obliterating the jump button

 

i have been hard at work on my horror-adjacent golf game for a while now. one of my recent thoughts has been this:

why does this horror-adjacent golf game need a jump button?

to me, a person who plays games, i expect a first person game to have a jump button. why wouldn't there be a jump button? and it would provide some purpose as well- if a sidewalk had a raised collider and the player couldn't normally get up it, then wouldn't it help? yes! it would! 

but instead of adding a jump button to fix that issue- why don't i just lower all of those colliders so the player can just get over them? why don't i add invisible ramps onto ledges that are too tall?

obviously this is not a groundbreaking discovery. but i find it an interesting thing to think about as i make this game. how much stuff am i putting in this game simply because i expect games to have those features? does it even need those features? 

i toyed with adding a feature to find your ball after you hit it. being a first person golf game, you have to walk to the ball and press e on it in order to continue playing. i was thinking about adding a button to turn the camera to look at it, or maybe a waypoint- but then i thought about the experience i wanted to create. i want players to have to search for their ball. during an extra gameplay thing that i will not spoil here, scrambling to find your ball/ keep track of your ball becomes a part of the challenge. adding a waypoint/look button would render it semi mindless. did you lose it for real? restart the hole!

basically- i'm re-evaluating what my game needs based on what would help the experience rather than the things i expect from other games.