Flutterby™! : Mega Man design and addictive behavior

Kirk pulled a quote from this video on Mega Man 2.

His design rules for Mega Man 2 were specific and deliberate. Enemies appeared in small waves, three or four at a time, using the same attacks, so players could actually learn the pattern. Terrain and placement adjusted the challenge, not random enemy behavior. And here's the detail that reveals everything. The last enemy in each wave was easier than the ones before it. I'll say that again on purpose. The final enemy in a wave was easier. Why? Kamura explained the psychology this way. He'd notice that people don't replay games, even good ones, because when they think back, their minds go to the hardest parts, and that memory makes replaying feel like work. He didn't want players remembering Mega Man 2 as a slog. He wanted them to remember feeling like they were getting better. And then he said something that is essentially the entire point of this video. I quote, "I wanted the player to feel like he was improving at the game, too."

I've been thinking a lot recently about addictive behaviors and product design and... okay, full disclosure, I have a Stardew Valley save with over 300M gold. I recently deleted the Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit apps from my phone.

I'm struggling with this as much as anyone else. I mean, sure, I've got a walk to and from the office, that's some time to do some mindless tapping, but...

Circa 2001, I had a Sega Dreamcast with Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 on it. At some point I was trying to unlock the hidden area in the final level, and spent a bit of time on it, and realized I wasn't building transferrable skills.

Sometime in between now and then, I was playing Half-Life 2, and realized that if I went into a melee with low health, the attacks were nerfed and I could move through the levels more quickly.

Games have gotten more refined, and now Stardew Valley doesn't require any skill, it's just tap for dopamine. But at least it wears its politics on its sleeve, and you discover pretty soon that maybe having little creatures that live on your farm and harvest your crops, whose color you can change, is kinda problematic? That, as you kill all of the denizens of a level of tiled, lit, underground space, obviously an advanced civilization, in order to steal their cloth, that maybe there's a commentary on colonialism here?

Charlene and I are hooked on a TV show called The Way Home (and other friends whove tried it have gotten similarly hooked), and one of the recurring themes is a compulsion to participate in history, in a way that explores addictive behavior, so maybe that's the thing that's framing my experience of the world these days.

But, between "AI"/LLM chatbots, online gambling, computer games, etc., I'm wondering where the boundary is in the things that we create between giving us joy, giving us new experiences, and exploiting holes in human perception to create deliberately addictive experiences.

And I'm pondering this as someone who participates in a lot of IRL stuff, indeed as someone who's an organizer of a lot of community, from square dance calling to Urban Chat forums.

I don't have good answers, but I'm disturbed.