Purpose of Items to the Player

This is to tackle the issue of collectables in games. The reason to use them and when not to use them.

Genre and purpose?

Each genre needs to give it's items it's own purpose; the items players are collecting need to be given a reason to exist for the player to be using. Otherwise the player won't care about using said items, people need to realize why this is the case; there is a time and place for everything, that time and place is genre dependent. It's a question of how does it connect to the game loop in question, you need it to connect to the game loop in a way of it working properly.

A should lead into B and B should lead into C. One result should feed into another. Examples of genres and what you should be using for items for the player to collect or not.

Horror games

Horror games need the player to pick up items that have use, that have a function of helping you survive. When picking up resources that don't help you survive they become pointless and pull away from the experience.

Examples of games that did this wrong;

Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach

This game has you pick up pointless collectables that serve little to no actual purpose for the given gameplay in question.

Examples of games that did it right;

Project Zomboid

This is a game that has it where players are picking up the items in question that you need and having to think about how important said item is from moment to moment gameplay. Where you are limited on resources and having to think about how you'll tackle one area into another.

Collect a-thon platformers

Each item should be bringing you closer to your goal of getting to the end of the game and or unlocking another area, the use of these items are used to get the player to perform difficult task to unlock more levels to play and often times have it where you can unlock other levels to have fun and enjoy even.

2D platformers

Unlock alternative paths and reward you for collecting tough to find items by giving you power ups and or useful gear.

RPGs

Better equipment and items that make you more powerful to defeat more enemies during battle being the idea with this kind of system with the use of the RPG genre.

Card games

Each item should be used to help you get more cards. The collection of gold and even defeating enemies should be helping you build your deck.

Rogue-lites and Rogue-likes

These games should be encouraging you to improve with gaining gear and becoming more powerful, Rogue-lites prepare you to be more powerful for your next run.

FPS

This should be helping you get more guns for fire power.

Metroidvanias

This should be helping you get movement techs to move through other alternative routes/ paths to get to your end goal. The upgrades should be rewarding and give you a power boost and or a useful item to defeat the final boss.

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