How Tears Of The Kingdom Keeps You Playing Forever
Added 2023-05-27 04:55:07 +0000 UTCCheck out Guess The Game!: https://guessthe.game/
Tears of the Kingdom is a compulsively playable game, with many people losing hundreds of hours to its impossible-to-resist charms - but what distinguishes Link's latest outing from the many many games stuck languishing in our backlogs that we intended to keep playing, but could never quite find the enthusiasm to go back to?
After diving into the depths and ascending to the skies, The Architect has gotten a few ideas - maybe the secret to a game that keeps us playing, and stops us from burning out is one that doesn't just distract us, but makes us care about what's going on? And just maybe, could it be that the secret to creating a sense of investment lies not in the work of developers, but our own minds?
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Comments
I've already dumped over 100 hours into this game. I just now did a bunch of graph paper cutouts of the house modules, so that I can design my dream home (which, btw, is adding to the big Subnautica vibes I was already getting), only to decide that I should do rough models in SketchUp so I can visualize it in 3D. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Something I noticed with BotW that I'm also feeling in TotK, though, is that...it only provides the *beginning* of the feeling. I can sit and play Stardew Valley or Minecraft for every bit as long as these Zeldas, and there's the same kind of compulsive playability, but those two provide the *completion* of the feeling. There's the satisfaction of seeing a MC build gradually take shape, or the satisfaction (and continuous injections of closure) of completing each day in SDV. I find that these two Zeldas never provide that back half of the feeling; only the open, anticipatory front-end, endlessly. Like you, I also spent most of my time so far just running around to get towers, lightroots, and shrines. It wasn't particularly *fun* to play it that way. And once I started actually doing quests, there was a lot of "oh I already found that", which spoiled the effect. But, because it is possible to start off by doing that, I couldn't help myself. Nevertheless, I cannot stop playing this game in every free moment I have, and--well, you've laid out exactly why.
Adrian Slider
2023-05-28 22:32:53 +0000 UTC
