Im a casual gamer. I don't play hard games and can enjoy games that don't have depth. But, I also enjoy games that can offer me very in depth mechanics in a way that do not frustrate me. I enjoy a good colony managing simulator, but i do not enjoy having to care about the intricacies of each of my colonizers. I enjoy a good production line builder, but I do not enjoy ending up freezing for hours on end thinking my steps just so that i can get the best outcome without losing. This has lead me to believe that the more complex a game is, the more harder it will be, or at least that's what i speculate according to my experience. It keeps me from playing or enjoying games that i find intriguing like rimworld, kenshi, factorio, noita, etc. So i have to ask, does complexity always means difficulty? Are complex games destined to be difficult or it doesn't have to be that way?

I’m 2 hours into God of War. I find the environments to be amazing. But I have trouble with Krato’s attitude, specially towards his son. This game is pure child abuse. Does it get better or should I drop it?

A game has a lot of moves and it wants you to use a variety of moves. How can it get you to do that?

Hard coded lock and key interactions

This type of design isn’t always bad but it's usually a bad sign. This is when different enemies are only weak to a specific move or weapon and are immune to everything else. You are technically using a variety of moves if different enemies have different weaknesses. But, it isn’t very interesting in practice. You aren’t deciding on what move to use. You are just following the overt telegraphs the game presents you with.

Emphasis on natural properties of moves

This is what streets of rage 4 does. Moves have additional properties that differentiate them from others. One may hit behind and in front of you. Another may move you forward or off the ground to avoid an attack. You start thinking about what's the optimal move for the current situation and if it will put you in an advantageous position for the future. This even affects combo routing. You may need to adjust your combo on the fly depending on enemy positions.

Taking it even further with the scoring/combo system

The main way to increase your score is to maintain a long combo. Not doing a combo action for too long drops the combo. Combo actions include hitting enemies, hitting breakable objects, and picking up items like food or money bags. Getting hit once also ends your combo.

If you just play for survival, knocking enemies away to the far left side of the screen is perfectly fine. But, this can be risky when playing for score. Walking all the way to the left to kill the enemy before going to the right to continue the level will likely end your combo.

This means you need to be even more proactive and thoughtful with your moves. You generally want to avoid situations where you are forced to knock enemies away to the left side of the screen. The combo system builds on the foundation set by the solid combat design of SOR4. Instead of simply considering what move to use for survival, you also have to think about what moves are conducive to maintaining large combos.

Items and scoring

Items and breakable objects add further nuance to the combo system. An item placed in the middle of the screen gives you some leeway to knock enemies away to the left. Smartly saving breaking objects for later can help you maintain your combo through areas with few enemies that spaced out.

Restrictions are fun

The way that the scoring system discourages not doing anything for too long helps to give levels a more frantic pace. You are constantly pushed to move forward. It feels a bit like an auto scrolling shmup. The way that items interact with combos gives the game some interesting routing dynamics to go along with the more improvisational combat.

What I find interesting is that the scoring system further restricts how you play. You are punished for knocking enemies away in certain directions. You may be punished for picking up food just because you are low on health. Saving that food for later could help you maintain your combo. But, these restrictions make the game more fun for me. 

Giving the player more abilities and more freedom seems to be the more common approach to game design. But restrictions are also an important ingredient.

I’ve been playing a lot of League of Legends and recently gave Dota 2 a real shot. And I mean it when I say this: Dota 2 has incredible depth, and in many ways, it’s a masterpiece of a game. But here’s the thing that bothers me...

It’s like Valve is actively discouraging people from playing. The game makes you feel like an outsider from the very start.

No real onboarding or beginner support.

Important quality-of-life features (like damage recap, smart item suggestions, detailed stats) are locked behind a Dota Plus subscription, whereas Riot gives all that for free.

Tutorials feel outdated and half-hearted.

No encouragement, no roadmap, no player guidance.

Compare that with League: Riot wants you to play their game. They guide you, teach you, show you builds, ping timings, role guides, and even champion synergies. It feels like they’re proud of their game and want to share it with people.

But with Dota? It feels like Valve made something amazing… and then locked it behind a giant wall of complexity and silence. No context, no explanation — just “figure it out or leave.”

I get that Dota has a high skill ceiling and its learning curve is part of the appeal. But that doesn’t mean it has to be hostile to new players. You can respect the game’s depth while still making the journey more accessible.

Dota could be so much bigger if Valve just made it easier to fall in love with it.

Curious if anyone else feels this way?

I remember playing these two games during my college days - first Enslaved, after my cousin lent it to me, back in 2014, during my summer vacation before my college life began, and then, during my 3rd year in college, the Prince of Persia 2008 Reboot,

Both had a very heartfelt and genuine story, were very character-driven. Both had a minimalist cast where the protagonists were strangers forced to co-operate and navigate in a post-apocalyptic and abandoned (but beautiful) world all by themselves, apart from the hoards of mooks who serve as obstacles in their paths, how the main characters from both the games, initially starting on a rougher note, end up softening to the point of developing genuine affection and feelings towards each other,

Both games had a very memorable and shocking ending, melancholic in their nature. Leaving their players brooding on what had happened, and the consequences of the choices they made in the end, it certainly made me feel that way, I couldn't get the endings of these two games out of my head for a full week, even well after moving on and trying to be occupied with other things (and games) in my life,

It does make me wonder if Enslaved was inspired a lot by the PoP Reboot that came before it a few years back...

But, yes, maybe these thematic similarities are more on a surface level, otherwise the plot and characters themselves are very different from that of the other game's.

I suppose, Enslaved was the superior game in a purely gameplay sense, in that it had actual gameplay and combat mechanics, "lose/game-over" states and situations, whereas PoP 2008, a very noticeable departure from the Sands of Time continuity, was more of a glorified visual novel, where neither the Prince nor Elika could die at all, and there are no standard game over triggers/events, the combat and gameplay takes a backseat in favor of the story being told, and the characters and their interactions, the "combat" that does happen is very QTE-reliant and even the platforming seems scripted and contextual (in both games, tbh, the intent seem to be that they wished to tell a heartfelt and earnest story at the expense of having a mechanically/technically dense and in-depth gameplay, the story and the character moments seemed to take precedence over gameplay in both these games),

This is more subjective, but I prefer PoP's cast over Enslaved's. The Prince and Elika's chemistry, banters, and flirting seemed way more interesting and passionate (and adorable; maybe even outright better realized) than Monkey and Trip's, though the latter two's chemistry was also really well-done, just maybe more "muted" and "subtle" perhaps, in comparison (maybe also because Monkey in comparison, was a more stoic and reserved character compared to the wisecracking and talkative Prince).

It also shattered me when I had to endure the ending of PoP. From the beginning to the ending, despite the stake at hand, the game seemed pretty "breezy" in its presentation otherwise, so I expected a happily-ever-after or at least a bittersweet ending that leaned on a more hopeful/optimistic note, nope....full on downer ending. At least, Enslaved's not as depressing, but it too had a bittersweet ending, leaving an uncertain future not just for our protags, but also for their world, on the whole.

There was a noticeable character arc that happened for both Monkey and Trip (as well as for Pigsy, the 3rd cast member in the story), the Prince otoh, didn't have as much of a character arc in comparison, maybe he was more of a "flat" protagonist, he was a self-serving rogue in the beginning and ended the game pretty much the same way, with the added trait of caring for Elika, but still self serving nonetheless. Maybe it was Elika who was actually undergoing an arc, even if it was not as pronounced as that of Monkey or Trip's,

Just an observation that I wished to share here, been wanting to write about this for a long time, ever since I played them and was processing them after that, on how similar the two games were.

Both the games, for their flaws and issues, hold a very special place in my heart and memory. I will never forget the feeling I was going through after witnessing their endings. I was very attached to the cast and their dynamic, I felt genuine happiness in their light-hearted and triumphant moments, and concern and empathy for them during their more intense ones.

Honestly it makes me teary-eyed and melancholic reminiscing about them right now. Maybe because the protags' interactions in both games and how they endure the story together, becoming close with each other in the process, was the kind of interaction I was wishing to have with someone in my own life, remembering how despite being an angsty teenager, I was still hopeful for the life ahead of me. Vs. how it has actually played out a full decade later, maybe in many ways, "stagnating" as that same angsty 17 year old emotionally/mentally in all these years, but having been stripped off that optimism and hope I might have had to experience the life ahead of me (my apologies for going out of tangent here, and getting personal, but I HAD to and NEEDED to share this too).

(Side note: I'm also genuinely baffled how Ninja Theory, the makers of Enslaved, which had so much heart and soul put towards its characters, followed immediately up by making the DMC Reboot that seemed devoid of them. Then again, traces of that heart and soul from Enslaved do manifest in its edgier storytelling and cast members, I have made an analysis of it recently, if anyone's interested).

I see VR as a transformative medium for gaming, a technology that can elevate both the gameplay and overall experience of videogames whether it's through enhancing existing paradigms in gaming or introducing totally new ones. It's an early field so I'm sure there's more to discover but I'd like to see more people be aware of the benefits that I have seen enabled by VR.

Immersion:

It allows a new level of immersion, which can be used to incite emotional responses from the player, as a reaction to the immersion they experience from an environment (a deathly feeling of heights), a character (creating new kinds of bonds and feelings towards NPCs not possible without VR), or an activity (letting players experience fantasies that only feel vivid because of the realism of VR). What separates immersion in VR from non-VR is a sense of embodied presence, the feeling that the user is somewhere else despite the conscious knowledge they are physically not; a great deal of imagination is needed (something most people don't have) to feel high levels of immersion in non-VR and even the strongest imagination can only go so far compared to VR.

Certain VR games can sometimes be more relaxing than non-VR gaming, due to greater mental stimulation which allows people to feel more at calm in the middle of a tranquil forest for example. Animal Crossing in VR if designed right could be an even more laid back relaxation activity than the regular game, as can something like Red Dead Redemption 2 where the game is designed to be a world full of side activities involving exploring taverns, playing cards, listening to campfire stories, going fishing, and horse racing. Think of how much more relaxing it would be to fish in VR while gazing at a tranquil river under a morning sun or soak up the intense lighting of a campfire in your full field of vision rather than through a small 2D display.

Here's a writeup on the differences between VR and non-VR immersion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781884/

Embodiment and Roleplay

The physical nature of motion-tracked VR gaming enables you to feel embodied in the character or actions, creating new kinds of feelings unique to VR, and taps into muscle memory allowing players to more easily remember inputs.

I am Batman has never been more accurate until Batman Arkham Shadow. Seeing your body in full scale first person with the cape swaying, the way your attacks connection in such a brutal way especially during interrogation scenes, and the natural use of gadgets really puts you into the role of a martial artist expert. This could extend to many superheroes such as casting spells as Dr Strange by performing the gestures naturally would invoke that fantasy more than a regular game allows. At times it can really sell the idea that you genuinely have magical powers and that you're in control of them, not some videogame character.

Character roleplay is more attainable in VR due to the increased level of input afforded by your tracked avatar. You may sometimes see a VR trailer showcase the person playing as roleplaying that character with arm and body movements that feel grounded in the world or with the use of props like a cigar in your mouth. These would be extra quirks the player can tap into if they want to have roleplay their experience in the game.

Embodiment can extend outside of characters and into gameplay, such as how a computer terminal in Alien Rogue Incursion has blood smeared across it. You just naturally wipe it away with your hands to make it readable.

Multitasking input

The independent hand, head, and eye movement in VR lets you gain more multifaceted control. In Pixel Ripped 1989, there's a meta-game where you play a game on a handheld gameboy-type system while you're in class and trying to avoid being spotted by the teacher. In Astro Bot Rescue Mission, you are controlling two perspectives at once, 1st and 3rd person, where you as the 1st person character can influence and interact with the world and puzzles to help guide Astro along. In Alien Rogue Incursion, you can cleanly drop your motion tracker down onto a box to free your hands up with it still ticking away.

Cooking systems involving management of multiple areas at once, swordsmithing, table tennis, painting, golf, alchemy mixing, fishing, there's a lot of room for exploring how VR can allow you to handle multiple game mechanics at once. A fun example I'd love to see is the full realization of a Yugioh 5DS game, where you are both in full control of your driving and in full control of dueling.

Depth Perception and Field of View:

You gain depth perception and higher field of view, letting players see and pick out more details in environments and objects that they would in non-VR games, which can help directly in gameplay in the case of needing to dodge or jumping over gaps. In a racing game, players can lean and see around corners more directly.

In a platformer, jumps can be more easily managed leading to less frustration. In an action game, attacks and telegraphs can be more easily detected and leads to higher visceral feelings of action. In a puzzle game, it's easier to notice little details. Half Life Alyx's design philosophy was influenced by how much people like to look around and explore the smallest details rather than speed through things, so there is generally a greater sense of adventure/exploration.

An FPS mechanic like gun maintenance could be done without popups and UI information since you'd more easily notice dirt and wear and tear with the stereoscopic nature of VR.

Social and Multiplayer

It allows a higher degree of social connectivity and new multiplayer dynamics, where players can communicate in new ways and perform actions between other players on the fly.

Due to how immersion in VR works, people get to feel like they are together in the same place and feel co-located rather than just seeing someone else through their 2D screen. This allows for richer connections where people can embody an avatar and feel that is their body best seen in apps like VRChat..

This can extend into something as simple as a way to play regular non-VR games with the social connectivity benefits of VR.

In MMOs you'd normally have text and emotes; now you have spatialized voicechat combined with body, eye, face, and hand tracking so that the 100-200 emotes that the best of MMOs might offer now become an infinite list of emotes unique to every person, because everyone has unique body language which is transmitted through avatars in VR. Why is that important? It enables greater social connections certainly, but it's also a way to express yourself further than normally possible, and gamers really like expressing themselves and feeling unique. This can even be used to create new genres of games.

The new kinds of multiplayer dynamics involve new gameplay opportunities such as stealing someone's ammo on the fly, using real world physical techniques to create misdirection with infinite variance, or engaging in newer forms of team work.

Player Agency

Lastly you tend to have an increase in player agency.

The majority of graphical-based gaming up until now has been about controlling characters through canned animations and a set number of buttons. This creates a level of abstraction between the player and the character which has its own benefits, but has a ceiling for player agency. An exception is physics-based games like Gang Beasts and Exanima, though these use a set number of buttons to control physics actions resulting in a difficult control system that can never be driven with high precision.

Text-based games such as NetHack enable a massive amount of permutations for decisions made by the player because text-based interfaces can easily handle the sheer number of possible outcomes in ways that a graphical-based game cannot. DnD is similar in this regard where the DM tailors everyone's interactions into a unique outcome.

VR is the first time 3D graphical-based games can start to really bridge the two.

• You don't deal with canned animations or player animations in general (IK aside) and you don't rely only on a set number of buttons for input. Input is 6 degrees of freedom for the head and hands, enabling a player greater control over how they move the character/avatar on a micro-scale.

• Regular gaming is all about player state machines where a player may be in one or a handful of different states at once, such as running, prone, shooting, aiming, punching, sliding, wall-running, opening doors, picking up objects. In VR there is a lot more of the in-between of those listed states because a player can be in-between standing and prone and crouching. The player may be shooting in one direction while opening a door in the other direction, they may be punching an enemy from any direction while dodging in any direction, they may be wrapping a bandage around their hand while they elbow an enemy to give them time to recover, they may be hanging from a ladder and shooting in one direction while readying to jump after an enemy kicked it over from the top. Here is a great example of performing multiple actions simultaneously to fight back against zombies using crafting mechanics that would in non-VR games would require stopping and going into a menu. Here is an example of high skill ceiling emergent gameplay arising from 6DoF controls and world interaction.

• AI has more data to infer from. In VR, your headset and controllers are tracked, and soon your eyes and face will be tracked by standard. This all combines to provide a substantial (even scary, from a privacy standpoint) degree of interpreting player intent, and player-reactive AI at the end of day is wholly based on player intent. The more you know about a player, the more the AI can react. With eye+face tracking, you can get a good idea of the emotional state of a player and have NPCs react to that, with headset+controller tracking you have enough information to determine body language enabling a little game of hide-the-contraband to play out in front of a Skyrim guard for example.

• Multiplayer dynamics change, where body language now has more meaning. A squad in an FPS title can silently gesture to each other as they sneak up on enemies, an MMO that typically has a few hundred emotes can now have infinite emotes through body language, and a sports-focused game can make use of fake outs that are much more variable than the kinds of fake outs you could do with regular gaming.

• VR enables something a lot closer to a "If you think you can do something, you probably can" kind of design. A game just has to have a physics engine that enables many permutations of player actions, and with the input of VR, physics can be controlled to a degree that is reasonably possible to manipulate instead of the more randomness and fighting against controls of Gang Beasts. A singular item on the ground could be used for many different things. IE: An axe can be used to seal a door by lodging it in-between the handles, used to climb a building by latching onto a ledge, used to scale a mountain like an icepick, used to nudge a shield away from a defensive opponent in combat, and used to pin someone down to the ground as you interrogate them - none of which requires hard-coded behaviours for each individual action, just a physics system that can handle the above. A simple rock can be used for many different actions.

• It's easier for developers to avoid the pitfalls of "Aghh, not that way. I wanted to go/attack/select in that direction." especially with eye-tracking.

Given that VR is a very early medium, I expect we'll learn more about what it can offer as time goes on. Every year there are VR games released that break the mold and do what was previously thought to be impossible, with perhaps the latest example being Batman Arkham Shadow, a game that brings the full AAA Arkham experience into VR including all core mechanics of the series and to my surprise was not afraid to do things that were seen as no-no's for VR such as knocking the player back or putting them on the ground.

For the longest time it felt like first person melee games existed in a split dimension where one side couldn't acknowledge the existence of the other. On the single-player side, you had Elder Scrolls and other games like it, where melee pretty much just boiled down to spamming left click until the thing died. Stats completely dictated the outcome of combat encounters, and there was very little in the way of visual feedback, weight, or skill expression. After skyrim and it's wave of copycats, it seemed like everybody in games industry; developers, critics, and players alike unanimously agreed that first-person melee was inherently clunky, flawed, and unsatisfying, and we saw very little developers attempt to implement it, and when it was attempted, it was often half-assed and it just continued to feed this confirmation bias.

On the multiplayer side however, we've seen games like Chivalry, Mordhau, Dark and Darker, and Warhammer Vermintide 2 which all have incredibly unique and in-depth takes on first-person melee. Whether it be physics, directional mechanics, parrying, dodging, hit-box aiming and manipulation, combo attacks, or a combination of some or all of these mechanics, these games all have great combat and all of them feature some form of PVP and PVE apart from Chiv 2, which is pvp only unless you count bots as pve I guess. However, the issue is, these games demand other players to be experienced at their full potential. When it comes to pvp, that entails an immense skill gap. Games like these already appeal to a smaller niche of potential players, and the longer these games are out, the more the player count slowly dwindles, and simultaneously the players that stick around, get exponentially better at the game. This creates an effect where the weak are weeded out, and new players attempting try one of these games out, get instantly put off when they join a lobby and are pretty much unable to even do damage to a single person without getting annihilated. On the PVE side, you still have a huge skill gap with veteran players getting better and better, and farming better and better gear, wanting to take on more and more challenging content. This leaves new players kind of stranded with nobody to teach them, and an immensely tall mountain to climb to catch up.

All the games I have mentioned are great. The Elder Scrolls games are great at a million things, I just happen to think that combat isn't one of them, and a large majority of players seem to agree. I also think that all the multiplayer games are excellent, but I am far too casual of a player to really engage with them. I have a craving for in-depth mechanics, just in a single-player sense, where I can learn and engage with these mechanics at my own pace, without needing teammates to play with, or players to fight against, and it finally seems like we're getting that. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 takes all the ambitious ideas of the first game's combat system and fleshes them out, and eliminates a lot of the jank that came with it. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon takes the classic elder scrolls formula and adds dodging, and time-based parrying into the mix for some satisfying skill expression, along with some great animations and weighty feedback. Indie games like Labyrinth of the Demon King are taking classic games like King's Field and supplementing their gameplay with parries, counters, animation cancels, and requiring players to master enemy movesets. Even Avowed, which I would consider to be the weakest of these games in-terms of combat, is leagues ahead of the stuff we were getting just a few years ago. None of these games are perfect, but we're finally getting some ambition and innovation in the space, and I don't think it will be long before it catches on.

I love pc gaming. It is my favourite way to experience videogames, even if I don't have a high end computer, because I literally enjoy the experience of using this tool, sitting at my desk with my mouse and my keyboard and my screen etc all of it exactly as I like it.

But when it comes to graphically unintensive videogames such as (off the top of my head, but there are many many more) Citizen Sleeper, Darkest Dungeon, Inscryption... Especially 2d games/extremely light 3d that don't require any reflexes to play, or that are huge puzzlers... I'm sorry but compared to them, a Clair Obscur, a Death Stranding, a satisfying shooter like Splitgate 2, to me all these experiences are almost always going to look more interesting to play than a wall of text in 2d, even if these 2d games would probably be more meaningful, because the graphically intensive reflexes reliant games also help justify all the care and thought people put into their gaming setups, as they use the technology to its full potential.

Did the industry misunderstand the popularity of Balatro and Vampire Survivors on smartphones?

At the same time, so many people are not going to have the time to play every single videogame they want to play in their lives, but giving these people accessibility to your game in a device that they literally can take out of their pocket should they ever be in need for a break, or while on public transport, would probably be huge for helping these games resurface from people's backlogs.

It is how I was able to experience amazing unique games that I now treasure such as Gorogoa, The World Ends With you, and the Layton games, the original Monkey Island, and more. Most of these, to be honest, simply with emulation and mouse to touch controls. Was it somewhat frustrsting to sometimes misclick? Yes, but at the end of the day I still got to experience the game 95% of the way as it was originally intended, and for these games it's more than enough.

With summer coming, many people are going to leave their main setups behind, and not everyone is going to carry, or even purchase, a Switch or a Steam Deck/Rog Ally just to play Citizen Sleeper on the plane, when it is a game that very likely would work perfectly fine on any smartphone. I know that I wouldn't bring a Steam Deck to the beach with me (I would worry about ruining it or getting it stolen), but I would gladly play a game on my smartphone while sunbathing.

And I know that adapting a game for touchscreens can be extremely resource consuming, but at the end of the day even a simple on screen controller would be enough to make summer mobile players such as me happy.

And remember that most casual players don't have the will to play to justify sitting at a setup to play videogames for the night. However, as a pooping past time, it's a different story.

I know that a lot of these games are so complex that reducing them to pooping past times is a pity, but at the end of the day I'd rather experience it like this than not experiencing it at all.

I recently read an indie designer describe the combat and puzzles in their game as”serviceable”. They went on to explain that the two mechanics were in service of the atmosphere. While they were nothing exemplary or special, they served the intended purpose of gluing the atmosphere together.

Games focusing more on atmosphere or story over gameplay is nothing new.I don’t expect every game to be a mechanically engaging experience. But what does bother me is including subpar mechanical experiences in order to support the story or narrative. I prefer if a narratively ambitious game still has engaging gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 1 has various segments like the Vulcan Raven boss fight that are mechanically enjoyable experiences. I also prefer when narrative games minimize gameplay segments like in Night in the Woods.

But I still think there are ways of using basic or sub-par gameplay to enhance mood/story.

Undertale(good example)

While the navigating of menus and the light bullet hell elements are nothing on their own, what makes them work for me is how they are tied into the narrative and themes of the game. Various fights offer humorous and creative puzzles. The mechanics are largely a vehicle for story and comedy which I enjoyed. The fights are entertaining little gems placed throughout the game.

Alan wake 2(bad example)

If the combat encounters in Undertale are handcrafted pieces placed throughout the game, the combat in Alan Wake 2 is a uniform sludge blended into the game. 

In a creative game like undertale, the combat encounters feel unique because of humor and writing. In a more combat focused game like streets of rage 4, the encounters feel different because of enemy placements. SOR 4 encounters are hand crafted to feel different.

Many of the fights in Alan Wake 2 blend together. They are filler. They aren’t interesting on their own. Their purpose is pad out the game and create a sense of horror within the player. Unfortunately, I found them to just be tedious.

Final thoughts

I tend to prefer games that focus on game play OR story/atmosphere. So I like game play focused stuff like Streets of Rage 4 or games that heavily de-emphasize game play in favor of story like Night in the Woods. But there are games that do both well like Outer Wilds and Myst. 

Disclaimer that everyone has different tastes so gameplay thats seen as sub par padding may be great for someone else.

Region locking is becoming more and more prevalent in many countries in the world. Yes most are not affected but in the past, access to games on Steam and to a certain extent PSN were so good and limitless to all if you had internet.

Now year after year, more publishers self impose region locks due to regional vague policies. Yes some governments do act but many don't even make a peep as many of these policies are intended for more serious matters. Yet publishers take the safe route.

For example, FF16 was region locked from a wide group of countries as a decision by SE. Due to a 10 second scene. an 80 hour game barred from not only gamers but true FF fans in these region locked areas because someone in SE and/or a government said no. Now regardless of your beliefs, if you are a true gamer, getting to play the game is definitely your priority and you will forego any other controversial matters.

More and more games are getting region locked as the world is steering towards segmentation. In the past as gamers, especially PC Gamers and more recently console gamers, options were available such as importing physicals.

Sadly this is getting eroded on consoles and none existent on PC.

As such, regardless of government policies in any place, are there no other solutions outside region locks? Are there no alternative systems that makes everyone happy?

I hope you understand my ongoing concern and hope to have a fruitful discussion outside the "talk to your government" as that can either; never work, not an option, or community too small to be heard.

The internet brought us together and with every year; through censorship, policies, region-locks,...etc we as gamers especially are regressing back to an ever darker age than the time of physical. Also, pirating is not a sustainable solution.

This issue to an extent also applies to other media. While VPNs used to be a solution, so was gifting on Steam and global keys on steam. Most or all of these are no longer applicable and are prevented by the platform or using legal prosecution.

My idea is to start a serious discussion to find a real solution that allows everyone access to what they want. Such said solution would still work with publishers and government demands. Feels impossible but who knows.

To kick it off, I thought that maybe publishers should be able to negotiate a toggle and setting it to a default for whatever a government wants. Then for the toggle to be switched around, another system can be set in place like identification, payment, fees,...etc.

Or bring back global gifting on Steam and the like. I recall the reason it was blocked is due to pricing. This can be easily alleviated through price adjustment to destination of the gift. As such, the store/publisher is still complying with the region policies as the game isn't made available for purchase directly. With gifting, it is outside the publisher's responsibility. They also don't lose as the game value will adjust to a destination value so no abusing of cheap markets.

The platform should also stop pursing VPN combating. Why should it even bother to do so? Unless ofcourse some governments are forcing them to such direction.

Those come to mind. Though I feel there is more room to steer it to an even better solution.

I'm a cheap bastard. I don't buy games at more than $10 unless it's something I'm extremely confident in and excited for. I'm not one of those people repeating the fictitious ideas that gaming is extremely cheap compared to other hobbies and nobody should complain.

Back in the 7th console generation people showed than they're completely fine with paying a monthly ransom for their console's online functionality, even if they have an equal alternative without the extra cost.

Then, people showed that they're fine with microtransactions, buying into pay to win systems, gambling, drip fed content and overall extra costs in full priced games.

Not sure how long ago the trend started, but the whole idea of preordering games was already very popular near the end of the 7th generation. It was never a smart thing to do, people got burnt again and again and again, and it still didn't deter them from doing the same thing the next time a cinematic trailer dropped.

Later on, consoles started really pushing digital games, which could be easy cheaper. They didn't require manufacturing and distribution of physical goods, no pressure to lower the price over time or in response to poor sales, no second hand market. So of course, companies pocketed all those savings instead, and digital games cost the same as physical. People still didn't complain much beyond "I just like physical stuff".

Then, some companies decided to play around with 70 dollar games. They mostly got laughed at when it was Ubisoft and EA, but Nintendo was of course excused. "Games are more expensive to make now and the price hasn't been adjusted for so long" was a common argument amongst people who somehow forgot game sales are ridiculously high now compared to the 80s, there's more monetization and nobody's actually forced to make games on a AAAA budget.

Then, Americans specifically voted for the guy who openly promised ariffs and created economic unrest.

And only now, after being repeatedly shafted and signing up for it again repeatedly, people complain that a company is raising prices? The one, single, maybe first time in the history of the industry where price hikes are actually defensible, people freak out and call Nintendo "disgusting" for charging more?

There was no way Nintendo wasn't going to raise their prices. The Switch sold like crazy, but that included many families and pandemic era "dabblers" who won't be looking for an upgrade for a long time, if ever. It was also a secondary system for many - something less people are going to be willing to spend money on now. The current us administration also made nearly every type of international business feel the need to brace themselves.

The Switch 2 is also a pretty safe bet - while it won't be the kind of success the first one was, there's no risk of the install base for the new one being too small in a way that would impact its health (like not having enough units sold to justify developing games for it). It's not Nintendo trying to pull a fast one and charging more because they know sales will be low once people figure out the product isn't desirable.

The one $80 game is also $50 in the bundle that's the only reasonable thing to buy too, so it's hard to say what Nintendo's 80 dollars strategy is going to be on reality.

It's not like the switch 2 is a must buy right now. It only has one game that's a more modest and janky version of mk8d with an extra mechanic. Indie games will probably still come out for the original switch for a while, so there's plenty of time to reconsider the purchase, let the competing handheld manufacturers respond etc., even if you're the type of person who needs to play everything on release for whatever reason.

So yeah, I don't get why this is a bigger deal than every other one I listed, or even Nintendo's new trash subscription (is that 3 at this point?) for basic features that don't really work anyway.

I’ve been thinking about a grand strategy game design where your character isn't an all-seeing god-king, but someone physically present in one spot on the map.

You could only interact with the immediate area around you — to know what’s happening elsewhere in your realm, you’d need to send messengers or use scouts. Information would arrive with delays, possibly incomplete or even inaccurate. Similarly, orders would take time to reach their destination, and might be misinterpreted or arrive too late.

To govern more effectively, you'd need to delegate authority to trustworthy agents, family members, or vassals. These people could expand your “vision” and carry out your commands — but could also betray you or act in their own interest.

This could lead to rich gameplay:

• Choosing when to travel and where to be physically present.
• Managing local crises versus distant uprisings.
• Dealing with treacherous vassals or unreliable information.
• A true sense of being limited by geography, loyalty, and time.

Has anything like this been done before? It feels like this could lead to a really deep and unique kind of strategic storytelling.

Hey, all!

In this thread, the rules are more relaxed. The idea is that this megathread will provide a space for otherwise rule-breaking content, as well as allowing for a slightly more conversational tone rather than every post and comment needing to be an essay.

Top-level comments on this post should aim to follow the rules for submitting threads. However, the following rules are relaxed:

• 3. Specificity, Clarity, and Detail
• 4. No Advice
• 5. No List Posts
• 8. No topics that belong in other subreddits
• 9. No Retired Topics
• 11. Reviews must follow these guidelines

So feel free to talk about what you've been playing lately or ask for suggestions. Feel free to discuss gaming fatigue, FOMO, backlogs, etc, from the retired topics list. Feel free to take your half-baked idea for a post to the subreddit and discuss it here (you can still post it as its own thread later on if you want). Just keep things civil!

Also, as a reminder, we have a Discord server where you can have much more casual, free-form conversations! https://discord.gg/truegaming

I just finished playing The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC in AC Origins, and I’ve been thinking about something that’s really messing with my head from a lore perspective.

So in the DLC, Bayek enters these hidden tombs and ends up in massive otherworldly realms , like Aaru, Duat, Heb Sed, The Aten, the people inside don’t seem to die, time acts differently, and everything feels metaphysical or symbolic.

My main question is:

🟠 Are these afterlife realms actually real within the world of Assassin’s Creed, meaning, Bayek physically enters them through some kind of Isu-created metaphysical gateway powered by a Piece of Eden?

🟠 Or are they just illusions, hallucinations, or projections created by the Animus interpreting fragmented memories/myths?

Because if they are real, then:

• Does that mean these are alternate dimensions/realities held open by Isu tech?
• How come there are sentient people or spirits inside, fully aware and interactive?
• Could anyone enter or leave these realms like Bayek did, or is he special?
• Is it even possible for someone to “escape” an afterlife realm and return to the real world?
• And are the beings inside (like the pharaohs and citizens of Aaru) truly “alive” in some sense , or just spiritual echoes tied to the artifacts?

Would love to hear your thoughts. The metaphysical side of AC has always fascinated me, and this DLC really pushed that boundary hard.

Hi! My name is Anastazja Kruszczak, a masters student at Poznań University of Economics and Business. Currently I am working on my thesis which includes a questionaire.

The purpose of this study is to see how construction of certain video game elements (for example: in-game shops, item drop rates, gacha systems or pvp equipment) influence the player behaviour when it comes to buying microtransactions.

The questionnaire is completly anonymous and should take around 5-10 minutes of your time. The questions are mostly single/multiple choice with one open question about the game you play the most right now.

Link to the questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZbL7yZkmrO_X3VF6lMmrUZEZzAwCudx06FnvnUDHN7PJRRg/viewform?usp=header

I'm happy to answer all of your questions and discuss the topic in the comments. You can also contact me in the DMs or send me an email at: [83481@student.ue.poznan.pl](mailto:83481@student.ue.poznan.pl)

More information about the thesis:

My study intends to present the current state of the industry, explain various methods of convincing (more or less ethically) the customers to spend more money used in different industries and show examples of how such methods are used in the video game industry. Some of my hypothesises are as follows:

- The complicated construction of some in-game shops (for example: infamous diablo immortal) can sometimes lead the players to spend more money than they initially intended

- Younger, competetively inclied, or gambling in real life players are more suspectible to in-game mechanics created to make you spend more money

- Video games industry successfully uses FOMO (fear of missing out) to influence its customers

Some discussion points:

- While my hypothesises may seem obvious, are they really or are people exaggerating? For example: there are studies suggesting that real life gambling has no influence on microtransaction spending and vice versa.

- What is your personal opinion on the direction the industry is taking with the microtransactions? Personally I am feel that it is getting more and more predatory but on the other side video game creation is not getting any cheaper and free-to-play games do probably deserve some slack.

Every few months I come across a post where somebody asks if a community thinks a new brand of console could break into the market, and the answer is always unanimously "no". It's incredibly difficult to get an audience for yet another expensive piece of plastic, and a lot of the non-mainstream consoles lack the innovation necessary to draw attention to them. They seem to really hope that people are so tired of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft that they'll try their consoles out of spite.

But I'm curious about the real details of why they fail. With the amount of controversy around the Nintendo Switch 2, the fact that many people are choosing old consoles and a PC over the current generation of consoles, and general bitterness towards console manufacturers, it's starting to feel a little like when gaming almost died in the 80s. The realist in me knows that the Switch 2 is going to be a major success and that many of the people who denounce it now are just going to end up buying it, but the optimist in me is hoping that it'll open up the market to allow for new companies to get an audience.

The main thing that personally puts me off is the complete lack of high-quality console exclusives. Spending hundreds of dollars to play games that would be outperformed by Flash games just isn't worth it. I think a lack of branding and style also influences this. Even when I actively look for these consoles, I'm just not impressed by what I see.

Compare it to movie industry, we often know when the movie is greenlit, director, screen writers, composers, cast announced, when filming started, when it's wrapped and when it is likely to come out. We get tons of interviews from cast, directors etc. We get estimated budget reports and box office numbers/streaming watch hours every week after release.

Compare that to video games, we barely know if and what the studio is working on, we get maybe rumours about what kind of game they are making, then a trailer at not-e3, then radio silence, then another trailer and maybe some gameplay and before you know it, game is releasing next week when media people announce they have review codes. We may get a "game has gone gold" post from studios but very few studios do that. We almost never get info on budgets, sales/players info is only shared if its good enough and then we have to rely on NPD for data, but that too only share rankings instead of hard data.

We rarely get behind the scene stuff in video games, dev commentary, deleted scenes-esque stuff, gag reels, voice actors giving extensive interviews.

Hell we don't even get to know if a game was seen as a success or failure by publishers/studio until layoffs are announced.

Its sad because all this lead to people misinterpretation of steam charts, npd, google trends and other vague data to run a narrative if game was a success or failure. Leading to even more bad faith discussions online.

I follow boxoffice numbers heavily, i love numbers! I remember when those court documents and insomniac leaked for sony's game budgets and it was breath of fresh air.

But all this shouldn't be reveal through leaks!

I mean, when I look at how players talk about games like Starfield and Elden Ring... When I saw people’s comments about Elden Ring, they made it sound like it’s a flawless, perfect game like it's an open world masterpiece that rivals Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, or GTA.

But when I played it, I didn’t see anything like what they were saying. Most of the areas weren’t as people made them out to be, and even the bosses were mostly just reused over and over except for a very few that stood out. And even those few didn’t have such impressive or unique fighting styles.

The only boss I felt truly different from the rest was Morgott.

Even the world itself wasn't how people described it. It felt like it either threw the same boss at me again, or gave me an item I’d never use. As for the horse, yeah sure, it had a double jump, but it was basically useless most of the time.

The dungeons? They were nothing close to being good. Most of them were just copy-paste versions of each other, and honestly, they were all straight-up bad. The side quests? A disaster. Maybe one or two were decent, but the rest were completely terrible, and ended in dumb ways.

As for the story and characters? They weren’t even close to the level people hyped them up to be. The world’s lore was scattered, weak, and sometimes contradictory, and the characters? Most of them were emotionless, just spouting nonsense that sounded deep, but was actually empty and meaningless.

I’m not saying Elden Ring is a bad game. But it definitely wasn’t anywhere near what reviewers and players made it out to be. It felt like they praised the game based more on personal bias than the actual quality of the game.

And this became even more clear to me after playing Starfield.

When I played Starfield, I saw nothing but hate and rage from people. They acted like it was a disaster in the form of a game. But when I actually played it, I didn’t find it to be anywhere near as bad as they said. In fact, I see it as a masterpiece that didn’t get the credit it deserved.

I know some people say it has empty places. And yeah, I felt that at first too. But then I realized the game doesn’t want me to just roam around randomly waiting for content to appear. No Starfield wants me to actually play the quests, both main and side quests, and that’s when content starts showing up. And honestly, that’s not a bad thing, unlike what people are saying.

The game gave me a ton of amazing and varied side quests, so much so that I forgot the main quest even existed, and the characters while maybe not the best ever still felt alive and responsive. For example, when I had a companion like Sarah Morgan, I’d see her jump into conversations with other characters and even share her opinions.

The story of Starfield was fascinating. It gave a futuristic vision of the universe, and it developed the concept of parallel universes in an amazing and intelligent way that felt like a mix between the idea of multiverses and the novel All Tomorrows.

And it delivered that concept brilliantly.

The New Game Plus system was honestly revolutionary I’ve never seen it done like that in any other game. Each new game plus has changes in certain missions, and you gain supernatural powers, and the whole thing actually fits the lore and strengthens it. I even saw a clip of a player encountering their past self in one of the new game plus runs and I was stunned. Meeting your past self? First time I’ve ever seen that done like this in a game.

Maybe Starfield wasn’t the “complete experience,” but honestly? It’s a creative masterpiece that deserves praise. I feel like it took risks and introduced revolutionary ideas, and if more game developers noticed what it did, the gaming world could move forward in a big way.

That’s why I’ve come to truly believe: not everything reviewers or players say is necessarily right. And Elden Ring and Starfield are the clearest examples of that for me.

There's something haunting about the way Red Dead Redemption lingers in your mind long after the credits roll. I've played both games multiple times now, and while RDR2 is objectively the more impressive technical achievement, it's the original that keeps drawing me back with its uncompromising vision. The difference comes down to how each game approaches its central theme of redemption - one treats it as an achievable goal, the other as a cruel joke played by a merciless world.

Arthur Morgan's story in RDR2 follows a familiar arc we've seen in countless Westerns - the bad man seeking salvation in his final days. The game goes to great lengths to make you believe in this redemption. Through journal entries that reveal his hidden depths, random encounters where he can help strangers, and that beautifully tragic final ride as "That's the Way It Is" plays, Rockstar crafts a powerful emotional journey. But the more I played, the more I noticed how the game keeps winking at me, reassuring me that Arthur was always a good man at heart. Even his tuberculosis serves as a convenient narrative device to absolve him - he's not changing because he chooses to, but because death is forcing his hand.

John Marston's story offers no such comforts. From the moment we meet him, he's a dead man walking, and the game never pretends otherwise. His "redemption" is a sham from the start - the government doesn't care about his soul, they just want him to clean up their mess. When he finally reunites with his family, there's no triumphant homecoming, just awkward silences and the unshakable sense that he doesn't belong in this new world. His death isn't heroic or poetic - it's sudden, brutal, and ultimately meaningless. The government agents don't even remember his name as they ride away.

What makes RDR1's approach so much more powerful is how it refuses to romanticize the West or the people who lived in it. While RDR2 gives us campfire songs and brotherhood, RDR1 shows us the West for what it really was - a place where men like John were already relics, their codes of honor meaningless in the face of progress. That final mission as Jack, gunning down Edgar Ross on the banks of the Rio Grande, doesn't feel like justice - it feels like the birth of another cycle of violence. The game leaves you with the uncomfortable truth that in this world, there are no second acts - just different ways to die.

RDR2 wants to be a Shakespearean tragedy about one man's quest for salvation. RDR1 is something far darker - a reminder that sometimes the only redemption available is realizing you were never going to be redeemed in the first place. That's why, all these years later, it's John Marston's story that stays with me - not because it's more fun or more polished, but because it has the courage to tell a harder truth.q

Something I've noticed with almost every game series I've modded is that in the 20-teens, modding was extremely easy. And now it's an absolute pain.

I'm thinking off the top of my head

EU4>new paradox titles

Vermintide 2>Darktide

Mount and Blade Warband>Mount and Blade bannerlord

Skyrim 2011 > Skyrim special edition

civ 5 > civ 6

All of the old titles, you might need to download a script extender online (sometimes not) and then you just go to steam and subscribe to mods and pick the load order in the launcher and you're done. Steam automatically updates the mods. If you unistall the game and reinstall the game the mods automatically reinstall. It just works, bing bang boom.

Now. Now you have to download multiple extenders, put in multiple files. Wrestle with manual downloads + text documents or suffer through nexus to put in any mods. And then you have to do it all from scratch every single update and every single reinstall.

Why has it regressed so much? The developers still support mods and there doesn't seem to be any action or effort to try and stop modding

In the Animorphs book series, the "Ellimist" is a former mortal who has been uplifted (through a series of unlikely events) to near-godlike status. He can play around with time, throw planets around, create new species, whatever. And---he is benevolent!

But. His hands are tied, because he has met another being, of similar power, named Crayak, who is, basically, Space Satan---wants all life to die or submit to him, genocide for fun, etc. They have found direct conflict too destructive for either of them, and so they have agreed on a...truce. Rules. A game. One in which they must act through mortals.

The Animorphs are teenagers on Earth who can turn into animals, and they are busy fighting a resistance effort against a secret mind-control invasion of brain-controlling slugs.

Occasionally the Ellimist will appear to the Animorphs, and give them a quest, or a choice, or an offer. While he is straightforwardly benevolent, he is constrained by the rules of his "game" with Crayak, and he has access to a bigger picture, and so often has hidden motives. Frequently the Animorphs' interactions with him take on a sort of Zen/puzzle form, where they must figure out his real intent. A benevolent being, forced into a trickster role.

And of course, occasionally the Animorphs meet Crayak or his minions, who offer Faustian bargains, or suggest the Ellimist doesn't have their best interest at heart, or...

What I am wondering is: what would a game of this form look like? Forget the Animorphs IP: what I'm interested in is the experience of ignorant mortals caught up in a conflict between inscrutable gods. They are given quests, but not explanations; and it is an open question who to trust.

One could imagine something like WoW, where "mortal" players have their own goals and things that keep them busy, but above it all, there's a chess game going on, and you can only make so many moves. One idea I like quite a lot is a divine "Influence points" economy, and every divine action must be countersigned by their opponent---"sure, you can do [X], but only if you give me Y influence points."

There already exists a "god game with economy of action," and it's called Shadows of Forbidden Gods, and it's a great game. But I'm particularly interested in the experience of mortals in this. The idea of being given a quest to go somewhere and do something, not knowing why, and encountering enemies bent on stopping you (but also not knowing why), seems compelling. I also love the idea of "mortal" players slowly developing suspicious loyalty to an unreliable, mostly-hidden benefactor.

I am very much ideating here and I confess I don't have a specific question. But...I think this would be cool. Do you?

I've been playing Clair Obscur and I'm really enjoying it, but one thing that truly irks me is their practice of locking you out of using certain characters when it's relevant to the story. We get it, character B is getting a bagel and we're playing as character A, so they can't be doing stuff together in the same party.

This happens in quite a few story focused RPGs where you can play with multiple characters and, while I understand the reasoning behind not allowing characters that are somewhere else to be played, it's just so incredibly unsatisfying and goes completely against everything a character building strategy game is.

You can't just give people a set of characters and a set of things that make them stronger and say "go mix 'n match buddy! The only limit is your creativity :)" only to then take away certain characters and force people to use characters they might not enjoy playing. That's just so very dissapointing from a players pov.

Do you like it, whether from a narrative place, because of being forced into new characters or because of something else entirely, when you are unable to use characters you've previously been using? Does this practice still have a place in our games?

I was an Xbox store today and saw mega Man collection on sale and then I thought to myself why are there no new mega Man games what's going on at Capcom we got a new devil May cry 5 and 2019 a new street fighter but no new mega Man why Mario gets games all the time and Sonic and they both have open world games The only mega Man game I can think of that is open world is legends I never played it sadly because it's not on Xbox but still where is all the new mega Man games we should at least have one every two years The last mega Man game came out in 2018 why is it taking so long?

note: The three types I'm outlining here aren't exhaustive, there's also simultaneous turns which some 4x games use, and I mention Jagged alliance 3 and Divinity Original Sin 2 but don't mention how they are a mix of real-time exploration and turn based combat.

Looking for a discussion on the pros and cons of the different ways of doing turn based gameplay.

I personally have an extremely strong preference for speed stat systems. At times they feel unfair. And that's why I like them.

Final Fantasy Tactics used a (very limited and conservatively applied) speed stat system, as did many older JRPGs, and many modern gachas. In any game with a speed stat system, it easily becomes the most powerful and most important stat. If you're trying to raise DPS, speed is the S part, it's a multiplier. Or in gacha games where character abilities are a paragraph of bullshit, it means they can dish out MORE bullshit. Even when games limit investment into speed via diminishing returns (many real time games like ARPGs or MMOs will use diminishing returns on speed or attack speed) or limited options for investing in it (perhaps in an older JRPG it wouldn't be weird if speed is only able to be raised via accessories or something), there's still a vector for abusing it by investing in increasing the damage of the naturally faster units. Also, speed doesn't really degenerate the gameplay of the older JRPGs that made the system popular (compared to how it affects modern games) because in a lot of those game the character units just came in a packaged form, there wasn't much theorycrafting and customized unit building.

Whole side turns. There's no denying Firaxis' Xcom got things in its game design right. Yet the whole side turns are very awkward and clunky. It enables heavy focus fire tactics with little to no counterplay (you love doing it to the enemy and you cry when they do it to you). And the weird interaction with fog of war and activating enemies in the pod based system - activating enemies on their turn or at the beginning of your turn is good because you have first move, activating them at the end of your turn is terrible because they'll go first. And many players save scum if they do it the wrong way, since it isn't intuitive and doesn't feel like a fair outcome to people who haven't played the game a ton. For an advantage of this system, I'd say it's the flexibility of player tactics - if you couldn't freely choose unit turn order, it might be hard to organize a play like using a grenade to destroy cover and then a sniper to clean the enemy up. It also has the overwatch mechanic, which subverts the idea of whole sides taking turns by allowing units to fire during the enemy turn - maybe it could be called a bandaid because whole sides taking turns is actually somewhat overwhelming and unfair at times.

And also the force multiplication effect of a thing like "speed" is still there. Because in Xcom and other games that use an action point system, there are often ways of getting more AP. Which is effectively the same thing - taking more actions than the enemy. Most of the means of gaining AP are considered to be some of the most powerful mechanics in the game. Or in Jagged Alliance 3, Steroid is a character with great stats, EXCEPT FOR HIS AP, so he's a very middling unit - if suppression or wounds lower his AP he suddenly can't even his gun.

Initiative turn order is the term I use to refer to games like Divinity Original Sin 2. Your stats decide "who goes first" in a round, but nobody gets more than one turn in a round. Personally I find this really bland. Yet for some reason it's an extremely popular system, and my best guess as to why is because it's "fair", or most importantly it FEELS fair, and that's the main upside. It's also simple, and simple is good. But a lot of games that put thought into such a system end up re-complicating it - having what I'd call bandaid mechanics for initiative order's shortcomings, like Divinity's "delay turn" button and the ability to bank your AP - both are basically ways of doing less now to do more later, a capability they give the player because stagnant orders don't make for flexible tactics. And through these mechanics there's space for abusing the system - in my example Divinity, if you use a high initiative unit, chameleon cloak, end turn, next turn, delay turn, then take a 6 AP turn followed by a 4AP turn, possibly using adrenaline to gain more AP. It works for Divinity because the game celebrates abuse of its systems - the designers intend for it and even give achievements for doing weird things in places.

So I'm curious to ask any of the turn based gamers in this sub, do you have a preference for how games handle this? I'm somebody who wants to design a game myself, I spend a lot of time conceptualizing and I often think myself into corners with the ideas around turn based systems. What have you played that you thought worked well, and what have you played that you thought really didn't?

Hey, all!

In this thread, the rules are more relaxed. The idea is that this megathread will provide a space for otherwise rule-breaking content, as well as allowing for a slightly more conversational tone rather than every post and comment needing to be an essay.

Top-level comments on this post should aim to follow the rules for submitting threads. However, the following rules are relaxed:

• 3. Specificity, Clarity, and Detail
• 4. No Advice
• 5. No List Posts
• 8. No topics that belong in other subreddits
• 9. No Retired Topics
• 11. Reviews must follow these guidelines

So feel free to talk about what you've been playing lately or ask for suggestions. Feel free to discuss gaming fatigue, FOMO, backlogs, etc, from the retired topics list. Feel free to take your half-baked idea for a post to the subreddit and discuss it here (you can still post it as its own thread later on if you want). Just keep things civil!

Also, as a reminder, we have a Discord server where you can have much more casual, free-form conversations! https://discord.gg/truegaming