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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 5337293" data-attributes="member: 3192">It's the reality puzzle of the game.  Think about Pac-Man. It had walled mazes the player navigated around screen to evade or kill the ghosts.  Why couldn't he just past through the walls?  Or pass through in only certain spots? Or only at certain times? Why do we think we can or cannot do this in the real world?  I think it's about expectations.  There are no walls there.  It's all pixels on a screen.  But the game was a craze because people could predict how to evade the ghosts as if those wall-looking pixels were walls. That's verisimilitude.  It's using the words of the DM or the pixels on screen to relay a common understanding between designer and player.  2-dimensionality in this case.You get the same effect when you learn how far your avatar can fall before dying or how long it can stay under water before drowning.  There is no avatar, gravity, falling, water, suffocation, etc., going on.  Of course.  Gamers aren't that stupid.  But they recognize the similarity and adjust their expectations accordingly.  The closer that simulated reality is to common understanding of reality, the more accessible the game.Think of the old Mario Bros. where a few of the ground pits would fall into secret areas, while the vast majority did not.   That's bad game design IMO.  If you set that expectation upon the players, then they will either methodically jump in every pit to "clear the level" or quit playing the game out of frustration.I think the call for realism is simply a desire for internal logic within a game.  Meaning some constant logic pattern discernible by the players.  It is precisely this element, which makes those games so damned addictive.  And what made D&D similarly so.Back when it was a reality puzzle game.  When memory mattered.</blockquote>

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