Anyone who has followed me in the past 5 or so months will know by now that i have become obsessed with La-Mulana. It has a small but very dedicated fanbase, and by being the subject of some of the earliest commentated gameplay videos on the internet, has played an understatedly huge role in the development of internet and gaming culture.
However, La-Mulana is also the recipient of some incredibly harsh critique, mostly by players who it baffles and frustrates. While I certainly don't blame people for being utterly bewildered by it (I'll get into why soon) I dont think it really deserves the kind of scorn it often gets. I also believe La-Mulana wonderfully illustrates just how creative and varied game design can be, and why it's much better thought of as a storytelling device than a set of rules as to how a game should play out.
For those who don't know what La-Mulana is, let me explain.
La-Mulana is a game series which originally debuted in 2006 as a freeware PC game. It was designed to be a homage to games the developers played as children (most overtly Konami's 1987 epoch Maze of Galious), and aimed to re-create the feeling of awe and overwhelming difficulty they felt playing those games. These were games that were obtuse, frustrating, esoteric, and required kids to team up and solve as a group through sharing theories and hints with each other. And, well, strategy guides. But back then I imagine following a strategy guide felt more like reading a treasure map than a sign of giving up (the latter of which is a way of thinking which I heavily disagree with.)
La-Mulana is also very obviously a homage to the film series Indiana Jones, following an archaeology professor as he explores ruins filled with cruel traps and thinks his way through obtuse puzzles. These ruins weren't meant to guide explorers or provide help to overcome obstacles. These are ruins meant to keep people out and to guard things through unfair traps and puzzles with no sensible solution.
It's this sort of feeling which La-Mulana most sets out to capture. What if you were Indiana Jones? How would you explore such ruins? What sort of difficulties and obstacles would you face?
With this in mind, let's take a look at La-Mulana's first two areas - the Village of Departure and the Gate of Guidance.
I've seen a lot of people criticize the Gate of Guidance for being a terrible tutorial section. I remember one reviewer calling it an outright failure of game design. And, why wouldnt they? Already the game is flinging death traps, invisible floors, non-euclidian maps, and fake walls at you. Solving one puzzle just makes something happen on the opposite side of the zone with zero indication of what just occured. What kind of a tutorial section is this?
Well, I'll tell you. It's not a tutorial section. It was never meant to be one. The only tutorial you get is the Village of Departure (VoD), which i think is actually a damn good tutorial. Everything you do in the VoD - jump, whip, talk, shop, use items, use apps, and place weights - comprises nearly every single thing you ever do in La-Mulana. Believe it or not, there isnt a single action you ever take in the entire game that is not overtly mentioned or shown in the VoD, aside from warping (which you fain the ability to do very, very early.) And when it does seem like there's new stuff, its just a variant of something you already learned. The VoD has everything you need to finish your adventure skillwise, and much of it is even spelled out in plain text that you can re-read ar your leasure as emails from elder Xelpud. (There are one or two important exceptions which I will acknowledge later on.)
So, if the Gate of Guidance isn't a tutorial, what is it? Well, it's not there to teach you anything - it's there to set your expectations. You already have the knowledge on how to play the game, and now La-Mulana is showing you what it's going to do to you. And you have to come to terms with this in order to make any meaningful progress - you can go anywhere you wish without an item called the Holy Grail, but it's warping abilities are basically mandatory and the item itself is not optional. And the way you get the holy grail involves a puzzle that demonstrates that you can't always rely on your eyes and the map telling the truth - you must experiment and be willing to acknowledge that the nonsensical might just be the answer. Remember - you are Indiana Jones! These ruins are not meant to guide you, but to keep you away.
So, why make a game like this? How is this acceptable game design? Why is La-Mulana so highly acclaimed by those who master it's challenges if its just a bunch of unfair bullshit? Well, if you're anything like me, you are sick to death of game analysts on youtube selling you the idea of objectively correct game design, much of which is just implementing stuff that makes it way too obvious that the path forward is designed with the idea in mind that you, the player, should succeed. As a game designer myself, I often struggle with not feeling confident in my design because I'm scared its not properly done or that I'm trusting the player too much. But playing La-Mulana and talking with others who share a similar fondness for it, I've since learned to stop treating design as a strict, rigid science. Game design is a storytelling tool, and once you set up the scene with everything the player needs to get started, it's your story to tell.
Challenge in games shouldn't be there just to give the player an ego trip - its a challenge for a reason. Granted, not every game has to be as brain blasting and absurd as La-Mulana (if La-Mulana was my first game I think I'd have given up on the medium then and there) but at a certain point I do think you have to trust the player and give them the tools to explore, fail, learn, and problem solve their way to the goal without a nice handy signpost to give them an extra push. I'm fine with games not respecting my time, doing unfair bullshit, and trying to prevent me from winning - because the entire point of games like Zelda, La-Mulana, Super Metroid, etc. is struggling, learning, and overcoming challenge.
One thing that I've started doing since starting La-Mulana is notetaking. Now, when I play games, I obsessively note take. I write down everything I learn and need to know, whether it be how a character moves or whether the Y axis is inverted or whatnot. Taking notes is a big help and has helped me make a lot more progress quickly than I would have otherwise.
Now, I did say that there were some exceptions to La-Mulana giving you everything you need to win, and I don't think it does everything as well as it could. For one thing, there is a certain logic and arrangement to how levels are laid out that is mandatory to know, but you have almost zero way of ever learning about or thinking of without downloading an external file from the game's official website, which clearly hasn't been updated very much over the years. The other downfall is the game's translation - it's very good, but there are a couple mistranslations that really screw with some of La-Mulana's more all-encompassing puzzles and can gice the wrong impression of what you need to do (the sequel suffers from this as well, and anyone who's played that game knows which puzzle I'm talking about).
Sorry this post is so long and doesn't really hsve a lot of coherent structure, but this is something I've been thinking about for a while and I've been trying to put it into words. Hope you got something out of it ^~^
TL;DR - La-Mulana, in it's overwhelming, unfairly difficult but incredibly sarisfying gameplay, shows that game design can be used to tell a story and impart a mood rather than be a rulebook for how to make objectively good games and design.
