Difference between revisions of "Grind Achievements"

Revision as of 08:46, 22 December 2010

Achievements given by repeatedly performing some action in a game.

Many activities in games are either trivial after being done for the first time or become routine as one's expertise as a player grows. They may still be necessary to complete the game, but to recognize the effort players' can put into that specific type of activity game designers can reward players with Grind Achievements. These achievements differ from most other achievements in that players will sooner or later get them it they persevere. For games while allow several different ways of playing, Grind Achievements can be a way to official confirm the way a player has chosen to play a game.

Examples

High-Score lists can sometimes function as keepers of Grind Achievements. This is the case when the scores they keep track of start to depend on endurance rather than meeting challenges that steadily become more and more difficult. Early console games such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong qualify to this, since reaching the highest recorded levels require uninterrupted gameplay for several hours (the first perfect score for Pac-Man took about 6 hours, which by 2010 been shaved to less than 4 hours^[1]).

^[2] in Fallout:New Vegas

Torchlight

^[3].

Left 4 Dead Series 

^[4] L4D2

World of Warcraft ^[5]

Using the pattern

Grind Achievements can easily be constructed from requiring the success of small goals, Optional or Enforced. Given this, they can also can be constructed from the goals that make up Testing Achievements but combining them only makes sense when providing a Testing Achievement for the first success and then the Grind Achievement after the specified number of successes have been achieved. Goal Achievements can also be used but since these goals most likely require Game Mastery, this solution is more likely to work for games striving for Challenging Gameplay. Although Handicap Achievements can be difficult to use as a basis for Grind Achievements, most of the options and consequences of Achievements in general are available to Grinding ones as well.

Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

To show how many times a goal has been achieved and how many remain before the Grind Achievement is rewarded, Progress Indicators are typically used in combination with Grind Achievements. Further, since games using Grind Achievements often have many of them, the information about them are typically available through Secondary Interfaces.

Narrative Aspects

Consequences

Grind Achievements share many of the consequences of Achievements in general, e.g. being a type of Reward and a basis for Meta Games. Since they consist of reaching some form of goal multiple times they are each an example of a Hierarchy of Goals which are simultaneously Optional. Achieving them are also quite naturally require Grinding.

Relations

Can Instantiate

with ...

Can Modulate

Can Be Instantiated By

Can Be Modulated By

Possible Closure Effects

Potentially Conflicting With

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

1. ↑ Wikipedia's entry on Pac-Man.
2. ↑ List of Fallout:New Vegas achievements in the Steam Achievements system and percentages of gamers receiving them.
3. ↑ List of Torchlight achievements in the Steam Achievements system and percentages of gamers receiving them.
4. ↑ Valve Software's list of L4D2 achievements and percentages of gamers receiving them.
5. ↑ WoWWiki's list of Dungeon and Raid achievements.