What's your favorite obscure example of ludonarrative harmony in a game? (lemmy.world)

submitted 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) by TheTechnician27@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Edit: Yes, per schipel, ludonarrative harmony is the opposite of ludonarrative dissonance.

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[-] _NetNomad@fedia.io 5 points 8 hours ago

one infamously frustrating level of Celeste has a cutscene at the end where the main character uses a centering technique to get a grip, imagining using her breath to keep a feather in the air. it kicks off a minigame where you do just that by pressing and releasing A. the level being so frustrating primed me to be in a similar emotional state to the main character and the minigame had the same effect on me as it did for her. it's a small thing but that always really stuck with me

[-] missingno@fedia.io 3 points 9 hours ago

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors ending

This game built its twist around the DS hardware.

The player is led to assume they're viewing everything through Junpei's perspective, but only the top screen truly represents him. Everything you saw on the bottom screen was actually past Akane's perspective, because she's been psychically guiding Junpei to help him solve every puzzle. I'm glossing over a complicated plot about seeing through time, you'll have to play the game for it to make sense.

But past Akane couldn't solve the final puzzle in her own time, and would've have died. She's revealed to be the one who orchestrated all of the events of the game just so that future Junpei would develop the same psychic time powers that would enable him to guide her past self through that puzzle, closing the loop and saving her life.

So for the final puzzle, the player must turn the DS upside-down so that the touch screen is now on top, representing Junpei solving the puzzle himself in order to guide Akane.

It's a bit of a tragedy that this detail had to be sacrificed in the single-screen HD remake, because it's so damn clever.

[-] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 12 points 13 hours ago

Not sure how obscure this one is, but in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, there’s typically a bunch of creative ways to do things, and you’re punished for being consistent (you do mostly headshots? They get helmets!). There’s a boss fight with an ancient sniper known as The End, and Kojima wanted it to take a week to complete. He was told no, of course, but it’s still a massive exercise in patience.

Alternately, you can just quit the game, pop the cartridge out for a week, and when you start it up on day 8, The End has died of natural causes.

[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Similar to the boss fight in MGS with Psycho Mantis. You had to switch your controller to the second player port for that boss fight, so he couldn't "read your mind," and perfectly block all your inputs from the first player port.

There may have also been some save cartridge shenanigans, as it was a PS1 title

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago

I think The End is obscure enough for people who haven't played it. Fun fact: this is one of the very few uses of the RTC setting on the PS2 affecting gameplay.

I exhausted all the ones I know in the PCSX2 2.4 blog post:

The PlayStation 2 uses a real-time clock (RTC) to keep track of the date and time in the real world. Games often use the RTC in order to seed pseudorandom number generation (RNG) because of its high variability. Additionally, save files show a timestamp in the BIOS, and these timestamps are sometimes shown in-game too. However, some games use the RTC in a more interactive way. Ratchet & Clank 2 and Ratchet & Clank 3, for example, let you teleport to the post-game Insomniac Museum area from 03:00–04:00, bypassing completion checks. The Simpsons: Hit & Run, The Simpsons: Road Rage, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, and Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights have holiday-exclusive Easter eggs. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 displays the date and time on a camera recording when you get busted. And Metal Gear Solid 3... if you know, you know.

Kingdom Hearts has a similar mechanic, but it uses your in-game time's hours mod 12 to give you a reward at the clock tower.

[-] groet@feddit.org 9 points 12 hours ago

Brothers: a tale of two sons

You play two characters at the same time. The left half of the controler for one brother, the right for the other. Many (not so) special abilities can only be done by one brother and the corresponding button is on that side of the controller. Its a short game that can only truly be experienced once so beware the spoiler!

Tap for spoiler

At some point the older brother dies. You now only use half the controller until the surviving brother overcomes his fear of swimming, which was an ability of the (now) dead brother. Just standing in front of the water and realising that I have to use the dead-brother-controlls to control the alive brother was mind blowing. Its also really emotional to a point that would not be possible without that twist. Using a button that was assigned to the dead brother just elevates the feeling of growth of the alive younger brother

[-] tquid@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago

BROTHERS: A TALE OF TWO SONS MENTIONED

Truly one of the all-time greats and it drives me crazy because I can't explain what makes it so good without spoiling it!

spoiler

That death, and the "death" of half your controller, feels like an amputation. It makes it so real and visceral. Like real grief, the feeling is that a part of you has been ripped away. Frankly "meditations on grief" are a dime a dozen in indie games, but this one is one of the most intense ugly-cry gut-punches I have ever experienced in any medium. Well actually the ugly cry was later, when you realize the absolute devastation the father suffers.

But yeah, that controller trick--and realizing you even can use the other half to swim--phew. Just such a good game. Always happy when I see someone else who has played it.

[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 10 points 13 hours ago

Disco Elysium makes quite a big statement on law enforcement, and you play an amnesiac cop who does all sorts of weird shit (because you're the character in a point and click game) and people tolerate it because you're a cop. That by itself supports the message about law enforcement.

[-] FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

It's a good way of getting the message across. I used to be a lot more pro cop than I am now. Disco elysium I do not credit with changing that, but i definitely noticed what it was doing when I played the start of the game, and I did play the game some point before souring on the police for good.

I ramble. I just really like the writing of that, and it's testament to the value videogames/interactive fiction has for storytelling - because experiencing that for yourself, as the cop, is way more elegant than reading it in a book.

[-] Limfjorden@feddit.dk 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

In the mod Kaiserreich for Hearts of Iron IV, Germany won WW1 but is now and overextended global empire. The first gameplay year for Germany involves playing something like four simultaneous minigames all on different timers, all the while having to juggle an army build-up as well. As a player you really feel as though you are trying to hold this global overextended empire together, having to sacfrice some areas to save others. I really enjoy it.

[-] mrmaplebar@fedia.io 11 points 14 hours ago

At a certain point in Nier Automata the game changes the way saving and re-spawning works to coincide with a major plot point in the story.

Nier Automata Spoiler

This happens when the YoRHa Bunker satellite is destroyed, because there are no longer servers available to back up the 2B and 9S's data. From that point on, iirc, you must reload an old save when you die, like a traditional save system.

Nier Automata is fantastic at blending the gameplay and story in satisfying and surprising ways. I only played it for the first time earlier this year and I can say that it lives up to the hype!

[-] FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

(Maybe not niche) in The Lion's Song, you

get attached to three or four main, playable characters and their overcoming of adversity to pursue their dreams. Very slow burn, because it's over the course of several individual episodes. You will also get attached to the side characters, and see characters pass from one story into the next seamlessly.

But this is just the game emotionally fattening you up for slaughter.

Many characters die in world war 1 at the end of the game. As per a non-interactive credit roll. You'll feel helpless, and mourning the promising lives gone to waste.

At that point, you've lived just a fragment of the suffering that the average survivor of ww1 felt.

[-] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 13 points 16 hours ago

For a mildly obscure one: (Also, mild Outer Wilds spoilers that are listed in the game's store page)

On your first time playing Outer Wilds, if you manage to get yourself killed before you do the [plot event that gets you into a time loop], then you simply die, game ends, and you get kicked out back to the main menu.

While not a satisfying of an ending, it unfortunately makes sense.

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Honkai: Star Rail has a few of those, including right at the beginning where there's a choice not to get on the train. If you decide not to, credits roll,

spoiler

and it describes your boring life and the main characters dying without your help. Then it returns to the point before the final decision and forces joining this time.

[-] Edge004@lemmy.zip 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I also enjoy Outer Wilds' other endings. (Massive spoilers for main game and DLC)

spoiler

The one I personally found was when I died after removing the advanced warp core from the ash twin project and dying in dark bramble before beating the game. That one you also just die, but the game fortunately lets you load your last save.

There's also a few others that can be done. (Fandom Wiki link warning)

[-] Denjin@feddit.uk 10 points 16 hours ago

DOOM 2016 spends the whole game making you charge into fights, getting up close and personal with the enemies and generally smashing things. When the story starts to try and get long winded with monologues your character goes "nah f this" and continues to smash stuff up.

[-] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 10 points 16 hours ago

Assuming ludonarrative harmony is the opposite of

Ludonarrative dissonance is the perceived conflict between a video game's narrative told through the non-interactive elements and the narrative told through the gameplay. Ludonarrative (derived from Latin ludus, meaning 'game', and narrative) refers to the intersection of a video game's ludic elements (gameplay) and narrative elements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 5 points 16 hours ago

Correct!

[-] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago

I think Hardspace Shipbreaker does a really good job of this. You work as an exploited blue collar worker, and the gameplay really makes you feel like a blue collar worker. Especially at the end, the plot and gameplay synergizes in a really creative way.

At the end

You form a union and go on a strike. The strike involves intentionally breaking everything. That essentially means doing the opposite to what you've developed your muscle memory for for the entire game. It's a really cool twist on the normal gameplay that, up until this point, was becoming somewhat stale.

It also highlights the overall theme of the game, which is to explore why it's so easy for people to fall in line with the status quo and why it's so important to stay vigilant to company overreach

[-] Denjin@feddit.uk 5 points 14 hours ago

I absolutely love Shipbreaker, just a shame the ships get a bit samey towards the end, it's such a unique experience and definitely fits the question.

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 8 points 17 hours ago

In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky, there's a cutscene where you're about to be executed by a group of Sableye using the move Fury Swipes.

In the main series games, this would make no sense. Fury Swipes has piddly power, and Sableye have middling physical attack.

In the Mystery Dungeon games, multi-hit moves like Fury Swipes are unbelievably busted, physical attack is far less dependent on the base stats of the Pokémon using the move, and a bunch of Sableye would definitely kill someone using it over and over again.

this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026

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