Did noone mention automaps yet? Imagine you still had to draw your own maps in order to orientate yourself and not overlook stuff, in every game that you played.

. Plus: in more than one slot (and I don't mean different profiles for different playthroughs, although that is an interesting feature, too, but the option to make backups and go back to previous points in the game while in the same playthrough).

But the ability to save (and quit) everywhere has also become more and more important because the number of adult gamers with RL jobs, kids and other obligations has risen that much, and many don't have the time anymore to adapt their schedule to the game's whims, it has to be the other way around (similar to how people can stop watching 'television' and continue whenever they want to these days, with the invention of On Demand and Streaming services for movies and series).

.
*SPOILER for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons*
You know, I feel kind of stupid now, but I don't think I've really thought about it that way when playing. I didn't ponder that much that it was also a story of initiation, with the little brother growing up and learning something positive in the progress, I just saw the bleak turn the story took, the despair and perceived pointlessness of the journey (trading the life of one loved one for another), I focused on what was missing, instead of seeing that the little brother also gained something. Well, maybe it's not like I completely failed to see these aspects, but the negative ones apparently made more of an impression on me so that now in hindsight, I seemed to have forgotten about what you describe. Thanks for reminding me or even opening my eyes to this part of the narrative for the first time!

Playing this game is an amazing experience. I highly recommend it for people who wants a short game and wants to experience something different. Play Rime while you are at it!

I don't know if this counts for game innovation, but avaliability of free and open-source engines and developer kits like Unity, Unreal Engine, RPGMaker and Ren'Py really changed indie game scene. In some aspects for worse, but in much more others for better.

Unity definitely was a huge step for multi-platform gaming since it's great for Linux/Android/Windows/Mac.

Digital Distribution was a game changer.

Autojournal too!

And the possibility to set your your own map pins and write your own notes in-game, although not enough games actually make use of that, sadly.

Actually, there is an era of PC gaming that does not run well on modern computers. Basically, early Windows games (including 16-bit Windows games) don't run well on modern machines:
* Hardware and OSes have changed, making such old games no longer run natively.
* Since they require Windows, they're too new for DOSBox, so you can't emulate them easily, either.

On the other hand, I would argue that emulation is one of the greatest innovations, as it allows games made for ancient systems with obsolete hardware to be played on modern devices in a manner far cheaper than trying to clone the old hardware.

One interesting thought is that the classic Wizardry games were rather nasty with forcing autosaving (like a permadeath roguelike), but Wizardry 4, often considered the hardest in the series (but it is really arguably a different type of game entirely), was not; you get 8 save slots, saving only occurs manually (but comes with the downside that the level has to be reloaded, causing all dead enemies to come back, though occasionally you might want to do this), and there's even the option to copy saves to and from another disk if 8 slots aren't enough (I use about 4, excluding experimental saves).

With respect to adapting one's schedule to the game's whims, this happens in many games today, including online multiplayer games, and idle clickers like Cookie Clicker.

Maps. And mouselook.

There is nothing logical or essential about this feature.
Played many games without it, they worked just fine.

Greatest innovation... probably going digital (in a sense of digital stores) instead of relying on physical copies.

Lootboxes !!! :D


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Agreed. They were great innovation. Terrible, yes, but great.

Myst Uru has a journaling option, but I never found much cause to use it since aside from the insanely esoteric overarching puzzles, most of the game's puzzles are self contained.

Free spoiler: Waiting 14 minutes isn't a puzzle, it isn't even a good idea.

SSD's and the much faster loading they bring. Faster loading is something we've seen over the years from the days of cassette tapes on the Commodore 64 and the 10+ minutes of loading to early PC days of harddrives and later going from 5400 rpm to 7200 rpm and then Raptor drives to modern day SSD.

Those early C64 days did teach us patience though..... just sitting there watching the psychedelic colours on screen patiently waiting for the game to load.

Edit: a word