the game design lens that has served me well for like 10+ years is to assume that all "bad game design" you encounter (whether it's something you personally dislike or something you see people complain about online) was intentionally and deliberately crafted by someone who sincerely felt it was "good game design" and try to understand it from that perspective. what if grinding for health after you die in nes metroid creates a meditative preparatory period before you dive into the harsh alien world? what if running out of lives and having to replay earlier levels in old action games makes you engage with the levels more deeply and learn new facets of them? maybe the actual historical reason was so you couldn't beat the game in a rental, but why don't you pretend that games are made by artists who believe in their work for a moment?
I wrote about something tangentially related to this for Fanbyte a couple years ago! It's about the purpose of negative space. https://www.fanbyte.com/games/features/negative-space-games/
Postcard credit: Smallswords from the Armories of the Tower of London (UK Ministry of Public Building and Works, 1967).
Sticker: Cohost's own @doodlemancy, available from Etsy.
Card: "The Sword Hoarder" (Evan Doherty, 2020), from the Arcane Bullshit Oracle Deck.
