I am not a game designer, so everything in this post will be from a consumer and gamer's standpoint.
2016 has been a great year so far, from Darkest Dungeon to Stardew Valley to Don't Starve Shipwrecked to The Banner Saga 2, game developers in 2016 has given me hundreds of hours of great experience of fun on games of different genres and playstyles, and made me excited to try out those that I don't usually enjoy, such as Doom 4 (I don't care I am calling it that). Compared to last year, I say we have an equal number of good games, and equal number of quality games so far, but nothing has quite came close to my favourite game of 2015 and 3rd favourite game of all time, Invisible Inc., by Klei Entertainment.
As with other games that I deeply love, there are too many things to praise about Invisible Inc., albeit in this case more should be said because this game is still not receiving the amount of attention that it should have, so I am just going to touch on one aspect of game design today, namely difficulty settings. Many games these day allow for multiple levels of difficulty settings, and that is wonderful, because it shows that developers understand that difficulty is highly subjective and they want to cater to as wide an audience as possible, and allow hardcores, enthusiasts and completionists to enjoy multiple playthroughs and challenge themselves in games that they wish to experience again in an not-too repetitive setting. It usually comes in 3 stages, easy, normal and unplayable, and I am glad most games are self-aware enough to name the final level 'Insane', 'Lunatic', 'Nightmarish' so on and so for, to tell the player that they may not have a good time doing so.
The biggest issue with difficulty settings, I feel, as I have discovered recently by fiddling around with the different levels in Chroma Squad and The Banner Saga 2, is the issue of scaling. Both games, in my opinion, scales poorly when moved to the higher setting: In the case of Chroma Squad, your characters get knocked out way too easily because the game was designed with the idea of tight and swift battles in mind - both your opponent and your characters have very little HP, and even in the base difficulty characters can get knocked out easily by having 2-3 enemies ganging up on one character - and this works best when they can actually take 2-3 hits because it grants the player a sense of control over the battle. In The Banner Saga, similar things can happen because some characters aren't supposed to take hits, and the increased number of enemies and damage output from the opponent's side is devastating because characters can be downed in 1-2 hits with no way to revive them mid-battle. Chroma Squad has one healer out of 5 characters heals once every 3-5 turns, and Banner Saga has no healers that can give back strength, which is not only your HP but also your attack meter; again, there is no catch up mechanic available to allow for strategic maneuvering through a bad situation, say, being swarmed earlier on, taking a critical hit that downs a character, or missing a crucial hit that resulted in you taking unnecessary damage. In the highest difficulty setting, opponent AI characters are also smarter and will actively go after weaker characters, which would have been amazing in normal difficulty where you have more control over the game, but becomes merely a frustrating hassle in the harder settings where your turns become simply run and shoot an arrow, then run and shoot an arrow.
As a veteran tactics and strategy RPG player and enthusiast, I think TRPGs and SRPGs become meaningless when that control is removed from the player. There are 3 main issues that are damning to the situation that I feel Invisible Inc. addresses and other games do not. Firstly, continuing from the previous paragraph, is how the strategy is lost when enemies are simply too strong, and you are simply running and gunning the opponent instead of thinking of ways to overcome the situation. Admittedly that can be fun in real time games, like Dark Souls, because being able to parry and dodge is part of the gameplay, and you feel your that your skills (in this case reflexes and quick thinking) are still being tested despite your enemy overpowering you. This is not the case on a grid-based, turn-based TRPG or SRPG because you are just moving your piece as far away as possible and using a range attack, or heal so that you can take an extra hit - this is fine the first or second time around, but it will quickly get old when you are doing it every. single. goddamn. time. The whole point of tactics is the test of one's ability to react to what the board presents to you, and play your best game depending on what the situation is, not repeating the same moves over and over again.
And this leads to my second point: TRPGs are not puzzle games. In TBS2, I entered a challenge where I had to use an archer to kill an enemy while their HP was low, this was ok in Normal difficulty when AIs were dumber and dealt less damage, but in Hard mode the Archer dies on the opponent's first turn unless I A. Use the Archer to run and hit, which turns into the problem I mentioned earlier, or B. Move another unit to a specific position on the gridmap which does not block the AI from reaching the Archer, but somehow distracts them to attack this other unit instead. This is absolutely unacceptable. This happened before in Fire Emblem Awakening's Lunatic mode too, where units have to move to specific locations to distract other units despite making no tactical sense for the enemy at all, and essentially turns the game into a puzzle game - where upon every loss, you discover a perfect move to be taken to be memorised and repeated ad nauseam until you complete the map. Again, strategy should be reactionary and not formulaic, and if anyone wants to play a puzzle RPG they can go to Professor Layton or whatnot, I am not interested.
Lastly, is a bad game design practice adopted from a similarly poor way to ramp up difficulty in real time games - hard=more enemies. In a real time shooter this turns that game into a boring horde clearing wave-based shoot out, like I heard what Destiny became at one point. In a war-based TRPG like Advance Wars where you can produce troops and have to make use of map layouts to win battles, this can be actually thematically sound and tactically interesting because you make use of choke points, sacrifice smaller units to set up traps for the enemies and it gives one great pleasure when one overcomes the huge wave on enemies despite having so much lesser troops to move than the enemy. In Fire Emblem the enemy just stands there and wait until you approach them, so they serve nothing more than time wasters. In Banner Saga more enemies mean that the already tiny gridmap is choked full of units and archers become useless because of the sheer difficulty of finding a spot to execute a range attack from, and physically weaker units like mages and thieves just get brutally slaughtered by smart AIs that can and will go after easier targets before taking on your tankier units.
I wish to point out, however, despite all their flaws Fire Emblem, Chroma Squad and The Banner Saga series are still excellent games in this genre, and I will buy and play their sequels and DLCs without second doubts because the games are so amazing in their normal settings. My argument here is just that there is another game in the same genre that is leagues above these already excellent games.
And now we finally come to the first part of this post's title, Invisible Inc. and why the game's difficult settings blows my fucking mind. To begin Invisible Inc. has 4 basic difficulty settings, Beginner, Experienced, Expert and Expert Plus, or as I like to call them Fun, Challenging, Exhilarating and Insane. Unlike most TRPGs Invisible Inc. recommends you to start off at their lowest difficulty. The first mode serves as an introduction to most of the game's mechanics, gives you a good number of turn rewinds to help you to learn how to strategise, and the game at this level still provides a good degree of challenge especially when you are not being careful. Invisible Inc.'s easy mode serves not only as a good tutorial but at the same time provides just enough fun and challenge for players who are learning the ropes to still enjoy it. I don't understand why game developers bother making easy modes that are so simple it takes away all the fun and challenge that nobody plays them. If a player is unable to engage the game at its normal difficulty, they probably are picking up the wrong game and should try something else instead, because in good TRPGs/SRPGs that properly scale their difficulty like Invisible Inc. strategy and tactics will evolve and you are forced to think deeper as you progress through the difficulty levels. I think what really works here is Invisible Inc.'s premise and gameplay as a stealth TRPG - hitpoints do not matter since everyone gets taken down or killed in one hit (which always hit, unlike every other game out there), and more enemies just mean that players have to be more careful in planning their moves because they only have so many rewinds if they screw up. In Beginner it is possible to exploit the rewinds to find out more about an unopened room or unexplored area, but with Experienced and Expert dropping rewinds to 3 and 1 respectively, (and an achievement for players to play with 0 rewinds on Expert to further disincentivise rewind exploitation and encourage careful play) players are forced to think more and take their time in making their moves, something which many TRPGs and SRPGs have forgotten about when designing their game. Invisible Inc. remembers that the grids and turn-based elements it is built on, and makes full use of the perks and limitations provided by these two basic elements. On one of my Expert playthroughs, I lost the game because I decided to open a door for no good reason, and this action attracted the attention of a guard whom I could not take down came along and murdered my entire team. Unlike puzzles which forces you to take specific steps, Invisible Inc. stays on the tactical side of the line that separates puzzle games and TRPGs by simply requesting you to not make obvious tactical errors and be careful of your every move.
On top of the 4 difficulties, different aspects of the game are also customisable to allow for even more advanced play, or cater to different type of playthrough like the previously mentioned no rewind run; this again, is a display of understanding and respect for catered experience to different players by giving options to its target audience, and not just pandling to a wider audience, sacrificing artistic vision for the sake of marketing to non-tactics lovers and new players. Other mechanics in the game, such as pulling off risky revivals with hard-to-obtain medical resources, that players need to decide to carry along with them or not because of limited inventory space, and having the option to leave an injured agent behind to rescue them later, or being able to lure large groups of enemies into a trap, or take control of robot enemies to deal with human ones... the list goes on for the tools Invisible Inc. gives the player to deal with tough decisions. It forces you to plan out carefully on the grid because movement is limited and you need maximum awareness of the terrain, and take as long as you need because that's what the turn-based element is for.
In fact, after spending 100 hours on the game, I would say its asking price of $25.50 (with the amazing DLC) is worth it even if you just replay Beginner mode over and over again, because the game's dynamism and challenge is not lost even on its most simple difficulty, and yet it is enjoyable by anyone who is willing to sit down and accept the game's challenge to your mind. If all else fails, rewind. The game is still not everybody - it can get very stressful very early on, I personally took 5 tries to get the hang of Beginner mode - and that is not fun to some people. But upon scaling that steep learning curve, what you will find is a game that is all about thinking and deep strategising that keeps you asking for more. Now try Experienced, Expert, Expert Plus, Endless and Endless Plus, or create your own challenges. As much as I would love to sell this game more, it is not the point of this post and I am going to end the discussion here. But if you are reading this and have not tried it, I do highly recommend it, it is a good introduction to the genre but at the same time also one of the finest of the genre and one of the toughest in the genre. Perhaps I will feel the same way about XCOM 2 when I eventually play it, but for now Invisible Inc. sits comfortably as my favourite game in my favourite genre.
