Are Score Systems Still Relevant?

In the earliest days of gaming, it was all about the high score. Arcade classics like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong couldn’t be finished because they just looped around forever - and so the challenge was to see how high of a score you could rack up before you finally screwed up and got a game over. Beating your personal best provided a goal to strive for. And once Space Invaders introduced the concept of saving high scores, they also provided competition, as nearby players could jostle for the top spots on the leaderboard.

But as gaming moved over to home consoles, the focus shifted to titles that could be finished. Games like Mega Man and Castlevania did hold onto scores, for a time, but players were more interested in fighting the end boss, saving the princess, and seeing the end of the story. And as for competition, real time multiplayer became more interesting than leaderboards. The glory days of points, high scores, and personal bests, was over.

But the question I want to explore in this video, is whether or not this old school relic can still be relevant in modern game design? Is there still a place for high scores in 2018? Well, the answer is obviously: yes. Thanks for watching. See you next time. Because some games straight up emulate arcade game design - like the intense twin-stick shooter Tormenter X Punisher, which simply asks you to survive against infinite waves of demons for as long as possible, and then compare your score with others on an online leaderboard.

And that’s fun. But unless you’re really good, or have very competitive friends, or just get a bit addicted to chasing your personal best - these endless arcade-like games can have quite limited staying power. So I’m more interested in games that lay retro score systems on top of modern design - and find awesome advantages for doing so. Like, for one, scores can provide an additional level of difficulty. For example, in the anxiety-inducing rhythm nightmare that is Thumper, getting to the end of the stage is one thing - but doing so with a high enough score to earn an S rank is something else entirely, and only for those with serious skills.

This is cool, because it essentially gives the game multiple levels of difficulty - but avoids all the issues of having a difficulty select screen. You know, like how you have to choose your own level of skill, before you’ve played a second of gameplay, and with no real context for what “hard” actually means in this game. Instead, you just play the game as well as you can, and you’re rewarded for whatever skill level you bring to table.

I really enjoyed this approach to difficulty in the most recent Zachtronics game, Opus Magnum. The goal of this one is to design bonkers mechanical machines that can automatically turn raw elements into potions, poisons, and other alchemical nonsense. You’re given infinite money, space, and programming lines - so any machine that actually spits out the required product is seen as a success. No matter how inefficient or expensive your creation is, you can finish the level and move on with your life.

But - and here’s where the scoring system comes in - your machine will be marked in three different criteria. There’s the cost of the components you’ve used, the surface area of your machine, and the number of cycles your creation goes through before completion, which measures the efficiency of your work. Your scores are then displayed on a histogram, that shows you how well you performed compared to the average scores of every other Opus Magnum player in the world.

And seeing that your machine is hideously below average in cycles is just the kick up the arse you might need to go back in, rethink your approach, put down some more tracks and arms, and see the number of cycles start to drop. What I love about this is how it’s so player driven. It’s up to you whether good enough is good enough, and then it’s down to you how you optimise your machine. Maybe you find it really fun to make small, tightly contained machines.

Or mechanisms that work with the cheapest parts possible. Or the most efficient machines. Or perhaps something balanced across all three criteria. Zachtronics could have put a strict goal on each level - you know, you must finish this stage in under 200 gold or with fewer than 60 cycles - and some players will need that to push them to play better. But, for me, seeing my crappy performance ranked against the world’s averages was more than enough motivation to get back in there, optimise my awful creations, and challenge myself to be better.

But a scoring system is not just about making the game more difficult. Because scores can reveal completely new ways to play. In a Platinum brawler like Bayonetta, getting a high score doesn’t just mean making fewer mistakes - it means playing in a fundamentally different way to a novice, button-bashing scrub. Getting Pure Platinum medals means using those complex combos (that novices can ignore). It means fighting quickly to chain together enemies.

It means using complex moves like the taunt, and dodge offset. Now I don’t really know, or - to be honest - care all that much about the medals in Platinum games. But there is one series where I have totally internalised the scoring system to the point where I could write a dissertation on its design. It’s the Tony Hawks Pro Skater games. So here, most of the goals require a very basic understanding of the game’s moves and mechanics.

You don’t need to know how to do a variable heel-flip to knock a foreman into water, after all. Or at least I hope that’s water. But if you want to go for a high score - then you’ll suddenly need to use the full skateboarding system on offer. You’ll need to chain together multiple moves - using the revert and manual to keep your combo going across the level - to gain a score multiplier that massively boosts your points.

You’ll need to use lots of different tricks, because you’ll get fewer and fewer points every time you repeat the same move. You might want to add in spins and stance switches, because they give you more points, too. And you’ll want to move around the level, because special gaps between bits of the stage offer big point bonuses. Basically, to get a high score in Tony Hawks, you need to fully understand every part of the trick system - and approach the game in a different way to those who are playing more casually.

And then - here’s the cheeky bit - when you’re ready to go for high score, you’ll actually find yourself playing the game in the way the designers intended. Because the things you’re given points for actually encourage you to play Tony Hawks in the most interesting way. The degrading points on repeated moves makes you play with more variety. The bonuses for racking up combos puts you at higher and higher risk of bailing.

And the use of gaps pushes you to move around the level. Because scores can encourage you to see the intended experience. In a game like Metal Gear Solid V, you can play the game in pretty much any way you like - from being a sneaky, stealthy snake in the grass - to simply calling in a big attack chopper to mow down waves of enemies. It’s up to you how you play, and the game doesn’t do much to force you to act in any specific way.

But if you’re interested in getting high rankings, then you might want to shift the way you approach things. After every mission, you’re given a score - with points added for accuracy, speedy gameplay, and rescuing prisoners - but points deducted for getting spotted or taking damage. This means that you’re not exactly punished for playing in a gung-ho, Rambo-kinda way - but you are rewarded for being more sneaky and Snake-like.

So scores are not just a relic of the arcade era. And not just for nostalgic games that try to capture that coin-op feel. They can jive with modern design for all sorts of advantages. But they’re not foolproof. Many players have complained about feeling discouraged when - at the end of a seemingly successful run through a level in a Platinum game, they’re slapped down with a crappy grade. Oof, that doesn’t feel very good.

And because scores are completely optional, there is the risk that some will never see the real experience. If you can button bash your way to the end of Bayonetta, plenty of players will see no reason to explore the full combo list, keep chains going, or use that dodge offset. But there is a game that goes some way to solve these two issues: the cheeky, twin-stick shooter Assault Android Cactus. So in this game, it’s totally possible to progress through the game simply by killing all of the enemies in each level.

That’s classified as a win, and it’s enough to get you to the end of the game. But you can also aim to win enough points to finish the stage with a higher rank. This is done through completing the level more quickly, avoiding getting knocked down, and - most importantly of all - killing enemies in quick succession. You see, every time you kill an enemy you start a chain - and if you can kill another within a couple seconds, you’ll keep the chain going.

A big chain will multiply the score you receive for killing enemies- up to 10 times the number of points, for a chain of 10 or more foes. And if you chain together every single enemy in the stage, you’ll go one step further and earn an S+ rank. Keeping that chain going is a tricky challenge. You’ll need to play much more aggressively, prioritise enemies, and think more carefully about using your special weapon. And these red enemies - who generally take more than two seconds to kill with your standard weapon - need to be dealt with carefully to keep your chain going.

So this means that Assault Android Cactus uses its scoring system to give players an additional level of challenge, a fundamentally different way to play, and a way to experience the game at its absolute best. But developer Witch Beam did a couple clever things to skip the most major downsides of scoring systems. For one, the designers ensured that the core experience was available at every level of play - not just for those who dived into high scores.

You see, the game has a cool death mechanic where you’re always running out of battery and must constantly top up your juice by killing enemies and picking up dropped power cells. And so this means that the new player experience - of frantically killing enemies to pick up batteries - neatly mirrors the veteran experience - of frantically killing enemies to keep your score chain going. Both put you in a high intensity panic, where every split second of gameplay counts.

It’s just one is on the razor’s edge of failure, and the other is on the edge of ruining a perfect run. And then, while scores do show up at the end of levels, just like Bayonetta, the special Pro Mode - where an S+ medal appears on the screen, and then falls apart as soon as you break your chain - only unlocks after you chain together all the enemies in a single level. Until you get there yourself, you might never know that this extra mode exists.

Hiding this away until players prove their worth is a neat way to stop players becoming demoralised when they’re hit with crappy medals at the very start of their experience. So through this design, Assault Android Cactus ends up being a game that is accessible and thrilling for new players - but also hides a secret second game for those who really want to prove their skill. And you don’t even need to change difficulty modes - you just need to play differently and better, than everyone else.

CACTUS: Oh no problem. I do that kind of thing all the time. So scores might not fit into every game in 2018 - but when used carefully, they can provide real benefits for game designers. We may be long past the days of writing rude words into coin-op leaderboards, but the thrill of chasing down high scores is still alive and well in modern game design. Hey! Thanks for watching! If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve started recommending cool YouTube videos during this end screen so go check them out for more interesting content.

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