if i ever make a game, i want to add a dog with a button to pet it, and if you try, the owner warns you not to do that, because he bites. then if you try to pet the dog again he bites you. and you take damage. i wanna receive emails from people who hit game over and lost 30 minutes of progress because they pet a dog was blatantly warned would bite them
i feel like people have glommed onto "can i pet the dog" as synedoche for "is the game world interactive in ways other than violence and traversal" which I think is a great question to ask. But petting a dog is a very limited form of interaction that doesn't really actually convey anything about the world or expand my idea of what's possible within the game. everyone points to BotW's dogs as a disappointment but i feel like following a dog to a hidden item felt more interactive with the dog than petting it ever did. it expanded my understanding of the world, felt like a new thing i can explore, rather than just a button i can press for a cute animation. so i feel like "i pet a dog and it bit me and i took damage that ended my run" would make the world feel more multi-faceted and unique than "i can pet the heckin doggo" ever did
god it would be so fucking funny if people die from petting the dog.
