Game mechanic creep

 With forever games you have it where the slow increase of game mechanics will look normal to you, however to new players will feel daunting; in a game like MTG this isn't much of an issue because you can choose not to use x or y card while in something like Yu-Gi-Oh this can be an issue with forced usage of x and or y due to having to deal with a threat on the board that you cannot win against otherwise with players even using the most absurd new game mechanics that makes it feel like a one sided fight.

For games don't you want more game mechanics? Yes and no; other game mechanics you introduce can take away from the original design of the game and the question is; what design elements do you want for the game? Something aggressive, slow, creature focused; hell dare I say, spell focused?

Bloat in the way of adding more to design the game around the original set of mechanics not that much of a sin but designing the game in such a way that it goes against what you originally designed? Yeah, no; that's a bad idea in all honesty.

Now for games such as Dark Souls you have it where it's an iceberg you have to choose to go down; no one forces you to know the more obscure game mechanics and the same goes for something like Pokémon, game mechanics that you choose to interact with rather than have it thrust upon you by the game developers!

So it really comes down to who is the game meant for? Why are you designing it the way you are?

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