Hi, I’m Lucien (they/them). I’m an enby junior studying CS, who is looking to go into game or web dev.
Picking my favorite game is a tough call these days. It’s probably still Minecraft, just as it was for my entire childhood, but I have a lot of design complaints about it, especially the pacing. At the end of the day it’s still the game I have the most fun with, and I’ve written several mods for it to try to resolve some of its issues that annoy me. I love it for the way it provides incredible freedom of expression for the player, but within tight enough constraints that it inspires creativity and allows the player to develop a sense of mastery.
For a recent game I’ve enjoyed, I’d have to go with Rain World. It’s tough to sell people on Rain World without spoiling any of it; it’s a heavily exploration-focused game with a super high skill floor, which makes it sadly inaccessible to many people. Giving it the time it needs to grab you is well worth it though, it’s one of the most thematically compelling games I’ve ever played, and overall an incredibly rewarding experience. My favorite aspect of its design is the complete absence of player upgrades. The only thing that changes between the start of the game in the easiest region and the climax of the game in the hardest region is player skill, something which few games are brave enough to attempt, and fewer manage to pull off.
