Looking back a few weeks, we have played several games with several different styles and presentations. To focus on the different failures, the fail conditions of these games have ranged from clear to nonexistent. In section, I thoroughly enjoyed my first ever time playing Stardew Valley, but while reflecting I kept recognizing that the lack of a fail condition enhanced the game rather than took an aspect away.
I do note that my perception of the lack of failure is derived from a single class’s time worth of a playthrough. However, I think that a lack of a fail condition is important. While playing, it was clear that while some actions could possibly lead to benefits, there were no actions that caused me harm, or put me in a position to think I was doing something wrong. Some actions were unequivocally more positive with their outcomes, such as catching fish or harvesting crops, but these actions were no more right to do than cutting down the half-grown crops or eating sap. It was easy to see that if our town had invested our money in crops that cutting them down prematurely would not be in the overall positive interest of the town, there was nothing presented to stop me from cutting them down. Obviously if we had a longer playthrough, some consequences may have manifested, but in my limited experience, even being counterproductive was not a fail condition. I believe that this openness was a strong positive for a game that is naturally built to afford different playstyles. By not being able to fail, I had no worries. I do believe a fail condition is an important tool and is strongly and correctly utilized by many games. However, I also find that this condition is simply a tool, and a developer can definitively not use it to create an equally rewarding experience.
Hi Erik, your thoughts about the effect of failure mechanisms (in the case of stardew valley, it is "no absolute failures") inspires to think about failure mechanics in games that want players to fail, like Spent/Let's Play. Suppose players don't identify with in-game protagonists, are the failures presented in Spent/Let's Player making players feel they fail or just contrarily, let them think that failures are attributed to the in-game protagonists. Think about this another way, do we necessarily have to design very difficult and inaccessible failure mechanics in these games. Or the games can be playable at the same time teaching players the meaning of failures, e.g. gameplay-wise players succeed but emotionally they feel failures.