[HN Gopher] RetroAchievements: Adding achievements to retro games ___________________________________________________________________ RetroAchievements: Adding achievements to retro games Author : kaeruct Score : 76 points Date : 2023-09-11 19:19 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (retroachievements.org) (TXT) w3m dump (retroachievements.org) | vikingerik wrote: | This has already happened in one way for many years, in | emulators/simulators of pinball games. The Pinball Arcade does | this, and has its own leaderboards for the achievements. | | It works by monitoring the internals of the pinball computer | emulation, either looking directly at the RAM for cases where the | memory locations are known, or at the display output for | alphanumeric or dot matrix patterns that announce a particular | event such as a jackpot or multiball or wizard mode. | crawsome wrote: | It seems in it's infancy. | | https://docs.retroachievements.org/Setup-Guide/#retroarch | | The front page says it's supported by retroarch, but you go to | their docs section, there's nothing there. | | Looking forward to a straightforward way to put acheivements into | my retroarch, and not piecemeal by emulator. | Gygash wrote: | Support for RetroAchievements is builtin to RetroArch [1]. You | should just need to enter your credentials. | | 1. https://www.retroarch.com/?page=achievements | pathartl wrote: | It's been around for a while. It's more of a lack of docs than | lack of support. RA has docs directly: | https://www.retroarch.com/?page=achievements | raspyberr wrote: | This looks like a fun project to give some more incentives to | playing older games. Although I do dislike that there's a large | category of "achievements" nowadays that are nothing more than | telemetry for developers. Like like at some of these for one of | my favourite games: https://retroachievements.org/game/1458 "Use | the Batarang for the First Time" "Complete Stage 1". These aren't | achievements. Steam games are FULL of these. Open the game, | complete the tutorial, open inventory... achievements should be | interesting, weird, or challenging. | GuB-42 wrote: | The good thing about "telemetry through achievements" is that | players can see it too. It gives a good baseline about the | other non-obvious achievements. | | For instance, an achievement that has about the same unlock | rate as the "complete stage 1" achievement is probably | something you stumble upon randomly in the very beginning of | the game, if you don't have it, you probably missed something. | If an achievement has a significantly lower unlock rate than | "complete the game", it is probably end game content and may | require dedication. | | Achievement can have more than one purpose. They can be used as | progression markers (the "tutorial complete" kind). As hints | about some secondary content. As a reward for curiosity or | particularly difficult tasks. As an indication that you have | finished something and there is no more of it. To taunt the | player. As objectives that don't fit in the story. To | acknowledge that a particular action is significant. Etc... | | For example "Use the Batarang for the first time" tells you | that you will use it again. It hints that from now on, the | Batarang will be an important part of gameplay, more important | than the other items you didn't get an achievement for. On the | achievement list, it is a progression marker. If you see it on | an achievement list, it tells that the players is, say, at | least 10% into the game, and puts other achievements in | perspective. | Chabsff wrote: | > Although I do dislike that there's a large category of | "achievements" nowadays that are nothing more than telemetry | for developers. | | That's always been the case. Some XBoX360 games went as far as | having "reached the main menu" achievements in order to create | a baseline user count that didn't include demo terminals | running the attract mode on loop. | | I agree that cheevos-as-telemetry sounds bad at face value, but | consider it the other way around: | | Getting pain-free already anonymized telemetry stats via | achievements through platform holders has long been a bulwark | against intrusive bullshit telemetry by way of making the | effort-to-reward ratio of the later just not worth it. This is | not unlike the classic "The way to stop piracy is to provide a | better UX" argument. | | It also has the very important added benefit of making what is | being collected extremely transparent to users. | cableshaft wrote: | I like these, as they help show how far people get through | games, or show that I've gotten so far in games (like in Fire | N' Ice for NES, it shows I completed the first two worlds, and | for Kickle Cubicle it shows I've gotten to World 4). I'm never | going to do the vast majoity of the crazy proper achievements | (that require you to do extremely hard or unusual challenges), | so if they didn't have those, for most of these games it would | just be a stat that said 'played X hours' without any | indication of what I actually did in the game. | | Also, these are added after the fact by people who didn't work | on the game, and are done by identifying and monitoring changes | at specific memory addresses in the rom, so they're a bit | limited in just how complicated they can get with these | achievements. These 'how far did you get' are one of the things | they can check more easily, as they can see level numbers | change in memory and the like (it's a bit more complicated than | that, check the docs[1] if you're curious). They still manage | quite a bit with those limitations, though. | | https://docs.retroachievements.org/How-to-Become-an-Achievem... | nazgulsenpai wrote: | An achievement is basically the accomplishment of an objective. | I think that fits well with "Use the Batarang for the First | Time". | selfhoster11 wrote: | I don't mind this type of achievement at all. They're nice and | easy rewards for playing the game, a form of acknowledgement | that you've at least scratched the surface of what the game has | to offer. Having a few achievements to commemorate early stages | of game mastery is just neat, and harms no one (except if the | achievement notifications spam you during the game). | ascagnel_ wrote: | And on the other hand, you have the community setting up | achievements that I would argue are pretty bad. Parasite Eve, | for example, has achievements for beating each boss without | using the game's magic system. | | https://retroachievements.org/game/11277 | cableshaft wrote: | Yeah, there's a lot of those types on the site. Like Super | Mario Bros has Pacifist achievements to complete a World | without hurting any enemies or becoming Fire Mario. I'm sure | some people appreciate them, but it's not something I'm going | to try. | | https://retroachievements.org/achievement/40405 | lapetitejort wrote: | "Beat X without using System Y" is a pretty common | achievement though. Half-Life 2: Episode 1 has an | achievement that begged me to play the game again: beat the | episode while only firing one shot. | | Being able to beat a game while not using a core system can | be a sign of good game design, or an exceptionally skilled | player. Look at Super Mario 64 and speedrunner's ability to | finish levels with a single press (but not release!) of the | jump button. | cableshaft wrote: | I don't have a problem with them being there personally | (op did), just acknowledging that there's quite a few | games with those types of achievements. I don't want to | bother with them myself, but I know others do, and that's | fine. | fallat wrote: | Why? It sounds fun! At the end of the day a game is just a | challenge to overcome right? | cableshaft wrote: | I don't have time in my life to tackle every single | challenge presented to me, and there are over 355,000 | achievements on Retro Achievements, not to mention | thousands of speedrun leaderboards and other things. I | have to pick and choose (or just play the game and get | whatever I get). That particular achievement sounds like | it would likely take a lot of time and be quite | frustrating to pull off. | | That being said, I'm not asking for it to be removed or | anything. It's just not something I'm ever going to try | to complete myself (maybe I'll manage it on accident). | Clearly 4.5% of the people who have played the game with | Retro Achievements have managed to pull it off. | kroltan wrote: | I agree, but some people also like that kind of thing to prove | how far they got in a challenging game. So for that I think | some retro games would really benefit from that kind of | achievement. Like the famously difficult games such as Ninja | Gaiden, Battletoads, etc. | | Also, some of these "pointless" achievements can be used as a | negative proof. For example, the lack of a "weapon used" | achievement with the presence of a "last boss defeated" | achievement proves you beat the game without using that weapon. | This allows players to contrive challenges not foreseen by the | explicit implementation of an achievement. | | Now, one issue is that on basically every platform, | achievements are tracked per ownership of the game, so you | can't scope down the achievements like that unless you only | ever play the game with that challenge in mind. But in RA | specifically, whose accounts are not tied to ownership, you | could potentially make an account just to track a specific | challenge, and have a public record of _your_ achievement. | JoshTriplett wrote: | Is that "telemetry" or just "low-effort achievements"? Lots of | modern games have low-effort achievements, in part due to | requirements to put in achievements even when the game | developers don't want to do so. (Some games do a great job | integrating achievements or even making entertaining gameplay | elements out of them; others, not so much.) | | In the case of RetroAchievements, perhaps someone was | enthusiastically adding achievements to that game without | thinking about how fun they'd be? | Lammy wrote: | It's telemetry, and achievements have been used that way | pretty much as long as they've been a thing. See Dan | Teasdale's 2009 "Design Lessons Learned from Rock Band" | https://vimeo.com/7087821 The relevant part starts at 32:35. | JoshTriplett wrote: | I _absolutely_ expect that lots of games are using | achievements for telemetry. | | It would surprise me a little, though, if someone | retroactively adding an achievement to an old console game | is doing it for telemetry purposes. | | My original comment was based on reports from some indie | game authors talking about their development experiences, | and going "ugh, I have to add achievements, _fine_ ". | infl8ed wrote: | I have never heard of this before now, but what I instantly like | about it is what a great way to learn about old games that might | be worth a spin. Anyone can recommend an old game, but when | someone goes the extra mile to add achievements it's a much | clearer signal that it's worth a look. | crtified wrote: | I will politely express dissent, if that is ok. Not to be a | grinch about it, because other people using it does me no harm. | | It's hard to even formulate exactly why the whole !Achievements! | thing in gaming rubs me the wrong way. I guess it's a mix of | several factors, centred around arguably picky purism (e.g. 'a | games designed balance includes the inbuilt reward system'), and | also around a worldview preference for (some) humility in life, | which is somewhat an antithesis of constantly-blaring " _Wow! You | Just Did This! Congratulations!_ " messaging/reassurance - a | thing I don't put great value upon, in my worldview. Not in that | outward manner, at least. | | I hope I've at least partially explained my dissenting viewpoint. | As I said, this existing does me no harm as such, and I have no | beef with it at all, except in personal preference, and insofar | as casual discussion has filled these spare moments. | lapetitejort wrote: | The best achievements to me act as hints on how to play the | game in a certain way. Such as: | | * "Find all 25 widgets" I like finding widgets and I've only | found 12 of them. I'll keep looking! | | * "Beat the game without using System X" Whoa, I thought System | X was required! I'll figure out how to rely on the other | systems to work around missing this one | | * "Get ending #3" I hear that ending is neat so I'll play again | making different choices | | Achievements don't help mediocre games improve, they only | compliment already good games. They also act as remembrances of | games long past, something I can look up in a few minutes | without having to install the game or hunt for a save file. | Getting all of those achievements ten years ago must have | really meant that I liked it. | Waterluvian wrote: | I love achievements because when crafted well, they give me a | bunch of artificial challenges to strive for. | | To be honest, I'm actually not sure I understand the "I get | gaming but I don't get achievements." Achievements are just | another scoring system. | pests wrote: | It rubs me the wrong way too. Battlepass rewards as well. I | have a friend who will play for many hours a game he does not | like - just to get the achievement points or some cosmetic that | is limited time. | glimshe wrote: | What you need to realize is that the "game he does not like" | isn't the game - the _achievement_ is the game your friend is | actually playing. | TheFreim wrote: | I would have mostly disagreed, but after reading the following | comment in this thread I think you have a point (emphasis | added): | | > This looks like a fun project to give some more /incentives | to playing older games/. | | I don't have an issue with achievements when they're built on | top of a game that doesn't need them to be fun, but when | they're added to try to "incentive" a game then maybe you | should be playing an intrinsically fun game instead? Sometimes | its okay to complete a game and not need to be "incentivized" | to play it again. | nlunbeck wrote: | Definitely signing up for this one. It looks like the community | is going strong over there. Also fun to have more achievement | stats than Steam, there's so much you can do with that kind of | data | unixhero wrote: | Probably to be included in ExoDos version 7, just a hunch! | jordigh wrote: | The fun thing is how these achievements are made. | | Basically, people have to reverse engineer retro games and figure | out where to find the condition that triggers the achievement. | | https://docs.retroachievements.org/Getting-Started-as-an-Ach... | | Writing achievements is a good way to get started with ROM | hacking. It's very similar to how you would do simple Game Genie | codes too. | | I love that the retro community is staying fresh and vibrant. | stepupmakeup wrote: | "RAM hacking" you mean? ;) | jordigh wrote: | Well, once you know how the RAM is changed, it's often a | simple matter of figuring out the ROM too. :P | | Often it's just copied over! | and0 wrote: | This is great. I was making a 3D NES emulator years ago, which | just dug into the PPU memory (plus some register hooks during | frames) to figure out what was being rendered (old archived | explainer here | https://web.archive.org/web/20160820051951/http://n3s.io/ind...). | I then wound up having to add some simple scripting so | contributors could determine if, for example, the sprite being | rendered was the cloud or bush in the original Super Mario Bros | (since both used the same sprite, just palette-swapped). | | It eventually got me thinking that I should try to standardize | some sort of layers over Retroarch cores, which could interpret | (RAM or GPU) memory values, value updates, and function calls as | values and events to consume in some other application. My | thought was that if someone used those hooks to create a | "wrapper" for something like Contra for the NES then you could, | say, handle rendering and audio from Unreal or Unity. So.. super | HD remakes, reinterpretations, or art projects. Maybe play the | original Final Fantasy and have twitch chat affect damage and | other values. | | But then I got distracted, as usual :| But it is weird to see | something like it in the wild now. I hadn't considered | achievements. | cableshaft wrote: | If you have a SteamDeck, it's built in to the setup for | EmulationStation. You can just enter your Retro Achievements | username and password and it will automatically be hooked up for | all emulators (It's case sensitive though, as warning. Didn't | work for me until I updated it to match the case). | | Then when you launch a game, if it recognizes the game (seems to | be based on checksums and not the name itself, renaming didn't | seem to help for the games I had it didn't recognize) and | achievements are set up for the game, you'll see a banner appear | that says the game name, icon, and '0 out of X achievements' and | you're golden. | | Really breathed new life into retro games for me. Now it's not | just me playing many games for like 5-15 minutes an moving on, I | try harder to complete the games now. Already gotten much farther | in some NES games than I ever bothered to before, likely because | of these achievements. | | One minor downside though, is you have to be online while doing | the achievement for it to be recorded, there's no syncing after | the fact. So if you're bringing your SteamDeck somewhere, either | make sure you're online or play a game that doesn't have these | achievements implemented yet (still quite a few games that don't | still, including all Gamecube and Wii games) if you care about | getting them. | rcpt wrote: | "Configure multiple Bluetooth controllers on retroarch" -- 100 | points | | "Disable autofire" -- 200 points | | "Move save files (not save states) between cores" -- 300 points | | "Get the right cemu keys.txt" -- 1000 points ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-12 23:01 UTC)