game of life

sounds like life

“Under the hood, too many games are just primarily about finely-tuned reward systems. Nothing more than expertly crafted dopamine injectors which often border on, if not fully embrace their Skinner box-like qualities.”

a bit too much so

“I originally set out to tell a different story, but as the production of the game dragged on and become more difficult, my mental state took a tumble, and along with it, the ideas I could convey changed,” Piotrowski said. He explained that he has a hard time “decoupling” himself from a project he’s working on, meaning that Below became darker, harder and more unforgiving as time went on.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/03/05/theres-space-in-the-medium-for-ultra-hard-games-below-and-the-difficulty-in-crafting-difficulty/