I hate them all. They take away so much time and quite often they cost money that you need to work for, hence losing even more fun. Games are bad. Really. It’s not COVID-19 that’s keeping us at home… it’s video games. The number of new streamers and new people playing games has increased in the last couple of months. Kids are not going to school right now and some people don’t even work anymore. Games are horrible. I hate them a lot.
Now, jokes aside, for the past couple of days I’ve been posting about game mechanics that I don’t personally like and that I always find frustrating to deal with. There’re timers and scripted fights, contact damage and even invisible walls… and that’s something I’ve been meaning to do for ages now. Hell, some of these prompts have been waiting here since last year’s Blaugust… and they are finally out.
But I’ve noticed that while I really enjoy writing about something like that and being overly negative about it… I don’t hate the games themselves (apart from Witcher 1 – I hate that game for other reasons, too, but also because of some of the bad features it has). Sparking a discussion and reading and writing comments about these topics really was a lot of fun but I guess I can’t do that forever… especially as I am running out of things to hate on… I guess I could hate on Rogue Legacy for being a bad game but that’s just a preference thing…
Instead, I wanted to talk about something different: Good games with bad mechanics that are done well in these games.
There are games out there that defy the logic of “good” and “bad” design. There are shooters where everyone’s invisible and where you need to do the unthinkable to kill the other players: Screencheat! (How could you?!)
There are games where you’re on a time loop, trying to overcome one hurdle after another, like Minit. It’s at heart a puzzle game and the 60-second-I’ll-reset-your-whole-progress-countdown is essentially nothing but a mechanism, a ship, or the way to give you that puzzle-game-feel. You need to do stuff – and you need to do them quickly. It’s great. I love Minit. Even if it sometimes can get a bit frustrating (but that’s not because of the timer… but because I don’t know what to do).
There are games like League of Legends where the invisible walls are actually quite pretty and prevent you from getting a headstart at the beginning of the game and there are also some invisible walls in there that prevent you from hopping off the map, which is understandable in a MOBA.
And then there’s Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight is just a great game that I really recommend without telling you anything about it… for now. I mean, sure, it has contact damage to it, too,… and platforming… but it’s still a great game.
So, even if there are mechanics that I don’t like in games… I don’t necessarily hate all games with those. But it’s fun to rant about them every now and then.
Anyways, that’s it for today’s post. Hope you enjoyed this one! Have a nice time! :)
Cheers!
This post is part of a challenge called BLAPRIL. The goal is to post as much as possible during the 30 days of April. There are different themes during some of the weeks and a lot of mentors, newbies and participants participating. Feel free to check this hub-post out and check out the other participants!
Indiecator 
A while ago, Charlesfwh from Around the Bonfire had an article where he talked about how we seemingly have lost the ability to find a middle ground in discussions. It seems to me as if this post has a similar ring to it. It should be clear that disliking a part of something bigger, does not mean that the entire thing isn’t enjoyable; but I understand why this post is necessary.
Since you mentioned League of Legends, I think this is one of the best examples. Almost every LoL content creator aboslutely slanders the game, but in the end, they still think of it as a good game, and have fun playing it.
In the end, isn’t there always something we dislike about a game or that we thought could and should have been better? Sometimes the arguments we make about the games are based on objective facts (“The graphics are outdated”/”The voice actors didn’t seem to care about their performance”), other times they are more subjective (“I don’t like timers”/”The game is too slow-paced”).
But if we make these statements and think about how it could have been improved, doesn’t it mean that we care about the game at least in some way? Even if we ended up generally disliking the games, criticising them still is a form of admiration, if not for the game, at least for the developers effort, and I think that’s worth something, too.
I guess my point is, the important thing is that we enjoy video games in general, even if they are so vastly different, some good, others bad; long, short, funny, scary, etc…if there is even a main point to my rambling here :-)
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Exactly! Just because I had an aspect of a game, that doesn’t mean that I hate. I haven’t actually read that post at Around the Bonfire, yet, but honestly, I just can’t keep up with all the posts right now.
More often than not (or rather ever since I started writing reviews) I noticed that I analyze games more often and try to put my thoughts into a simple “recommend” or “not recommend” instead of simply enjoying the experience.
But then after not writing a new review for a while, I noticed that I really enjoyed the experience I had in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, even though I hate the genre of Horror Games, through and through. Haha
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His article isn’t too recent. In fact, it’s from last August :-)
Here’s the link, if you’re interested: https://atbonfire.wordpress.com/2019/08/23/the-middle-ground-and-the-importance-of-discourse/
I know the problem of losing enjoyment over anylising games. Good to hear that you try out games outside your “comfort zone”, lots of hidden gems are waiting to be found :-)
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Haha, I mean, I enjoy getting spooked on stream for instance as it enjoys others… and it’s less scarier that way.
Thanks for linking it! Will give it a read :)
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