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[michaelplzno]

you have certainly explained why your game is a fantasy but the word you are missing here is power.

Just because you win a game doesn't mean your game experience is a power fantasy. Unless the game is about power in some way. A very hard game where you have very little chance of surviving is probably not a power fantasy. More of a game for masochists, people who enjoy being put through pain, than some kind of study about power itself.

Minecraft is a Power Fantasy because you can build giant monuments, cities, rail networks, and just generally reshape the world to suit your desires and whims. Hell, you can even convince your friends to build a city in your image, with monuments to your glory. The quintecence of power is being able to get what you want.

Your approach completely undermines the player's agency, compelling them to fantasize about triumphing within a hellish system where they are reduced to slaves, crippled by you, the game designer. The player wields minimal power, and the fantasy lies in ending the pain inflicted upon them. This is akin to masochism: your system inflicts pain, and the fantasy entails total submission to your game's system until mastery is achieved. The player must internalize and adapt to the system, even if it is unfair, to the point where they can overcome it. The pleasure then stems from knowing that this, perhaps unjust, system is understood and conquered.

Everyone in hell wants ice water. No one would say that in hell everyone has a "power fantasy" about getting ice water.

(Edited for style.)

[Golds]

OK, fine Michael, you win. My game is a BIRD FANTASY.

I will take that genre with pride. BIRD FANTASY. BIRD FANTASY. BIRD FANTASY.

Since we're on a new page, I think it's appropriate to remind people what a BIRD FANTASY looks like:





When will you make a thread about games that are Bird Fantasies?

[michaelplzno]

I'm sure there is some overlap between "bird fantasies" and "power fantasies"





I would say this one is a "bird fantasy" though the team there was a bit too green to actually animate a bird with confidence. Part of what I dislike about Flower is that the people associated with it are not flowery people, at least to me. Results may vary, I've heard they are super nice when they need to be. I guess they didn't feel like they needed to be nice to me.

Political beefs aside,

Flying, floating, the ability to perform actions beyond ordinary capabilities ... These are at the core of it. Flower epitomizes the quintessential "adolescent power fantasy" that has often been subject to ridicule. There is almost no way to lose in it.

A game like "Gears of War," which CliffyB emphasizes aims to make the player feel powerful, can be considered less of a power fantasy because players can make mistakes, fail to complete missions, and must fight through challenging situations to achieve victory. The fantasy here is being good at (submitting to) a system that requires skill and precision.

Though aesthetically, most young men will feel more powerful with a chainsaw gun than floating through a flower patch. They will feel this way even if there is more agency in the flower patch simply because if you can shoot things, you must be powerful... right? Even you and I, golds, had this debate. I was always pitching one of these gun games where the coolest looking gun is less powerful, so that advanced players nerf themselves to look cooler. No one liked that idea.

A world where you have a sword, but everything is sword proof isn't really a power fantasy.

[michaelplzno]

So I would say the main character in this game is extremely powerful, killing hundreds of guys... (And I love that Dunkey is making fun of Mr Beast: "Would Mr Beast shoot someone if the algorithm told him to?")

but if we are to judge this as a "Power Fantasy," to me, it's got a super strict scoring system that requires perfect execution. I'm sure this is what a lot of people think of when they dismiss video games as a power fantasy, but if it weren't for the super strict rules and scoring, this game would be super boring. If each mission just said, "Good Job" and didn't measure every tiny little thing you did for time accuracy and headshots and so on it would be a terrible game no one would enjoy.

Being superman, but every little thing you do is judged, measured, and cataloged all to get the legendary S rank... I have a tough time seeing that as a power fantasy.

If the game is a power fantasy, it should still be fun without strict scoring metrics.