I'm sorry, you're completely correct - me lashing out was uncalled for. I'm just really angry lately, not sure why.

I never noticed filler content in the original SS shock. I have noticed a fair amount of it in the second game, especially towards the end, and I did dislike it quite a bit. Thing is, with SS games, I have never actually managed to get stuck - I was always pushing forward, and I was doing it in a way that I have enjoyed, so all was well. As for the game wasting my time by gameplay... Eh, not really - there's always something new to be found, something new to be explored. Then again, maybe I just didn't get into a state of being stuck to reflect on that properly. As for phrase 'not respecting time', no, it's a phrase I have lifted from TB - and not even from that particular video. It's an argument I came up all by myself long before Volgarr ever got released, thank you very much.

Oh I'm just trying to come up with possible solutions for the issue. That I in fact did lift from the TB's vid - he's not wrong you know. As for the rest of your argumentation... Well, yes and no. The game always spawns you with two bits of equipment and I'm fairly sure the boss can be beaten quite easily with just one. Just add a 'reset level' button (which is there regardless) and you can have checkpoints.

Huh. What I have done most of the time was pressing the same buttons with perfect timing so I have enough equipment to get to the next stage. So far, I have not seen the game getting into a stage where I'd genuinely have to think, just play to my best ability.

Actually, I've played it at my friend's computer for about 2 hours or so. I got to the first boss battle where I've died and decided it's time to stop occupying his machine.

First of all, I am a careful player. That's just the way I play - I never rush ahead, so make that at least 7 minutes from the start of the second stage to the boss fight, if not a bit longer. Now if you do the maths, 5 times would already be over half an hour, and I can guarantee you that I won't beat the boss in 5 retries - make that 10 at least. And... Well, over an hour of muscle memory is just not worth it as far as I'm concenrned.

I am a programmer. And yes, it is easy to implement - I mean come on, from basic debugging practices, devs have a way of spawning the character at any point in the level. I don't even say 'most likely' or anything along those lines, they do, otherwise debugging the game would be hell.

At any rate - I don't really care about save system being or not being fair all that much. I do respect the fact that you enjoy the game more as it is and I wouldn't want devs to change that. What I would like devs to do, on the other hand, is to add an optional game mode for people like me - I don't really care that the game would then be like 5 hours long even with all the dying, that's fine. If I knew what to expect, what do you know, perhaps I'd even be likely to play it again on higher difficulty. Truth is that what I've played of Volgarr I have enjoyed immensely - but even retrying the entirety of second stage is too much time that I could spend playing a story-based games, which are my favourite. With optional mode with increased amount of checkpoints, devs could deliver the best of both worlds - I have always been a person rooting for player choice.

I think you're going to find intense resistance from Volgarr fans towards anything that might make the game any easier.

I have to say, I'm one of those guys as well. I love the difficulty of the game, the save system, and the complete respect for the player this game conveys.

Volgarr holds no punches back, because it knows the player will overcome, or walk away. The games forces the player to attain mastery. Not many games do that anymore, and most allow the player to blunder through the experience. In fact, that is the model for our current generation of console and PC games.

So, looking for Volgarr to make the experience easier on you is......well, I think its kind of like challenging something sacrosanct. What I mean is, the classic 16-bit side scroller challenge is sacrosanct, partly because it is a dying breed.

I mean no disrespect when I tell you this man, but if you're looking for an easier game, I think its best found elsewhere. I truly feel Volgarr needs no changes whatsoever. Interesting, that in an age when most games go through patches and iterations after release, Volgarr was perfect the minute it went on sale.

You aren't the only gamer complaining about the save system, and I sincerely hope the developers ignore these complaints.

I'm not looking for an easier game. I want it to remain as difficult as it is, and I want it to provide precisely the same experience as it does. On the other hand, I don't want it to waste my time. I don't want to play levels based on muscle memory.

Well... Thanks. I sincerely cannot comprehend how would your game be devalued by addition of an optional easier difficulty. I never could comprehend the approach of 'Either you enjoy the game as we do, or you don't have the right to enjoy it at all!'

Besides, you people should welcome the interest this game has generated. I sincerely can't see any other complaints but the checkpoint system, so there's probably something to it - if all it takes to get even more audience is to add an easy difficulty, why the heck not? The more people will pay for and enjoy a tough platformer, the more tough platformers will be coming out.

I think it's really simple. The game wants you to get better. Barely passing a level and then repeating a boss encounter ad nauseam is not getting better. The bosses are very simple, if you could retry them several times without any consequences that would defeat their point in first place.

If it takes you ages to get to a boss, you are not prepared for a boss. Work on your mechanics, refine your level progression to the point when getting to a boss is a routine which takes 5 minutes or less.

Also, this save system forces your observational skills and challenges you to learn boss encounters faster.

I remember hearing the same arguments about Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.

To conclude, the point of the game is not to progress through a theme park platformer, but to master the mechanics.

I'm fairly sure I know better when it comes to how I personally enjoy such games. And as I said multiple times, I will always value a game which allows me to adjust it to my preferences more than a game which does not.

Or, you know, devs can just lose money. They have already lost my 10 bucks. They have lost it to me buying Rage, actually - if Volgarr the Viking optionally had more checkpoints, I would have spent my 10 bucks on it as, quite frankly, I want to play trough Volgarr the Viking more.

My point is, the difficulty and the number of save points in the game are set to convey a certain experience. Varying the difficulty can be detrimental to the experience. You're not just asking to adjust a difficulty, you're also asking the creators to adjust their vision of the experience they want to deliver.

Also, it's not a matter of simply adding a checkpoint wherever. It would affect level structure and balance.

I'm all for player choice where it's appropriate (i.e. in most games), but I think this game is one of the rare exceptions.

Sticking to the original vision of the game rather than trying to maximize sales is called artistic integrity. Is this suddenly a bad thing?

They could have easily added checkpoints at the boss doors. I can't see how this would harm the "artistic" nature of Volgarr the viking. I love the game, but it is highly repetitive. I find myself quitting because I don't feel like redoing a entire level to try the boss again, not because I am tired of playing the game.

The game definitely has some great aspects of classic games, but it also has some of the annoying; or dare I say bad design choices, or limitations from the past. Again I love the game, bought the soundtrack, but I won't pretend this game is without its large warts. Warts it wears proudly, but warts none the less.

There's artistic integrity and there's artistic integrity. I feel like a lot of you guys are selling the game quite short, basically claiming that it wouldn't be as good with more checkpoints - but that's not true, it's fantastic. One of the few things which is very much a matter of opinion in it could just be adjustable. Not out of 'Selling out' - it's respect for your audience. (Before somebody says anything - I'm not saying devs don't have that respect.)

I've beaten Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master Ninja mode and I did it because the game had reasonable checkpoints between segments. That is without a doubt the hardest game this generation, but it's still doable just by playing it in chunks. There's certainly no loss of achievement with the liberal checkpoints, either. I feel like Volgarr abuses its roots under the assumption that we're all still 10-years old with infinite free time on our hands. There's plenty of games way, way harder than Volgarr out there but they understand the adult life and accommodate it accordingly.

Although I love the game, I do have to join in with my support for those who have said that checkpoints should be placed right before a boss battle. I've been playing videogames for 20 years (since when I was a little kid), and I do get the aspect of difficulty in old-school games. I've beaten Castlevania on SNES, and even that had a checkpoint right before when facing Dracula at the end. Many other "classic" (and heralded) old-school games have had checkpoints before boss battles, too. If any developers of this game read this, please release an updated version of the game that has checkpoints right before boss battles. I honestly don't think that'd be too much to ask. Other than that, great game. Brings back memories of playing Rastan. Thanks.

Follow-up: If anyone wants to voice their desire for the developers to add more checkpoints ...

Their e-mail is: contact@crazyvikingstudios.com

Already sent them an e-mail. The more e-mails they get, the more likely it is that they'll listen. Good luck.

On the subject of a checkpoint right before every boss:

This is an intentional design decision, not due to a technical limitation. Its not just for the sake of difficulty either, nor was it an arbitrary choice.

When you re-spawn you start with a wooden shield. You need to open chests to collect better gear, and avoid getting hurt or you'll lose that gear. Get to the boss with better gear, and you'll have a much easier time beating them. That is a core element of the game's design.

If a checkpoint was immediately before a boss, you'd have to continue to fight them with only the wooden shield, over and over again. Your only option to come back and beat the boss with better gear would be to restart the entire world (or the entire game, if you are going for the Path of the Valkyrie).

As a contrast, if we just gave you all the best gear before the boss for free, then we take away much of the motivation to collect chests and avoid getting hurt as you make your way to the boss. Players could "blunder through" to the boss checkpoint, never bothering to learn the layout well enough to gather the power-ups on the way and avoid losing them.

This is why this same style of checkpoint is used in games such as Super Ghouls N' Ghosts, which uses the same chest system, Super Mario Bros, with its power-ups like mushrooms and fire flowers, and many top-down shooters. They send you back further than just the boss fight when you die so you can try to get better power-ups for the next attempt. This is also why bosses in these games (and ours) are generally very pattern-based and fairly simple, to somewhat counter the fact that you have to get back to them each time you die.

Let's also touch on the psychology of frequent checkpoints. Legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto talked about how having a checkpoint just before a difficult spot can be much more frustrating to players than having them spaced out more. Having spaced out checkpoints allows the player to learn and master an earlier section, and re-gain their confidence and calm their nerves as they go back through familiar territory before they tackle the difficult part again. Being stuck right at the difficult spot, hammering against it over and over again, can make for a much more frustrating experience.

It also makes for a more forgettable one. In games like Volgarr, you are unlikely to EVER forget the layout of a level once you get to the point where you can get through it with all your gear intact and beat a boss. Most other video games today, you'll have forgotten the level layouts by the time you move on to another game, as you probably only had to get through each one once and were not required to demonstrate mastery of it before you could move on.

On that note, frequent checkpoints can also take away the feeling that you actually "got it" and mastered a portion of the game. You can accidentally reach the next checkpoint by just bum rushing to it. Some players express disappointment when they reach a new checkpoint this way, because they didn't really understand how they were SUPPOSED to get there, they are just there now, and they missed out on the "aha!" moment from figuring out the correct way to get past an area.

Could we get more sales by having more frequent checkpoints? Possibly. Many of our design decisions likely hurt our sales... but we knew that going in. We had a very specific game experience in mind that we knew would be loved by a niche audience, and anything we changed to cater to "the masses" to get more sales would just detract from that experience. That's why I left the industry and went indie, and turned down offers for bundles of cash to work for other game companies - so I could make experiences that you can't get from publishers that play it safe and try to cater to everyone while making their generic mediocre focus-group-designed games.

Its unfortunate that not everyone is happy with the checkpoint frequency, but they are integral to the core design of the game and they are not going to be changed. You may learn to like this style of play if you really give it a fair shake. I mean, you usually only lose 2-3 minutes of play at most when you die anyway (and you probably learned something that will help you when you try again) -- if you ever play games like Skyrim and the like that's nothing. However, if you feel frequent checkpoints are absolutely necessary for your enjoyment, there are many, many indie retro platformers that offer such.

NOTE: This does not mean we are unwilling to consider changes to other aspects of the game though, and you are free to disagree and debate our design choices as much as you want -- just know we aren't going to change this particular one.

I would argue, but I'd say it's utterly pointless at this point, so I want to say something else - that was a fantastic, informative and enthusiastic post, and I don't remember seeing such a thing very often from devs who ... Just aren't willing to argue for the most part, really. Not that I blame them TBH. Is there a possibility of adding soundtrack as an extra in the future so I can at least make an excuse for myself that I'm actually getting music?

I never thought about checkpoints from a psychology point of view, it makes more sense where they could be and such, but I would still argue (in general, not specific to this game) that I usually want a save before a boss so I can rest easy once I fail to beat it that I can just shut down and leave it at that and not having to worry that I have to run all the way back.

After a break, I pop into the checkpoint just before the boss and with a much clear headed spirit I likely will defeat it. I suppose with a break in mind leaving checkpoints in easier places is more ideal but the nagging feeling of walking all the way to the boss again is bothersome, sometimes only a transportation distance.