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Dark Pattern Games

(www.darkpattern.games)
350 points robotnikman | 1 comments | 16 Nov 25 19:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.196s | source
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joaohaas ◴[17 Nov 25 00:38 UTC] No.45949872[source]▶
Overall it feels like unless your game is a linear single-player game, it will fall under multiple of the site's labelled 'dark patterns'. Here are some really bad ones:

Infinite Treadmill - Impossible to win or complete the game.

Variable Rewards - Unpredictable or random rewards are more addictive than a predictable schedule.

Can't Pause or Save - The game does not allow you to stop playing whenever you want.

Grinding - Being required to perform repetitive and tedious tasks to advance.

Competition - The game makes you compete against other players.

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1. dominicrose ◴[17 Nov 25 09:16 UTC] No.45952043[source]▶
The game I was the most addicted to was Age of Empires II, but I don't blame Microsoft for this: they just created an awesome game. Competition + "can't pause", these two can really make you disconnected from real life if you're competitive, but it's also fun and somewhat useful to know how much you can push yourself and how far you can go on the ladder.

My advice is to force yourself to stop playing after each single match, but that's hard when you're in a loosing streak because you want to win at least one match.

Paul Morphy has to become the best chess player before he understood that chess was a waste of time. He said that it's important to know the game well but there's a limit.