In Sackboy: A Big Aventure, a mostly harmless platforming game for PlayStations 4 and 5, each level has a series of Imagination Orbs that Sackboy must find. As they are collected, the Imagination Orbs fill a little cloud-looking object in the order they appear in each level. Should the first Orb you collect show up in the middle of the cloud, you’ve missed a couple and are a horrible person. At least that’s how it makes me feel.
Ordered collectibles often crush my spirit. Running through a level of Super Lucky’s Tale, where I have to collect the letters L-U-C-K-Y, and the first letter I find is a C. Do I backtrack to get the L and U? Can I even backtrack, or will I need to restart the level? Is this the missed collectible that will make me give up on trying to collect everything all together?
I am not saying sequential collectibles are bad in general. If anything, their presence makes me more alert as I wander through Sackboy’s cute but sometimes dull levels. Gathering an orb and having it be the first or next in sequence is a great feeling. It means you are on track. You are in tune with the rhythm of Sackworld. Good for you.
Then something like this happens.
Then I want to burn it all down and go play Spider-Man for several more hours.