Padding Kills

Bored to death

Few things can ruin a good video game as quickly as padding, i.e., the addition of things that drag out the game’s runtime without being particularly entertaining. Padding comes in many forms. Examples include grinding, long travel distances, excessively slow animations, boring mini-games, and long cutscenes that don’t move the plot forward.

Padding is so harmful because it waters down the fun parts of the game with inferior ones. An overly padded game resembles a long drink with a 100 to 1 ratio of mixer to spirit, which in the end is just a soda. In other words, padding can turn a game from a fun diversion into busywork.

An ideal game consists of only fun parts that are properly varied. No annoying components exist, and none of the fun ones overstays its welcome. Depending on what kind of game we build, we might decide on a certain ratio between different game elements.

For example, in Ghostrunner, the lead game element is the combat. However, the game also contains some less intense p…