Challenge is important, but overwhelmingly punishing difficulty (where, for instance, players routinely encounter unavoidable deaths) is usually a sign of poor game design. For the most part, video game designers try to carefully balance difficulty. Most people would probably think of kaizo games as setting out to achieve the exact opposite of what games generally aim for. I think of it as a kind of contrapasso, which makes it all the more delightfully fiendish.

It’s often the case that these traps are aimed squarely at players who attempt to take the easiest path through a level. The idea is that the designer sets up a particularly nasty obstacle that the player will trigger with little to no forewarning.

One of the most fascinating elements of kaizo games is the concept of a kaizo trap. If you’re curious, I highly recommend checking out Josh Bycer’s fantastic piece on the topic. There’s a whole culture around kaizo games. Players take an existing game - including its assets, like character sprites - and “remix” them to build eye-wateringly difficult levels. H ave you ever heard of a kaizo game? The concept is pretty straightforward.

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