There is a subtle difference between a game designed to be engaging and a game designed to eat up your time, and sometimes it can feel difficult to tell the difference. This essay examines how games can cross the line into having so many options it ultimately hurts the game.
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The Cool Factor
Making video games look and feel “cool” is a great way to make them fun. But chasing after that coolness can be something of a double-edged sword. And so it’s important to think about how that attempt to make a game cool can get in the way of making the game fun.
Bugging Out
Bugs and glitches are, for better or worse, a primary component of video games nowadays. But how should we view the prevalence of bugs, and buggy games, as players and as a community as a whole?
The Devil of the Details
Much as we think about games in terms to the big picture, it’s useful to step back and examine the little details. Especially if those little details start to become a major hurdle for a game being fun to play.
On Traveling
One of the most basic elements of a game is how you get around it. But what are the ways in which movement can go wrong? In this post I’ll look at Cyberpunk 2077 to help explain some ways in which basic movement can run into major issues.
On Simplicity
Video games have become increasingly complex over the years, but to what extent does that complexity get in the way of those games being good? In this essay I’ll examine the value of trying to think about video game systems in a simpler light.
The Copying Trap
Inspiration often leads to a kind of mimicry, but this mimicry can be a trap that developers often fall into. If you’re trying to make something new, how do you go about making something that’s really different?
To Cheat or Not to Cheat?
Every now and then, the topic of cheating in a single-player game comes up, and there’s a big argument about it. But how should we understand the ethics of cheating, whether in multiplayer or single-player?
Video Game Narratives
While stories are a prominent element of video games, what makes a good story, and in particular, what makes a good story for a video game specifically?
Talking About Games: A “Good” Game
We often talk about games in terms of whether we “like” or “dislike” them, but how could that mindset be hurting our discussions?
Abstracting Games 