What Makes A Game Worth Playing?

June 5, 2026

A couple of years ago, my best friend’s boyfriend told me to play Pathologic 2, an apocalyptic survival game where you play as a doctor trying to save a small town from the plague.

I tried the intro and told him I hated it.

I ended up texting him a few weeks ago to apologize, because after making it through the confusing “anti-tutorial” that is the first 15 minutes, it’s become my favorite game of all time.

I haven’t played a lot of games over the past year because most of my energy has gone into building. But since January, I’ve been trying to carve out at least a few hours each day to immerse myself in other people’s work. It’s given me ideas and, more importantly, reminded me why I love this medium.

Playing feels different now than it did before I learned to code. I still enjoy games as a player, but there’s a new analytical part of me that sees each one as a collection of decisions.

And I’ve been analyzing Pathologic 2 because it’s consumed me like no game ever has.

The big question has been why.

Why this game more so than any other? Why this one, despite its messy graphics and confusing dialogue? Why not any of the more polished games I’ve played (and loved) before it? What combination of decisions produced that effect?

Pathologic 2

Pathologic 2 is a brutal game. The gameplay specifically. I got to the third day and realized I needed to be stocking up on food, so I restarted — trying different approaches each time: looting, trading, stocking herbs. Nothing worked the way I expected.

The game warned me — through dialogue and even instructional UI — that I wouldn’t be able to optimize my way into saving everyone. I knew the point wasn’t to learn how to save everyone, but to learn how to choose who to save. And I still kept trying to beat the system — most games reward optimization — until I failed enough times in enough different ways that the habit (mostly) broke.

I restarted so many times that by the time I actually finished it, it was a near-perfect run. But as I spent all of my resources saving every savable character, I had no water left and lost stamina quickly.

Which meant I had to walk everywhere.

Which meant I was too late to deliver an important notice to the army camped outside the town, ready to level it.

EVERYONE died.

Not just the characters.

Every NPC.

The whole town.

Blown up.

Of course, I had a moment of “Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!?!” But then I started laughing.

It was brilliant.

I didn’t go back to fix it. It was a meaningful arc, punctuated with a cosmic joke. I’m sure there’s a way to get the good endings, but my point is that I had to play a lot and get completely immersed in the world before I even had a chance.

Perhaps I was a little overly optimistic that finishing the game would break my obsession with it, because I already have a new campaign started.

I don’t think I’ve been this mentally engrossed since I was building my engine in Glide — manually experimenting with data organization until the system lit up like a Christmas tree. No boredom or pauses for AI to do its thing. Just curiosity-fueled adrenaline.

In other words, it’s insanely addictive.

Luckily, some of my free time has also gone into reading books on game design. They’ve helped me understand that what makes games unique from other types of media is their ability to teach kinesthetically. I’ve loved many games for their stories, but Pathologic 2 leverages the active nature of games better than anything I’ve played: the part the player controls and the story itself are one and the same.

Looking back, I think what makes the game so addictive is that every mechanic is pushing on every other mechanic.

The pressure isn’t coming from one system. It emerges from all of them at once. Hunger affects exploration, exploration affects safety, safety affects resources, resources affect who lives. I thought I had learned all of those interactions, but the game delivered one final lesson: medicine eats speed because speed and medicine both require water.

The systems are all in tension with each other.

And most impressively, the tension shows up no matter what strategy you play with. Somehow, the constraints are balanced enough to force sandbox-style play into a narrative shape.

Bringing it back

Falling in love with someone else’s creation has made me reflect on what to do with my own system.

The engine works.

My movement systems work. My interaction systems work. My observation systems work. My information systems work.

I can create new mechanics quickly. I can build experiments in hours that would have taken me weeks a year ago.

The bottleneck isn’t code anymore.

The engine does what I built it to do, but I have yet to build an addictive experience.

My engine handles common “boring” mechanics: movement, interaction, observation.

The part I’m most excited about is realistic constraints and information asymmetry. You can observe what’s happening in your room, but not in others (unless something is loud enough to hear). You can only interact with what’s around you and who’s around you. Pick up what’s light enough to hold. Just like real life.

But realism alone isn’t compelling. Without pressure, it’s just a very pretty simulator.

For months I’ve been thinking about information asymmetry. Pathologic made me realize information asymmetry isn’t enough. Constraints aren’t enough either. I think the missing ingredient is pressure. And if we’re using information asymmetry as a jumping-off point, what’s a way to turn that feature into a problem?

Build a game about trust. Where someone tells you they fixed something — but you didn’t see it happen. Where you hear something in another room and have to decide whether it matters. Where cooperation is necessary, but you might be safer if you cheat. Where information itself becomes a resource.

Now that’s a game I’d pay to play.

So I’m making an MVP. The smaaaallest possible mod that produces an addictive game loop, using the mechanics I have on hand, adding ingredients slowly (and removing them) until the pressure produces an exciting arc, no matter how you decide to play.

Whatever that turns out to be will inform everything from the genre to the art style.

I’ve spent a year building a flexible tool kit. It’s time to start designing real games.