Why backtracking is the runt of the litter that needs to be put down.

I like games. I like short games. I like long games. I DON'T like short games that are long for no reason. One of the biggest contenders for this is backtracking. Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate all backtracking. If I get a new item that happens to unlock something else 3 worlds back that doesn't progress my game, then heck, why not? But if I have to deliberately go back and track something down (especially in games with slow movement/world traversal) then please stop making your game there and save me the hassle.

Back tracking (for the last reason mentioned, anyway) is a terrible, downright ludicrous game design choice. I've put down at least 10 games alone based on just the backtracking alone - on the other side of the coin, I think there is one game that I felt actually did backtracking right (or at least to a degree where I didn't feel like using my eye to repeatedly rotate the analog stick). To prove my point about why we should kill backtracking with fire (unless it actually feels FUN and USEFUL) let's take a look at a game that I feel did it wrong: Adventure Time: Hey Ice King, Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?

Adventure Time Review

Adventure Time - awesome show, saddening game. It's a 2D side-scroller in homage to Zelda II (which may account for the backtracking) which has fantastic writing, fantastic 2D platforming, fantastic leveling, but an extremely poor world map design, accompanied by an atrociousness mess of running, strolling, walking, crawling, limping through the world map as you run back and forth (in one case, literally half way back across the map from where you just were) completing "quests." I wanted to love this game - I really did. The writing was killer; it felt like I was in an episode of the show and I was crackin' up every couple of text-boxes. But after the 5th quest which was (surprise, surprise) me running back to a town I was just in or near, that game was instantly shelved. No amount of my love for the show could make me enjoy that game - no matter how hard I try (although I wouldn't mind reading the script for it).

Sadly, Hey Ice King loses its flavor over time as you go back and forth through the same 2D levels, tediously traversing the world map and Goomba-stomping your way towards the sweet feeling of victory that just isn't there.

Why I hope all my games have Mod support.

Mods are something I was never really interested in when it came to my game selection (which I suppose is two parts starting as a console gamer, one part being late to get into PC games) - they never really appealed to me or could sway my opinion on whether or not to purchase a game... until recently.

Torchlight II - a fantastic game I HIGHLY recommend to all - was released just at near the end of last year. The game has 4 hero classes you could select and three action packed acts to traverse through. Each of the four heroes has three different skill trees, so each hero could be played multiple ways. On top of this, there was a whole slew of equipment and quests - the game just feels very deep.

And this was great; me and my friend (and housemate/team member) cleared the game and made it to new game plus while the game scaled in difficulty and the loot drops became greater and greater. Torchlight II took the back seat for a while as we worked on our game - but suddenly a news article popped up while I traversed the internet searching for what was new and happening in the game industry.

A team by the name of Synergies was planning on adding:
- A whole new act starting with "Or'Ak Pass, Path to the Troll Homeland" 
- 106 Elite monsters 
- 106 Hero monsters 
- 6 Rare dragons 
- 8 Ancient Trolls 
- 6 extremely Rare world bosses spawning in the major areas of the map 
- A new vendor in Estherian Enclave that will sell alternative leveling dungeon maps 
- A portal to the end game TABLE MOUNTAIN city. <This city is meant for end game level 100 use for transition into the raids, it is only included in the start for alternative leveling characters.> 
- New quests, new hairstyles, more faces, more customization! 
- New pets associated with the Necromancer and Paladin. 
- New HP / Mana and Fame UI 
- A PVP dungeon "the warcamp" Available in Tablemountain

Holy bananas. 

That's about all I could think - a game I already loved getting MORE content for FREE. As soon as I learned about this mod, I thought, "Hey, what other kinds of mods are out there?" After searching through only the highest rated ones on a Torchlight II website dedicated to the aforementioned (which was still only scratching the tip of the iceberg), I found two more awesome classes to try on top of an increased inventory size and new pets to follow me in my quest. In addition, I was racked with anticipation at what else people in the community would end up creating - the possibilities were endless.

The problem lay in the fact that each one of these modders had to sit there and figure out the code for the game... not exactly an easy or enjoyable task. Recently, Runic Games offered what they call the GUTS system - basically a dev kit for Torchlight II. This has now made modding way more accessible for current and aspiring modders. On top of this, Torchlight II just received Steam Workshop integration - this means your favourite mods can now automatically update so you can have the developers latest content.

How flippin' cool is that? Imagine if I could make a game like that? Not only would the game's longevity be extended by X period of time, it'd also be plausible for that game to sell more copies just for people who want to play with the mods. Mods made me impulse buy Killing Floor - the satisfaction of dual-wielding two golden guns while running around a cel-shaded Kakiriko Village from Legend of Zelda and head-shoting zombies is just too great.

I understand that adding the functionality for mod support can be daunting - you're already making a game, so you probably don't have time to be making a way for others to make your game after you've made your game. But the benefits from modding seem like to good a deal to pass up... Hopefully more developers pick up on this and start implementing them into their games too.