Remember "Dead Rising"?
How could you not: Capcom's zombie action-adventure title was one of 2006's bestsellers, enamoring gamers with its classic storyline and everything-is-a-weapon, sandbox-style gameplay.
Another thing the Xbox 360 exclusive had were amusing and fun-to-get Achievements. How did they come up with them?
Game designer Goda Hidehiro gave us his answers via e-mail (which were translated from Japanese). Here's an excerpt about the easiest Achievement in the game:
Hidehiro: It would be "Freefall" or falling 16 feet. I imagine that those Achievements are achieved without the player knowing about them. I'm glad that [one] serves as a good hook to draw people's attention, so that the player might think, "This game has some weird Achievements."
Read on to learn about Hidehiro's favorite Achievements, why he thinks gamers are obsessed with Achievements and what he'd like to see in "Dead Rising 2."
Multiplayer: How did you come up with the Achievements for your game? Did you look to other games' Achievements for inspiration?
Hidehiro: I remember that the system [we went with] just came to mind when I first learned what the Achievements were. This is because the Achievement system is very similar to the "Solvo List" system found in "Shadow of Rome," which I worked on in the past. The "Solvo List" had a list that contains about 200 kinds of skills called "Salvo" and each Salvo was unlocked once you used it.
When we were considering the Achievements for "Dead Rising," we went over "Salvo List" and tried to come up with Achievements to match the game. Since "Dead Rising" had a bunch of zombies and a tremendous numbers of items in the game, we already decided to prepare as many Achievements as possible. The maximum number of Achievements for one title is 50 [Note from Multiplayer: this has changed since then], so we already knew how many Achievements we'd use in "Dead Rising." Also, we thought that we could utilize Achievements as a means to convey the variety of gameplay to gamers. By presenting lots of way of playing, we believed that we would be able to appeal the nature of an "anything goes" world. As the elements of ideas were everywhere in the game, what we had to do was to sift through the ideas.
Multiplayer: What makes a good Achievement?
Hidehiro: Unlocking Achievements are linked to the player's effort. On top of traditional Achievements like "Clear Chapter 1" and "Beat down 100 enemies," we wanted to have actions that the gamer does off the top of their head to link to an Achievement, which we believed would help expand the range of play style.
The difficulty of unlocking goes up in a stair-like fashion:
[EASY] Can be unlocked if you are just playing.
[NORMAL] Can be unlocked if you aim for that Achievement.
[DIFFICULT] Requires in-depth strategy unlock.
If such challenges are well organized in the game, you will have new goals when you clear the game and thus enhance the replay value. If only a couple of Achievements are unlocked when you completed the game the first time around, you would not have a lot of incentive to play through the game again. On the other hand, if 40% of the Achievements have been unlocked with one playthrough and you find that you could unlock more, it would surely motivate you to do another round.
You receive bonuses for your Achievements. Unlocking Achievements itself brings you delight. The bonus element would motivate you even more. I imagine that you would be more pleased to get a good item that would add fun to the game rather than only getting 100 gamer points.
Multiplayer: What's the easiest Achievement in your game?
Hidehiro: It would be "Freefall," or falling 16 feet. I imagine that those Achievements are achieved without the player knowing about them. I'm glad that [one] serves as a good hook to draw people's attention, so that the player might think, "This game has some weird Achievements."
Multiplayer: What's the hardest achievement in your game? Have you gotten that Achievement yourself?
Hidehiro: It would be "7 Day Survivor," where you have to survive for more than 7 days. It is a more physically demanding Achievement rather than being [just] a difficult one. I myself have unlocked it only once.
Multiplayer: Have you gotten all the Achievements in your game?
Hidehiro: I had to check all the Achievements to make sure they were unlocked properly, so I've gotten all the Achievements. It was really tough, though!
Multiplayer: Why are all your Achievements worth the same amount (20 points)? Why give the same amount of points to someone that survived 7 days as someone who fell 16 feet?
Hidehiro: We imagined that gamers would keep challenging themselves to get the Achievements at their own pace if we succeeded in making them feel that they are progressing step by step. So we decided that we didn't need to give them a high amount of points per Achievement. We thought that it'd be ideal if we could make the player aim for an Achievement on the list one by one, starting from simple ones and then aiming for more challenging ones according to their level of proficiency. Also, we wanted to give enough points that gamers would be pleased, even for trivial Achievements. I am sure that getting only five points for the Achievement would halve the pleasure. Therefore, we took the plunge and decided to set 20 points across the board. That being said, honestly I feel that we could have given 30 points for those tougher Achievements.
Multiplayer: Do you think Achievements are a cheap way to make a game replayable? Why or why not?
Hidehiro: I admit that the replay value of the game increased a lot thanks to the Achievements. However, it would not be very effective if you only list plain Achievements like "Complete Chapter 1," "Complete Chapter 2" and "Complete Chapter 3."
Multiplayer: What kind of Achievements can we expect in "Dead Rising 2"? More of the same, or will you try to do something different?
Hidehiro: If I ever had a chance to work on "Dead Rising 2," I would like to think of about a hundred Achievements. We are allowed to set a maximum of 50 Achievements for one title but I heard that we could add Achievements by distributing additional downloadable content, and hope this is true.
Multiplayer: Why do you think gamers care so much about Achievements?
Hidehiro: It's simply gratifying. It's always nice to get a good grade; especially when it is given after you've given it your all. In addition, your efforts would directly lead into more and more points. I'm sure that nobody hates that.
- Compete with your friends: On top of the overall gamerscore, it is quite fun to compare the score for a specific title with your friend. I myself often compete against my friend who bought the same game for how many Achievements we can get. I imagine that sharing the experience with someone would make people feel good.
- The desire to complete the list: After you beat the game, gamers would look over the remaining Achievements, and they’d think, "Oh, this will be easy." "I should get those two all at once" or "In order to unlock many Achievements in a most efficient way with one playthrough..." Then they'd find themselves playing the game again.
Furthermore, after someone has played the game so many times that only a couple of Achievements were left, they may think, "After I've gone this far, I don't want to leave a couple of them." Then they wouldn't be able to stop until you complete them all.
They say that this is a psychological effect called "Zeigarnik." I suppose that it has no small effect on everyone.
Multiplayer: Do you care about Achievements yourself? If so, what are your favorite Achievements in any game?
Hidehiro: Of course, I care about the Achievements when I play Xbox 360 games. In addition to the game itself, I am interested in how each Achievement gets unlocked. Once I complete one round, I always check the remaining Achievements.
I have many Achievements that really amused me in other titles. Here are the ones that I remembered the most of all:
- "Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter" -- Assassin (Multiplayer): Find and kill a player who has the Assassin Achievement.
I really felt the ruthlessness of Isshi Souden, which in Japanese means the teaching of the secrets of art from father to only one child. Actually this Achievement is easily unlocked without trying. I just found it interesting.
- "The Darkness" -- Romantic: Real guys stick around for their ladies.
This got unlocked when I flirted with the girlfriend. I just laughed when I saw the description.
Also, it hasn't been released yet, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the Achievements in "GTA IV."
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