And that brings us to this point.
Not even the gift of these adorable hats was enough to make my piñatas more than just indifferent to life in my garden.
That's a mistake that I see most often from inexperienced designers, so that's why I'm surprised to see it from Rare. As a designer, if you ever find yourself looking at the way a player is playing through your content and saying, "but that's not the way I meant it to be played," that's your problem, not the player's. Players are going to do what they want, and it's our job as designers to make sure what they are supposed to do is clearly communicated, as well as making it extremely unattractive or even impossible to do things a different way. In other words, the player can not be rewarded in any way if they aren't playing the game the way you intended, or in the way that will ultimately bring them success.
Let me explain. In Viva Piñata, piñatas visit and take up residence in your garden. You can then build them houses, direct them around, even "romance" them so that they multiply. This starts slowly at first, but soon I found myself with lots of different species in my garden, and not enough room to keep them all, or even build all the structures I needed to house them. At this point, all I assumed was that I needed a space upgrade for them to fit, but when that happened, and I still couldn't fit them all, I was confused. And then, the piñatas started leaving. I wasn't keeping them happy, I was told, so they were leaving to go find another place to live. "Harsh!" I thought. Here I was, frantically trying to keep all these piñatas happy, and I was being told I was doing a crappy job. I had no idea what I was doing wrong, and I was unable to improve this situation for days. Finally, with sadness, I sold off some of the piñatas to make room for the ones I really liked. Of course, this was based completely on looks. Those Fudgehogs are just the cutest things I have ever seen, versus the Taffly, with a face only a Taffly mother could love.
But now I know why I wasn't having fun: I was doing it wrong.
After reading a guide on IGN, I learned that instead of the Pokemon-like Collect-the-Piñatas game I thought I was playing, I am supposed to be focusing on one or two piñata species at a time, completing all the requirements for those, then selling off those piñatas and moving on to new species. The garden has more than enough room to house a small number of piñatas, and that would make the game much less frantic, for sure. And while that's a completely reasonable premise for the game, there are a few problems I have with it.
First, at no point in time was I ever told I couldn't be a good caretaker for every single piñata that found its way into my garden. And since piñatas were constantly taking up residence, I assumed that was just fine. Why would the designers keep throwing all this stuff at me if that's not how I was supposed to play? If it's not, Leafos (the weird flower-faced girl who always seems to be full of advice) could have told me that getting rid of piñatas was not only okay, it's what I was supposed to do!
A second issue I have is that the premise goes against a general fact about human nature: people love to collect things, and I am no exception. If a piñata comes to live in my garden, I want to keep it, not sell it, plain and simple. I feel like it's one small step towards a larger goal. Of course I thought I was supposed to keep every single piñata that visited my garden! The more piñatas, the better my garden is, right? I guess not. And not only do I not want to give things up if they are given to me, I just have a real hard time selling off the piñatas. I feel horrible about it. And I don't like playing games that make me feel bad. Once a piñata is sold, it's not impossible to get one just like it back, but since that costs money, I felt unmotivated to go that route. I found myself wishing for more space, or a holding area for piñatas I couldn't focus on at the moment (kind of like the stable in WoW).
Another problem I have with this design decision is that in order to be most effective, the garden will always have to be in a changing state. Different species of piñata are very particular about their surroundings, including buildings, trees, flowers, even type of terrain. There are a few piñatas that won't even visit the garden unless it's over half water. So the cycle becomes build it up, then destroy it. And for the audience that this particular game attracts, this idea goes directly against what that type of player likes to do. If I've taken the time to make my garden exactly as I like it, the last thing I want to do is rip it up simply to progress in the game. I want to be able to not only keep what I've built, but to improve and add to it as time goes on.
Take for example, Sim City. The game allows you to create your city, upgrading it as time goes on, creating a more successful and prosperous metropolis as you progress in the game. At no point in time do you ever want to go in and destroy your whole city just to build it in a slightly different way. And that's simply because for players that enjoy the aspect of being creative, it's generally not fun to do that. Given, occasionally it makes sense to change parts in the interest of making it better as a whole, but at no point would you want to destroy everything you've built so far. In order to feel that sense of progression, you want to keep what you have, as well as being able to add to it. And that's what is missing with Viva Piñata -- destroying my garden on a regular basis isn't what I want to be doing.
So... the question is: Will I consider playing the game again now that the way I am supposed to play has been revealed? It's possible. I'm curious about the mechanics as the game becomes more complicated. Do they hold up? Does it get boring or repetitive?
This entry has covered the main problem that I've had with the game so far, but there are quite a few others that I'd like to get into at some point over the next couple of days, along with solutions that could have made Viva Piñata into a better game. And of course, I do have a few good things to say about the game as well.
To be continued...
