Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Death is frequent, instant and immediately retried, and every puzzle is solvable from what the room shows you. Nothing here is hidden from a patient player.

Two players, one screen, no difficulty setting. The hard part is coordination, and the game restarts you both a second after it goes wrong.

A blockbuster that expects to be finished, with the actual demands parked in optional bosses you can walk past without the story noticing.

The genre’s shape at a fraction of its hostility — and the only one on this shelf that ships with a menu that will hand you a gun and skip the fight.

Crushing is the only setting where the shooting bites. Everything else is a set piece that restarts you a few seconds before it went wrong.

Every individual mechanic is trivial; the difficulty is entirely another human being who cannot hear what you are shouting.

A fishing game with an inventory puzzle and a night timer. Panic is the mechanic, and the punishment for giving in to it is deliberately mild.

Combat is scored on the beat and will still let you win off it. Playing to the rhythm is the difference between a rank and a mess.

A lullaby until the drop speed crosses whatever your reading threshold happens to be, at which point it becomes a pure reflex test with a very good soundtrack.

No reflexes and no fights — you fail by having rolled badly on the question of who you decided to be twenty hours ago.