Thread by @lzsthw

All day yesterday I played Subsistence:

store.steampowered.com/app/418030/Sub…

And "all day" means "12 hours non-stop". I'm just going to say all these OpenWorld Crafting Survival games are research. Uhhhh yeah, research 'cause I have no idea how they are so addicting. Some ideas:

So far I've played hundreds of hours in:

Subnautica (both versions)
The Forest
Windbound
Breathedge
No Man's Sky
Subsistence
Stranded Deep
Grounded

They all have particular elements that make them nearly impossible to stop playing which are very similar to gambling.

I'd say the three elements that make the games appealing--not necessarily addicting--are:

1. Open World allows for adventure and exploration plus an amount of fear.
2. Survival adds a game mechanic that doesn't require complex or many enemies.
3. Crafting gives leveling up.

In almost all of these games most enemies are nearly impossible to kill until mid-game and you've crafted good gear, and some enemies are impossible always. This has that Lovecraftian aspect where you are a small spec in a brutal universe, which adds to the excitement.

The addiction part of these games comes from two things:

1. Limited resources that requires grinding. This is the "pulling the slot machine lever over and over" part.
2. A crafting dependency tree that requires making one item to make another or get the next part using #1.

Ex:

In Subsistence I need metal ingots. To get metal ingots I need the workbench. To get the workbench I need the BCU, power storage, and power generator. Each of those requires scrap metal from loot bags you have to find running round while trying not to get killed.

This sets up an addicting situation where you say, "Ok I'm going to stop at 10am right after I get the Copper Ore I need for the metal ingots. Oh wait I need scrap metal too and 2 cloth." 10 hours later:

"Whew, finally got all that. Wait, wha? It's 8pm?"

In some games the crafting dependence is used to advance the story. Subnautica is definitely like this, where you can't go to certain depths without upgrade modules, but those depths are where the next plot point lives to move the game along, so you grind for the modules.

The Forest is sort of in between Subnautica and Subsistence. In The Forest you could simply play it for 1000 hours and never rescue Timmy. It's very open world, but you have find special equipment to get to some parts, but that doesn't really need to advance the story.

Which brings me to the idea of goals in these games. Because of the openness the games that have story tend to work off cue points to trigger plot momentum, which you can largely ignore. The games without story tend to have the goal of "stay alive, build stuff".

Another key element of all of these games is the limit key resources, but almost at random. Some games use this to force the player into new situations, and it seems like other games do it just to be a jerk. I find the "jerk resource" games to be the *most* addicting.

Subnautica it seemed like I was swimming in gold, but couldn't find silver and copper.
In Subnautica: Below Zero I can't find lead at all.

But, those games use that to force you to go to a region with a special prawn suit to drill for ore. Once you do you never go back.

Subsistence is the ultimate Jerk Resource game, where what you get and when you get it is totally random. Lots of psychology experiments have shown this is the *most* addicting reward system, because our brains get the largest rush when you do finally get something good.

There then seems to be an inverse correlation between:

Resource randomness.
Resource as plot driver.

If the resource is totally random it doesn't work as a plot driver since the player could stumble on an end game component and just go complete the game.

I also find that there's a strong correlation between:

Resource randomness.
Crafting/skill tree complexity.

If resources are random then the game has to require deep dependency in crafting trees or else the game is too easy. You could stumble on the AK47 accidentally in day 1.

But, if the resources are random, but to get at the AK47 you need to craft 8 others things first, then it doesn't matter if you find all the best loot at any point in the game. You still have to grind for it and build toward the best gear.

Another aspect of these games is loneliness. Unless the game allows co-op you are almost always stranded alone. Even with friends all of you are stranded alone with no outside help. I suspect this was my draw to them, with COVID-19 forcing me to stay in doors and not travel.

The loneliness, frustration, and grinding for random big payoffs toward an obscure goal of "build stuff" *really* matches up with the feeling of programming. Coding is a constant struggle to solve bugs, living for that big payoff when you solve it, only to repeat the torture.

You could say "bug clues" are the random resources in software development. Coding is definitely a "jerk resource" open world crafting survival game with no real goal or end, which is probably why these games eat up a lot of my time when I should be coding.