zzz is the only gacha game i've played for longer than an hour, and when you hit the gacha layer of the game it is really disappointing. it's simple but it's fun and flashy and i wish there was a version that was a game and not a gambling hall

this is an adopt, info here:
ych.art/auction/219571

specifically half life alyx, the vr one. half life is fun, it had a great core. but in vr it is very fun to search around for stuff in a level and when they were testing it they saw people doing it anyway even without the currency so they added the currency to encourage it, because it's fun

version of the game, not turning it into a treadmill or making the player feel fomo or something

half life didn’t have any of this until it became a vr game, where it was found that exploration in that space, even in a linear game, was fun. and so little bits were added to encourage that. again, the baubles are almost meaningless, it’s about enhancing and leading the player to that most fun-

this sort of extrinsic motivation is used rarely though, usually it’s used to prop up mediocre or boring core gameplay or is meant to be the gameplay by itself. zelda has extrinsic motivators too, but they are used to encourage exploration, that’s the key to this stuff. notice how something like-

a little bit is okay, one of my favorite games of all time is wonderful101 which has a shop, but the key is that the currency is connected directly to becoming better at the game. it has a purpose that feeds into the core and makes it more fun, with the bauble being almost meaningless

and after nmh 1 i will be playing 2 and 3 for sure!

i just checked, i played it on pc and assumed it had been rereleased on all the modern consoles but it looks like if you can’t do pc it has to be ps2 or gc which isn’t super easy nowadays. that’s a shame, i hope they do a port to the new hardware

i highly recommend it, especially from what i’ve played of nmh so far. if you like that you’ll probably like the weirdness killer7 has going on

the combat so far is wild in a good way. killer7 had a cool use of the right thumbstick too and i think it’s a space that’s ignored a lot

i really liked peak too, very funny game. i could definitely see that being a goty if you got into it

silksong already came out this year so this is probably the year it would sting the least to get another linear, action focused metroid game but still

fusion was fun, dread was fun, but they don't focus on the things that make metroid uniquely metroid and that's disappointing to someone that loves that part of the series

i love dreams! it is very funky like how you describe but it’s also super fun