#oneaday Day 140: A Selection of Weird and Arbitrary Things in Gaming That I've Always Found Inexplicably Pleasing

I've brought this up on the podcast a few times, but I thought I'd attempt to compile a list of some of the minor, largely incidental things in gaming that I have found inexplicably pleasing over the years — and primarily in my early years. Why? Because I still have half an hour of work and I'm bored.

• Lives displays that say "[name] x [number]" – I don't know why this really caught my attention back in the 16-bit days, but I really liked it, actually specifically seeking out games (usually platformers) that had this as a UI convention. I think it stemmed from the first time I played Sonic the Hedgehog, and I saw it as one of the things that distinguished Japanese console games from the Western computer games I'd typically been playing up until that point.

• Health bars that change colour then "drain" – For example, a health bar that starts yellow and indicates damage by a chunk of it turning red, then draining to its lower current level. Probably the most commonly seen example of this is in fighting games, with Street Fighter II probably being the first time I saw it. I particularly like it in non-fighting game contexts, however.

• Health bars that animate smoothly – Related to the above, only this time when I think about this, I'm specifically thinking about City of Heroes (RIP) and its lovely, smoothly animating, sparkling HP, MP and XP bars in the corner of the screen.

image via MMOs.com, obviously

• Health bars with coloured layers – I apparently have a thing for health bars. I first saw this back at university in Shining Force II, which I was playing vicariously through my friend Sam, who was obsessed with it and delighted to discover he could re-enjoy it through emulation. I was especially pleased to see Kingdom Hearts make use of it, too.

• Boss health bars that say "BOSS" in big letters – See above.

• Constantly visible XP bars – If you're making an action RPG or MMO and you don't have a gradually filling XP bar on screen at all times keeping the player motivated, what on Earth are you doing?

• Stripy skies – Another holdover from my having home computers at home rather than consoles. The graphical trickery required to produce a background with a gradient effect was something i respected and appreciated, and thus I tended to "like" games with stripy skies more than those without. MiG-29M Superfulcrum was better than its predecessor because it added a stripy sky. And was also a better game.

• 2D platform games with hills – I've discussed this on Atari A to Z before. This was another "computer vs console" thing for a while, though later Atari ST platformers started incorporating smooth hills rather than "steps".

• Racing games with hills – Apparently I also have a thing for hills. But when you'd grown up with resolutely flat "vanishing point" racers such as Pole Position and The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, you too would be excited when something like Continental Circus or OutRun took you on a veritable roller-coaster ride.

• Use of "1P" and "2P" instead of "Player 1" and "Player 2" or "1up" and "2up" – This stems from the fact that I didn't get a lot of chances to visit arcades in my youth, since here in the UK they're very much a seaside thing. The computer games I played at the time, if they included a "player marker" at all, tended to say "Player 1" or "1up", whereas arcade games (I'm typically thinking of Konami beat 'em ups) would use "1P". I automatically liked any computer or console game that used "1P" slightly more than one that did not.

• Ridiculously elaborate status panels that take up half the screen – Today, I understand why these were typically incorporated into home computer versions of arcade and console games — to keep the frame-rate up by only requiring a smaller "viewport" for the action to unfold in — and, by extension, why we don't see them today… but I kind of miss them. They were an opportunity for the game's graphic designer to let rip with a bit of creativity, even when all you really needed was a score and lives display.

• Games that have dramatic, pounding music while you're setting options – G-LOC. I'm thinking of G-LOC. Part of the reason I liked that game in the arcades was simply the music that played while you were choosing your difficulty level. It really got you in the mood!

• Games that have some sort of time-of-day mechanic, particularly if it's quasi real-time – I'm primarily thinking of Rise of the Dragon here, which I really liked the time management aspect of, but I've always had a soft spot for any game that has a clock prominently on screen for some reason.

I'm sure there's plenty more, but these are the ones that spring immediately to mind. In most cases, I'm not sure why I like these aspects… I just know that I did back then, and I still do!