GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING!!!: Some images used below are graphic in nature and may be upsetting to some viewers. Content includes blood, gore, and violence, so proceed at your own risk
Many people in the gaming sphere are familiar with the idle game “Cookie Clicker”: the game where you click on a cookie, and you get more cookies. You can buy upgrades that allow you to gain more cookies per click, which in turn lets you buy more upgrades faster, rinse and repeat.
It is not a difficult game mechanically.
“Cookie Clicker” helped define the idle game genre, and there have been many more games like it after its release. The simplicity of the mechanics makes it very easy to produce and play through.
So what if games introduced a different type of difficulty?
The case study I want to analyze about difficulty is the idle clicking game “Bloodmoney” by Shroomychrist. It is at first an innocuous clicking game where you, the player, need $25,000 for a surgery and you encounter a man named Harvey at a stand in the middle of the road. He is able to produce one dollar every time you poke (click) him, and you can buy tools that allow you get more money per click. It begins with a feather, which gives you $2 per click.
Then as you get more upgrades, it reveals tools that are…more sinister.
When you use these tools on Harvey, you begin to see actual physical damage being done to him, and he has voicelines to react to each tool you use too.
He begs the player to stop hurting him, screams in pain, and cries; all of these actions are a result of the player’s own actions.
It isn’t difficult to continue to progress through the game mechanically; all the player needs to do is point and click.
The true difficulty lies in continuing to play the game. Harvey’s state and cries to stop makes you question if you should even be still be playing the game. If the player has any empathy, they will be hesitant to cause Harvey any more harm.
Aside from the violence the player inflicts on Harvey, the game also includes other horror elements with meta mechanics and terrifying imagery. Once you get to a certain point, Harvey will grab the screen and attempt to get to you, and you have to click until you chop off his arm. If you aren’t fast enough, you get a game over.
Source: Cherry Pop Productions
The difficulty of horror games/elements is the fear that players feel, which can cause them to freeze up and be unable to complete the game as a result. I can attest to this personally as a child: I tried playing through the entirety of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but could not as a result of being too scared to play after Night 2. Any other horror game with fear-inspiring visuals and mechanics also make it difficult to play through for those more light-of-heart.
Even if the player manages to proceed all the way to the very last tool, the gun, use it on Harvey, and kill him, the player finishes the game feeling like a monster.
Source: Horror Game Movie
The difficulty lies in emotions and morals rather than mechanics in “Bloodmoney.” A game does not need to have complicated mechanics in order to be difficult; difficulty can lie in between difficult choices, the fear of continuing, or the morals of continuing to play a game.
I really liked how you talked about the impact of emotional/affective difficulty on the game and how there doesn’t need to be mechanical difficulty to make something difficult to finish. In theory, it should be simple to complete; all you have to do is keep clicking. I also feel like this makes it so that Bloodmoney is not that different from a visual novel, since the function of clicking just furthers the narrative rather than impacting the game experience itself in a substantial way.
(Spoilers for Bloodmoney) There is also the other ending, which is difficult, but for not the same reason. If you want to remain good and moral, you can try to make the $25,000 by stopping at the needle, (it might also work with the hammer, but I didn’t try that.) However, if I remember correctly, the needle only gives $2 per click, meaning you need to click around 12,000 times. If someone sees the difficulty you described, the emotional weight of hurting this guy, as too much to bear, they will only be met with the difficulty that comes with the tedium of pressing a button for a very long time
I have never played this game, but it is fascinating to think about how the ethics of a game can make it difficult. As a video game noob, many of the games we have played are mechanistically difficult for me as I can barely use a video game controller without having to relearn the commands every time I move my character. That being said, after spending years using laptops, I know how to click (as should most people who are alive in the 21st century). In theory, a game like Bloodmoney should be easy… but they aren’t because of the scenario that it put us in. The limiting factor of the game isn’t that you can’t play, but rather that you don’t want to play. It’s a interesting way to make a game accessible for players without video game knowledge while not compromising on the messaging of the game.