Video game design offers a large set of challenges for designers.

Throughout the history of the medium designers have pushed the limitations of the hardware that they have to develop on as well as develop for. These technical constraints are coupled with the difficulties presented by more abstract concepts. For years games have faced issues with licensing, intellectual property rights, design balancing, interface, budgeting and the creative process. Through the years, as is widely known, many games have been made. Some of these games go on to become great success stories and are hailed as monuments in game design to be lauded and dissected and imitated by designers in the future. Some of these games then produce sequels to attempt to increase their profits and to expand the titles success. These are the precious gems of design. What happens, however, when certain games refuse to die? Games that are based on such hugely popular licenses that even when the games that spawn from them do poorly they are repeated and the same design problems are tackled by designer after designer after designer. These games also deserve a place in designers libraries though. By understanding the flaws in games a designer becomes something not unlike a game pathologist. By understanding and overcoming these design problems players can learn from the failures of others instead of having the need to make the mistakes first hand. Of these terrible games no other intellectual property has seen so much turmoil and disgrace and shame as DC Comics Superman. From poor graphical fidelity to terrible gameplay, todays designers can learn from the mistakes of the game design disease strain known as Superman. Superman has, since his inception in 1933 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman has gone forward to redefine pop culture with references innumerable spanning all forms of media. He has been featured in comics, movies, several TV series and several video games. Of these many iterations only the video games have been dubbed some of the worst in their respective industry. They have suffered from almost every major problem that any game can face from hardware limitations to licensing issues. From these problems todays designers can learn to overcome such challenges in the future as well as avoid such abyssbal fates.

The first Superman game that was made was in 1978 by Atari called Superman for their Atari 2600 console. The game set the character in the shoes of the Man of Steel on his journey to rid the city of crime, jail crooks and kiss Lois Lane. The game attempts to empower the player by allowing the user to fly around the screen as Superman. These screens, in the tradition of games like Adventure, are tiled back to back to from the city of Metropolis. These screens form the exteriors, interiors of buildings as well as the subways. The character moves around the screen fighting crime and saving Lois Lane and repairing a bridge. This game faced several challenges that limited its success. One of the first challenges was the hardware that it was being developed on. The Atari 2600 had a very limited capability graphically so that the backgrounds of the game were only two colors. This caused the game to have an issue in the way that the player was able to navigate the city. The screens lacked an ability to effectively communicate the players position on screen. The game also limited the powers of Superman to just flying and limited feats of strength such as picking up criminals so that you can take them to jail or pieces of construction supplies to repair a downed bridge. The limited scope of powers that the game gave players as well as issues with navigational systems would set a precedent of design challenges that would continue to plague later games in the IP. The next milestone in the evolution of this gaming disease is the game known as Superman: The Man of Steel published in 1989. While this game was able to achieve some success it still suffered from several problems. Superman, according to one reviewer, was nearly impossible to kill and a player could beat the entire game in a single sitting leaving no real challenge afterwards. The game also is a compilation of eight smaller games delivered in episodic like content. Each episode takes a turn switching from a back view of the hero flying to a side view of the hero flying back to a back view in space to a side view. It switches in this manner over the course of five levels some in space others on Earth. Several reviewers in the British magazine ZZAP! said that the game was far to simple. They called the game unchallenging and boring due in part to the fact that Superman was nearly unbeatable saying:

Theres something dead odd about this game. Itsthe fact that its as easy as falling off a bike and leaving bits of your knee on the pavement, to get right to the end of this game on your very first go. Why? Because Superman cant die. Yep, no matter how low your energy gets, no matter how many holes the enemy makes in your underpants, you still survive. In another review by the magazine CRASH in April 1989 the reviewer says that the only thing the game had going for it to counter the terrible gameplay and graphics is the famous Superman theme. This game has the problem of attempting to make the player too powerful. If the player cannot die than there is no challenge and the game quickly stagnates. The next problem with the game is similar to Its predecessor in its problems of navigation. The levels are all far too simple with one reviewer saying that if the interior sections of the game would add a bit of maze and a mappable area the game could have been much more engaging and interesting but instead wound up mediocre. As has been seen the problems that plagued the original game are still seen here eleven years later. In many ways this game has increased the graphical quality but sacrificed the quality of the gameplay. The final game that has carved its place into the lore of superman games is Superman sometimes called Superman 64 for the Nintendo 64. This game has a very special place in the heart of many game historians as one of if not the worst game of all time. This game was developed by Titus in 1999. The game is based on the popular animated TV Superman TV show in the late 90s and follows Superman as he ventures into a computer simulation that Lex Luthor has trapped his friends in. The game allows players to fly around as Superman and fight crime. While this seems like a generic formula for a superhero game Superman 64 fails in many areas. The patterns of failure that have been seen in the other games are repeated in this game. Navigation and player power balancing. In Superman 64 the player instead of being able to freely fly around the virtual Metropolis is forced to instead fly through a series of ring mazes. These are a constricting element that permeates the navigation of the game. This

system was originally only contained in the tutorial levels but eventually leaked into the rest of the game. The second problem with the game was that players had to earn powers. Like the previous games discussed, Superman 64 limits the powers of the player to such an extent that it simply kills the experience. These problems, according to the president of Titus Software Eric Caen, originate from licensing issues as well as technology issues. These issues made the game terrible and caused the game to be consistently reviewed around 1 or 2 out of 10. So what wisdom can be gained from looking at these failures? What can be learned from these? As we have seen the main problems that befall the Superman games are navigation and how to balance the powers of the player as a superhero. Some solutions for these problems may be discussed though. To allow a player to navigate like Superman the boundaries must be hidden. Many games now are known for their expansive environments and they use a level streaming to blend together the elements of their environments. Also, like the virtual world in Superman 64, the environment in which the game is set could allow the player to be less inclined to notice the boundaries and limitations of their world. For example, if the game was set in a parallel universe where Mr. Mxyzptlk has trapped him the world could be much smaller and perhaps even be based on a Mobius strip or some other circular algorithm like Zone of the Enders. The Second problem that must be solved for a successful Superman game is how a designer limits the abilities of Superman while still allowing the player to feel super-powered. In order to make this believable the player must believe that the reason they are being limited is actually viable. If the limitations seem to be contrived and forced than the player will feel weak which defeats the purpose of playing a Superman game in the first place. A possible way to limit Superman is to play off of what is actual weaknesses are. Kryptonite is the classic solution but what if Supermans powers took on a system that is similar to the cool down system of many RPGs where the powers would all be available but Supermans endurance allows him to use abilities only sparingly. Superman also needs yellow sunlight. What if Lex Luthor has created a way to blot out the sun? Superman may have to make journey

to small breaks in the cover to re charge in sunlight. All of these ideas would need to be play tested but they all allow the player to be empowered while also offering challenging mechanics that can believeably integrated into the narrative being told. Superman games have a long history of failure. They have consistently been the subject of jests, mockery and disastrous reviews. These are not without consequence or value though. As designers it is important for us to make the most of each of these failures and to learn how we can make our own designs better by learning from these mistakes. Superman games offer us a grand number of opportunities to improve poor designs and in doing so, though as games they are terrible, superman games eleveate the medium of game design to a new level and grant us the challenge to overcome shortcomings that even the worlds greatest hero could not. His own game designs.

Bibliography

"An Interview with Eric Caen." Proton Jon. N.p., 7 Jan. 2011. Web. 5 Mar. 2013. <www.protonjon.com/blog/?p=48>. "Eric Caen of Titus Software - IGN."Video Games, Wikis, Cheats, Walkthroughs, Reviews, News & Videos - IGN. N.p., 6 May 1998. Web. 6 Mar. 2013. <http://www.ign.com/articles/1998/05/07/eric-caen-oftitus-software>. Fielder, Joe. "Superman Review - GameSpot.com." Video Game Reviews & News - GameSpot.com. N.p., 8 June 1999. Web. 6 Mar. 2013. <http://www.gamespot.com/superman/reviews/superman-review2545277/>. "Impossible to Display Scan." The Def Guide to Zzap!64 - Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2013. <http://www.zzap64.co.uk/cgibin/displaypage.pl?issue=047&page=082&thumbstart=0&magazine=zzap&check=1>. Sharkey, Scott , Jay Fresh, and Cesar Quintero. "Gamer's Kryptonite: Superman's 10 Worst Games from 1UP.com." 1UP.com: Video Game Reviews, Cheats, and More. N.p., 28 June 2006. Web. 6 Mar. 2013. <http://www.1up.com/features/gamer-kryptonite>. "Superman: The Man of Steel." CrashApr. 1989: 80. www.worldofspectrum.org. Web. 5 Mar. 2013.