Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
on how each dealt with the challenge of the game's simple system. Rather than trying to meet
players where they are, it's up to an individual to decide where to meet
Three Body Problem
.
Figure 6.8
Three Body Problem
is always just as difficult as when it began.
Games like this demand more from a player than games that hold the player's hand, but for
players who are willing to
start
in a frustrated place and learn their way out of it, powerful feel-
ings of flow can still emerge.
There's another reason to consider alternatives to traditional flow and require players to meet
the game, rather than the other way around: although it's often strategic in a conversation to
try to adapt how you speak to your listeners, sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes you
have to ask the other participants to hear exactly what you're saying—and as we discussed in
the previous chapter, some games are more about asking players to listen.
Gone Home
(2013) is
a game in which players enter a house seemingly abandoned by its family, taking on the role of
the eldest daughter who's returned from
seems to play with some
conventions of horror games—you explore dark rooms, looking for secrets, and are startled by
creepy noises (see Figure 6.9).
abroad. At first,
Gone Home
The revelation of
Gone Home
is that it's not a game about facing undead horrors or even
about a mounting arc of difficulty and mastery. Instead, you find clues as to the recent and
long-buried history of the house of the protagonist's family, uncovering the truth about why
nobody's home through diary entries, letters, bills, notes hastily left on the kitchen table, and
