Games

Just started playing a simple isometric game called Tunic. It's cute, and you play as a little button mashing fox creature with a sword in a language that's gibberish as you find hidden paths in the isometric style. It's frustrating for being so simplistic, because the hidden paths are hidden. I kinda like it so far tho. Just simple, relaxing, chill music, and cute AF artwork.

Control had me wandering around.

Try Platoon on the NES, you get bombarded by ennemies while you have to find your way through this abomination of a maze!

This is an extremely specific situation in a game, but...

In World of Warcraft, back in the day, there was a dungeon in Outland, I believe it was Helfire Citadel. It wasn't particularly hard, but if you died, you were screwed. The way dungeon deaths worked was your spirit would spawn in a graveyard out in the regular world, and you would have to run your spirit ass back to the dungeon entrance to respawn. But finding the entrance to Helfire Citadel was so difficult I told the group if they don't rez me, they'd have to just kick me, because I'd never make it back in. It was awful.

I would say many games with procedural generated worlds, like Minecraft, No Man's Sky, etc. Where the main task is deciding where do I go next, where do I settle down, maybe there is some better place over the next hill, next planet, etc.

There are other games, where it is also sometimes not quite clear what to do next. Like games have a lot of progression and rebuilding of stuff that was done before because of it. Like Satisfactory, Factorio, etc.

And on a more literal sense, where you actually redo the game over and over to progress, like The Stanley Parable or Outer Wilds.

Some games have a very labyrinthine level design, where it also isn't really clear what to do next, like Dark Souls, Subnautica, etc.

Or environment puzzles, where you have to figure out how to progress, like the Myst series, Riven, etc.

Metroid and Legend of Zelda I and II for NES.

The old text adventures where being able to solve a puzzle required hitting the right words. "Oh, twist, not pull."

Ecco the Dolphin is literally impossible without a guide.

For me it's always been Zelda games.

Morrowind.

Can you find this person whom wandered off into the ashlands? They went east-ish.

I've spent more time than I'd like to admit in the Construction Kit to find out where in Vivec's name I had to go this time. Usually it turned out I just barely missed the person or location I had to go before starting an hourlong search.

But despite that still a game I deeply love.

That's my experience with 99% of old school point and click games. At some point in every one it devolved into me running in circles and trying every item on every object.

Subnautica and Hollow Knight spring to mind

You want the absolute "guide damn it" example? Try playing the OG Dragon Quest games. They're nonlinear by nature and there's a spot in 2 (or was it 3) where you need to literally check an unmarked floor for an item. No indicator, save maybe a vague NPC dialogue in another part of the planet that didn't get adequately translated in English so you're truly aimless.

Final Fantasy 7 has a lot of mini versions of this moment because the level art is rarely distinguished from the actual terrain you can interact with so sometimes you kinda get stuck until you realise that this time that little ramp is actually something your supposed to walk up rather than un-interactable scenery like all those previous times.

Most recently it's Clair Obscur Expedition 33. There's an actual overworld map but you need to get your bearings in area maps and dungeons because there are none. You'll have to use local landmarks to get around, find clues for hidden areas, and the direction you actually need to go. I've spent hours in single areas just getting lost admiring the design and artwork.

It feels like such a silly example now that I know the game, but tales of symphonia made me give up for about three years before coming back and beating it. There's a section where you're supposed to go to a specific city to progress, but there's a semi-secret long way around that lets you experience a different character's story early. Well, I somehow sucked at following directions and went the semi-secret way, and then couldn't figure out how to get ANYWHERE that let you do anything. I wandered around the same continent for several months (playing a few hours a week) before moving on.

Zelda: Link's Awakening on the GameBoy Color in the mid-90s. I got to the second temple, and was totally stuck - to progress I needed to learn to jump, which I inferred was in this temple, but I just couldn't figure out where it was.

Wandered all over the available map, which of course was constrained due to lacking the jump skill and other story-driven tools. Nothing.

Finally bought a game guide, which explained to me that I needed to bomb a wall in one room in the second temple to progress. It was indicated by a small crack, a staple in Zelda games but invisible to me in my first experience with the series.

The cherry on top was that by that point, I didn't have any bombs to break the wall, and I recall that I didn't have the ability to buy or acquire any and had to restart the game to progress past the point where I was stuck.

After that point, Zelda: Links Awakening became one of my favorite games of my childhood. It is hilarious how much frustration it caused me before that realization.

Head Over Heels. Somehow I eventually managed to complete it, after much trial and error.

The Outer Worlds is a perfect example of this in the best way possible.

Space Quest

DOOM

Fuck your Blue Key.

Divinity: Original Sin 1. took about eighty odd hours to get to the door that says sorry mate, not enough magic stones

Animal Well, but that's kinda the point

I actually like those a lot. Just listing some in no particular order:

• Metroid Prime Series
• Dark Souls Series half the time
• Resident Evil 1, 2 and maybe 8
• Hollow Knight
• Castlevania Symphony of the Night
• Outer Wilds