Look at Subnautica’s achievements. There are seventeen total, seven of them are triggered by events required to beat the game, 5 are triggered by non-required but main path “players will do this” story beats, and 3 are “engage in a major advertised featuer that are technically possible to skip.” The last two are “play with this little bonus feature we included.”
I’m quite fond of a couple achievements for Half-Life 2 Episode 1 and 2, which are basically challenge runs. “The One Free Bullet” which challenges the player to beat the game having fired only one round from a gun (the crowbar, grenades, rocket launcher, crossbow I think, and gravity gun don’t count as “bullets”) and Little Rocket Man, an achievement for carrying a garden gnome from the beginning of the game all the way to the end and placing him in the rocket.
Possibly my favorite achievement in all of gaming history has to be in Portal 2. At the beginning of a chapter, PotatOS says “Well, this is the part where he kills us.” And you land on a platform surrounded by spikes and Wheatley says “Hello! This is the part where I kill you!” And then the chapter heading reading “Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You” flashes on screen. And then you get an achievement for “The Part Where He Kills You: This is that part.”
I don’t think that’s true. Take Little Rocket Man, that achievement is a special challenge run that encourages people to replay through the game, probably after they’ve beaten it naturally, and then they see that achievement in the list and they get some more fun playing through it doing this weird thing.
Subnautica’s achievements are pretty much all on the critical path, only two (launching a time capsule during the end game sequence and hatching a cuddlefish) are reasonable for a first timer to not do. These serve more as useful metadata for both players and the developer. For example, the achievement “Get your feet wet” stands at 88.7% of players have gotten that achievement. 11.3% of players have played Subnautica but haven’t gotten into the water? You can look at the achievements in the order a player would probably do them, and you can see where players tend to fall off, and in fact it makes 100% sense to me why it does where it does. If a lot of players start the game and get early achievements, but there’s a sharp drop in the mid-game where players fall off, maybe you need to look at the mid-game, especially if it’s an early access title like Subnautica was, or you can learn from how players interact with this game and apply that knowledge to your next one.
Eh, these can be implemented well or badly.
Look at Subnautica’s achievements. There are seventeen total, seven of them are triggered by events required to beat the game, 5 are triggered by non-required but main path “players will do this” story beats, and 3 are “engage in a major advertised featuer that are technically possible to skip.” The last two are “play with this little bonus feature we included.”
I’m quite fond of a couple achievements for Half-Life 2 Episode 1 and 2, which are basically challenge runs. “The One Free Bullet” which challenges the player to beat the game having fired only one round from a gun (the crowbar, grenades, rocket launcher, crossbow I think, and gravity gun don’t count as “bullets”) and Little Rocket Man, an achievement for carrying a garden gnome from the beginning of the game all the way to the end and placing him in the rocket.
Possibly my favorite achievement in all of gaming history has to be in Portal 2. At the beginning of a chapter, PotatOS says “Well, this is the part where he kills us.” And you land on a platform surrounded by spikes and Wheatley says “Hello! This is the part where I kill you!” And then the chapter heading reading “Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You” flashes on screen. And then you get an achievement for “The Part Where He Kills You: This is that part.”
Counterpoint: if they’re implemented well you wouldn’t need them anyhow. 😁
I don’t think that’s true. Take Little Rocket Man, that achievement is a special challenge run that encourages people to replay through the game, probably after they’ve beaten it naturally, and then they see that achievement in the list and they get some more fun playing through it doing this weird thing.
Subnautica’s achievements are pretty much all on the critical path, only two (launching a time capsule during the end game sequence and hatching a cuddlefish) are reasonable for a first timer to not do. These serve more as useful metadata for both players and the developer. For example, the achievement “Get your feet wet” stands at 88.7% of players have gotten that achievement. 11.3% of players have played Subnautica but haven’t gotten into the water? You can look at the achievements in the order a player would probably do them, and you can see where players tend to fall off, and in fact it makes 100% sense to me why it does where it does. If a lot of players start the game and get early achievements, but there’s a sharp drop in the mid-game where players fall off, maybe you need to look at the mid-game, especially if it’s an early access title like Subnautica was, or you can learn from how players interact with this game and apply that knowledge to your next one.