Waterhurts Enderman i find it hilarious when their advertisement says "please promise me you wont play this at work!!" Because, personally, i wont play it at all

And so many positive reviews touting the addictive quality. And one of the top keywords is always "addictive". Since when have people *wanted* to become addicted to things?

@@FungusTrooper Well, allow me to introduce you to cigarettes and alcohol

i'm not sure i understand what the difference is. could you explain it please?

@@kieronrana5233 You can do without the game without lashing out at the world around you and growing more depressed

ceept you engaged, huh?

@@saladasss2092 yeah it ckeptt me engaged too

@@smlik yeah me too it kceeptt me engaged

@@EXA1024_ yeah same it cckkeept me engaged

@@Kromiball Yeah, ckeepng me engaged was a great idea!

Yeash hollow knight is absolutely amazing. Fuck the path of pain tough not even gonna try that again

I just started the path of pain last night, I haven't even made it past the first area

@@underdrow5572 how's it going? I did it after 6 hours of almost non stop trying ahahaha

@@FuriosHobbitGaming my ptsd is coming back. don't mention it every again.

Huh, i bought it on steam because it was on sale but never played it, that's gonna change tonight

Exactly, most of the games he talked about are “git Gud” games for me engaging games are one with good story, like What Remains of Edith Finch or mass effect, his assessment was accurate but for him the challenge is engaging aspect which might not be for everyone.

It is very satisfying yeah

This. This is one of the reasons I love RPGs so much.

yup. I love getting new skins for my character.

@@sockknight3927 same

but that can be turned into an addictive style of game design

..aaand music. :)

onedeadsaint barley saw it

Just logged in to thank Mark for this too. It's so useful to have the game titles on the screen when they are shown, and also thanks for the music and times in the vid descriptions on most of your vids, so one can skip to the section one wants immediately. I also have a request Mark: would you consider making a vid about *Psychological Tricks* in game design, explaining in more detail those you mention in 0:43 like Skinner Boxes, Daily Rewards, Resource Decay, Loss Aversion and many others, giving examples of games that do this? I just found 1 video explaining Skinner Boxes ( this one ukposts.info/have/v-deo/rIelqqiHi5iCwJc.html ) but I'd like a complete video explaning ALL the addiction strategies used by devs. Thanks! ^_^

onedeadsaint oh Jaden Jaden I got you one of them Starbucks to use downstairs if you want to

Another great channel that does that is 'Ahoy'

So.. What Rouge likes are supposed to be lol Not just Hades

I always get demotivatetd if i had a good run, i played it for 1,5h and then i die and i don't get anything from it. Like for example isaac or dead cells. I love these games but even when i'd really like to play, i think "nah, i'll just waste my time" so i don't play them anymore :C

@@inu4771 Repeated deaths do give frustration, and sometimes I don't even want to open it again. But Hades has a lot to collect outside the battle, can be these things make me feel not in vain, right, in fact, I rarely play rougelike type hahaha.

Lol same with curse of the dead gods and morta

@FluxFlu every other Rouge like does it well aswell.. Infact IMO "Enter the gungeon" does it better

Just one more turn and I'll go to be-and its dawn.

One more turn... Is that SUN?

yeah but civilisation 6 has a terrible pacing problem

I had to uninstall the game because I couldn't stop playing.

Jeevith Rai I had the same experience and I only played for like 2 weeks. It was the most addicting game I ever played

Supergforce777 if you are a casuel (jk)

Literally every enemy in those games stresses me out. Dying in Zelda? No problem. Dying in DarkSouls at a friend's house? I peace out. I really respect DS players. 😆 (Edited punctuation later because I'm a perfectionist)

Emphasis on "FOR A WHILE" I mean you're right, we all have to take a break from Dark Souls for a while when we start feeling exhausted...

@@lezanji1884 honestly though...you are a casual anyway until you play AND finish Dark Souls series...which I hope to do someday, though...

@@cosmic2750 I'd like to think I'm pretty good at DS PVE (PVP not so much) but I still get exhausted and won't play for a few months only to come back afterwards. They're some of my favourite games but demand a lot in terms of attention and resolve.

Same

It always feels like there's so much things to choose from. I feel like I can't 100% the game so I just do the linear path.

That's why I force myself to just play the story in some games. The completionist in me wants to get everything, but if I do I'll just get bored and put it down before I finish it

i love when the collectibles do something, like enabling some new dialogue or quest with a npc like in Bethesda games or make an enemy react in a certain way like in Monster Hunter, collecting for the sake of collecting is very boring

@@brenotome yeah exactly. I mean in hollow knight it's also very satisfying to collect things

This is why Persona is perhaps the only JRPG series I’ll ever play. If you start getting tired of combat and dungeon crawling, you can leave and focus on building your relationship with other characters or just being semi-normal student.

Interesting, because personally (heh) I found Persona 5 to be one of the most boring games I've ever played (even more so towards the end, where you have the full stretch of mementos + final area). Persona 4 is even worse since the most dungeons look the same, and the gameplay never exactly changes, to the point that I gave up playing at the 2nd or 3rd dungeon (forgot whose is it. Probably Kanji's). Meanwhile even when I got stomped hard by bosses, games like Sekiro keeps bringing me back. I literally grind on final battle for days, and yet I don't get bored with it.

@@ZX3000GT1 Personally for me, Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal were amazing games, and both did things that engaged me. For the final part of persona 5, I just ran through all the enemies with Ryuji's insta-kill meaning it never got boring, and for Persona 4 Golden I was always running the side objective of trying to max out my best Personas' stats so I would focus on shuffle times and stat cards while running through the dungeons.

@@avichalsinghal4786 Haven't played P5Royal myself (don't have a PS4, only a PS3, so standard P5), and what I remember the most from the game is just how boring the final boss is. I don't fully remember what I did, but it goes to something like this : Joker : Buffs Morgana: Heal Ann : Fire(?) damage I don't remember who's my 4th character It's literally the same loop of action, almost every single time, and I beat the boss in normal mode. It's boring.

@@ZX3000GT1 I played through on merciless, and yeah, final boss of standard persona 5 was pretty boring. I min-max so I had more fun trying to set up ridiculous amounts of damage with Yoshitsune and Baal and Lucifer

Borderlands, anyone?

Headphonesop k That’s why I like TVHM (or in Borderlands 2 UVHM) because the enemies scale to your level. I think that really is one of the key points of keeping me engaged because killing stuff with one bullet in some areas but not others would frustrate me greatly

Doom (1) Phobos Anomaly - those two barons. Literally everywhere in later episodes.

Risk of rain 2?

God of War- The witches, the elf lord dude (I can't remember his name), trolls, at the point that I'm at even travelers are starting to become that way.

Though this has a slight problem in that "engaging" is used to mean "providing emotions/sensations which are in some way enjoyable, including fun" as well as "addictive, but not in a bad way".

Shows candy crush as addictive

I think the comment I made about Operant Conditioning fits into this conversation.

I always cringe when I see a game advertised as "So addictive! You won't be able to put it down!" If I was a drug dealer, I wouldn't go around saying "Hey, you wanna buy some meth? It's so addictive! You won't be able to stop taking it!"

Baldurs gate, planescape torment ,dark souls are engaging , quake 3, unreal ,dota etc additive

You can marry in stardew…!??

​@@shekharsiddharth7827yeah?

@@shekharsiddharth7827 I am confused at why he is suprised. But then I realize there is almost zero guide ingame on how to get the mermaid pendant.

@@Lemony123THATS WHAT I NEED? A MF MERMAID PENDANT?

@@cvolo that guy on the far side of the beach will sell it to you on rainy days, but only if you're already dating at least one character i think!

Why did I read this the second I thought of it? Bro I love Control, so much so to the point where one of my very own games-Vendetta has HEAVILY inspired concepts from the game. But its one weakness is that it was not engaging. Its world is gripping and its hook is amazing, but it drags on just too damn long.

Don't know what games you play (or maybe you play them all) but I personally think many devs spend too much time on length and not replayability. I have a whole library of games I've started and not finished. If the game is engaging through 40hrs of campaign great. Many 20hr games I think would be just as well served with an 8hr campaign that was filled with moments I wanted to play over and over again. Game design wise starfox 64 was one of my favorite games ever. Takes an hour to beat but I've probably sunk several hundred hours of my life into that game over the years because it is always a blast to replay thay 1hr of amazing level designs.

I'm like this as well, I lose interest quickly then its off to the next game that grabs my attention. When I go back to these unfinished titles I find myself just restarting and just replaying what I've already done until I lose interest again.

I was like this when I first got my switch just kept buying games and never finishing

Thats me with pokemon

Some games just have really kick ass intros and starting points that makes you just wanna start fresh over and over again.

I really wonder how minecraft works. You seem to set your goals and just keep going. (Original beta time when tuts were non existant)

You forgot about hardcore mode

Dindu Same, :D

After like 100 saves Minecraft got rly boring. Moss are only thing that save it

I was explaining to my friend what games counted as "rougelike" and he just said "so like Minecraft hardcore mode" and the fact that that is technically true has been messing with me for a while

I platinumed skyrim, then came back a few months later on legendary difficulty on a new save and burned out very soon. I guess Skyrim doesn't lend well to back to back complete playthroughs.

Agreed. It's funny, my husband hates Overcooked whining the controls are terrible.. because he'll try to put something down on the table but be too far to the next tile and it'll go there. It's funny how the tile thing I think is general helpful so you'll effectively snap to things but it causes huge frustration with some people that they just refuse to play it.

Thank you

Yep, Skyrim checks all of those off.

@@guilhemane I actually could never get into skyrim

I just copied your bullet points onto a document on my desktop lol!

thanks haha!

most of the time you are trying to achive goals but then the game throws events and calamities at you, shaking your mental model of the game and generating engagament with the narrative, which is something Rimworld does best

In dark souls, a lot of the NPC'S are hidden and it makes you have to actually explore the area to find them. I feel like this makes your relationship with some of the characters even better for the effort and exploration you went through to do their questline.

Then I would recommend pyre by super giant games.

That's interesting, I'm drawn to Fire Emblem for a completely different reason: because I like strategy games and have a nick for epic fantasy stories. I mean, I like the character development present in these games, but I'm not a big RPG fan myself. Also I love the great soundtracks FE games have, of course.

*COUGH COUGH* Persona 5

Maybe a bit late, but I do reccomend you try out the Dragon Age series, if you haven't yet ^^

I think it changes from person to person for example, I stopped playing subnautica because it didn't engage me but unlike others like mark in the video I played doom multiple times and it heavily engaged me

Yes! Subnautica was exactly the same way for me. I had to go out of town right after finding the Lost River for the 1st time, and I literally could NOT stop thinking about the game for the 3 days I was out of town. I'm not sure I've ever had a game experience quite like it.

Subnautica is amazing. One peculiar personal problem I've had it with it is that I feel the need to over-prepare because it scares the heck out of me, and gathering the courage and resources to move past the lost river (which was a mind blower, I agree) has been a challenge. It's such a good game.

Joseph Anderson made a 1 hour critique to that game. Go check It out, It was interesting...

That game was the most fun I've had in awhile. Screw the dead zone though. Seriously, never go there.

TovenOvideoRPC I think that video would give some malicious developers bad ideas.

11clock honestly, those developers will more likely be researching videos on gambling addiction rather than actual gameplay videos

gambling isn't the only way to make something addicting.

Totally. I've played Dragon Mania Legends for the past three years and finally put it down, and I really feel better not chasing after these daily goals anymore. But it was hard to do it, especially in games like that where you build up something for ages and ages and don't want to lose progress. But I know people who literally have spent ten thousand bucks or more on this game, and it's just terrible.

As a Game Dev student I would also find that very interesting. I promise I won't use it... probably

@Zoe Kin It is established that Yennefer was important to Geralt, while on your first playthrough (or without book knowledge) you are not expected to know much else about her. Since the game makes you feel for Geralt by characterising him through interactions with other people you want to help him find her. So far it should work for everyone. Later once you get to know Yennefer better you might realise you like her yourself or start to despise her. This is when a greater goal (Ciri) but also an alternative romantic partner (Triss) get introduced so you are motivated to keep progressing regardless of how you feel about Yennefer. You are made to care about Ciri even more by seing things from her perspective. In terms of motivating the player through narrative I think it is materfully done. You have an overaching goal you are invested in and every step towards it tells its own story.

@Zoe Kin well... And this would be a great topic to cover for the channel... Witcher 3 isn't a "blank slate rpg", it's a "character rpg" (to coin some terms). You aren't creating this character, and your feelings about his potential romantic partner aren't supposed to matter that much. You are playing the role of an established person, who already has his own attachments and desires. So, your feeling that their relationship is toxic, in a real way, isn't very important. What really matters is that Geralt finds their relationship exciting and freeing in a way. Choosing to be with her is choosing a Geralt who doesn't care what other people thinks, a Geralt who follows his desires and lives his life his own way. On the other hand, Geralt feels that Triss is more stable, a more socially acceptable choice. She makes him feel like he could leave his life of violence, settle down somewhere. She makes him feel like an honest man. That is the choice you're making: freedom vs. peace. Not just, "which of these women do I like more?"

Characters based on novel references that CD got from.

@Zoe Kin Yes, she is the textbook version of a toxic person

Coming from a guy who couldn't get engaged in demon souls, dark souls or dark souls 3, I find it particular that Bloodborne struck me so hard. It's in my top 3 game of all time.

The key part is the game atmosphere; in certain point i dropped "is just too hard, theres others games to play without all this stress" but after a couple days i came back, couldnt let go, that place, that sounds, is magnificient.

@@RoyMatzem exactly 💯 best atmosphere ever. Even the story caters to the atmosphere, not the other way around.

Get the demo and if you like it get the game now. They are going to change the price this month (from 20 to 30 so not huge but still)

Cracktorio

Buy it! You'll be supporting awesome Indie devs.

Factorio gameplay seems cool, but there needs to be a REASON I'm building factories for me to engage. And for there to *be* a reason, there probably needs to be more to that game than just building factories.

yeah the goal is to launch a satellite with a rocket, then you won (you can continue tho). There are also achievements that might make you want to play more. Multiplayer is by far one of the most fun things to do in Factorio, they don't lie when they say Cracktorio.

Outer wilds is the best game ever and it’s unfair to compare it to other games

@@orange4573 dude you’re 100% right

I liked OuterWilds but the death is somewhat pûnitive sometimes . SPOILERS . . . When I figured that i should use the electrical jellyfish to get to the center of leviath, it took me some tries because I kept dying from electrical shock. Same story when I entered the Interloper, there are galleries that just kill you if you chose left instead of right. Every time you die, it's the whole trip to your destination, sometimes waiting for the place to be available (Interloper, the sand planet twins...) I wish I could quick save, just to be allowed to fail some precise timings.

@@Shriukan1 Did you talk to Slate about ghost matter? If not, do so, and try not to take his comments too personally :p

@@cf-yg4bd my gameplay was a bit ago, I don't remember who is slate or what he says haha

I love the combat system, for sure. But it’s the world itself and the monsters that dragged me in and kept me hooked forever. One of my favorite games ever. Love the way different monsters will fight each other, love the different variations of different monsters and the combat system of course adds to that.

*nervous laugh* the factory must grow?

Factorio? Oh god... well, see yall in a decade or eight.

@@jadeavenger2376 Factorio gets you because you automate something to stop you from having to do it anymore, but to keep that working properly and use its output you will need to automate something else Ad infinitum. You never really reduce the amount of work you need to do, you just create more varied dependencies to consume your time. One progression always leads to several more things, and you can't put it down because there is always one more step to completing the build.

And the UserInterface in factorio is one of the best I know: it really supports you in doing the things you want to do. A bad example for me is animal crossing where the ui always feels like it is designed to slow your progress and makes the things you want to do take way more time than necessary.

Venice man.... so fucking cool

Good shit. I recommend you play AC: Black flag. You'll probably like it.

Play Brotherhood and Revelations. Ezio is the best Character in a video game in my opinion.

The ezio trilogy is probably the best games in the franchise

Ac 2 is the best in the serie

there isn't one, they're called games for a reason and because of the interaction with the audience i.e. the gameplay, they need to be enjoyable to qualify as good

That's addiction, not engagement.

It is also kinda like rise of nations or any decent civ management game. I think falls under the exponential growth category, but generally has multiple win condition. So players have defined goals, but can choose which ones to go for and how to reach them.

@@bronsoncarder2491 Civ isn't evil.

It's likely because most in-game accomplishments, or Achievements, are just glorified to-do lists. They're not challenging enough to warrant the title "Achievement". This is a gripe I have with basically every game. "Oh, I got an Achievement for killing 500 of an enemy that's easy to kill? Well, guess I can say I've killed that many, even though it really just came subconsciously." "Oh, I got an Ancheivement for killing 10 players without dying? Eh, they were AI and all they really do is just lump together. Plus, I got off a match where actual players were basically running into my bullets, so yeah." "Oh, I got an Achievement for beating the *FUCKING TUTORIAL*? What's next, an Achievement for logging in?" "Oh, I crafted a weapon? I don't think using a game mechanic you start using within 3 minutes of playing warrants the Ancheivement label." Most, hell I'm tempted to say ALL, Achievements nowadays aren't actually challenging enough to get that make one player's skill stand out from others. It's also scary to see that a good amount of Ancheivements that are piss-easy to get have low amounts of players who have gotten it ("only 38% of players beat the game on Easy or above?!"). I'm hoping to eventually find a game that has Achievements that are actually designed to be CHALLENGING, something you have to actively work for to get. Stardew Valley as you've referenced might be such a game since vets specifically hint for them.

@@Manglet762 you should play "into the breach"

Extra credits did a video on this. They compared destiny 1 to Law and Order. You should check it out if you haven't already.

@@stevenr4 link?

@@RandomGuy-hb4ee lmgtfy.com/?q=Extra+credits+destiny+law+and+order

@@stevenr4 thanks.

The pacing in Warframe is really too slow for me. The grind is horrible!

This. Right. Here.

There are not too many games that allows you to make relationships and keep them engaging like stardew valley and harvest moon.

Stardew does a great job at this, as it is virtually impossible to dance with someone at the first flower festival. It doesn't force you to pick a soulmate immediately and instead tells you "This is something for you to look forward to when you have a partner in mind".

garrondumont Glad you bumped my comment! I've literally just started playing Stardew Valley little a month ago, and most frustrations I had with HM is fixed on SV! It really does make me feel like I can go on and on with the game even if I don't do much of what is intended (cave explorations, etc.). Also just the fact that I can date any of the single villagers (even date them all at the same time lol) is a huge plus! Now what I'm struggling is having presented with so many options to do, lmao. I might even try the SV Expanded mod since I heard it feels like playing SV again for the first time.

This is why I can't dig Animal Crossing. Even if ACNH is very much a sandbox, it's very schedule-demanding despite its goal of being cute and relaxing

Yay someone who knows that game! Yes I agree with you!!!

Not to mention how interesting the world is! You have Medusas that exist with Martians!

Nothing is more satisfying then murdering hordes of zombies with the Last Prism as revenge for the first night. Oh, and equipping the guide voodoo doll to give the guide a taste of his medicine (I'm still salty about how he always opens doors for zombies only on the first night when you're the most vulnerable)

Ahhh, yes, the age old question of if anyone can spell Cthulhu correctly without googling it.

@@NT-sx2bd terraria is one of the most popular games ever everyone knows what terraria is

Thing is, people who design those games are shooting for another goal. Out better and their better are two different betters

I think that would be fantastic to watch. Anything that explains those kinds of games would hopefully reduce their effectiveness as well.

Could even be a video that goes along a sliding scale of engagement to addiction. Starting at better for players through to best for cash hungry devs

I think you just want to make money, not games. ;)

Extra Credits did a video on this. Frankly, it's a bit more informed than Marks video.

That really depends on the replayability of the game

@@graygravity3856 Well yes the game play itself has to be attractive enough to replay or that doesnt matter so much, but if theres only one build even great game play & story wont be very replayable for me. Too much "been here done this"

@@graygravity3856 had this problem with cyberpunk 2077. I played a netrunner at my first playthrough. After that I wanted to try another build but the railroadiness of the story the meaninglessness of the sidequests didn't give me any incentive to do so.

That’s the reason card builders like slay the spire are so fun! Not addictive but engaging where I want to try out combinations I couldn’t have in the last run. Whereas Valhalla feels like a punishment for leveling up seeing one million skill that you have to have eventually to progress.

I started to hate the game due to difficulty I just don’t have time and patience and that’s ok. Celeste is an irony that talks about stress, paranoia and all that yet such a story is hidden inside a game not everyone will enjoy and not completing it will lead to fomo, stress and feeling inferior than others who got to finish the game because they were “just better at it than you” I eventually watched cutscene and loved the story so much. I wish more games make it like hades and give us an easy time.

While playing Hollowknight every time I put the game down (cause its long) I would tell my friend EVERYTHING new I found out about the game. It was super funny because I was really confused. Now I know the whole lore and its truly amazing. I almost feel like an archeologist (almost cause their work is a lot more history and a lot less fighting monsters)

I love metroidvanias but I couldn't finish Hollowknight. It only took one hard boss for me to realize I wasn't enjoying the game. Bloodborne, however, I drank that up.

Game Channel which boss? Most of the game lets you just go in a different direction as you get more pale ore. Though I do understand it’s hard to leave behind your geo

I think it also has to do with where you're at in your life as well and what you're hoping to get out of games. When I was younger, I'd spend hours grinding at Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. so I could get better and finally overcoming the challenge was fun for me. It was rewarding to find something I couldn't beat and then get good enough to beat it. A few years ago, I loved Call of Duty multiplayer and getting better and leveling up in that. It was rewarding to be good enough compared to other players to do well against them. But, now I'm at a point similar to yours where I'm now on older Assassin's Creed games where there's a minor challenge, but I can win without putting forward maximum effort. And, that's because my life has enough challenges as it is. I go to work and push myself to constantly do better at making sales. When it's time for me to relax and game, I do it so I can escape from the challenges of life. I don't want something else that's going to push me. That's the beauty I've found in game genres. That's why I keep playing even if my taste keeps changing. Games are there to give you the reward that you need. If not, why play them?

Thanks for sharing. That’s really nice reflection.

Weirdly enough, I love GW2 (and spent my teenage years on MapleStory) for the opposite reason -> they put challenges in front of you. GW2 is, for the most part, a pretty casual game, that doesn't require much of you. But then there are raids, and more hardcore achievements and collections that would test you. Sometimes you would spend weeks finishing a certain collection to be rewarded with a unique item, usually with a unique visual effect, that you can wear proudly. And MapleStory... well, it's a korean MMO, so it's obviously a grindfest, farming maps for days at a time for certain drops, finding the perfect spots for leveling, and then grinding the devil out of them to reach those sweet sweet higher levels... I really liked the game before it all turned into a raging dumpster fire.

Personally I think that's why I gravitate towards pvp games it's because it's high effort as your opponents are always changing and getting better I have to always be looking for new ways to win or new ways to out think my opponent don't really know what that says about me as in irl I'm lazy asf and hate myself for it

@@JoshuaCard Yeah, for me who didn't feel very challenged in school, even in College, I could turn to competitive games for challenges, Super Smash Bros Melee, Starcraft2-difficult games with a brutal skill curve appealed to me because I could actually feel like I earned it when I succeeded. But most people don't look for the same challenges in games because they are busy spending their mental energy on other challenges, and that's what's great about games-there's a game for you no matter what you're looking for.

Have you tried Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice? It's pretty much what you described, you play as a samurai and your skill as a player is what allows you to progress.

Yes, this is a game that engaged me too, and I played through it pretty much non-stop. It has an incredible storyline that speaks to me as someone who understands the theories and principals behind it. [Spoiler alert] The story keeps you asking questions throughout, and regularly gives you little pieces of the puzzle, but then the ending... oh the ending! Finding out that the person you are playing is both Booker and Comstock, and that Elizabeth was Booker's daughter and Comstock stole her from... himself, I guess? It's a bit of a mindf**k, but a good one, and it made sense. I think that game did a good job of making you feel some emotion towards some of the characters, as well as doing something not a lot of games (in my opinion) do - letting you know the character you're playing is an asshole. But going back to what I said about how it gives you information regularly so you are always learning the answers to the questions you've been made to think about, I think it's also great that Booker himself is discovering these things along with you. Not only does the player have the revelation, but the character does too, and I think that is really powerful.

I envy you a lot because i've tried playing that game 3 times now and I can't get engaged for more than 2 hours.

I wanted to like the Bioshock series but I could never finish the first game , I tried 3 times to play through it but I just didn't care enough about the story, it didn't engage me at all sadly, I tried the others in the series and found the same. Its a shame given how many people love them, just not for me I guess!

it was innovative for its time. it had a wonderful atmosphere. if they were to expand on it they should make it open world. the sequels just felt like copies. bioshock 3 was horribly cartooney. floating city? meh

No!!! Please no, don't open-world that series too!!! The reason it was engaging and well paced is because it *wasn't* open-world! They were able to generally control where you go, and what you saw, which helped guarantee you stay engaged. An open-world game by design can't control where you are going to be, so there is very few options to get the player into the *story!*

I mean, celeste is the first game here

JG Peres hmm

lol

Same wtf

Undertale genocide

Funny, I completely bounced off it. I found the stealth & action gameplay difficult to the point of frustration, and the heavy cinematic aspect boring. Not a lick of engagement to be found, for me.

YES! I hated the game on my first try, but came back to it a few months later and this time I got it. I even played until the final boss, but then I was mentally torn apart by everything that came before, so I couldn't keep going. Bloodborne used to be my favourite game from From, but after having played Sekiro extensively there is no combat system in another game that comes close. :-(

@@observant6953 looking forward to elden ring man!

Sekiro is peak Miyazaki era FromSoftware for me. Elden Ring is really good, but Sekiro is something special. It manages to bring that feeling I found when I enjoy gaming for the first time, something 99.9% of top rated games failed to do to me.

The Witcher 3 - a much more efficient sleep medicine than anything over the counter

PRAISE GERALDO

Literally was my first thought!

I just lived the witcher for a few weeks, loved how that game got me hooked!

The world also doesn't respond to you in an organic manner either. You can steal anything from anyone with no consequences. It is a highly scripted story driven flawed game but for some reason getting more praise than it deserves.

And you get so engrossed in each of the characters stories. With added bonus of trying to maximize your activities each game (optimization)

It was the opposite for me. I stopped playing after shidos dungeon cause the game got way too long. This is coming from a guy who absolutely loves p4, p3 and p2. All they had to do to fix pacing was remove haru

@@inkllama5445 egg with a forehead

Futaba best girl xD

Honestly? P5 is in my top 5 (lol) games. Also, Futaba best girl Yusuke best boi no I dont ship them

jodudeit precisely, I never got tired of DOOM because DOOM never let go. Relentless combat and well hidden secrets kept me going and it never felt repetitive. But of course, people just stick to 3 or 4 guns and don't take advantage of the full arsenal at hand, giving their combat scenarios a lot less variety and fun. DOOM (especially in higher difficulties) teaches you to push forward and experiment with the tools it gives you, since resources are ONLY scarce when you play defensively.

jodudeit I've already bought Skyrim Todd, leave me alone!

Taylor Conners DOOM didn't pretend. Because the bones and meat of the combat were solid and reliable. Even the protagonist - the doomslayer - was designed to push this single idea. Punch and shoot and kick and rip and tear. Until it is done. That's essentially what I did throughout the whole campaign.

It's just that, the combat becomes repetitive after a while, After all you are just shooting demons the entire time

Howling Wolf it's up to the player to vary things up, that's why they give you that many weapons and power ups and fuel and weap. mods. There's a lot of variety there, if you say you found it repetitive then it's entirely your fault.

Exacly the opposite with me. I played some those games and just couldn't finish them, mostly because their length.

Try Pillars of Eternity

Baldurs gates are awesome, but to get most out of them, DAMN you have to read alot anf PUZZLE alot :D Same whit Fallout 2, tried it? i think you could love it.

Try the Gothic series

Divinity all the way, every little quest was interesting and the abilities you have can be used creativly outside of combat. One of my favourites the pet pal skill if you don't have it you miss out on a bunch of dialog or even entire quests.

Skyrim is mine too. I love well-made open worlds in general. You COULD follow the main quest-line, but there's plenty of room to decide what sort of person you want to be, how much or how little of the world's events you want to get involved in and in what way, or whether to put it all on hold and go pick some flowers and catch butterflies. Then there are all the mods, to add/subtract/modify just about any feature you can think of. (LONG STORY WARNING, NO SERIOUSLY): One of my characters developed a "main storyline" of her own that just emerged from experiences during the game - I played an orc who during a bloodlust-filled battle accidentally killed her trusted follower whom she had previously helped and rescued from poverty and dissolution... he just wanted to go traveling again like he had in his youth, and have an adventure... Poor old Roggi. She became a cold-hearted killing machine - less soldier and more killer, as she continued helping Ulfric Stormcloak see through his ambitions to punish the Empire which had exploited her people as front-line grunts for ages, and... (after hearing Legate Rikke's and General Tullius' very sensible and entirely true pleas to keep Skyrim united to prevent the Aldmeri Dominion - who secretly supported Ulfric for exactly this reason - from invading a newly weakened Skyrim a few years later) standing at Ulfic's side as he gave his victory speech felt not triumphant, but cold and hollow in a "I am her because I am the best murderer... Have I just helped destroy Skyrim?" kind of way. She became a wanderer for a while, going through the motions while seeking a new purpose, and eventually found Erandur in Dawnstar - who was seeking his own redemption. After finding it, through the love of Mara and the confrontation with his old Daedric mistress Vaermina, he became a follower (my character had resisted any other offers from potential followers up to this point, but finally accepted his offer, because this was a man who knew something about redemption). They went to Riften and began serving the temple of Mara (quest-line) and helping people throughout Skyrim "find love". Around this time, the "Imperious Races of Skyrim" mod's effect on orcs started kicking in (I recommend Enai Siaion's mods in general, they create a whole new experience and add a lot of variety - Imperious Races, Ordinator Perks, Apocalypse Spells, and Wintermist Enchantments are the ones I've used). The effect in this case is that berserker rage can trigger randomly when you enter into combat... the red haze, the shaking and blurring screen, especially not being under my control, it felt more like being haunted by flashbacks, and reminded of the blood-thirst that had gone so wrong, than being a badass warrior. It was disorienting, unsettling, and perfect for the story at this point. I (and by extension my character) became disillusioned with the temple quests of "love" because Mara seemed interested in rewarding infatuation and obsession, which I didn't find to be worthy of my help (like old Calcelmo who was so "in love" with his... co-worker? Faleen that he had never really spoken to her and didn't even know her well enough to know any of her interests - which is not "love" in my book, and the quest relied on utterly deceiving her with a fake poem he didn't even know he was supposed to have written for her) - the whole way back to Riften I was silently ranting to myself about how if Mara thinks that kind of behavior is "love" then she as a goddess of love is BULLSHIT, which I said to myself just as I walked in the door to the temple. I realized my character was trying to follow the path to _someone else's_ redemption, not her own. She dismissed Erandur, and became a wanderer again. All the while, she had become one of the most powerful warriors possible, able to cut down powerful dragons with one or two blows from her mighty axe, and stand in the path of dragon fire or frost without so much as wincing. She went to the orcs, her people. A stronghold near Riften was in trouble because its chief, Yamarz was weak. He was given a quest by the Daedric patron of the orcs, Malacath, to slay a giant and restore Malacath's shrine - and brought my character along because he was a coward. He died, and she slew the giant. She returned to the orcs and Malacath didn't make her chief, but handed the title to some other member of the stronghold. Though she was an orc, stronghold orcs still treated her like an outsider. And she was. In the end, it was enough, not to be a bloodthirsty killer, certainly not to be a Stormcloak (most of whom were more racist toward orcs than the Imperials were, anyway), not to be an orc who revels in berserk rage and serves a Daedric lord, or a "member" of any group or faction, but to be the outsider who could see through the fears, prejudices, and agendas of Jarls and peasants alike, with eyes unclouded by hate - a lone wanderer, powerful, self-reliant, with a troubled brow and an unflinching sense of honor that was all her own. She rode out of the orc stronghold into the golden forests of the Rift, greyed by an early morning rain, and I felt like that was a perfect place to stop the game with that character (without having finished the main quest-line, joined most of the main factions, done any of the DLC quest-lines, or anything), and say "The End". It was a totally emergent storyline, but it engaged me more deeply than any of the scripted quests - though I enjoy those too (but I always try to look for my character's particular "angle" or storyline, especially since playing that orc). There are still plenty of quests I haven't ever done, even having played several different characters, so there's more to go back for, even with hundreds of hours logged on Steam. TL;DR: Skyrim is a classic because your experience is (or can be) a gestalt - i.e. it's more than the sum of its parts.

found Skyrim super boring, personally

me too but sincei spent a lot of it i spend a bunch of time modding it which was fun for me

BlackJoe23 Oh the modding community is what made it worth it

Skyrim was trash imo, but I kept playing for and coming back hoping that I was missing something. In the end I just conceded that peoples standards were abyssmal. The thing with the Elder Scrolls is that it get's progressively worse for every new game, less depth, worse writing, worse world building, same boring combat. But at least it's better than Fallout 4. I honestly don't get how some people get so immersed in such a shallow world, but to each their own I guess.

Yeah, I played the game for two weeks straight, and beat it. I have like like 300 hours on it now. Though, after I defeated Ganon, I haven't picked up the game in a year.

UnknownVengeance i defeated ganon in a week. I then played it for 2 more weeks and did all side quests and shrines. Almost exclusively without the help of the internet. The only thing i didn’t do was collect korok seeds and fully upgrade all gear

Ehh this is exactly what i feel

And it’s great that the souls and bloodborne games don’t have a complex narrative so that you can jump back in without feeling like you need a story recap

​@@CubicleJ0ckey I wouldn't necessarily say that the narrative isn't complex in its own right. It's just not really catered to you as a cohesive narrative experience, so you can go through these games without knowing what the fuck is going on (and without feeling the need to care). I think thats really well executed in later soulsborne entries and not that many games pull a lack of guiding narrative off that well. The game doesn't force its narrative on you but it still doesn't feel empty and artificial as level design, enemies, cutscenes and npc still very much showcase that people put a lot of thought and effort into the world and lore (that goes way beyond "lmao ima make a hp lovecraft proof-of-concept victorian england simulator").

Oooh or deliberately designing controls in a Survival Horror to feel weighty and odd to aid in discouraging fights.

Yeah like the hunter vision for far cry primal.... i know this game is bad but it's a good example of bad mechanics for the sake of casual gameplay experience

do it anyway.

"it is not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick"

ea bad

EA BAD AMIRITE

blob PRAISE GERALDO

Well yeah but, if you already unlock all the routes isn't it makes you bored of the game? Like you already know what happen, and the game finished? It's not really that engage, when u finish the game, it's done, it's not a long term game, unlike you play stardew valley and finish the game, u still can do anything on the farm, that's engage (?)

@@whwjsjhsj replay value and engagement aren’t the same thing. Undertale is incredibly engaging on the first play through of any given route.

Sounds like you should try out A Hat in Time ;-)

Yeah I do like "squishiness" in a game.

I agree, perfect balance of main story and side quests. And they even tease you with areas you can't go to yet or chests you can't reach.

Seriously, the only times I put down the game were when my parents told me many times to sleep.

That game changed me 💕

Same. Sometimes I play video games to make my mind stop thinking all the time. And here I thought I was the only one.

Same here! I simply couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks… At any time of the day I had the urge to play it x')

Guy Mor, jobs are only 8h typically my dude ;)

Only two weeks?

I think it was the gameplay that did it for me. I think BotW rewards weren't very interesting to be honest, it just felt like a bunch of small quests that rewarded the same small thing. But still, I just couldn't put that game down. Usually when I play a game I end up being a bit tired after playing for some time. For some games it's ~1 hour, for others its ~3. But BotW was different. For some reason I never got tired of playing, even after very long sessions. It just felt so... "easy" to play. Not "easy" as the difficulty, but more like, the gameplay, controls, UI, etc... caused zero necessary "superficial effort" (I don't know how to put it better) from me. And also, I think the world in itself played a big part. So many interesting places to visit. What's over there? What's on the other end of that road? Up that mountain? Inside that giant cave? etc.

Breath of the Wild actually petered out hard for me. I beat the 4 dungeons, I wanted to upgrade my gear before Ganon but it was so tedious I just stopped caring. I never beat Ganon.