> and the evidence for this is that lots of minor variations of this kind of mechanic exist and mostly it's been in games that do pretty well. The loop version

> and the evidence for this is that lots of minor variations of this kind of mechanic exist and mostly it's been in games that do pretty well. The loop version of the time mechanic, where you're intended to loop back around and not expected to win the game in a certain amount of time, is much more forgiving than a strict timer mechanic. I guess I don't see the existence of looping games as an indication that younger gamers have an appetite for difficult or obtuse mechanics that used to be more common. Further, all of those games except Deathloop are not particularly mainstream. Yes, they may have sold a million copies, but it's important to keep in mind that the size of the prize is much greater than it was thirty years ago. There are 160M total gamers in the US alone right now; whereas when I was a kid in the 80s basically no adults played video games, and not every kid did, either. It's not surprising to me that a million people enjoyed a weird mechanic when the number of gamers in the world might number in the billions. > You don't think Monkey Island could be made today and sell 100,000 copies in the US? You're selling 100,000 copies short -- that's a fairly large number that many indies would be more than happy with. Regardless, I'm not sure Monkey Island could sell as well, if it were a new property and not backed by an established company. Can you give me examples of point-and-clicks released recently that sold so well? And I mean true point-and-clicks -- Lucas Arts or Sierra style inventory puzzle games. Double Fine released one in 2014 (Broken Age), which I think barely broke even sales-wise. That's the closest I can think of off the top of my head. All the others I've played in the past few years haven't been mainstream games. > PnCs are alive and well. I never said they weren't. They're just not mainstream in any way. Most younger people aren't going to be playing them. My nieces and nephews wouldn't know what to do with one, frankly. > In Hollow Knight, the use of a fan wiki is less about notes in the adventure game sense and more about optimizing builds, reading about lore, checking quest solutions, and looking up boss strategies. I'm not sure how important this is. It doesn't necessarily comport with my experience with Hollow Knight in particular, but regardless, the fact that people are willing to look things up doesn't seem to say anything important about how likely younger people are to engage with difficult or unforgiving mechanics. When things are difficult people might have to look something up, sure, but that doesn't mean they want to have to look things up. When I did look something up for Hollow Knight it was because I was stuck; I would've hated having to alt-tab out to a fan wiki every ninety seconds to look up tips and tricks and walkthroughs.