Vernacademia Season 1 Episode 2: Hard vs. Challenging

An examination of the concept of challenge in games, with a focus on what makes a game challenging and enriching instead of hard and frustrating. Timestamps follow below.

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Notable TimeStamps
00:34 - What is Hard and What is Challenging?
4:01 - Ninja Gaiden 3
5:18 - Unifying Principles of Hard
6:54 - Ninja Gaiden 2
9:05 - Ow!
10:33 - Dark Souls and Skill Vindication
11:21 - On Fighting Games (or Vs series games)
12:19 - Obfuscationist (Obfuscationism)
16:27 - Community and its Interaction with Game Difficulty
23:48 - Natural Input and Intuitive Design
24:48 - Learning Through Failure
25:44 - Viewtiful Joe
27:55 - Dark Souls Part 2 Tone and Player Perception
32:16 - Don't worry that's my phone
32:48 - Dark Souls Part 3 The Tells Tell All
35:48 - Ikaruga
37:31 - Tells and Frustration
38:12 - RNG (Random Number Generator) Management
39:39 - A Key Difference between Hard and Challenging
40:01 - Creating a Difficult But Learnable Game
40:33 - Soul Calibur and Natural Input
43:10 - Stove Tops and Natural Mapping
44:15 - Pattern Recognition
44:46 - Failure Consequence Management and Perfection
45:23 - Sonic the Hedgehog and Spikes
47:23 - Learnability and Retry Management
48:33 - Dark Souls Part 4 Boss Encounters
50:28 - Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2 Retry Management
53:04 - The World of Tomorrow (aka 3-D)
53:29 - Hit Management in Sonic
54:48 - Super Meat Boy vs. Sonic
56:09 - Tutorials
56:56 - Megaman and Intuitive Play
57:40 - Viewtiful Joe and Tutorials
58:25 - Final Fantasy 13 and Long Running Tutorials
1:00:39 - Tactful Tutorials
1:01:29 - Dark Souls Part 5 An Example of a Tactful Tutor
1:03:03 - Highway to the Moon and the Live Tutorial
1:08:18 - Choosing What to Tutor Your Player On
1:10:08 - More on Choosing What to Teach
1:11:57 - Bayonetta and Tactful Tutoring
1:13:34 - Didn't That Look Cool?
1:13:37 - What is Unfair?
1:14:40 - Fighting Game AI and Unfairness
1:16:09 - Pokemon and the Battle Tower
1:17:14 - What is Difficulty and Gating
1:19:40 - Attempting to Measure Difficulty
1:22:47 - Kirby's Epic Yarn and Interred Optional Difficulty
1:23:36 - Yoshi's Island and Interred Optional Difficulty
1:26:25 - False Difficulty and Extraneous Control
1:31:24 - Rising Thunder (Not Rolling Thunder)
1:32:16 - Tedium Doesn't Equal Difficulty
1:33:50 - Being Good at DPS (Damage Per Second)
1:35:57 - Credit to Ego Raptor
1:36:03 - Legend of Zelda and Waiting
1:36:34 - Peekaboo!
1:37:06 - Conclusions on False Difficulty
1:37:42 - Putting it All Together, Red Coat's Summary
1:39:18 - Putting it All Together, Sientir's Summary
1:40:19 - What's Good About Challenge
1:40:58 - Signing Off