Of course this works if the activity is engaging every time, but I remembered that I’ve moved a few games along for the specific reasons that they were too easy to win without the other aspects being enjoyable enough to keep me coming back regardless.
- The Dead Eye (where I won my first game despite some initial failed runs, won my second game with no failures at all, and concluded that I’d established an unbeatable strategy and had no interesting decisions left to make.)
- Lost Kingdoms: Pangea in Pieces (this one had so much potential, but the collection of solo constraints were bad – they were too easy to achieve, and most of them eliminated the need to engage with the game’s most interesting feature. I wasn’t motivated to try to come up with alternatives because the set-up was fiddly as well, so I culled it.)
- The Maiden in the Forest (this micro card game puzzle must be virtually impossible to lose unless you make the tactical error of painting yourself into a corner – which is easily avoided. I played more games of this than I expected, but once I moved on to another game I realised I wasn’t going to go back.)