• Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    17 days ago

    My group calls it “Jank Tolerance” and breaks it down in to categories like “Slav Jank” for eastern European games with bizarre UI choices, weird bugs, and strange oversights in design, but it’s worth it because there’s often a different approach to game design and you get ideas that european/american studios wouldn’t try. “German Sim Jank” refers to unrealistically ambitious German sim games that you tolerate because there’s nothing else like them. “Indy Jank” is indy games where you deal with the bugs because the vision is there and you can put up with some issues for the experience. “Bethesda Jank”, of course, pretty obvious.

    Differences in Jank Tolerance can drastically change people’s perception and enjoyment of a game. Helldivers 2 is my latest thing, so I’ll use it as an example. People were upset that Chargers, a giant tank bug, would “ice skate”. I could never figure out what they meant because it turned out that “ice skating” was just an animation error and a bit of physics engine jank. To me, so minor that I really didn’t even notice, but for people who don’t willingly subject themselves to Dwarf Fortress or Kenshi or similar weirdness it was a real, serious problem.