The Endless Novelty Of Blasting Wizards Through Windows

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Defenestration is an art form that few can claim to have mastered. On one hand it seems oh-so simplistic, you just push people through windows, right? Well, if that's the case, how can Tactical Breach Wizards design an entire game around it, and how can this single idea outlast some games with worlds the size of galaxies and an infinite variety of things to do?
The answer, is Novelty - a little-understood facet of videogame design that we've been ignoring for far too long. Far from being the jingly keys of the videogame world, novelty is the centerpiece of some of the most endlessly fun videogames out there, and The Architect has braved infinite worlds, lands made of tiles and a few Japanese real estate auctions to prove to you just why it matters so much.
You Saw:
Tactical Breach Wizards - 2024
Heat Signature - 2017
Gunpoint - 2013
Resident Evil 2 Remake - 2019
Warhammer Total War 3 - 2022
Deadlock - Not out yet
Overwatch - 2016
Sea of Thieves - 2018
Titanfall 2 - 2016
Arranger - 2024
Batman Arkham Knight - 2015
DOOM 2016 - it is a mystery
Sid Meier's Civilization 6 - 2016
Animal Crossing New Horizons - 2020
Dishonored - 2012
Prey - 2017
Deathloop - 2021
Shovel Knight - 2014
Dave the Diver - 2023
Disco Elysium - 2019
Lethal Company - 2023
Satisfactory - Early Access
Path of Exile - 2013
Superliminal - 2019
The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe
Half Life 2 - 2004
Subnautica - 2018
Grounded - 2023
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 2023
Starfield - 2023
Baldur's Gate 3 - 2023
Humankind - 2021
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - 2011
ARK: Survival Evolved - 2017
Tabletop Simulator - 2014
A Solitaire Mystery - 2024
Spore - 2008
Minecraft - 2011
No Man's Sky - 2016
Starbound - 2016
Terraria - 2011
Diablo 4 - 2023
Borderlands 3 - 2019
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - 2011
Final Fantasy 10 - 2001
Grim Dawn - 2016
Forager - 2019
Dishonored 2 - 2016
The Unfinished Swan - 2012
Viewfinder - 2023
World of Goo 2 - 2024
Super Mario Wonder - 2023
Portal 2 - 2011
Portal - 2007
Magic The Gathering: Arena - 2018
Fortnite - 2017
Dota 2 - 2013
Warcraft 3 - 2002
Balatro - 2023
Hades - 2018
Dead Cells - 2018
Slay The Spire - 2019
Kirby and the Forgotten Land - 2022
Elden Ring - 2022
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - 2022
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 2018
Roboquest - 2023
Stardew Valley - 2016
Final Fantasy 7 Remake - 2020
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth - 2024
Far Cry 5 - 2018
Fallout New Vegas - 2010
Cyberpunk 2077 - 2020
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - 2023
Hi-Fi Rush - 2023
Doom Eternal - 2020
Persona 5 - 2016
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Remake - 2024
Pokemon Scarlet - 2022
Batman: Arkham City - 2011
Celeste - 2018
Lorelai And the Laser Eyes -2024
Monster Hunter: World - 2018
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 2017
Yakuza 0 - 2015
Super Mario Odyssey - 2017
We Love Katamari Reroll - 2023
Final Fantasy 14 - 2010
Super Paper Mario - 2007
Void Stranger - 2023

[@ArchitectofGames]

Okay okay here’s a really exciting novel idea that’s sure to surprise and delight: you get money, right? And you *exchange* it for goods and/or services! What a crazy idea - sounds like it could be fun to try out, huh? Would probably get a bit boring after a while though tbh. www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames At this point twitter is just for getting a frontrow seat at Elon’s howard hughes-esque meltdown - also for Architect of Games updates I guess. twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot

[@BananaWasTaken]

This idea is so out there that I’m pretty sure you’re certifiably insane!

[@seanaugagnon6383]

How dare you speak negatively about our future*checks notes* our future government efficiency cabinet member. (Steve, is that right? We are talking about the guy who bought Twitter and made the boring company, right?) ok I guess we're fucked.

[@sky3_ow]

no AoT dont invent capitalism nooooo😭

[@alpha_c.]

so it’s not the windows that makes them move, it’s something else entirely

[@ArchitectofGames]

I see you're also a master of ancient greek philosophy

[@nevinmyers1245]

@@UncleJaken Reference to I think a tumblr post where someone says that cars and houses both have windows but houses don't move so windows aren't the thing that makes cars move and someone replied that it sounds like ancient greek philosophy

[@UncleJaken]

@@nevinmyers1245 ohh, i rescind my statement then lol

[@benneeds_a_name7398]

I mean if i grab the game window and wiggy it around then they'll be wiggied around aswell. So- The windows can make them move. >:D

[@stanleyjessop7273]

Such a good reference!

[@ivanbluecool]

Wizard: I'm a very powerful wizard who can make fire Guy: yeah sure nerd(kicks them out of a window)

[@seamon9732]

Wizard laughs in: Feather Fall, Fly, Dimension Door, Misty Step, Levitate, Wind Walk, Teleport, Arcane Gate, Wall of Force, Shapechange.

[@haroldshea3282]

imagine being a "powerful wizard" without access to feather fall and flight spells

[@theothertonydutch]

@@haroldshea3282 While falling: I invested all my XP into "bg booooooooooooom"...

[@akiraigarashi2874]

@@seamon9732 If the wizard just becomes intangible, the kicker might just fall out of the window themself

[@Albinojackrussel]

​@@seamon9732that's actually mentioned in the game. The primary defenstrator actually casts slow fall on the windows they're pushing people out of. She's only looking to disable people long enough to get her desired tasks done, and falling for 30 minutes before they can go do anything is plenty disabling enough for her purposes.

[@MorningLightMtn]

Finally, the mythical spell "Power Word: Defenestrate" is now a functional and practical gameplay mechanic!

[@aqwthetroop]

I think "Baba Is You" is a great example of a puzzle game with a novel concept, but keeps your attention by introducing new and novel mechanics with each world in an in-depth and engaging way.

[@christopherg2347]

15:06 "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game." - Soren Johnson

[@thearcanian5921]

Which should always be paired with: “One of the responsibilities I think we have as designers is to protect the player from themselves.” - Sid Meier

[@Albinojackrussel]

@thearcanian5921 Meh. It works better on its own imo. There's already an implied "so we shouldn't give them the opportunity" at the end of the initial quote. Adding to it's length for a clarification 99.99% of people won't need just makes it less pithy. You can always go back and clarify when you do encounter that 0.001%

[@YouAreStillNotablaze]

1:21 You can even throw someone out of a window by throwing _yourself_ out of a window! REVOLUTIONARY

[@CompletelyNormal]

Throwing people out windows never really gets old. In my college D&D campaign, our DM eventually realized that he could never provide sufficiently challenging fights unless he limited the number of available windows.

[@richardclegg8027]

Did he ever think of fighting in a dungeon?

[@atlas16198]

As a L2 english speaker im shocked defenestration is an actual word. it's so specific to me that it's comical

[@droylajarhirthefelinethief81]

There's a word in Greek, too. Εκπαραθύρωση. "Ο θείος κατόρθωσε πάλι να αυτοεκπαραθυρωθεί είκοσι ορόφους πιο κάτω."

[@alexgustavsson5955]

You wouldn't believe how much that word has mattered in European history.

[@Atlessa]

The word exists in German too. "Defenestrieren". Makes you wonder which language had it first...

[@droylajarhirthefelinethief81]

@@AtlessaWell, seeing as how English is a germanic language and both words come from the latin "fenestra", meaning window, I'd wager German had it first.

[@lukasprazak7362]

@@alexgustavsson5955 Especially in central europe...

[@kai19971201]

I think Into the Breach solves the novelty problem with different class loadouts, with each class focused on pushing one mechanic of the entire system to the extreme. The constant feeling of learning something new about the system kept me playing for tons of hours. Funny how all the best tactical games has defenestration as a core mechanic. Hopefully breach-like games will soon become a genre?

[@crazydave..]

what are some other good games like into the breach?

[@sventheultimate]

@@crazydave.. They're somewhat different but here are some that I like with a similar feel: - The Dungeon Beneath - a kind of turn-based auto-battle game - Alina of the Arena - like a cross between Slay the Spire and into the Breach - The Last Spell - a tactical grid-based game of defending against an endless onslaught of undead monsters

[@crazydave..]

@@sventheultimate thank you so much!

[@Lilith_Harbinger]

I think defenestration, or more generally, pushing enemies into bad spots, is a very good alternative to just "deal damage" because it forces you to think about your position, the enemy's position and where the hazards are. Also instant killing enemies is very efficient and pushes players towards this more fun style of play (players always pursue efficiency, especially to their detriment).

[@ED-gw9rg]

Can you give some examples for me? That sounds really neat!

[@jarlyk]

It also helps that Tactical Breach Wizards has such great writing. I think part of the art of stretching out novelty is also distracting the player, not giving them enough time to become consciously aware of the patterns that are being repeated. The story beats are an excellent way to break things up and unlike most tactics games I've played, I didn't find myself wanting to skip over it. It also dared to aim for a clear satisfying ending within a very reasonable playtime, meaning that it didn't need to rely on tricks like procedural generation to stretch out content. Random aside, I somehow missed that the game had a built-in developer commentary mode and I need to go replay it right now before Satisfactory and Factorio come out and consume my life.

[@AklyonX]

You can even chuck the dev commentary tapes at someone afterwards for free knockback!

[@BlakeTheDrake]

Keep in mind, the developer commentary option is only available if you spring for the Special Edition DLC. But, it's well worth it, just to support these excellent developers...

[@DrownedLamp]

Everyone has a plan 'til they get launched out of a window. -Seer Tyson

[@igorthelight]

Everyone has a plan 'til they get launched out of a window. - Palpatine xD

[@ivanbluecool]

I do enjoy when games allow the environment to play a factor into defeating enemies. If I'm in a beach area on a boat and kick someone of a beat that's an auto win. Same with lava in a volcano area. That and area boosting where fire is stronger or weaker in a certain area. Or can cause aoe damage in a Forrest to have you really think what to use

[@tylerhanson3156]

Knocking people out of windows was my favorite feature of Fights In Tight Spaces, too!

[@paolomilanicomparetti3702]

yeah but in the back half fights in tight spaces had lots of enemies that are entirely immune to pushback, which just takes away all the fun. Breach Wizards has enemies that are knockback resistant, and tools for overcoming that resistance, but nobody is immune

[@Arakus99]

@@paolomilanicomparetti3702 tbf the Siege Clerics are immune to defenestration (tho not knockback) ( also when you try to defenestrate a turret it just explodes?)

[@paolomilanicomparetti3702]

@arakus99 true, but that's one type of enemy that is used fairly sparingly. More importantly, they are not immune to knockback, both for damaging them and for arranging the board in some useful way. In FITS in the later half of the campaign half the enemies seem to be entirely immune to being pushed around, making half your cards and strategies plainly useless.

[@Tinkerer_Red]

there is a great talk about "1 million bowls of oatmeal" which talks about the amazing statistics of having a million bowls of oatmeal all with unique lay outs and color, and design. Yet as a user, you just see a million bowls of oat meal and simply dont care

[@hannabelphaege3774]

This game opens up so much towards the end. While I was hunting the last few confidence points I really started to understand how busted certain things were. One of Dall's upgrades lets you tele-swap with an ally for no cost, and suddenly any of your moves can be used from the location of any character. Pretty soon my turns started to look stupidly complicated as I swapped every character back and forth to every location trying out moves and putting together a Rube-Goldberg series of attacks, status effects and passive procs (hello support fire). I would get so lost finding good, efficient ways to use everything and wipe as many enemies as possible that I would run out of actions and be shocked to realize it was still turn 1.

[@DanCreaMundos]

for this kind of things I'd recommend following one of Brandon Sanderson's laws of magic for writing magic systems: "Expand on what you have already, before you add something new." It's way batter to make a game mechanic that gives you plenty of variations and choices that can fit your playstyle than adding 20 different game mechanics that feel new but people end up using only 1 or 2.

[@mangelsimonpaniello2256]

First off great to see a fellow Sanderson fan. Second: your comment just reminded me of my DMC5 experience with Dante. Hated him as a playable characters until I forced myself to play with the basic sword and guns and only Trickster style. Then sloooowly expanded, and now I get it. I'm still not a pro, but I get it

[@mangelsimonpaniello2256]

What I mean is that it would've been nice to be limited by the game itself (which it technically does with half his weapons being given later in the story AND half his moveset being buyable with in-game currency, but I still felt like it wasn't the right speed)

[@Arakus99]

@@mangelsimonpaniello2256 I think the thing with Dante is that he's been built up across multiple games, so dmc veterans will get bored very quickly if the devs put him all the way back to basics. If you play the whole series you basically do get that slow expansion split across 4 different games (not counting 2 and reboot)

[@tinne26]

On the rolling boulders mentioned at around 10:45, you end up saying that's well designed because you get 4 times more novelty from a single idea. That's correct, but I'd say that's not even the main point. The main point is that if you get 4 times more novelty out of a single idea, that single idea starts having some *depth*. Chess is of course the quintessential example, where you have 6 types of pieces with predefined, rather simple movements, but the amount of possibilities combining them and tactics and so on means we are still playing and learning new stuff about the game more than a thousand years later.

[@gabrote42]

0:32 That game mechanic was in a few indie tactics games from the olden times. I liked it, and I am happy that you found a more mainstream example that you could identify, but it's not unique

[@deantjewie]

It's also in baldurs gate 3

[@Evanz111]

So awesome of you to shout out Austin! I absolutely adore niche videos like that, cool to see you’ve been supporting him for years!

[@jonathanfavourite]

5:43 Awwwwww yessssssss this is so validating. This is the reason I filtered out "roguelite" and "proc-gen" on Steam and haven't looked back since. "Endless replayability" is just a hollow marketing lie, it means "10 minutes of gameplay we expect you to repeat forever."

[@alpaga4820]

I know a guy who for some unknowable reason collected all the koroks in BOTW... and then TOTK came around, and he played/watched through the tutorial area four separate times with a different friend each time, and he got so sick of it that he didn't even play the rest of the game to this day. God do our monkey brains work in mysterious yet fascinating ways.

[@goffe2282]

I really enjoyed playing It Takes Two with my daughter (after explaining what a divorce was) and one of the things I really loved was that you got more or less two new mechanics each level. A mechanic didn't have time to wear out its novelty before it was replaced. I also liked that the characters got different gadgets so that the two players had to cooperate and play differently. As for TBW..... it seems like a laptop game to me and my laptop is a Mac and it doesn't run there :(. My big gaming rig is where I sit down for longer sessions with other types of games. TBW seems to be more of something that I play on the train or when I have a bit of time to kill, which is currently Invisible Inc for me. I love that game. I'll absolutely get it at some point though.

[@SuperLocrian]

Just finished Act III - I am in love with this game. A lightbulb went off and I realized I could use a grenade to push an enemy into Zan's Foresight - executed it - "Nice!". Hope this game gets a lot of love. edit: and I am quite excited about jumping right back in to try many, many different um... tactics.

[@Vortex_Tornado]

Something that was alluded to but not specifically mentioned for novelty & depth of a game is the difficulty. Presenting difficult challenges forces the player to make use of all the game's systems and nuances, and depth is revealed from that. That's why people have fun playing competitive multiplayer games for thousands of hours: beating other players requires more in depth understanding of the game, and playing against more skillful opponents can feel like an entirely different game from when you first start out even though the game rules itself might not change.

[@QuantumHistorian]

Best game analysis I've heard in years. It's exactly what I've been feeling for a long time, but couldn't quite pin down. It's simply too much content for the sake of it; too little novelty that feels worthwhile.

[@denischen8196]

I learned about what novelty really means in games when I played clicker/idle games like Egg Inc. Even though I owned more and more different buildings and exponentially increased profits to the quintillions, the gameplay strategy stayed the same and no new ideas are introduced. Every building is functionally identical, just with different orders of magnitude of earning power. Going for the first prestige and starting over allows me to earn a million times more money and progress through the early stages way faster, but after 10 prestiges, it is just the same game but with bigger numbers.

[@meneldal]

Good idle games will introduce new layers or mechanics to not keep it the same all the way through.

[@timpize8733]

Very good points. There's also a solution that some indie games use nowadays, which is varying the gameplay genre within the whole game. For instance Speed Limit uses all kinds of retro shooting and racing sections pretty seemlessly, and never makes them longer than a few minutes. That makes it pretty short, but the advantage is replayability, without the need of random generation. Daniel Mullins' games do that too to some extent (Inscryption, Pony Island), although they all tend to become the opposite after a while unfortunately. As long as something new happens at every change of screen, you enjoy the novelty. But when it tries to become a real game those sections overstay their welcome. Indie devs shouldn't shy away from making very short games.

[@xaf15001]

This concept is partially the reason why powercreep exists. It shuffles content. The Elden Ring DLC doesn't have gear novelty, which is good so you don't need to grind, but is bad for making you try new gears.

[@CodenameX96]

It has multiple new weapon types that play entirely differently from other weapons in the base game, and dozens of new spells tho?

[@Dabestbro.]

YESSS THANK YOU FOR COVERING BREACH WIZARDS i honestly think it's my goty

[@matteste]

Part of my soul died a little when you brought up Persona's elemental system even though it is just a derivitive of the main Shin Megami Tensei series systems.

[@levan3534]

What a timely upload :D I just finished this game on hard yesterday with all achievements. Enjoyed it quite a lot.

[@valdonchev7296]

This balance between too much of the same and too much difference is something I have become aware of in my search of fun Incremental or Unfolding Games. Some games, like Cookie Clicker or AdVenture Capitalist, don't have much in the way of novelty because everything works the exact same way - you have a single resource that you spend it to increase its income. There's a bunch of different options on how to invest it, but their only difference is in their stats. On the other hand, I occasionally come across incremental games that seem to offer an endless barrage of novelty, but when you step back for a moment, you realize there's even less strategic input from you - you're just waiting to push the one button that will make the number go up fast enough to unlock the next button. My favorite incremental games are ones where understanding the game makes it progress faster. In some games, that's understanding which of several resources is bottlenecking your progress and focusing on increasing the income of that resource. In other games, it's figuring out how to optimize your use of a limited resource, like space, or time in loop-based games. Even the best of these games can lose me because a lot of them have a reset mechanic as a core part of the gameplay loop, which allow you to do the same thing from scratch, but slightly faster. Sometimes, however, the reset mechanic will be interesting enough to keep me playing, which usually boils down to changing the rules of the game enough to make it novel again by forcing me to approach it differently, whether that rule change is a boon or a challenge.

[@mastermind9393]

I love Heat Signature, and I find myself regularly coming back to play a level or two. Always enjoyed chucking people out of space windows. Thank you for helping feed my addiction!

[@SecretSynth]

YESSS A TACTICAL BREACH WIZARDS VIDEO SGFHSJDJ THIS GAME NEEDS MORE ATTENTION

[@zacharywong483]

Absolutely stellar script, as always! You always choose the most interesting topics to cover and always have the most seamless explanations to dive into them!

[@Tirith2708]

40seconds into the video and what you just described fits perfectly to Marvel's Midnight Suns. Using Ghost Riders car skill or knockback to throw enemies over the ledge or into hellpit.

[@ArchitectofGames]

oh my god the only other person on the planet who likes midnight suns! I finally found you!

[@jarlyk]

@@ArchitectofGames I also liked midnight suns, on the whole, but the writing was hit-and-miss and the obligatory AAA MTX was a turnoff. Pacing was also a bit more stretched out than I would've preferred. The actual combat mechanics were quite fun, though.

[@Ava_tf]

@@ArchitectofGames i liked midnight suns, it wasn't as good as firaxis' other games but it was a solid 8/10

[@GyroCannon]

In Baldur's Gate 3, there's a fireworks shop with 3 stories. One particularly tanky character is standing at a ledge. It was immensely satisfying to Eldritch Blast him off the ledge :)

[@rionhunter]

The turnaround on getting that minecraft movie sheep in was crazy

[@Miky13]

Dam I fucking love your channel. The way you approach games and their mechancics and idea behind it in a more theory based approach. Leaves for so much potential of interpretation and ideas to flow when listenting to it. I started using some of your advice and points outside of game development. Even in just Worldbuilding or Private Projects. And lets just say they have been awesome in further thriving depth into anything I make. Love you man thx for keeping up the good work and sharing your mind with us.

[@josephkeen7224]

I feel that I work best when the items involve most of the experimentation and thus novelty for me. One example is the game Streets Of Rogue, which gives you an item every time you complete a quest, which of course gives you plenty of options to tackle your objectives, and since items are ether one use or have a limited durability for the most part, you can’t quite abuse the same tactic. I will say that this works better for the more stealth based classes with a few exceptions, and less so with the more combat focused ones, but that may be my bias coming through. Another game that manages to cause novelty more then others. Another good game that does novelty well is system shock. What makes it work is it feels like everything has some sort of use, and due to the oppressive atmosphere I feel a need to see what that case is. Hopefully I explained this well.

[@dajackster1]

It might have only been a few seconfs, but thanks for the Void Stranger clip! Such a great game

[@CptRyaffio]

one of my all time favorite games is the puzzle game Carto. It took me 8 hrs to get 100% completion in 1.3 play-thrus (the game lets you replay singe chapters after the first play-thru to discover the easter eggs or try out different solve paths). It has fundamentally simple mechanics that it builds on and only introduces a small handful of truly new things. fits this design ethos perfectly

[@the_furf_of_july4652]

On the topic of content vs novelty I’ve been playing a game called IdleOn. Its approach is to give the player various stat upgrades, but it does so from various sources. Each world has a handful of upgrade mechanics and three primary skill types, getting to the next world doesn’t mean getting any better at mining, but now fishing is a thing with its own quests and recipes and ways to contribute to progression. Yes, this is the 5th time I’ve gotten a 3% bonus to my exp gain. But now I get to upgrade my cauldron to unlock new alchemy bubbles that give bonuses to everything else. And with prices getting exponentially bigger, you NEED all those incremental stat upgrades from 15 different sources (stamps, statues, alchemy, talent points, tools, armor, your star chart alignment, card collection…)

[@slushguy8398]

Fight in tight spaces has the “out of bounds “ mechanic. There is nothing more satisfying than to OTK a boss with a well placed 0 damage push card!

[@FrosteryGaming]

"I CAST DEFENESTRATION" *enemy flies out like Jin from that Tekken game where Heihachi threw him out of a moving Helicopter*

[@fabovondestory]

The whole setting is hilarious

[@prosamis]

8:30 path of exile is a masterclass on novelty. A decade old game still growing in playerbase even while they're developing their sequel and still breaking records is the way it is for a reason I've been playing poe since 2014 and I can assure you poe is leaps and bounds better at novelty than any other game I know (and yes, I played a lot of games)

[@erinkarp]

Was just going through some of your older videos, glad to see a new one!

[@raymondhu7720]

10:15: I feel like this point acts very much like Grant Sanderson's Third Law -- which is about magic systems, but then again, these are both *systems* we are talking about -- which states that you should "Expand what you already have before you add something new."

[@Dango428]

2:51 ah yes, the brazilian faction

[@murilotheodoro5025]

And the south Koreans. And the captain americas?

[@williamjones5334]

I think all of those are actual Civ VI civilisations

[@UnabridgedGamer]

Yet never any guerrillas from Red Faction, not even in the face of Armageddon!

[@creistfallen]

I'm so glad you put this feeling into words! I've tried explaining this to friends, but all I could do was ramble

[@bran_donk]

Adam, I love your work. My 2.5k-hours-played hurt when you put PoE footage over "games that run out of steam too fast."

[@maxthornton5301]

I'm proud to have finally beat a cool seemingly niche game on the very same day you uploaded this video. Tactical Breach Wizards is incredible, and more people need to play it. I also did not know about the developer commentary so thank you so much for letting me know I need to go back. Anyways, BASED video, sorry if that's cringe to say, but I think that the "$1 per hour of gameplay" and other similar metrics are incredibly detrimental for the game industry. I loved my time with viewfinder (even if it felt like it has yet to fully tap the potential) despite beating it in 3 hours at a cost of $25. Most games I have played recently that are "Open World" have felt worse for it, and like they were afraid that having too little content. I've come to find that my favorite games are curated 5-20 hours (at most), and the games I'm left feeling exhausted by are 30-50. That is not a rule, just a trend.

[@thearcanian5921]

7:15 This perfectly encapsulates why I have trouble sticking with No Man's Sky despite how much I have always liked it. I have said for a long time that its patterns change so slowly, if at all, that, despite being an explorer, my high pattern recognition keeps leading to me getting bored enough to be distracted by other games.

[@jonedvinz]

I would like to say, the character writing and banter is also excelent

[@Atlessa]

Pairing the phrase "[...] explore them at a satisfying level of depth" with footage of Subnautica is a masterstroke of editing.

[@stevenneiman1554]

One thing I think can be easy to forget about game design is that content only adds as much to the game as the player's relationship with that content. If you introduce a cool idea but don't let the player truly master it through expansion on the original ideas, they don't get to reach the satisfying parts of their relationship with that mechanic no matter how cool it is in principle.

[@Adurnis]

About midway through the game, towards the end of the Kalan arc (Minor spoiler warning): There’s that bit where Dell is like “Hey, we’re gonna work with another team.” Of course you see from a mile away that it’s Kennedy,” and the face off scene is just as hilarious as you’d hope-but then the mission starts and you realize you can PLAY as the Less Lethal Pyromancer and I literally gasped in surprise and delight! 10/10 game.

[@UnabridgedGamer]

I agree about Tactical Wizards and on some of the examples on the struggle for novelty - but I gotta say, The Unfinished Swan is actually a great example of novelty. It gets an incredible amount of interaction from a single set of verbs over its runtime. They even included some bonus cheats to shake things up on a return playthrough. It’s far more Titanfall 2 than it is COD Ghosts in this respect.

[@ShadowoftheMask]

This reminds me of how I like changing up my team composition and equipment in different games just for sake of doing so :O Like I don't like finding one routine and repeating it everytime it works meaning I'm willing to take L to just try out new things. Variety is spice of life and all that

[@DanielHur]

Did NOT expect a unabomber reference in a video about novelty in games. 4:21

[@val26874]

There's even a wizard with a magic broomstick so she can throw herself out of one window and back in through another. Possibly even knocking someone else through another window in the process.

[@stephan553]

Would love to see chapters in your videos. Keep up to great content!

[@slax4884]

The satiation of novelty concept was very interesting. You optimise your novelty away even though open world promised unlimited freedom. Absolutely loved this video

[@Sovreign071]

Defenestrator Simulator! I've had this game in my Steam Wishlist for YEARS!

[@antoniotrivelloni8191]

I’ve heard someone say this game is closer to a puzzle game with its bonus objectives than a true XCOM-like, and it makes sense the more I think about it

[@DarkBloodbane]

That's the challenge of making games. It's not finding new and novel mechanic but instead expansion or depth of existing mechanics. Even if devs managed to expand or deepen their game's mechanic, it still depend on players to dive and explore it.

[@davgamingcz6627]

Fun fact: the second defenestration of Prague caused the 30th year war

[@Astatine95]

Thirty Years' War.

[@kindoflame]

This video is how I learned one of my favorite games World of Goo, got a sequel! Thanks so much!

[@nacho4288]

Starfield and Dave the Diver are the new Adam Millard opps 😭 they catch strays left and right

[@DanJonJr]

YEEEEEEAH IM SO GLAD TO SEE YOU COVER THIS GAME!

[@gofia]

“Novelty needs depth.” - yes, INDEEEEED.

[@IAmTheAce5]

Subnautica and Grounded- two classics... I want to submit for consideration both Airborne Kingdom and The Wandering Village for the same sense of novelty. It's the reason I'm waiting for Laysara Summit Kingdom and Timberborn to be accessible.

[@tommarsdon5644]

Is the wandering village, by any chance, somehow about fire?

[@musicmikemn]

Adam kicking himself for not having played Astro Bot before this video :D

[@CampGareth]

I miss the patron "AAAAAAH" or however it was spelt that used to be the first one you read out. Every take was different but they all caught me by surprise

[@theoteno]

Blasting Wizards Through Windows? That does happen in Scrabdackle once, where a bad wizard blasts your wizard out of the window of the academy...!

[@JayFolipurba]

I love this concept! I didn't know I needed tacticool magic users. Unfortunately I don't like playing this kind of gameplay, so I'll probabaly leave it on the shelf until I can get it as a freebie in 10 years or something. But the worldbuilding is cool

[@amazingkool]

4:16 DARRELL SPOTTED

[@zerragonoss]

Great video, slightly tangential but I been thinking recently that one of the biggest problems with Procedural generation in a lot of games is not actually the quality of the content it generates (though I do agree it will never be as good as purpose built dev.) but a lack a restraint. If you are looking for recourses in an endless verity of worlds its highly encouraged to do a quick sweep of a place grab the easy stuff, than never go back because that place now has less things than any of the endless other places you can go. So you mechanically encouraged to view each place as shallow, disposable, and worthless. Where as even the same quality world building were their is a finite amount of space in any given playthrough makes places matter more, while still letting future playthroughs be at least moderately varied.

[@KaiJason]

Fight in Tight Space also has alot of out of window moments

[@SteveAkaDarktimes]

having lots of stuff VS making us do new things. Noun versus Verb. Passive vs Active. one-offs puzzles vs indepth exploration and tweaking of a single mechanics.

[@timogul]

This is Genshin Impact's secret sauce, they reuse some mechanics over time, but also add entirely new mechanics to each map added, and weave them together to provide unique play experiences.

[@samadams8533]

I feel like breath of the wild is the best example of this, the game stays novel despite you getting all of your tools in the first 30 minutes of gameplay, its just about being given new environments and ways to use those tools

[@StompinPaul]

The novelty makes me think of something I remember from Borderlands. Back in the day they loved to advertise how the games had "40 gazillion guns" or something. And the thing is it's technically true, but kinda misleading. Because, a given machine gun with a 50 bullet capacity, the exact same machine gun with 51 bullet capacity, the exact same gun with 52 bullet capacity, etc etc, are all technically different guns. And then you can up the fire rate by +0.1, and do it all again, then +0.2, etc etc. And these are all technically different guns, but they're all going to feel like the same one. The ones that actually feel different are where you get into different kinds or styles, or the ones with some kind of special ability that mixes things up.

[@rhnirsilva652]

PoE in the "boring stats skill tree" surely is a take

[@taiidaniblues7792]

Yeah I don’t think Adam has much experience in PoE. Sure there are stat increases, but the meat and potatoes of the skill tree in POE are the notable passives. POEs skill tree is the antithesis to the standard stat increase skill tree. It has nodes like blood magic which permanently removes all your mana, increases your health, and makes skill cost health instead of mana. Which completely changes how you build and play your character. Or ancestral bond which stops your character from doing damage directly but gives you an extra totem. Notable passives are quite transformative to your gameplay. But I understand the confusion if someone hasn’t experienced the passive tree in POE much

[@emma_tm]

20:41 old school runescape does this really well

[@MagosJCDentonus451]

Ah yes, my favourite trilogy. I wonder what Tom will do next

[@pining_tree6788]

Never forget. Hydrate or defenestrate!

[@slax4884]

Seeing the concord copy passing by was hilarious xD

[@AurumEquus]

TBW is an amazing game that caught my attention like few others.

[@tersecwalsingham5778]

I've always highly valued novelty in games. It's why I struggle with a lot of sequels, even if they're good.

[@jakubhronik8637]

As a guy from Czechia, it delights me to see a game that uses our national sport as its core mechanic xD

[@TylorHuebner]

Saw defenestration in the thumbnail and knew it warranted a click.

[@slax4884]

Defenestration is such a fun concept

[@twixx1]

That pink sheep was extremely well played 😅

[@ahobimo732]

...that feeling when you remember that you actually *DO* know what "defenestration" means.

[@JonnesTT]

"defenestration based magic" is NOT a phrase I thought I'd ever hear. 😅

[@grfrjiglstan]

I remember when my brother and I were playing the high rise level in Left 4 Dead 2, and a player playing as the Charger charged him straight out the window. It's an instakill with no chance to respawn, but we weren't even mad.

[@WeaselOnaStick]

23:25 Those words coming out of a gaming youtuber that isn't Yahtzee sounded so threatening