It sucks to lose, right? You put all that effort in and try your damnedest, only to get your hindquarters handed to you. So why then do we play so many games that enjoy nothing more than to utterly destroy us? While a healthy dose of patience or good ol’ fashioned masochism can factor in, the reality is — the games that crush you the most with failure are also the best at picking you back up.
With the boom of roguelikes, Dark Souls, and more complex combat systems, the variety of games that can crush your bones to dust is wider than ever. The trick that separates them is whether they make the bite of failure simply a challenge to push yourself further. It needs to be an opportunity, not a punishment, and the line between them can be razor-thin.
A perfect example of a game that doesn’t handle this well is Ghostrunner. I can think of few games more passionate and cruel. It’s…
