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Death to the self-playing game. www.jank.cool/death-to-the...

This certainly kicked up a hornets nest. I think there is room in game design to explore less hands-on interpretations of existing genres, exploring the design space between emulation and simulation of an activity - but I do dislike the use of gambling mechanics and dark patterns to fill the void.

Loop Hero is a good example, because it leans more on the side of a sim game, managing a hero in an automated NES RPG with city builder elements on top, and there's high interactivity there. It'd say that fares way better than the automated KRPG's like recent Ragnarok entries which are fully auto.

In Ragnarok M and X you're literally just watching a game be played, occasionally tapping a prompt, accepting the rewards, and levelling up - pure mindless dopamine. I'd say that is more of what we should avoid. But the defenders will argue they don't have time to play, or it's more accessible.

We also know from mobile game design that these types of games also reinforce a behaviour pattern, you open the game, you get the reward, you spend the currency, repeat. It's not something intrinsic to auto-play games, but it has become an often utilised design pattern which doesn't smell right.

As mentioned in other posts, Balatro and VS rely on psychological impulse as part of their design - I don't like that aspect any more than jump scares in horror, because you aren't 'earning' the response - you're exploiting psychology to achieve it regardless of the user's will.