A Story of Boxes, and How Players Can’t Think Outside of It – GD Keys
If you read my previous articles or have been hanging around our Discord, you know how much human psychology is of interest to me. One beautiful facet of it is this "game" that players and designers are playing together, for as long as games exist, where both try and trick the other, pushing on their level of control. Designers create playgrounds, full of possibilities, limitations, and challenges, for players to express themselves in it, while players, coming with their experience and expectations, will try and break free from these artificial chains.
Players approach in-game challenges in ways informed by what the game (and other similar games) have already taught them - in some cases, this can lead to missing seemingly-obvious solutions because the game’s affordances are pointing in another direction. (I ran into this during my playthrough of Right Click to Hack.)
This write-up illustrates that principle by taking a look at how playtesters approached a particular environmental puzzle in Immortals Fenyx Rising - and encourages designers to support more freedom and creative thinking in designing their challenges and to not be afraid of the opportunities this can create for “breaking” the game, as that’s often more satisfying for the player anyway!