Make Games

I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on a different alternative, given you probably have better insight into the game's difficulty than I do. I think fans appreciate a sense of "fairness" [1] from Elden Ring and it seems very similar to Celeste in a lot of ways. Part of me wonders if that's a visual communication thing?

Enemies (and especially bosses) in FromSoftware games usually have big, slow, windups. It's visually interesting and a big part of getting to know the openings like you mention. I find I have to empirically learn the cause/effect of those animations though, or I find I can't necessarily know how big Godrick's wind attack is without experiencing it a few times first. I sometimes wonder how the game would play if there was more visual information on the safe zones of attacks that the player could intuit. Or, I've noticed that my friends have gotten frustrated when they've gotten hit and not known why. Thoughts? Maybe it ruins the magic though.

All that said, I think Elden Ring is overall fine as it is.

[1] https://makegames.tumblr.com/post/4949412103/firm-but-fair

I also struggle with this. The best advice I've found is a 9 years old blog post by Derek Yu [1]: "Treat finishing things as a skill rather than a step in the process".

We all have different skills, we can be good at programming or at graphic design or at music composition or at communication. Having these skills give you advantage, but you have to remember that at some point you didn't have those skill, those were cultivated. If you treat finishing things as a skill that has to be cultivated, where you suck at first, but with enough practice you get better and better, then you get into a mindset that will allow you to be more and more disciplined. So start small, take smaller projects, as small as possible. Make sure you finish them, slowly increase the difficulty level, you will get there.

[1] https://makegames.tumblr.com/post/1136623767/finishing-a-game