My favorite game is Hades, and some of the mechanics afforded to the player as follows:
- Collect darkness and use it to level up your base power level (starting HP, starting coin balance, percent chance of receiving rare boons/buffs from gods)
- Collect keys to unlock new weapons
- Collect titan blood from defeating boss enemies to unlock more unique aspects of certain weapons
- Be able to stack different boons from gods and come up with creative builds (countless combinations are available)
These mechanics lend itself well to the “challenge” type of fun for me, because I get to experiment with different builds, see which one works best, and also see my skill level grow through successive runs of the game. It’s so easy to say “I’ll just do one more run” when you were so close to reaching the next milestone or beating a boss during a previous run. There are definitely times I said “one more run” and it turned into like six more… oops.
