Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the way people say games should push their limits when it comes to what we expect. The game has to constantly change expectations and push limits. This is what I agree with. I think we should find exciting new ways to entertain and surprise our players and create new and rich experiences. But that’s not what I want to talk about.
Instead I want to make a case for the game that doesn’t do this. To provide context, I was recently looking for a horror game to play. Short and effective. I wasn’t interested in the exciting narrative or the new and exciting way to play the game. I just wanted a good old school jump scare game. I wanted a junk food game. The kind you can argue is not so good. The kind you’re talking about doesn’t do things it hasn’t already done. This could be for a game like this, but can I say that the game entertained me? Yes. Yes it was. In fact, very much.
The point I’m trying to make is that the game doesn’t have to go beyond what we expect from it. It doesn’t have to drag us into exciting stories that keep us hooked for hours in anticipation of the outcome. Sometimes, after a long day at work or college, we may need everything we want. It’s about jumping into a simple jumping scare game or a casual repeat game with no end goal. Sometimes we need junk food games and I think having them is just as important as innovating new games and pushing the limits. So go ahead and enjoy junk food.
Until next time!