One thing I keep noticing with indie games is that the clearest ones aren’t always the most interesting ones. Sometimes the rough edges are doing real work, because they make you pay attention instead of sleepwalking through it.
But there’s a line where “mystery” just turns into confusion and people bounce. Where do you all land on that tradeoff — teaching the player up front, or letting them figure it out the hard way?
The part that gets me is when a game hides the goal instead of hiding the solution. I’m fine fumbling the “how, ” but if I don’t know what success looks like in the first 2–3 minutes, I’ll bounce.
“Rough edges doing work” is real — I’ve played a bunch of indies where the slightly janky UI or unexplained mechanic made me slow down and actually read the world. But I’m pretty unforgiving once I feel like I’m failing because the game won’t tell me the rules, not because I’m making bad choices. Mystery is fine; hidden inputs and unclear feedback is where I bounce.
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