10 Video Games That Messed With The Player

Here is a shocking statement for you: video game developers often create games with the player’s enjoyment in mind.

Whether that’s because they want you to stick around for a sequel, spend your hard-earned money on some sweet, sweet microtransactions or simply because they have made an excellent product that they want you to enjoy, a great player experience is at the forefront of a developers’ mind.

Some developers think enjoyment is not enough however, and want to take players outside of their comfort zone.

From games that convince you of your evil ways, make you think your console or PC has stopped working, or just send you on a wild goose chase; these titles are a bit more cheeky than your run of the mill experiences, and can’t wait to play a cruel trick on you before laughing at your expense.

Some games are made with the single intention of messing with you as much as possible. Superliminal is one such game, its often-obscure puzzles and perspective shifting mechanics making you question what is real.

The premise of the game is simple, with the player making their way through a dream-therapy programme, using forced perspective as a means of resizing objects to your advantage. The puzzles that resizing these objects helps you solve get increasingly more confusing though, and even the opening of the game tries its hardest to mislead the player, tricking you into signing the terms of service with a click of a button when normal games tell you that such a button press would pick the document up.

The signing of the terms of service sets the events of the game into motion, which the character, and indeed the player, mistakenly agree to. The game doesn’t stop there though, presenting you with tons more perspective changes, and giving you a headache with its many rooms of well-thought out and often elaborate scenarios.

You can make ramps out of cheese though, so there’s that.