I'm tired of everything getting turned into a roguelite, but I'll make an exception for pinball
Game developers are burning through genres, high concepts, and even annoying machines that scammed you on the boardwalk as a child to fuel quick-hit Balatro-likes or Vampire Survivors-likes at the same rate the smartphone industry's sucking down rare earth minerals. I get why: compulsive play is core to the design, they can be made relatively fast and relatively cheap, and a day or two on the Steam charts (or a viral Twitch stream or YouTube video) can drive 100,000 sales at a time when just surviving to make another game feels like a real win... Read more.

Game developers are burning through genres, high concepts, and even annoying machines that scammed you on the boardwalk as a child to fuel quick-hit Balatro-likes or Vampire Survivors-likes at the same rate the smartphone industry's sucking down rare earth minerals. I get why: compulsive play is core to the design, they can be made relatively fast and relatively cheap, and a day or two on the Steam charts (or a viral Twitch stream or YouTube video) can drive 100,000 sales at a time when just surviving to make another game feels like a real win... Read more.