Bumper bowling

I want a game to let me fail miserably. I know it may be a bit of whiplash after I wrote about trigger warnings last week, but I hate the coddling refusal to let players make massive blunders that's become a hallmark of modern design. If a game keeps you from walking into a pit, at what point is a game playing itself, taking agency away from its players? Splotter has made its name on a hands-off design philosophy, so why have they almost cornered the market on making games that way?