>>> professionals who have stepped back into the indie world This immediately reminded me of Notch and the birth of Minecraft. What's amazing is that the priva

>>> professionals who have stepped back into the indie world This immediately reminded me of Notch and the birth of Minecraft. What's amazing is that the private alpha launch is recorded for posterity in the TIG forums: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=6273.0 https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=6273.0 The gameplay mechanic is everything. On day one, players were mining rocks, building castles. And a decade later, that same intuitive territorial need, that taps into primitive desire is still alive. Players are mining rocks, building castles (and much more)! I also think about the classic card game Uno. We've now got like four generations of fiercely competitive players in my family. There's decks in the kitchen, the living room, even in the car. It's so simple to start a game. Infinite replayability. And the latest innovation: blank cards. So you can literally draw an "Eat my Underwear" for infinite expansion. That endless replayability in gameplay mechanics can then be considered to be the crux. Headshots in FPS are just as satisfying in Valorant as they were two decades ago in Counter-Strike. Perfect information, turn-based strategy games are all variants of millennia old Chess, which is experiencing a renaissance. One of the best things on the web today is the 3000+ Stockfish superhuman lichess.org WASMX real-time analyzer with 8-ply depth search. It's a portend of things to come for the coming era of AI-mediated design. So what we are really talking about is an exhaustive exploration of the gameplay mechanic space. With the criterion that if it is endlessly replayable, it will be "fun" forever. Great discussion all around, I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments. Welcome counter-programming to all the noise in the current noosphere ;)