is the title of a blog post by indie game developer ivy sly (best known for your only move is hustle). the post itself is a kind of satire, especially with respect to its attitude about industry. because who doesn't hate industry
the post is also a satire about how some people (who are not artists, in any useful sense) seem to understand good games. the game is good when it feels good. the game is good once the player is rewarded for every action, or simply for observing the game happen in front of them. that's a real good game. telling a story is for weird folk who like to leave money on the table.
"why would you waste your time thinking when there is money to be made?"
i am not actually here to write a book report about a short blog post, seemingly written entirely out of spite. i am actually here to get REALLY MAD ABOUT SCREENSHAKE
screenshake is evil, i'm pretty sure. the idea is simple: real life includes shaking, rumbling, or similar upon physically massive events taking place, and therefore your game will feel massive if the screen shakes when something significant happens. apparently, this stuck. you can tell because the screen shakes on every third input in every major game since like 1999. this is outrageous
i am not the kind of person accessibility settings are usually made for. i have no serious disabilities (or, indeed, skill issues, if you insist) for which removing some portion of an author's originally intended functionality can be beneficial. even so, screenshake is a fun-ruiner for me. the visuals of a game become confusing and sometimes overwhelming in the presence of screenshake. many games that employ screenshake will have options to reduce or remove it, and for this i am thankful, but it's worth considering why that option is necessary in the first place. maybe your screenshake really is damaging the comprehension of your game
this would be a lesser issue without my next point:
celeste is a 2018 platform video game developed and published by indie studio maddy makes games. it has screen shake. people love to champion this game as highly accessible for its versatile assist mode and various accessibility settings, alongside its forgiving platforming mechanics. that's all well and good but there's one way in which this game shoots itself in the foot. by default, every dash has (a frankly ridiculous amount of) screenshake. with dashes being the game's biggest gameplay focus, the screenshake becomes excessive. players who do not consider accessibility settings as being "for" them, or who simply never consider screenshake might be an issue, struggle more than they should with the game's challenges entirely due to this misuse of screenshake. there are various threads and videos of players discovering the game's challenges are made substantially more manageable after disabling screenshake. every single player who is trying out any modded level harder than the base game or who is attempting one of the game's harder golden berries has screenshake turned off. the devs seem to have acknowledged this because the default setting for screenshake as of 1.4.0.0 is 50%, which is still too much (especially for dashes, where it should really be 0%), but it's a step in the right direction
i picked celeste here because it's a wonderful game that truly is wonderfully accessible. because it shows that even the most thoughtfully created works make this mistake. because it shows how widespread the anti-wisdom of screenshake has become in gaming
there are certainly other things to gleam from ivy sly's original post but i read the first paragraph and the idea for this post popped into my head immediately. apparently my hatred for screenshake is so potent that i can read about someone making fun of the kind of thinking that causes screenshake to be implemented and still get real pissed off about it
as a kind of post-script, i'll note i do not hate all kinds of screenshake. screenshake that does not interfere with an audience's capacity for understanding the contents of your art is perfectly fine. it's only when it's overused or misused that it becomes an issue. screenshake used artistically is also fine, although do be aware of people with possible health-related reasons for needing screenshake to be turned off