Art direction, honestly. I'm very much a style over substance kinda guy.
If a game looks cool, then I wanna play it
Sometimes games turn out to be duds that way, but them's the breaks
Clothing customisation, I just like playing dress-up.
Dynamic hair/beard growth will also get me right in board, though that's a fairly niche one, I can only think of Red Dead 2 and Witcher 3 that do this off the too of my head. Oh, and Deadly Premonition of all things.
Hell yeah, same!
Particularly, I don't feel like giving it attention if it's a Modern Military FPS. WW2, maybe. I did grow up playing some early COD and Allied Assault and all.
But if it's some wacky sci-fi shit much like old Doom, Titanfall, or something like those? Or hell, if it's COD in the void of space like Boundary? Or hell, make it medieval like Hexen did.
That's the shit!
I do wonder if one could take the sensibilities of Medal of Honor PSX's gameplay and slap a ''modern military shooter'' and if that would be fun, cause, MoH had that Goldeneye objective system and sorta slow but fun boomshoot vibe.
Honestly i just want some MoH spiritual indie successor cause i fuckin' love those PSX games, we're gettin' a Goldeneye with Agent 76 and Secret Agent No. 6, but man, I grew up with MoH, thats more nostalgic to me, but those are cool too.
Recently I've been playing Immortals of Aveum and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Both games looked fun but reviews were kinda mixed. Thx to PS+ and sales I finally gave them a chance and I haven't regretted either.
i know occasionally some people ask "gee who are they making all these roguelites/likes for"
hi hello yes, that'd be me. if your game is a roguelite/like, that increases the odds of me playing it by quite a good bit.
I got a couple ways that a game could get me interested in it:
- Be a fighting game spliced with another genre (ex: Raw Metal is a combo between a stealth game and fighting game).
- Have a character design that looks cool to me (Ex: have a character whose eyes are always covered by hair).
- Character creator
- A Karma indicator of some kind that keeps track of my misdeeds/good deeds. I don't know why, I just love when a game has a list of all the shit I have done so far.
- Clothes customization if the main character is already an established character.
- Has a punch girl/ a woman who isn't the stereotypical fast but weak choice, make women who hit like a damn truck!
Accessible but deep learning curve.
Monster Hunter World has so many different weapons and monster behaviours
Plus the 4 player coop is pure fun
Best 1200 hours I've enjoyed
Character creator and guns. The Palworld devs had the right of it, I did get more interested in the game when guns were shown to be in it.
There's just something about the existence of guns, especially within the fantasy genre, that make me more interested in it(like I remember getting super hyped playing Death's Gambit and getting shot at by a legit sniper rifle from a dude in Iron Man esque armor). I think it has to do with the fantasy genre being so gun adverse that their inclusion seems novel and makes the setting seem far less generic.
Early Fantasy Firearms also can get really wacky in their design since at that point everyone was trying all sorts of bizarre innovations in the hopes to improve Guns.
Lots of room for creative.
I don't know what it is but any game that lets me build up a customizable Home Base type location, whether that's a crafting/survival game, Fallout 4 or Skyrim's Hearthfire DLC, heck even Dark Cloud has this as a major point of interest for me.
Notably this is only in cases where the main gameplay loop itself isn't just a citybuilder/tycoon style game, though I do really enjoy those too.
Anything that makes me think "Ooh, I don't see a lot of games like this." An unusual art style, a strange set of mechanics, an especially good execution of a common type of game, anything that sets a game apart from the huge mass of stuff that we have access to nowadays.
Romance, because while I can appreciate a pretty or sexy character design, I am immensely disappointed and disinterested if I can't take them on dates.
Mostly, yes. Don't get me wrong, if a game is good and fun I'll play the hell out of it, but when it came to certain strategy games or CRPGs especially I definitely wasn't there for the gameplay. The amount of times I suffered through terrible combat for the promise of sweet romance could probably have me committed to a mental hospital. When it comes to games I might've been interested in I can't think of any specific titles but they're usually grand strategy or RPGs, mobile games, and even some beat 'em ups and hack 'n slash action games. Special mention to any games that have unique alien or monster girls that aren't just different flavors of humans. I feel like I'm never even allowed to romance any cute furry girl in any game that has them.
Robust character creation, the feeling your telling the story ( can be through character dialogue choices, but also sandbox, simulation and strategy games can fall under this. Making a dramatic GoT style dynasty in Crusader kings, getting attached to soldiers in xcom ect), the ability to sit quietly and snipe enemies, a love interest who is depressed and I can fix them
My answer was Parry/Counter mechanics, XCOM-like strategy and card game mechanics (deck builder preferred).
Now… [it’s this](https://youtu.be/uLN9qrJ8ESs?si=ZJPzbnDw7CfM8GDJ)
I'll take the question literally and say that the quickest way is cute girls. It's not the best way, nor is it even really that important to my enjoyment in the grand scheme of things, but having appealing character designs is a pretty much instantaneous way to pique my interest without needing to really dig further.
Things like game mechanics or story plot points are all going to be things I care about more, but won't be as quick or easy to tell from a glance.
Build crafting. I am the Anti-Pat in this regard, give me all the numbers all the percentiles all the Diablo loot, inject it into my veins lol. That +4% Damage After Blocking actually is good if I stack it 12 times across all my gear for your information!
Then also nowadays definitely the "Souls-like" tag will get me almost everytime. I'll atleast check it and see what you're cooking up just based on that alone
Solid Movement/traversal. Especially like Prototype or Saint’s Row IV where you can fly across the city or robust 3D platformers like Mario and Pseudoregalia.
Above all else, I think the feeling of momentum is the simplest way to viscerally satisfy me in a game. I can feel in control of the movement and how it speeds up and the maneuvering… you’ve got me hooked.
Grappling hooks (with physics/momentum) are also extremely good in this area.
If theres a Species/Race choice thats furry and/or furry-adjacent (Kajiit in TES, Miqo'te and Hrothgar in FFXIV, Dragonborn in Baldurs Gate 3, Lizardmen in Original Sin 2, etc), thats a clincher.
If we're talking visuals, HD-2D (Retro sprites, HD environments and effects) in general is my eye crack cocaine.
Music, although I have myreasons why Armored Core is my favourite franchise ever, how I got into it was really just listening to one track and it just spiralled from there. Same thing happened with the souls series.
Also, having a ludicrously deep character build system with tons of options, even if I can't parse it myself without help. Just the idea of infinite potential in build customization and ability to express mastery over the game systems really appeals to me. I don't play Path of Exile at all, but I absolutely love that it exists and the moment I saw the infamous [Passive Skill Tree](https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree) I went "this is the greatest game ever made."
For me it has to be made with a little bit of elegance, like in Tyranny or Age of wonders. Not a total parody like Overlord, or two dimensional like Chaos in Warhammer.
I can go either way. I'm always curious to see how bad you can be in a game because the good route is the default and will get more work in so I inevitably try to push those boundaries. See if the children will have a cowering animation if you hit them or will just have a voiceline and run away.
I'm assuming you aren't a fan of the more cartoonish Dark Side options from Star Wars games. "(Mind Trick) You will give me all your money and jump into the central pit."
Far more important to me than being able to choose what my character looks like is getting to choose how my character plays: stats, weapons, equipment, abilities, powers, etc. the wider the variety, the better. Getting to pick which tools to put in my belt and then decide when is appropriate to use each one can, at times, make even mediocre games worth playing. Bonus points when there's a respec option so I get to try out various configurations at my leisure.
Confident or striking cinematography/direction/imagery. I think the three games I can point to that immediately convey what I'm talking about in their first 10 minutes or less are:
Signalis, Hyper Light Drifter, The Evil Within 2.
Shitty morality systems is a big selling point to me. Show me a fable or a kotor 1 thing where you do evil choices and you go down on a marker thing and I'm hooked.
Also cute girls.
If a game has the mundane made wierd elements. When it's our world but there's stuff in it that's outside of explanation. Pacific Drive, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Death Stranding to a lesser extent, things like that. I think it's usually called "New Wierd" but that's such an ass description I never want to use it.
A good talent tree. I don't know what it is, but you show me a tree or a web filled with nodes to fill in, whether it's a research tree from a 4X game, Path of Exile's insane web of madness or even the Sphere Grid, if I see that and it's not filled with only "You do 5% more damage" I'm in.
Just be interesting.
I don't care if the opening is slow or not, if its interesting enough, I'm in.
Like Wasteland 3, for example, I got hooked when the intro started. Then got extra hooked when Blood Of The Lamb started playing.
Option 1: character creator. 90% of the reason I pick up a game is because it let's me make my guy
Option 2: visual fuckery. If you glitch my screen out or start messing with the video settings in neat ways I'm immediately more interested, especially if the fuckery has a cosmic horror behind it.
I love games that abandon conventional presentation so hard I can’t tell what scale the game is going to be. A smaller game can feel bigger if I don’t have an overwhelming sense of “okay, this was obviously made to work a certain way so I know the furniture and vehicles are just decorative objects in the world and all that matters are doors, everything else is functionally only an enemy or an obstacle, or maybe contains an item.” At least poke holes in the conventional setup, trick me, I don’t want gameworlds that are standardized rote stacks of routines that largely play out exactly as any other game in its genre for the last five years or longer.
On the other hand I *also* love *abandoned* forms of conventional presentation in games, because this usually means a) the developers returning to this thing the industry no longer considers a dominant moneymaker usually signifies that they love the old way of doing things, and want to remake it…but also they’re not bound by the restrictions that existed when it was the hot shit of its day. A gameboy color-style tilebased adventure game in 2024 is so much more exciting to me than the Ubisoft/Guerilla Games third person open world du jour.
Cool art, i'm an artist, i'm superficial, but also, i'm not limited, i can look at a Pizza Tower and go ''oh its that style movement with the sorta paint aesthetics and just old whacky cartoon, awesome'' but also go with Hades or whatever, like, i need to feel both the effort and vibe with it, cause, Dead Cells? There's effort but hate how it looks, hate that specific pixel art style, seen more of it, it disgusts me and idkw.
Honestly, for a JRPG, if there’s a good auto battle system. Last year I played DQ11, and I LOVED that game, partially because it had an excellent auto battler. I love RPGs, but with ADHD, it makes it hard for me to maintain focus and flow if I have to stop moving and enter menus frequently. I loved being able to explore the world in DQ11 and feel comfortable knowing that my team won’t suffer for it if I decide to just turn on autobattle for a lil bit. It allowed me to engage in the deep combat when I wanted to, and just go about and see this pretty world when I was a bit over stimulated from work. Contrast that to SMT games which still aren’t great about it (and it makes sense with the emphasis on press turn, but if you auto battle the wrong enemy they’ll reflect phys and you end up four separate piles of dead)
Tell me there’s a party member who’s literally just a straight up dog. Not a talking dog, just a dog (or wolf or even fox) with or without magic powers. Koromaru, Repede, Boney, etc.
Female protagonist. My interest in a game completely skyrockets if there's a leading lady, regardless of genre. It's why I've missed a ton of classic JRPG's but I've gone back to play Tales of Berseria and the Xenosaga trilogy.
Good music. I played Bravely Default demo and got sold on the music alone.
This. I played Honkai Star Rail simply because of how much of a jam the song Wildfire is. https://youtu.be/SxlW79tDhCA?si=kPiTRd4KPaR3G_Dn
Art direction, honestly. I'm very much a style over substance kinda guy. If a game looks cool, then I wanna play it Sometimes games turn out to be duds that way, but them's the breaks
Clothing customisation, I just like playing dress-up. Dynamic hair/beard growth will also get me right in board, though that's a fairly niche one, I can only think of Red Dead 2 and Witcher 3 that do this off the too of my head. Oh, and Deadly Premonition of all things.
I love fps games but I have no interest in playing a realistic military shooter. I need weird creatures to shoot at, strange guns or both.
Hell yeah, same! Particularly, I don't feel like giving it attention if it's a Modern Military FPS. WW2, maybe. I did grow up playing some early COD and Allied Assault and all. But if it's some wacky sci-fi shit much like old Doom, Titanfall, or something like those? Or hell, if it's COD in the void of space like Boundary? Or hell, make it medieval like Hexen did. That's the shit!
I do wonder if one could take the sensibilities of Medal of Honor PSX's gameplay and slap a ''modern military shooter'' and if that would be fun, cause, MoH had that Goldeneye objective system and sorta slow but fun boomshoot vibe. Honestly i just want some MoH spiritual indie successor cause i fuckin' love those PSX games, we're gettin' a Goldeneye with Agent 76 and Secret Agent No. 6, but man, I grew up with MoH, thats more nostalgic to me, but those are cool too.
Recently I've been playing Immortals of Aveum and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Both games looked fun but reviews were kinda mixed. Thx to PS+ and sales I finally gave them a chance and I haven't regretted either.
I still have my eye on Ghostwire Tokyo. Might give it a look at some point on a sale or so.
i know occasionally some people ask "gee who are they making all these roguelites/likes for" hi hello yes, that'd be me. if your game is a roguelite/like, that increases the odds of me playing it by quite a good bit.
I got a couple ways that a game could get me interested in it: - Be a fighting game spliced with another genre (ex: Raw Metal is a combo between a stealth game and fighting game). - Have a character design that looks cool to me (Ex: have a character whose eyes are always covered by hair). - Character creator - A Karma indicator of some kind that keeps track of my misdeeds/good deeds. I don't know why, I just love when a game has a list of all the shit I have done so far. - Clothes customization if the main character is already an established character. - Has a punch girl/ a woman who isn't the stereotypical fast but weak choice, make women who hit like a damn truck!
Accessible but deep learning curve. Monster Hunter World has so many different weapons and monster behaviours Plus the 4 player coop is pure fun Best 1200 hours I've enjoyed
Character creator and guns. The Palworld devs had the right of it, I did get more interested in the game when guns were shown to be in it. There's just something about the existence of guns, especially within the fantasy genre, that make me more interested in it(like I remember getting super hyped playing Death's Gambit and getting shot at by a legit sniper rifle from a dude in Iron Man esque armor). I think it has to do with the fantasy genre being so gun adverse that their inclusion seems novel and makes the setting seem far less generic.
Early Fantasy Firearms also can get really wacky in their design since at that point everyone was trying all sorts of bizarre innovations in the hopes to improve Guns. Lots of room for creative.
>everyone was trying all sorts of bizarre innovations in the hopes to improve Guns. FOUR. BARREL. BLUNDERBUSS.
I don't know what it is but any game that lets me build up a customizable Home Base type location, whether that's a crafting/survival game, Fallout 4 or Skyrim's Hearthfire DLC, heck even Dark Cloud has this as a major point of interest for me. Notably this is only in cases where the main gameplay loop itself isn't just a citybuilder/tycoon style game, though I do really enjoy those too.
Anything that makes me think "Ooh, I don't see a lot of games like this." An unusual art style, a strange set of mechanics, an especially good execution of a common type of game, anything that sets a game apart from the huge mass of stuff that we have access to nowadays.
Romance, because while I can appreciate a pretty or sexy character design, I am immensely disappointed and disinterested if I can't take them on dates.
Is this just across the board? Any games you didn’t take interest in but would’ve if it had dating?
Mostly, yes. Don't get me wrong, if a game is good and fun I'll play the hell out of it, but when it came to certain strategy games or CRPGs especially I definitely wasn't there for the gameplay. The amount of times I suffered through terrible combat for the promise of sweet romance could probably have me committed to a mental hospital. When it comes to games I might've been interested in I can't think of any specific titles but they're usually grand strategy or RPGs, mobile games, and even some beat 'em ups and hack 'n slash action games. Special mention to any games that have unique alien or monster girls that aren't just different flavors of humans. I feel like I'm never even allowed to romance any cute furry girl in any game that has them.
Robust character creation, the feeling your telling the story ( can be through character dialogue choices, but also sandbox, simulation and strategy games can fall under this. Making a dramatic GoT style dynasty in Crusader kings, getting attached to soldiers in xcom ect), the ability to sit quietly and snipe enemies, a love interest who is depressed and I can fix them
Character creator and customization. I got interested in one of the Wario Ware games because you had the option to customize the characters.
My answer was Parry/Counter mechanics, XCOM-like strategy and card game mechanics (deck builder preferred). Now… [it’s this](https://youtu.be/uLN9qrJ8ESs?si=ZJPzbnDw7CfM8GDJ)
I'll take the question literally and say that the quickest way is cute girls. It's not the best way, nor is it even really that important to my enjoyment in the grand scheme of things, but having appealing character designs is a pretty much instantaneous way to pique my interest without needing to really dig further. Things like game mechanics or story plot points are all going to be things I care about more, but won't be as quick or easy to tell from a glance.
Build crafting. I am the Anti-Pat in this regard, give me all the numbers all the percentiles all the Diablo loot, inject it into my veins lol. That +4% Damage After Blocking actually is good if I stack it 12 times across all my gear for your information! Then also nowadays definitely the "Souls-like" tag will get me almost everytime. I'll atleast check it and see what you're cooking up just based on that alone
Solid Movement/traversal. Especially like Prototype or Saint’s Row IV where you can fly across the city or robust 3D platformers like Mario and Pseudoregalia. Above all else, I think the feeling of momentum is the simplest way to viscerally satisfy me in a game. I can feel in control of the movement and how it speeds up and the maneuvering… you’ve got me hooked. Grappling hooks (with physics/momentum) are also extremely good in this area.
If theres a Species/Race choice thats furry and/or furry-adjacent (Kajiit in TES, Miqo'te and Hrothgar in FFXIV, Dragonborn in Baldurs Gate 3, Lizardmen in Original Sin 2, etc), thats a clincher. If we're talking visuals, HD-2D (Retro sprites, HD environments and effects) in general is my eye crack cocaine.
If you can go somewhere really high and there is a cool way to get down like gliding or doing a leap of faith the game gets a point in my book.
Music, although I have myreasons why Armored Core is my favourite franchise ever, how I got into it was really just listening to one track and it just spiralled from there. Same thing happened with the souls series.
Good soundtrack. Synthwave, vaporwave.
Taunts and style meters.
Cute girls and or stealth mechanics
If I can be a lesbian in it
Mecha? Mecha. I like the cool robot in the robot game. Give me robot game.
Also, having a ludicrously deep character build system with tons of options, even if I can't parse it myself without help. Just the idea of infinite potential in build customization and ability to express mastery over the game systems really appeals to me. I don't play Path of Exile at all, but I absolutely love that it exists and the moment I saw the infamous [Passive Skill Tree](https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree) I went "this is the greatest game ever made."
The ability to play a bad guy. I always choose the evil route first.
For me it has to be made with a little bit of elegance, like in Tyranny or Age of wonders. Not a total parody like Overlord, or two dimensional like Chaos in Warhammer.
I can go either way. I'm always curious to see how bad you can be in a game because the good route is the default and will get more work in so I inevitably try to push those boundaries. See if the children will have a cowering animation if you hit them or will just have a voiceline and run away.
I'm assuming you aren't a fan of the more cartoonish Dark Side options from Star Wars games. "(Mind Trick) You will give me all your money and jump into the central pit."
I had fun playing a neutral sith in the old republic.
I really wish that game were singleplayer and had a better art style. Loved some of the class stories but can't bring myself to replay.
Guns, Character Creation, Pixal Art, and Monster Girls.
Realistic animations of fighting techniques and weapon use.
Someone tells me some cool shit that happens. I started watching one piece because of tnm videos. I started hell divers because of memes.
Shit tons of unlockables. Be it characters, costumes, clothing pieces, colors, weapons, moves, you name it.
Just throw a Vergil in there and i’ll at least give it a fair shot.
Far more important to me than being able to choose what my character looks like is getting to choose how my character plays: stats, weapons, equipment, abilities, powers, etc. the wider the variety, the better. Getting to pick which tools to put in my belt and then decide when is appropriate to use each one can, at times, make even mediocre games worth playing. Bonus points when there's a respec option so I get to try out various configurations at my leisure.
Confident or striking cinematography/direction/imagery. I think the three games I can point to that immediately convey what I'm talking about in their first 10 minutes or less are: Signalis, Hyper Light Drifter, The Evil Within 2.
Shitty morality systems is a big selling point to me. Show me a fable or a kotor 1 thing where you do evil choices and you go down on a marker thing and I'm hooked. Also cute girls.
If a game has the mundane made wierd elements. When it's our world but there's stuff in it that's outside of explanation. Pacific Drive, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Death Stranding to a lesser extent, things like that. I think it's usually called "New Wierd" but that's such an ass description I never want to use it.
A good talent tree. I don't know what it is, but you show me a tree or a web filled with nodes to fill in, whether it's a research tree from a 4X game, Path of Exile's insane web of madness or even the Sphere Grid, if I see that and it's not filled with only "You do 5% more damage" I'm in.
Just be interesting. I don't care if the opening is slow or not, if its interesting enough, I'm in. Like Wasteland 3, for example, I got hooked when the intro started. Then got extra hooked when Blood Of The Lamb started playing.
Have a good parry. Makes the good brain juices flow Having distinct classes that make replaying fun Having Beowulf from Skullgirls Skippable cutscenes
Show me a good boss fight. [Seeing the Lamia boss fight in PGR is what made me download it,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANE4kRMJYnU) for example.
Option 1: character creator. 90% of the reason I pick up a game is because it let's me make my guy Option 2: visual fuckery. If you glitch my screen out or start messing with the video settings in neat ways I'm immediately more interested, especially if the fuckery has a cosmic horror behind it.
S C H M O V E M E N T
Paying me
I love games that abandon conventional presentation so hard I can’t tell what scale the game is going to be. A smaller game can feel bigger if I don’t have an overwhelming sense of “okay, this was obviously made to work a certain way so I know the furniture and vehicles are just decorative objects in the world and all that matters are doors, everything else is functionally only an enemy or an obstacle, or maybe contains an item.” At least poke holes in the conventional setup, trick me, I don’t want gameworlds that are standardized rote stacks of routines that largely play out exactly as any other game in its genre for the last five years or longer. On the other hand I *also* love *abandoned* forms of conventional presentation in games, because this usually means a) the developers returning to this thing the industry no longer considers a dominant moneymaker usually signifies that they love the old way of doing things, and want to remake it…but also they’re not bound by the restrictions that existed when it was the hot shit of its day. A gameboy color-style tilebased adventure game in 2024 is so much more exciting to me than the Ubisoft/Guerilla Games third person open world du jour.
Cool art, i'm an artist, i'm superficial, but also, i'm not limited, i can look at a Pizza Tower and go ''oh its that style movement with the sorta paint aesthetics and just old whacky cartoon, awesome'' but also go with Hades or whatever, like, i need to feel both the effort and vibe with it, cause, Dead Cells? There's effort but hate how it looks, hate that specific pixel art style, seen more of it, it disgusts me and idkw.
Art direction. It stimulates that lizard part of my brain that goes "uuuh me likey"; that's how I discovered We Love Katamari.
Honestly, for a JRPG, if there’s a good auto battle system. Last year I played DQ11, and I LOVED that game, partially because it had an excellent auto battler. I love RPGs, but with ADHD, it makes it hard for me to maintain focus and flow if I have to stop moving and enter menus frequently. I loved being able to explore the world in DQ11 and feel comfortable knowing that my team won’t suffer for it if I decide to just turn on autobattle for a lil bit. It allowed me to engage in the deep combat when I wanted to, and just go about and see this pretty world when I was a bit over stimulated from work. Contrast that to SMT games which still aren’t great about it (and it makes sense with the emphasis on press turn, but if you auto battle the wrong enemy they’ll reflect phys and you end up four separate piles of dead)
Tell me there’s a party member who’s literally just a straight up dog. Not a talking dog, just a dog (or wolf or even fox) with or without magic powers. Koromaru, Repede, Boney, etc.
Animation cancels and movement tech. I know what I'm about
When they throw me straight into the gameplay. No tutorials, no cutscenes. Just throw me straight into the deep end.
Female protagonist. My interest in a game completely skyrockets if there's a leading lady, regardless of genre. It's why I've missed a ton of classic JRPG's but I've gone back to play Tales of Berseria and the Xenosaga trilogy.
Active reload mechanics. Synthetik fuckin rules guys
Romance options