Hardlock vs Softlock

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Socoder -> On Topic -> Hardlock vs Softlock
Thu, 29 Jul 2021, 19:43
PHS	Hardlock vs Softlock I'm having an ongoing conversation with a gaming/dev community and we're discussing getting Hardlocked and/or Softlocked in a game. Does anyone have any info on this? It pertains to getting stuck in a game, with no way out, etc.
Fri, 30 Jul 2021, 02:44
Jayenkai	I've never heard it be called that.
Fri, 30 Jul 2021, 06:13
cyangames	Yeah, soflocking is where you manage to get yourself stuck in a game with no easy (or instead, just a very time-conuming . labourous) way to get from it within normal gameplay. There's a lot of examples of this with Gen 1 Pokemon on youtube. Hardlocking is where there is genuinely no way out, again, Gen1 Pokemon has a lot of cases where you can abuse your player data to a point where the game is unbeatable. At least, that's my understanding of it, I could be wrong re: hardlocking. -=-=- Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Fri, 30 Jul 2021, 07:01
PHS	Yeah, that makes the most sense of any explanations I've heard @rychan Cheers!
Fri, 30 Jul 2021, 08:09
cyangames	No worries
Fri, 30 Jul 2021, 17:07
shroom_monk	I think the key difference is responsiveness to user input. If the game won't respond to any input, it's hardlocked - common causes are infinite loops or multithreading deadlocks. If it will respond to input, but something about the game logic prevents you progressing, it's softlocked. -=-=- A mushroom a day keeps the doctor away... Keep It Simple, Shroom!
Fri, 30 Jul 2021, 17:59
PHS	That's the most clear description I've heard yet @shroom_monk Thanks!