i’m thinking i have a thing for “appetiser” or mid-stage boss encounters, with more a vibe of taking it as it comes rather than capping something off. i like how they can work as a pacing device, making me curious about & contextualising what comes next, whereas i’m typically not as thrilled about boss design as an end to itself (hence my disinterest so far in fighting games)
3 Likes
Wraparound, toroidal or cylindrical. I like how points of dispersal can shift in these finite spaces, being unbounded is secondary to me.
e.g. asteroids, Pac-Man, joust, civilization
Interplay between gravity and garbage. Gravity can be the pull of pathfinding and/or asymmetrical movement. Garbage, for this context, are things with a tendency to create turbulence the less efficient you are at managing them.
e.g. Mario bros., dig dug, centipede, doom
8 Likes
slightly angled side hallways
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Obstacles that are potentially helpful and/or partially benign.
E.g. Wario Land 2, Gimmick!, DooM 2
3 Likes
Incremental “personal“ progression
E.g. Katamari Damacy, metroid
2 Likes
Strangely detailed cooking minigames in RPGs and the like. Finding recipes
6 Likes
variable weather, but confined to only some sections of the game, e.g. outer wall in SotN (sometimes filled with mist, sometimes rain and lightning outside); ingame microclimates
i prefer having what feels like small windows into the wider unknown compared to say an open world approach that observes one global state at all times. the insider looking out
6 Likes
I think I feel this too, but the former usually feels as solipsistic as the latter ultimately as far as I’ve chosen to experience.
i mean yeah if you spend a long time with a game you’ll wrap your mind around what to expect from it eventually. i just like to think about what goes on in that initial learning phase, and how you can leave aspects of the game’s nature to the player’s imagination, depending on their preconceptions i suppose. as far as hidden variables go, maybe an interplay between local and global behaviours is ideal
3 Likes
nonsense spaces - things that are bigger on the inside, infinitely looping stairways and corridors, making three right turns and ending up back at the same place, etc. etc.
12 Likes
Spotting potential offsets in mr driller has been giving me excitable thumbs. This is more satisfying in Puyo, but it’s also kind of discouraging when the best combos I can manage feel partially accidental. I think pieces sticking together like in tetris are what’s easing me in.
1 Like
An arcade joystick so clicky you know you pulled off the move before it happens on screen because you heard exactly the right clicks 
4 Likes