gaming, frustration
I have an annoying conundrum when playing base-builder-style games.
When playing in sandbox mode, I enjoy the building flexibility, but it all starts feeling meaningless because there is no failure condition at all.
When playing in 'challenge' mode, I enjoy that there is a challenge to meet, but I get frustrated by my building plans being interrupted by stuff like "being just barely short on resources/funds".
I wish more games had something inbetween the two, that provides purpose to the building, but also makes it low-friction.
gaming, spicy opinion
I feel like the 'management game' genre is severely held back by the capitalist assumptions that people make, like always centering around 'money' or 'material resources' as the metrics to optimize for.
You could get such more dynamic gameplay if you focused on (balancing) complex and realistic needs of people instead of just optimizing for 'number go up'.
Imagine a management game where you build up and maintain a variety of public city infrastructure (like street furniture and public toilets), having to account for the varying and sometimes conflicting needs of different demographics, with 'budget' only playing a marginal role.
Wouldn't that be way more interesting than yet another 'build a shop with shelves' tycoon game?
ACAB
gaming, spicy opinion
@joepie91 does frostpunk fall under that?
re: gaming, spicy opinion
@joepie91 like something similar to oxygen not included, but more city builder?
gaming, spicy opinion
@joepie91 there's a reason dwarf fortress removed its economy system 20 years ago
gaming, spicy opinion
@joepie91 I think you are in general more likely to find those kind of things the further you go towards the "city builder" side of the genre, though those also tend to have a bit of an unexamined extractivist bent to them
gaming, frustration
@joepie91 Minecraft's equivalent exchange mod is the closest we've found to this
gaming
Also, I wish such games would experiment with novel research systems more! Surely more interesting things are possible than "provide resources, wait, ta-da, scientific discovery"?