More incentive talk

by Tails , Across the Pond, Thursday, July 11, 2013, 02:40 (4197 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I think puzzle games operate a little differently. The challenges aren't really incentives, so much as new puzzles. Ok, now beat this chamber using 6 or fewer portals. You have to think and solve a totally new puzzle. This is pretty different than giving rewards for tasks in game, since the whole point of a puzzle game is to solve puzzles, and the challenges are themselves new puzzles.

I'd agree there's a little bit of apples vs oranges when talking about puzzle games vs action games, but I do think it's a bit of a stretch to call Portal's challenge modes totally new puzzles. I felt I was being asked to solve the existing puzzles better. For me the challenges simply informed me the puzzles I had just solved were solvable differently and perhaps more elegantly - certainly it was the push I needed to sink many more (thoroughly enjoyable) hours into the levels I'd already completed.

I'd suggest you're keeping to too obvious a definition of a replay incentive. If you want an example that falls under perhaps a subtler definition, look at Trials. Friend leaderboards and ghost support are two things I'd say are great incentives to replay content - not integral to the second-to-second gameplay mechanics but wrappers around it that tease you to go again and again. That's replay incentives applied unobtrusively and to great effect.