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Astro’s Playroom designer says he’d consider an expansion or sequel, but no plans are decided

It's a legit amazing freebie on PS5

Would I buy a fully fledged sequel full price? I think I would. Not 100% sure

Would like to see what they could do with it though
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
The problem with your thinking (in your posts in general really. Not just this one) is that your logic is based on the idea that because gameplay is exclusive to games that the objective value of a game must be based on the depth and focus of it's gameplay alone.

But it's not that simple in any medium. Using your logic we could determine that because cinema introduced a visual element not seen in the mediums that came before it (such as literature or radio) that only films that attempt to push visual effects are the only ones with artistic credability. Therefore Transformers and Marvel films are among the best examples of art in the medium. Or because flavour is exclusive to food, then a chicken wing could become fine dining if you put enough hot sauce on it.

Where is in reality, the best cases for art are defined by how well they use all the different tools available in its medium (whether they be exclusive to that medium or not) to create an experience that's better than the sum of its parts.

I'm with you to a point. I do think there's some inherent value to non gameplay aspects of games.

I often think of horror games in this regard. Resident Evil 4 with N64 type graphics would be an objectively worse experience than Resident Evil 4 with graphics from 2030 (PS6/XBox Series X or whatever), even if gameplay were exactly the same. Presentation certainly offers us something.

So we do have to consider that to a certain extent. What most people miss however, is that presentation is a tertiary aspect to games.

The single most important (and unique) aspect of the medium is gameplay. Or choice.

A game like Astrobot whiffs almost completely on that. It just copies gameplay from 3D platformers of the last 20+ years.

I also think if you look at the history of games since the 70s, you'll see a pretty clear trajectory. Games are getting more complex and they're giving players a wider variety of choices.

If Fortnite (or any number of today's big games) was released in 1993 the human species would embrace it even more so than they do today. Conversely, if Mario Brothers 3 never released back then, and was released today, the human species would overwhelmingly ignore it.

Humans embrace the medium based on the choices games give us.

So when Team Asobi nails the tertiary aspect of games and copy pastes the core of what make the medium special, I don't find that particularly inspiring. It's junk food game design imo. There's a space for junk food in the market, but I think gamers crave, whether they know it or not, advancement in choice.
 
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