FLYINGJESTER'S PROFILE

What I would worry is that the game would be notably more fun with or without the features that are toggled. Then perhaps you would wish that the feature was not directly tied to difficulty.

Funny, I don't feel like I learned anything between then and now. Except now I can do it, and before I couldn't.

I think that more often, I play a game, and I really like the first half-hour or so. Then they introduce a new mechanic, a new style of play, a new type of level, etc. And I think, 'Well, this is not really as fun as the first part, but at least there is variety. Hopefully the next thing will be as good as the first part!'.

Then it dawns on me, I just finished the tutorial. That thing I hate is actually the core of the game now. All that fun before? Yeah, that was cool. But no. Now you know what the game is actually about.

For instance:
Escort and defending missions in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.
Set-piece battles in Age of Empires III on DS.
The on-foot part of Star Fox Adventures.
Region dynamics in Sim City 2014.

Actually, forget I mentioned Sim City 2014...I could pick out any part of that game and call it out for being poorly designed and shoddily implemented, detracting from the fun you can clearly see is possible, but which remains just outside your grasp. That game is error. That game reminds you of your own mortality in all the wrong ways. That game is eternal longing for something you eventually realize you can never quite have.

Sometimes I have a similar experience when I am in a fitful rest. I'll be tossing and turning, and in my more lucid moments I will recognize that I've been turning over in my head some code I had written that day. Sometimes I'll recognize that what I imagined was different in some way, and I'll think about whether it was an improvement or not. Often, I will have dreamed of something simply removed.

A lot of my better ideas come about that way.

Growing up, I had none of that. My father's music collection consisted of Motorhead, Metallica, Blind Melon, Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Wilco, and Bob Dylan.

My tastes thus became a mixture of metal, hard rock, folk, old-school country, and noise pop.