Let's Talk Achievements: Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved (XBLA)

As the first official post for "Let's Talk Achievements", I think it's appropriate to talk about what I feel was the first game that really "gets it": Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved. It's also interesting to note that while GeoWars 2 "gets it", it also breaks quite a few conventions and rules that I believe most game have followed, with mixed results.

Since this is the first post, I'm basically trying out some structure of formatting, please send feedback if you think I can fix any part of this post.

Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved (XBLA)

Achievements for Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved, in Alphabetical Order

Game Over (15)
Reach the end of sequence.
Magpie (15)Collect 500 geoms in a single game.

Millionaire (15)
Score at least 1,000,000 points in all single player modes.
Phobia (15)
Score 1,000 points in Waves without collecting any geoms.
Rebound (15)
Destroy 75 enemies in a game of Deadline using bullets bounced off of gates.
Slalom (15)
Chain together 5 gates in 5 seconds. Crossing at least one gate every second.
Smile (25)
2, 4, 11, 15, 17, 18 and 19.

Surf (15)
Dodge 8 lines of enemies in Waves without firing a shot, or destroying any enemies.
Treaty (15)
Activate 30 zones in King without firing a shot, or destroying any enemies.
Unlocked All Modes (25)
Unlock all game modes.
Wax On (15)
Rub your ship along all four arena walls in Pacifism.
Wax Off (15)
Perform the Wax On achievement twice in a single game, don't forget to breathe.

Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved is a basic twin stick shooter released initially on XBox Live Arcade (it's since then made the jump to other platforms), new to this game is the 6 different "remix" modes, each featuring unique rules that make the game feel significantly different from each other. You can find more details here.

One of the first things you will notice with this achievement list is that if a typical player does not look at the list, a typical first playthrough (I'd define it in this game as "seeing all the modes") will yield only 1-3 achievements:

Unlocked All Modes (25)

Unlock all game modes.

Magpie (15)Collect 500 geoms in a single game.

Millionaire (15)
Score at least 1,000,000 points in all single player modes.

The latter two based on player skill (both seemed to be set low enough that most competent players should be able to get it within the first time, if not within 5 or 6 repeated replays of the same stage).

I consider this group of achievement "completion based", and GeoWars 2 is fairly typical of most games in the final score range (~25% of all achievements). It is interesting to note that players are highly unlikely to earn anything within their first initial play (within the first 10 minutes), which is something many games have strived for (some going as far as a freebie at the start of the first opening cinematic).

Where Geometry Wars 2 shines is the remainder of the achievements, where instead of the traditional sets of "multiplayer", "challenges", "grind" based achievements, the developers decided to add a whole new set of challenges based on the rules of the game, targeting specifically the new modes within the game. These challenges are different from typical "challenge achievements" in that they aren't based on the high score/difficult section of the game (which most games, even Geometry Wars 1 did), but rather new "goals" based on the rules of each mode. Let's look at each mode and the accompanying achievements:

Deadline:

Rebound (15)

Destroy 75 enemies in a game of Deadline using bullets bounced off of gates.

Deadline's achievement is an interesting mix of "tutorial" and "challenge". It's highly unlikely players will obtain this achievement (in fact, the ways to obtain the achievement are more likely to result in a lower score), and what's brilliant about it is that they teach about some of the new rules in this game (rebound shows of reflective bullets).

King:

Treaty (15)

Activate 30 zones in King without firing a shot, or destroying any enemies.

King's only achievement is an interesting twist on the original Pacifism by adding it with the new restriction of capturing the zones. It's a brilliant way to force players to rethink their play strategy in this mode, and potential give players new ideas how to build a higher score in their normal play.

Evolved:

No specific achievement were in Evolved, which I guess is fitting as they want to highlight the different modes.

Pacifism:

Slalom (15)
Chain together 5 gates in 5 seconds. Crossing at least one gate every second.

Wax On (15)
Rub your ship along all four arena walls in Pacifism.
Wax Off (15)
Perform the Wax On achievement twice in a single game, don't forget to breathe.

Pacifism's three

achievements shows a great deal of insight into how to make memorable and interesting achievements.

1) Take the existing rules of the game, and challenge the players with a slightly different way of playing the game using said mechanic. In Slalom, your goal is to run through the gates as fast as possible (in contrast to the normal gameplay progression of saving them for high score); In Wax On/Off, it's placing an additional constraint in addition to just avoiding ships (notice it's similar to Treaty.

2)(In the case of Wax On/Off) It's got a catch-y name based on popular sayings (Cliff B

leszinski, creator of Gears of War have said that during their design process, finding cool sounding and joke worthy achievement name is the start of their process). The pun-y name also explains the objective and the end result of the goal, which is always a plus.

Waves:

Phobia (15)
Score 1,000 points in Waves without collecting any geoms.

Surf (15)

Dodge 8 lines of enemies in Waves without firing a shot, or destroying any enemies.

Waves first debuted in Project Gothem Racing 4

as a minigame bonus, where the gameplay was entirely based around a new type of enemy that form and move in a "wave" pattern. The two achievements, like all the other ones before, are minor tweaks on the rules that greatly changes the play mechanices: Surf is obvious, dodge the waves without shooting (which is extremely hard as each additional wave adds more obstacles); Phobia is partially related to Waves, as most players would relate "collecting geoms" to shooting enemies, and again, it's an achievement that says "here's a mechanic we have in this game, instead of using it, the new gameplay is to avoid it".

Sequence:

Game Over (15)
Reach the end of sequence.

Smile (25)
2, 4, 11, 15, 17, 18 and 19.

Sequence, the last remix mode, is by far the hardest mode in the game, and the achievements show it. Reaching the end of sequence's 20 stages is no small feat, and it feels right to have an achievement attached to it. Smile, on the other hand, is an even more interesting twist on Game Over, as the numbers indicate the specific stages that the player has to do... something.

Players who've played enough of sequence will eventually notice that there are three states for each stage of sequence: Pass (Checkmark), Fail (X) and Timeout (o), and then it became obvious that players need to pass, fail and timeout specific stages in the specific order. This, unlike Game Over, is even more difficult to achieve, and is a brilliant cap-off as the last achievement of the game.

A few things to note in general about all the achievements:

a) All of them are based on interesting variants based on the original mechanics of the game. The goal of the achievement was to make players play differently from the "normal" and forcing them to rethink their strategy.

a) Interesting to note that all the achievements have the same value except for Game Over and Unlock All Modes, which acts as goalposts for "completion".

b) By having no "grind" and "multiplayer" focused achievements, the challenges retain the same feeling of panic inducing anxiety that is consistent throughout the whole game. While all the achievements are based on variants, they aren't so removed from the core experience that you end up feeling like you're playing something else.