The secret game modes you invented

Games Radar recently heard an interesting story about Burnout Paradise. Apparently, several testers at Criterion were spending hour after hour playing around with the new handbrake feature. They noticed gaps between the parked cars that are dotted around the city, and naturally started trying to pull off elaborate parking stunts, jamming the handbrake on and arcing gracefully into the vacant space. And when a senior designer saw what they were up to, he was so impressed that the parking challenge was immediately slotted into the Burnout Paradise set up.

This sort of unplanned mayhem is what makes the best videogames even better. Skilled designers create worlds that ‘work’ and so enable us to solve puzzles in our own way, a small rule or regulation is exploited by one player and soon creates its own gameplay style, or the enthusiastic tenacity of the players sees several actions or in-game abilities combine to result in totally unexpected scenarios. It’s the beauty of community, and here’s Games Radar’s favourite examples of unintended gameplay…