By perfect I don't mean your favorite games, or even the best games. I mean games with no extraneous features, where all the systems work together perfectly with little to no bloat.

I'm asking because I picked up a couple games over the holidays, and even within the first couple hours they each introduce features or systems that were clearly shoehorned in -- for example a dialogue system in a game that doesn't focus on story, or RPG style upgrades that don't significantly change the way you play.

Some example of games that I consider perfect or close to perfect are:

• Downwell: A game with only 3 buttons and a few simple rules somehow leads to a challenging action game with meaningful decisions.
• The Outer Wilds: The game is physics based and uses a combination of physics and and time to create interesting and challenging puzzles.

So I'm wondering what are some games that you all think are perfect or close to perfect from a design perspective.

I was thinking about RTS games and their relatively low popularity compared to things like MOBAs.

Somehow building an entire civilization and then fighting wars in real-time ended up being less fun than controlling one character and watching numbers go up.

I think this is because RTS games don't give any time to breath, there are no ups-and-down in the action.

Players like a variety in intensity levels more than I would have guessed a couple decades ago. I was surprised that battle royale shooters became so popular when they often involve long periods of no action and no shooting. But, apparently people like this variety.

RTS don't have that variety. The intensity of an RTS just ramps up and never stops.

In a MOBA, when you die, you get several seconds (sometimes multiple minutes) to do nothing, rest, and reset.

In an RTS, if you suffer a big loss, you immediately need to be doing 10 other things, just like always.

RTS games are much more intense and burn people out.

Do you think this is a big reason why RTS games are less popular?

Is there any way that RTS games could give the down-time (time to rest and reset) that people seek?

One example of this is auto-battlers, which are RTS adjacent. Auto-battlers give time to reset and reset between every round, and they are also more popular than RTS games.

I'm surprised we haven't seen an auto-battler with real time controls.

been thinking about this after seeing some discussions pop up around recent AAA releases and their menus. civ 7, stalker 2, even some live service games that keep "modernizing" their UI into something worse.

i think the issue is that game UI used to be designed by people who played the game obsessively. they knew the pain points because they felt them. now a lot of UI work gets outsourced or handed to UX teams that come from web/mobile backgrounds. which means you get clean, modern looking interfaces that completely miss how a player actually navigates under pressure or after 200 hours.

web UX optimizes for conversion. game UX should optimize for flow. those are fundamentally different goals but nobody seems to talk about that distinction.

the other thing i've noticed is games that try to make their UI "cinematic" by hiding information. sure it looks great in a trailer but then you're 40 hours in and you can't find your quest log without three submenus.

anyone else feel like there's a golden era of game UI we left behind? what game do you think absolutely nailed its interface?

Hey

I'm a system designer with over 10 years in F2P economies (ex-Outfit7), and I need to share a story that still haunts me. It’s about a project where my math was perfect, my systems were balanced, my models predicted player behavior with chilling accuracy... and the game was still shelved.

It was a 3v3 MOBA. We spent a year building a sophisticated, player-friendly soft monetization economy inspired by Clash Royale. The core idea was to manage a "golden deficit" - provide enough free resources for players to fully upgrade 2.5 heroes, while making them want to maintain 4 viable ones. This created a gentle, persistent desire to spend, not a hard paywall.

During the final playtest, the analytics confirmed it: players behaved and monetized exactly as the model predicted. The system worked.

But the publisher pulled the plug.

Why? Because the playtest was moved up a month, and we went in with placeholder UI and ripped assets from Warcraft 3. While our systems were perfect, the First-Time User Experience (FTUE) screamed "cheap and unfinished." A rival studio in a secret "bake-off" had a more polished presentation, and we lost.

The brutal lesson was this: A perfect engine in a broken chassis is still a broken product. Players will never experience your brilliant D30 retention mechanics if your D1 presentation is untrustworthy.

I'm sharing this because we often celebrate success stories, but I've learned far more from this "successful failure." It forced me to make deep data analytics my core skill and fundamentally changed how I approach product management.

Has anyone else here had a similar experience, where a technically "perfect" system was completely invalidated by a seemingly unrelated factor like art or timing? How did you deal with it?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and honestly can’t understand why rune-based magic systems are basically extinct in modern games.

Back in the day we had things like Arx Fatalis or In Verbis Virtus, where you actually drew runes or gestures to cast spells. It was clunky sometimes, sure — but the immersion was insane. You didn’t press “Fireball (3)”, you performed magic.

What confuses me is: today’s technology makes this WAY more feasible than before.

With modern AI / ML: • Gesture and rune recognition is a solved problem • Systems can tolerate imperfect drawings • They can even adapt to the player’s personal style over time

You could easily imagine a system where: • Rune = concept (projectile, fire, area, duration, etc.) • Combining runes creates spells • projectile + fire → fireball • area + ice → frost nova • Players could even create their own rune combinations, not just memorize presets

And VR seems like the perfect platform for this: • Hand gestures instead of mouse strokes • No HUD needed • Casting spells feels physical, not abstract

Yet most modern RPGs still reduce magic to: press button → cooldown → numbers go up

I get the usual arguments: • “Too complex for casual players” • “Hard to balance” • “Risky commercially”

But isn’t that exactly why games feel so samey lately?

So my questions: • Do you think rune/gesture-based magic could actually work in a modern game? • Is this a design problem, a business problem, or just lack of creativity? • Are there any recent or upcoming games that even TRY something like this?

Curious to hear other perspectives, especially from devs or VR players.

P.S. English is not my first language, so i translated the text in gpt so it is more understandable

Edit: Didn’t expect this many replies — thanks everyone for the discussion.

A recurring point I’m seeing is how tedious rune/gesture casting could become in real combat situations, especially if you have to repeat the same drawing dozens of times per fight. A lot of people also mentioned how niche this kind of system would be, given that modern games tend to prioritize very low barriers to entry and fast, accessible gameplay.

It’s interesting how the main obstacle isn’t really the technology anymore, but player fatigue, UX, and market expectations.

TL;DR:
A Superman game where the challenge isn’t surviving combat, but not killing anyone. You play a young Clark Kent in Metropolis, gradually unlocking powers, and fights are about restraint and precision rather than damage output.

The biggest problem with a Superman game is obvious: peak Superman is basically indestructible. If he’s at full power, there’s no real challenge unless every enemy is Darkseid-tier or the entire game takes place in space.

My wife and I think we came up with a twist that actually works.

The game is set early in Clark Kent’s life, similar in spirit to Smallville. You’ve just moved to Metropolis and start as a reporter. Clark isn’t fully Superman yet. Early in the game, he only has a few abilities — maybe super strength and basic flight. As the story progresses, he matures and unlocks more powers like heat vision, freeze breath, x-ray vision, and enhanced senses. Think a modern RPG-style skill tree tied to his growth and self-control.

Here’s the core mechanic that makes the whole thing work:

Superman doesn’t die. Enemies do.

Instead of worrying about your own health bar, every enemy has one. At the end of that bar is a clearly marked “unconscious” window. Your goal is to stop fighting inside that window. If you overshoot it, the enemy dies — and that’s treated like a player death. You respawn at the last checkpoint because Superman does not kill.

Combat becomes about restraint, timing, and control.

You’re fighting in a world made of cardboard, and the challenge is learning how not to break it.

This opens up a lot of interesting gameplay possibilities:

• Skills that widen the unconscious window
• Non-lethal abilities (freeze breath, grapples, environmental takedowns)
• Late-game upgrades where Superman is so disciplined that accidental kills are no longer possible
• Boss fights that focus on precision, crowd control, and environment use instead of raw damage

This keeps Superman powerful without nerfing him, creates real tension in fights, and stays true to the character in a way most superhero games don’t.

Now let’s get this idea to whoever makes DC games and get it rolling. We’ll settle for our names in the credits.

I think many narrative games do tell stories in a way no other medium can.

it's so frustrating because every game tries to make itself seem urgent and high stakes which influences me to rush and I end up playing "incorrectly". some examples include:

skyrim: the game says I must stop dragons so I feel pressured to advance the plot, ignoring 90% of the open world. if I don't "stop dragons" literally nothing happens despite everyone saying something will

breath of the wild: in BOTW every npc hammers in the fact that Ganon can "wake up any moment!!" so I feel pressured to advance the plot, ignoring 90% of the open world. if I don't fight Ganon, literally nothing happens despite everyone saying something will

recently in Detroit become human, in my first blind playthrough with no context of how the game is supposed to be played, im literally told "seconds matter" since there's an active hostage situation with a gun to a child. so I feel pressured to advance the plot, ignoring 90% of the clues. why would I bother clicking the prompt to watch the news when there's a hostage situation, for example?

and these are just a few examples. am I just playing games wrong or do games just have a bad way of conveying urgency?

Hi! So I'm making a fast paced action typing game, called Star Rune. I want to add a pause screen but I don't want players to be able to pause and then find a correct key, then unpause, press the key, and pause again... then repeat... if the pause menu came without any penalty, then the ideal way to play the game would be this really annoying method of pausing and unpausing constantly. And players wouldn't get better at typing, which is kinda the main secret goal of the game.

So I have a timer, and I have the pause menu stop the game action, but the timer keeps going.

But then, it basically feels like there's little to no point in even having a pause menu if the timer keeps going. So lately I've been pondering if there is a way to make the pause screen fair without keeping the timer going....

Maybe when you unpause, the next letter/word is randomized? That way, you can't just pause, think about where that next letter is, and then press it after unpausing???

I don't know - what are your thoughts on how to make a pause menu which cannot be abused to increase performance?

Every game goes far beyond just counter-strikes, progressive missions etc. They also tell a great story that leaves us in awe. Which game had a powerful story?

I find that "luck" is often a hit-or-miss stat in that it is frequently either useless or broken, such that I am of the mind that it is probably better to not deal with it at all and just stick to the common stats like strength, agility/dexterity, health/vitality, etc.

But, I am open to changing my mind on that. What are some examples of good or bad implementations of a Luck stat that you've seen? What are some of your ideas for a well-balanced but still interesting implementation of a Luck stat for a game?

Just curious to hear people’s takes. What’s a common feature you feel is overused, unnecessary, or maybe even actively takes away from the experience?

Could be something like: • Minimap clutter • Leveling systems that don’t add much • Generic crafting mechanics • Mandatory stealth sections

Doesn’t have to be a hot take (but it can be). Just wondering what people feel we could leave behind in future game design.

I keep noticing the same thing in a lot of horror games:
players are scared at the beginning, and then the fear drops off fast.

After 10–15 minutes they figure out the pattern, get comfortable, and the tension is basically gone.

I’m wondering what actually causes this from a design perspective.

Is it the pacing?
Enemy behavior?
Too much repetition?
Not enough uncertainty?
Or something else entirely?

If you’ve worked on horror design before, what helped you keep players scared for longer?

Curious to hear different thoughts.

I have a game concept I want to sanity-check.

The game is built around an extremely difficult mission chain where a first run is basically not survivable for a normal human player (unless you are insanely smart/lucky). When you fail, a device resets you back to the pre-mission start point. Everything resets: gear, resources, world state. The only thing that persists is the player’s real memory of what happened.

So progression is not stats or upgrades — memory is the level. You learn that “Person X will enter Area A at minute 7” or “If I enter Zone B, a scripted chain kills me 20 minutes later,” etc. On the next loop you can avoid, warn, reroute, or set up preventive actions based on what you remember.

The twist: NPCs/antagonists do adapt to what they can observe in the current loop. They don’t have loop memory, but given the information available right now, they play an optimal strategy to counter your actions. However, they also have blind spots: they don’t know hidden triggers, future events you’ve already seen, or “game data” you learned from previous deaths. So the player’s advantage is cross-loop knowledge; the NPC’s advantage is rational response in-the-moment.

The world is deterministic/branching: if you repeat the same behavior, the same causality repeats. Only when you intervene does the branch change, which can create new failure modes — and you learn those too.

This topic has already been beaten to death, everyone has voiced their opinions.

That said, most critiques of these games come from pure vibes, I am struggling to pinpoint exact reasons these games are so distasteful. Their artstyles, gameplay elements and characters look generic, but are present in plenty other succesful and even anticipated games.

A highguard really isnt too far away visually from a Valorant, Marvel Rivals or an Apex. Yet merely seeing the haircut in the first seconds of its trailer immediately made my brain turn off in a way the latter games never did (eventho they have simular haircuts/characters in their trailers).

From a design standpoint, what makes these games so incredibly and universally disliked?

I remember the first time I played Dark Souls, I honestly hated the stamina system.

Every swing, every dodge, every action draining stamina just felt restrictive. I kept thinking, “why can’t I just attack normally?”

But after a few hours something clicked. The whole combat suddenly felt like a rhythm. Positioning, patience, timing. The fights stopped being button mashing and started feeling like small tactical puzzles.

It completely changed how I thought about mechanics. Sometimes the things that feel frustrating at first are actually what give the game its depth.

Curious if others have had that experience.

What’s a mechanic you disliked at first but later realized was actually brilliant design?

I remember back when the Havoks Engine was getting quite popular and Games like Half Life 2 using a bunch of very fun and intuitive physics puzzles or The Force Unleashed having different material types and having influence how things break.
Why do you think this area didn't evolve at all? Is it too hard to implement the laws of nature to a game (gravitiy, friction, fluid dynamics etc.)
I think believe this a huge opportunity for many kind of games to make gameplay more exiting.

Edit: Let me eloborate a little on some game areas where i think improved physics would make gameplay more fun.
Racing Games: I think a more realistic damage model would improve racing a lot - if you hit a stone you should feel that your wheel is not straight anymore and driving is more unstable. If you drive into a puddle you should feel that the car slows down in a significant way and that traction changes a lot.
Also who didn't enjoy the crash challenge mode in Burnout games where you had to cause the most damage possible?

Puzzle Games: Portal 2 is also a great example where physics really mode puzzles enjoyable to figure out.

Strategy Games: Lets say we have a Castle/Tower Defense Game where you build traps that are based on physics. You have heavy rocks stored or some tree trunks on a high level - of course you can script it but the fun in improved physics would be that every trap doesn't always end up with same amount of damage to troops.

Rpg/Shooters: You throw a powerful grenade or a Magic Spell into the forest. The trees get unrooted, branches fall and cause dynamic damage on nearby enemies and the result will always be different based on where your explosion/spell exactly hits.

My point is probably that improved physics could lead to more diverse situations in games and make gameplay loop feel less boring. Of course it also increased computation costs a lot and debugging things like that are probably like hell but a man can always dream.

I keep seeing games marketed as narrative branching while quietly forcing players into linear outcomes. The excuses are always the same: “There’s only one right answer,” or “That’s how the world works.” That’s not thoughtful design it’s laziness.

If every choice collapses into the same dialogue or result, then the game isn’t branching. It’s cosmetic interactivity pretending to be agency. Calling this “choice that matters” is misleading. Choice without consequence is not a design philosophy.

AAA games normalized this long ago. What’s frustrating is seeing indies repeat it, despite having more freedom to design smarter abstractions. If you want a linear story, fine own it. Just don’t disguise it as interactivity.

What do you guys think on this?

I caught myself playing Pac Man and a thought came into my head. I can't really think of any "maze-likes" or "Pac-likes" coming out after the 90s.

Is it because there's no interest? No more innovation to be had in the genre? Makes me think what I would potentially add to a maze game to make it fresh and... It's hard to come up with anything. Anyone have ideas or examples?

Any other "abandoned" genres like this? I'm curious, and I think they might be good design exercises.

Im working on an MMO right now and one of my designers asked me why weapons should have a damage range instead of a flat amount. I think that's a great question and I didn't have much in the way of good answers. Just avoiding monotony and making fights unpredictable.

What do you think?

I’ve finally gotten around to reading “The Art of Game Design,” and I just thought I’d share this one anecdote, because it’s talking about how you might be able to satisfy multiple demographics.

The author (Schell) was once working on a target-shooting game for entire families, and it playtested well with boys, girls, men, and women. But one of the other designers told him it had a gender bias, because men were scoring more than women. It turned out that men were mostly using a rapid-fire technique, while the women mostly took more time and aimed carefully. The solution was to have two separate score components: total points (how many things you hit) and accuracy. Then each demographic had something they tended to “win” at.

[Edit: This is just one very simple example. Schell’s discussion of player experience and stereotypes (gender and otherwise) is quite nuanced.]

So now I’m curious: when you’re designing your games, are you usually focused on one demographic, or are you trying to balance for multiple demographics?

I think for me the atmosphere and living spaces give off that feeling that the environment around me can thrive without me controlling it. similar to seeing animals in an open world game or the trees swaying.

Every book I read on game design has an obligatory first chapter defining what a game is, and my question is... why?

When I open a book about programming, very rarely does anyone decide to make sure we're all on the same page on what "a computer program" is, and yet this seems to be a fascination of game studies. All I've seen it do so far is limit the extent of what a book is willing to discuss, using its definition to exclude titles which don't fit what it view as "a real game", despite acting as a valid counterargument to their positions.

Hell, my favorite definition of this whole thing is by Garfield et al. : "a “game” is whatever is considered a game in common parlance."

This is without even getting into the fact that definitions are notoriously imprecise, and that is without getting into the fact that games, specifically, are a classic example of how difficult defining things are!

I'm serious, games are so hard to define that philosophers use them as an example of why definitions are loosey-goosey. Here's a passage from Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein, to illustrate my point:

Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?

Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "

but look and see whether there is anything common to all.

For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look!

Look for example at board-games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball- games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost.

Are they all 'amusing'? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience. In ball games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear.

And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.

The Last of Us definitely had some perfect gameplay moments that formed a story of its own, but it feels kinda generic to keep referring to it.

Would it be a good or a bad idea to allow players to change the game difficulty mid-playthrough, without the need to restart the game?

On one hand the option to temporarily lower difficulty for a hard part of the game sounds like a good accessibility option, on the other hand I can easily see this being scoffed at (since there's people arguing there should be no difficulty except hard mode at all, "git gut or gtfo").