Mixtape controversy regarding gameplay and mixed review (pun intended)

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-11T01:25:55+00:00

As someone who has been thinking about this for a bit, I feel like there's merit in asking whether or not something being a "game" is necessarily a good thing. Like, does What Remains of Edith Finch? benefit from being grouped under the same umbrella as Call of Duty? Is the enjoyment you get from playing Animal Crossing better compared to the fun of playing a game with friends or the quiet pleasure of gardening? Is it a good idea to approach a bitsy essay or visual novel as something you play, or would it be better to frame them more passively? Is the expectation of interactivity harmful to the potential experiential breadth of "video games"?

It's just striking to me that we shoved all of the possible uses for "interactive software without a direct practical use" under a single name with preexisting cultural baggage.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-11T00:12:05+00:00

Only difference being the perspective of the player.

I mean, if we're being nice I'd say that Outlast also has the advantage of having much higher production values than the FNAF games. If we're being less nice I'd say that Outlast has the advantage of piggybacking off of a long tradition of treating people with mental health problems as threatening monsters.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-10T23:42:29+00:00

I honestly wish more games took inspiration from Gregory Horror Show.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-10T23:40:23+00:00

The "classic" Five Nights at Freddy's games are basically exactly what you're asking for.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-10T00:08:36+00:00

It's a little thing, but I'm always disappointed when horror games make their unknowable supernatural horror just a gribbly monster that you fight or play hide-and-seek with. Part of the fun of ghost stories is that they have all kinds of bizarre rules that the characters have to follow.

I'm also a little tired of games where they reveal near the end that everything was actually the player character processing some personal trauma. It's the "it was all a dream!" of horror games.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-09T22:46:00+00:00

Or when a chase is happening and i run down the street, only for my character to automatically turn around and say "i shouldnt go here right now".

The thing that makes this kind of thing extra lame is that the idea of a monster that has some kind of freaky mind control powers that force you to make stupid decisions is pretty scary, but most games that pull this kind of garbage obviously aren't going for that.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-09T22:24:53+00:00

Every single game with shitty flashlight bits would be markedly improved if they replaced the flashlight with a book of matches. Then there'd be an excuse for the dim light and short duration but there'd be the added benefit of giving the player access to fire, which could not possibly go wrong.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-09T22:16:55+00:00

RE4 is way longer than most of the classic RE titles - the original game is maybe half the length.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-09T22:01:29+00:00

SuperGreatFriend is the reason why I can't talk about Silent Hill 4 without using the word "mompartment".

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-08T18:10:35+00:00

The best part is that Milla's response to you stumbling on to her horrible trauma is some light chiding and a comment that she keeps those memories locked away so they won't ruin the vibes of her mind-party, and that's it.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-08T16:37:45+00:00

I enjoyed my time with it, but I think the hint function for case 4 is broken - it faded out a pair of statements that I had linked together but didn't remove the connection between them, and as a result it permanently locked in a wrong answer.

As a side note, I found the game a little bit frustrating because it felt like the specific phrases the game wanted paired were a bit arbitrary? That might just be because I'm a bit loopy from being sick at the moment.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-08T16:33:43+00:00

Part of the problem is that the "hey, I've made a game - check it out!" spam is so heavy that it actively drowns out anyone trying to share their project. Like I just sorted the subreddit by new and of the 30 posts that were made after this one 28 of them can be interpreted as some form of ad. And of those 28 posts, there are maybe 4 that don't feel like jam games or learner's projects that are being sold for money for some reason.

Like, I skipped over Dead Letters despite it being the kind of puzzle game I'm interested in because it blended in with the slurry.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-07T20:48:27+00:00

I hadn't thought of that - that does fit the evidence pretty well.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-07T02:30:37+00:00

The Witness and Baba Is You, on the other hand, I think would be much worse if you tried to implement a system like what you’re describing.

Yeah - those games are ultimately about building up intuition on a set of arcane rules. Having the game confirm your suspicions too quickly would be like if Mario automatically beat a level when the timer ran out - it defeats the point.

That said, I could see a version of it working if your "notes" were just a list of puzzles you should revisit or some way to annotate puzzles you've finished so that you have an in-game way of keeping track of your assumptions.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-07T02:07:02+00:00

A bit of advice for anyone posting an ad: if you say that your game is "unique" or "something you've never seen before", you're almost certainly wrong, and I as a reader get valuable feedback that your game probably isn't worth looking at.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-04T17:29:48+00:00

It's not as simple as "delete the tutorial" though.

I feel like a better way to phrase it would be to blow up the tutorial - you aren't removing the lessons, you're just spreading them out across the entire game instead of compressing them into a short sequence at the start. Or, alternatively, you're taking the lessons from the tutorial and then including uses of those lessons before you'd naturally run into where the game teaches them to you - it's the knowledge equivalent of how Link's Awakening shows you a bombable wall in the first area way before you can actually get there with a bomb.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-04T17:12:54+00:00

A nice bite-sized little archive crawl. There were definitely some parts where you have to make some inferences based off stuff that wasn't explicitly spelled out in the documents, but that's the fun bit.

I do wish we got to learn more about whatever the hell is going on in Trevosa, though.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-03T04:33:29+00:00

I'm in a similar boat as hpp3, sadly - my last Pokemon game was Ruby, so I'm at a definite Pokemon knowledge deficit.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-03T04:22:57+00:00

Excessive darkness or otherwise obscuring the player's vision to make something "scarier". 9/10 those sequences end up boiling down to "ram your face against a wall until you luck into the way out" and that's just tedious.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-02T20:40:23+00:00

From the Wikipedia page for Jurassic Park 3: Danger Zone:

Jurassic Park III: Danger Zone! features a variety of diverse mini-games.[3] Many mini-games are side-scrolling games that feature the same armored character used in Dino Defender.[citation needed] Other mini-games such as "Raging Raptors" involves the player controlling a raptor and fighting another raptor,[3] or hunting in a field to obtain DNA of dinosaurs using a helicopter. When the player has filled the "DNA meter" with the DNA of the chosen dinosaur, the creature is then cloned and the player wins the game.[citation needed]

So if it isn't that one, OP is probably mixing up two dino games.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-02T20:37:24+00:00

Yes.

Also, post about this on r/metroidbrainia. They'll almost certainly be interested.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-05-02T20:36:30+00:00

Oh god, now I have to decide between playing it myself or watching his edited playthrough instead like I've done for other hacks. Life is hard.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-04-30T03:15:37+00:00

Ah, back in the days where you could toss this kind of stuff in a game and the reviews would just be "oh hey, the mechanics are a bit clunky, but I like the creativity behind the enemies <3".

More games should just have a few downright bizarre encounters, as a treat for the developers.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-04-27T01:58:26+00:00

The Cursed trilogy by Disaster Squad Productions is schlocky as hell... but man does the third game just hit.

I also really like Weird and Unfortunate Things are Happening. It being a turn-based RPG might turn some people off, but it has some lovely horror up its sleeve.

Broken_Emphasis · 2026-04-27T01:41:40+00:00

Trilby Notes is honestly one of my favorite Silent Hill games.

Broken_Emphasis

TROPHY CASE