Link: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/adventure/what-if-the-gameplay-was-fun-this-blew-our-f-ing-minds-dispatch-devs-had-a-revelation-after-years-of-tired-telltale-mechanics/

We're so used to, so conditioned to gameplay being the thing you had to do to check the box

What a nothingburger of an article. But Dispatch does seem to be a departure from the cookie cutter stuff they were putting out before.

Crazy idea. What if we put some mechanics in our game?

Six paragraphs that say absolutely nothing but "game devs realize games should be fun, decide to make their game fun".

Truly groundbreaking stuff. 😐

TT's The Walking Dead series was a great entry point for normies getting into Visual Novel-type games, but they failed to add the bog standard sorts of features needed in a VN. Things like skip-everything-but-unread, text rollbacks, and so on. All the features that make replaying different routes fun and accessible.

To make matters worse, all the slow "gameplay" sections didn't really add much to the story and mostly just served as speedbumps for replaying. The games were build to lock you into a single playthrough where "choices mattered" and they really didn't want you exploring other story paths.