Firewatch

Something pretty fascinating happened over the weekend in gaming: Game designer Jennifer Scheurle, who currently works for developer Opaque Space, tweeted an open call to all game developers: “Hey #gamedev, tell me about some brilliant mechanics in games that are hidden from the player to get across a certain feeling.” The tweet caught on and received many replies from other developers, some of whom worked on the biggest games of the last few years. If you’ve ever wondered if game physics and AI ever cheat, the answer would appear to be a resounding YES — but it’s all meant to give you a better gameplay experience. Developer Chevy Ray revealed something that is true for a lot of games out there: they compensate for some players’ poor reflexes. “We have a term called “coyote time” for when the player walks off a platformer ledge and presses jump too late, but the jump still works.” Tommy Thompson confirmed what you always suspected about Alien Isolation: “The Xenomorph has two brains: one