There is something to be said for a game that makes no excuses, that refuses to hold your hand or point the way, a game that treats you as the adversary and is relentless in its pursuit of your misery. But that doesn’t much sound like a game, does it? At least nothing that would be fun to play. Rather, a game, regardless of its difficulty, needs to teach you, needs to help you become a better player. If not, it only rewards those who already know the game, and thus, cannot provide that necessary feeling of catharsis that accompanies overcoming a challenge. That moment where you finally “get it”. This doesn’t mean that a game should be easy, but it should be fair. It should provide the tools necessary to succeed, and it should be clear about what it expects from you. Even within this framework, fair is pretty relative. Most games are not fair in the traditional sense of equal distribution of chances and advantages. Enemies can be stronger and more resilient, in fact, they need to be, because you have an advantage they cannot (yet, anyway): you can learn. A game that provides no way for the player to learn is a game that denies its player the most crucial advantage they have.
