"Captain Toad and the Triumph of the Finite"

"When you stop and look at this year's most troubled launches, you'll notice a certain pattern emerge. They may be good games made by talented people, but in just about every single case they look to be the victims of their own overly ambitious designs. They push the boundaries of graphics, of scale, and most of all they blur or even destroy the line between single- and multiplayer gaming. Online elements sit at the heart of nearly all these games' problems, whether because of a bold desire to break down the boundaries between solo and communal experiences (Destiny) or because of a corporate-level desire to integrate proprietary social media and microtransaction elements (Unity) into the experience. Or even both (The Crew). 

"Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker suffers from none of these issues. The entire game revolves, literally, around small, self-contained puzzle worlds. It has no online component beyond the system-level hooks for Nintendo's Miiverse. It has no microtransactions, and while Nintendo has stated their intention to add some DLC and Amiibo support in the future, you'd never know it from playing the game — it stands on its own. The most complicated thing Treasure Tracker does is to unlock a few bonus levels early if you have Super Mario 3D World save files on the same system... and even then, you'll gain access to those levels eventually simply by completing the game.  

"All told, it's an exercise in finite design and manageable scale. Of the "what you see is what you get" approach to publishing. The only hidden content and tricky convolutions here are deliberate products of the game design, with Rubic's Cube-like structures floating in free space, tucking obscure passageways and secret rooms within the folds of a spatially impossible temple or jungle. Treasure Tracker's efforts all focus inward on the core game content and mechanics, rather than outward on services and mechanisms. The game itself resembles the intricate little cubic puzzles that comprise its stages: Simple but clever, brief but entertaining, and above all neatly self-contained."

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sort of agree with the sentiment. would def. take toad over press x to win/grind endlessly/sloppy fall-through-the-floor programming..

Simplified view. There are hundreds of old-falshioned games without microtransactions and/or over-the-top-graphics on PC (especially) and other systems. Why single out Captain Toad?

Having said that, I'll definitely get Captain Toad. Looks great.

I do agree, there are other games you could look at as well.

But I guess this one stands out a lot for being in the Mario Universe so the character is still very well known.

I am very excited to play the game though, loved the puzzles in 3D World!

Definetely.

Another game on the WiiU that brought me a similar perception was Stealth 2.  A platformer full of brilliant puzzles and excellent co-op elements.

Hmm I haven't played that one and haven't heard much about it. I'll have to look into it!

He's probably used as the example, because the game was made by a big developer/publisher, other big developers are the ones being pointed at as "ambitious". Makes no sense to bring up and indie, since they're not the ones releasing unfinished products with micro transactions.

i think you might be missing the point. he's saying it's a game with near triple-a production values (a beautiful game i think inarguably) which nevertheless was made to be a complete, standalone package that takes less than 10 hours to complete. in short, that it's a game that values quality over quantity, whereas the aim of these triple-a mmo-lite titles is an endless torrent of content at the price of actual gameplay innovation or, as was the case this year, actually functioning...

ubisoft also had a good, small, beautifully made game this year, which i would take over the same stale sandbox-y asscreedwatchdogscrew nonsense any day of the week, and it was called child of light.

I really have no idea what the title means. It seems to be more a part of the OP's agenda than the original article. Smaller games continue to be made, just as more ambitious games continue to be made. Both should exist and I enjoy selections from each type.

I get the impression that this is just a soapbox thread so the OP can complain about games he doesn't like.

actually my framing is correct if you read the article. that's precisely what the writer, jeremy parish, is saying. i don't see this 'soapbox' nonsense you seem to want to attribute to me, i'm sharing an article and my impressions of it and trying to see what other people think of it.

my commentary, the whole sentence and a half of it there is, takes issue with simplistic, industrialized game design (call of duty) and bad programming (ac unity). is it no longer allowed to have opinions on internet forums? coz i thought that was kind of the point.

I was debating on whether or not I should even bother, but your post was so helpful, being most of what I was going to say anyway, so I'm just gonna quote yah.