Yahtzee Makes a Mess | Semi-Ramblomatic

I am greatly enjoying philosophical Yahtzee

Burnout 3 (I think) had a magnificent puzzle-like mode that involved crashing one car into many other cars and things to cause the maximum amount of destruction. It was a perfect example of "making a mess" as a game.

Tetris is an interesting case study for this. You have to make a mess in order to make something complete, which then immediately erases itself.

My toddler loves making a mess but I don't think they do it to be acknowledged. It's just raw, primal chaos and destruction; the Distilled Anarchist!

'Making a mess' certainly fits how I usually end up playing management games, and basically anything with self-expressive elements, despite my best intentions. Those definitions I feel do make a lot of sense from a developer's perspective; especially these days, it feels like a few too many games aren't sure what the player is actually trying to DO in them, and in particular how to make them feel particularly rewarded for doing so. Having clear indications of your progress is a big part of keeping a player hooked, and having their individual contributions be clear is a great way to do that. Come to think of it, Yahtzee's enjoyment of XCOM comes to mind as a case of 'making a mess', especially with the running theme of the series of being an underdog resistant group foiling the plans of an overwhelming threat. You are building something on your own terms, organising and developing, but the ultimate goal is pointing it all at an enemy with a grand plan, hierarchy and organisation and tearing it down to the ground. Shadows of Mordor also comes to mind there, literally having an organisation and hierarchy of enemies for you to murder and subvert your way through. And let alone games like Dwarf Fortress...

I would've said that fighting games are about cleaning the area, it's just that you only need to remove one thing from the environment and there's just a lot of focus on that one thing

I’m surprised to see such a mischaracterisation of Anarchism considering the political stance of Second Wind as a whole. Heck, even the fact that you basically are an “anarchist” company. Collectively owned and beholden to no higher power.