[the right amount of tricky to make you think but not get frustrating]

https://namatakahashi.itch.io/oo

I played this game. It reminded me of ElecHead, another such platformer.

There are things about the game that are really lovely. It's a cute concept. i assume that if I kept playing I would get more bombs or something? It's well-executed. The design is there.

Some comments read:

"I keep coming back to this demo, I love it, you nailed the game feel"

"That was a lot of fun!  It was just the right amount of tricky to make you think but not get frustrating.  Can't wait for the full game."

Whenever I play a game like this it so makes me itch to kill gameplay. What is it about Öoo? Maybe, I think, being super explicit about my complaints will help clarify my grudge?

I just don't think the puzzles advance very quickly, they're not very interesting (to me), it's like a magic trick I've seen a thousand times before. That would all be fine, except that I suppose there might, potentially, actually be an interesting innovative magic trick down the line and there's no way for me to get there without subjecting myself to an unknown amount of utterly rote content. Content.

The comment I quoted second is a gem. "the right amount of tricky to make you think but not get frustrating".

I wonder, am I complaining about flow in general, or is my cry to kill gameplay only a sadness that the common flow window targeted by most game designers is now so misaligned with where I'm at?

The art is cute, the juicefeel is there, etc. I just don't want to do these basic puzzles. I don't want to do any puzzles. I don't want the structure of the game to be "Do boring tasks". I would be happier, in theory, in a room with this mechanic and no exits. Can't I just enjoy blowing up some bombs? Do I have to have a sense of longing, of what-if for bombing my way up from the starting room when I get a second bomb, as I know I will?

Am I against gameplay or just predictable gameplay?

i haven't played this but reading your description makes me feel like i've already played it.... maybe i'm being unfair and i should try it

i can't speak about the real game, but the version of the game i'm imagining in my head is kind of like taking a class about a game mechanic, the instructor lectures at you for a bit (tutorial) then has you do assignments that test your knowledge and reveal additional subtleties you might not have caught onto during the lecture. it's not a bad format but you have to feel motivated to study the game mechanic or you'll probably be bored

there are lots of gameplay-forward games i like that don't feel like this. a random example is "gimmick!" for the famicom. each level is a series of hard platforming challenges, and there's a complex mechanic where you can throw stars and ride on them, but they aren't intertwined in a sort of straightforward, instructional way. learning the deep nuances of the star mechanic is only required to reach the "true ending" and you have to learn it on your own in an unguided manner. the challenges don't feel like they are meant to impart knowledge about the systems, they mostly just present you with various weird guys or obstacles in a world and let you jump around and throw stars at them. there are clever mechanics puzzles in the game, but being surprised by a clever mechanics puzzle is not the focus, it's just a small part of a rich and beautiful world. the high difficulty puts a lot of people off from the game but people tend to recognize that it's amazing even if it's too hard for them. you aren't just playing for the fun platform action or to learn the mechanics and stages but to feel the human soul underpinning the work.

it's not that games like my imaginary version of ooo don't have a human soul underpnning the work but i think they let the human take a backseat to the thing the human discovered, the mechanic with interesting consequences and puzzle opportunities.

the gameplay a person chooses to include in their game reveals stuff about them.... maybe that's why i don't usually care for the approach of like, systematically exploring every consequence of a mechanic, because it flattens out the sense of personality. the person's fixations and idiosyncrasies are less apparent when the goal is to cover every angle on the thing

i don't know if "predictable" vs. "unpredictable" gameplay is what matters to me, i want a clashing of souls....

["they let the human take a backseat to the thing the human discovered"]

ah gimmick is such a good touchstone!
i went back to play ooo and i felt such a lack of play as compared to your description - every screen (in ooo, not in gimmick) has a very clear cut solution, one thing that you're meant to be doing, but in gimmick the screens (as i remember them) feel much more chaotic, like there are multiple ways to enjoy a room... but maybe im on the wrong track, i think youve said other things that are (probably?) more important:

"they let the human take a backseat to the thing the human discovered"
this is really big, i have been trying to put my finger on this for a while... ive talked with people about how they do make games in this way, they discover something, and it is definitely still a human act to show another person something that you discovered and that you like! but it also feels categorically different in a way i cant put my finger on. or i havent been able to put my finger on. maybe this is a useful thing to hold on to.

"the gameplay a person chooses to include in their game reveals stuff about them"
and then a systematic approach to choosing means that we no longer get to see the human's choices as much or as clearly, instead we see what the system chose -- which the human did decide to serve  but ive complained about proc gen enough already elsewhere