Example that just came up in a discord I’m in: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. I havent played this game but someone who had said the game’s story of “Roxas hates his day job but tolerates it because afterwards he can hang out with his friends” is enhanced by the gameplay being “player hates the mission structure but they tolerate it because the story cutscenes are amazing”
Someone else said they doubt that was intentional, and I agree. But I asked the question of whether Death of the Author applies to game mechanics.
I say yes. But its something I hadnt considered before for sure.
When Capcom was developing Street Fighter II they discovered an interesting bug. Originally they designed it so you could block after every attack, but apparently with perfect timing and execution you could actually link multiple attacks together and even cancel animations into guaranteed special moves on hit if you landed it just right. They decided it wouldn’t be super useful because it required such extremely tight timing and executionand decided to just leave it as a hidden easter egg. Multiple hits in a row…moves chained together in some sort of…combination or something? Can you imagine?
Yeah the fact that combos were originally a bug is so fun.