I think people are missing what is actually happening inside $PIXEL. It is not about effort it is about when.
I have been thinking about this for a while. At first I thought @undefined was another game where you do the same things over and over. You play you make things you get $PIXEL you might sell some things. Then you do it all again. It looks simple when you are not playing it.
After playing it for a bit I realized it is not like that at all. The weird thing is not the playing itself. Everyone is. Doing similar things. They are making things selling things and trading things.. Sometimes the results are very different. It is not because of skill either. That is what confused me at first.
It is because of timing. I do not mean timing like buying something when it's cheap and selling it when it is expensive. It is more complicated than that. The game is always. It is always fair.. When you are playing it everything changes. You do the things but the results are different. It feels different too.
I have had days where I am doing the things with the same effort and taking the same routes.. One day it feels like I am making progress and the next day it feels like I am not doing anything. Nothing has changed in the game. It feels different.
I keep thinking that maybe $PIXEL is not effort in a straightforward way. Maybe it is effort at certain times. Like your work does not disappear,. It does not always show up right away. Sometimes it just waits for the moment to actually matter.
This is of cool actually. It makes the game feel more real. It feels like an economy, not just a game where you get rewards. When things are going well it feels like your past work was very smart. When things are slow it feels like your work is not doing anything.
It also messes with your head a bit. As a player you do not feel like you are early or late in the game. You just feel like something is off. You feel like other players are doing better than you. You do not know why.
I have seen people say that this is not fair. I understand why they think that.. I am not sure it is true. The game itself does not seem broken. It is just that everyone is playing at a speed.
It is like we are all playing the game but we are not at the same moment in the game. Maybe that is where the ups and downs come in. Not as something but as part of the game. It. Compresses time for different players.
When things are going well your past work suddenly becomes visible. When things are slow your work becomes quiet. It is not gone it is just waiting.
I am still not fully comfortable with this. Because if timing is what makes your work visible then people who start playing at times have a completely different experience. It is not because they are players it is just because they started at a different time.
You could say that this is how games work.. This is also a game so where do you draw the line? Should games try to make this more fair. Is this randomness what makes the game interesting?
I honestly do not know. Part of me thinks this is what makes @undefined interesting. It does not make you feel like you are always making progress. It lets things change and feel real.
Another part of me thinks that if players cannot tell whether they are making progress or just waiting for the game to recognize them that might make people stop playing over time.
It is a feeling, in a game. Your work feels like it is not always doing anything. It is not that it is not valid it is just that it is not always visible.
I still cannot say it is bad. It is just different. Everyone sees the game as a place where you make things and get $PIXEL.
I see timing, cycles and delayed visibility of value. Maybe I am overthinking it. Maybe this is how these games evolve.. Maybe this is the part that people are not fully seeing yet.
Time will tell, honestly.