A dude who wrote a bunch of stuff once said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” People are totally into that dude’s writing, so maybe he knew what he was talking about. Who knows. The point of Shakespeare’s quote is simple: Don’t waste my time. When you avoid padding, you create a more enjoyable experience for your viewer, reader, or player. There was a big push towards longer and longer games as of the last years and while it’s thankfully petering out a bit, games still love to waste your time.

But what are the most common ways that games waste a player’s time?

I dunno if I trust a  dude with that haircut, though the stache is pretty awesome. I guess I can take his writing advice. — I dunno if I trust a dude with that haircut, though the stache is pretty awesome. I guess I can take his writing advice.

Clutter is one of the newer padding methods game designers are employing and the one I hate the most. Clutter is when a game furnishes you with items with the express purpose of taking up space in your inventory and selling them for gold later. Maybe developers don’t think that people will remember how much time they spent dicking around in their inventory screens. You may as well just give the player money, instead of wasting their time. Fallout 3 was filled with real-world clutter like coffee cups, burned books, and cigarettes but none of these items did anything gameplay wise.

This whole place i junk. I will collect this junk, then sell it until the merchants are out of money. Then I shall cart it to my next destination. Onwards forever. — This whole place i junk. I will collect this junk, then sell it until the merchants are out of money. Then I shall cart it to my next destination. *Onwards forever*.

If you picked up too many of them, you needed to spend time emptying out your inventory or selling them for a few meager caps. Dragon Age Inquisition is the worst offender here, however. Your inventory has a whole tab just called “Valuables” which you can sell to any merchant with the press of button. Why even have the middle step? Just give me the gold, dammit.

Why was this dragon carrying 5 sheets of parchment? Why can't I use said parchment? Maybe I should quit the Inquisition. I'm sure regular people don't deal with this nonsense.

Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt took a much more sensible approach to clutter by allowing you to sell the items to a merchant for gold, or break them down into crafting components which you can use for craft new items. By giving the items a non-monetary use you make them an addition to gameplay rather than a distraction from it.

Backtracking is another oft-complained about padding tool that some developers use. Like the name says, it involves making a player retrace their steps through a previously explored area. This might make a player feel like they’re making progress because they’ve spend more time playing the game, but when nothing changes gameplay wise, there’s no point. Tomb Raider (2013) just loved backtracking.

When every map look like this, you know you're in for a long ride. A long unnecessary ride.

Every area was filled with secrets and collectibles that had no gameplay impact besides extra EXP which you got from completing missions and defeating enemies anyway. While there is some precedent for in-depth exploration from earlier Tomb Raider games, that was the entire point of those games, rather than just something to pad out of the 100% completion game length. There are games that find new use for old tropes, like Super Metroid.

You will have this map memorized by the time you're done with this game, but the last area will still be new.

By gating player access to areas, Super Metroid makes backtracking more like exploration. You may have come across smaller passages earlier that you couldn’t fit into, but with the new upgrade you found you can turn your suit into a ball and roll through! The whole map becomes new again

Grinding is the most common method of elongating a game. Usually found in MMORPGs or JRPGs, grinding consists of forcing players to level up (or grind) to defeat more powerful enemies or gather currency. In MMOs or RPGs, enemies have specific levels and strengths associated with that level. Given that most of these games are turn based (or close to in the case of most MMOs), player skill doesn’t really come into play. You can’t manually dodge an attack in Final Fantasy X, or slip around the back of an enemy to deal more damage in Persona 3: FES, so you have to rely on your numbers to be better than the enemy’s numbers.

My numbers are better than your numbers, which are better than my friend's numbers. Perhaps one day I will have the best numbers in the land.

I was racking my brain trying to think of a game that did grinding well, but I can’t find one. I’m pretty sure grind should just be banished from the gaming sphere entirely. When gaming becomes an excel spreadsheet with pretty colors, the point has been lost.

If brevity really is the soul of with, then most games are not very witty. I don’t necessarily think this is true, but I do think that the focus on game length has resulted in a quantity of quality situation. Better crafted experiences will stand the test of time while bloated, empty games will end up by the wayside. Long story short: Don’t pad, add!

If you don’t share this with everybody you know, every game will be nothing but grinding forever. Quick, save us all!

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