Let's Study Games - Redemption Mechanics

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This site can't handle returnees as a concept so they probably shouldn't exist. I've returned to games twice now and both times felt like hitting a brick wall when you come back. Players alive have no respect for this mechanic and normally that's because people feel safe in their own gameplay so there isn't an attempt to use the mechanic to help themselves.

I just don't think players are going to ever take this mechanic seriously so maybe we just let it die. Now doing variations of it with the fittest challenge isn't bad because the player who gets voted out isn't missing out on gameplay. It's akin to being sent to exile.

Bottom line though, in order for this to work, we have to have a majority of players being willing to accept it as a feasible way to win and I don't think we are there.

I am really only going to speak about my experience from Greece as I was a returnee in that game, but this is something that I had dealt with when I had come back into that game was that I literally had hit a brick wall when I returned into the game and I was only gone for a few rounds that game. That and literally the challenge I got back could be done in a way were I had 0% chance in winning the immunity for that round, which meant I was eliminated right as soon as I got back into the game.

In fact, Dark Rey and Mipha are the only finalist returnees I can think of, though I may be forgetting some.

Monika returned in Greece one round into the Merge and ended up losing the FTC vote 5-4, but (sorry Ceph ily) for a time we used the term "Monika'd" to describe a player having a particularly bad FTC performance. Relevantly though, Monika wasn't out of the game for any meaningful amount of time, she re-entered the game when the first RI twist ended immediately after she was voted out.

In Monika's defense though, I spent that whole FTC grilling them because I didn't like how a returnee could have the possibility at winning that game... Though I believe I was just really really salty at that time with how I was treated when I came back into the game.

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I'll say what I was going for with the two returnee twists I designed.

Terra Incognito from Survivor Civilization was ripped off wholesale from Arkham City's Death Row. In the latter game, I as Clock King got my ass handed to me because I didn't know what to do anymore. Death Row served as a wakeup call and if it had not been for the worst Riddler ever I think I would have improved. I wanted to recreate that experience in a game that I knew was going to cast a number of new/nearly-new players.

The School of Friendship from Survivor: Equestria was done in service to the game's overall thesis of "Friendship Is Magic". Here returning to the game meant encouraging people to vote you back in, which led to ultimately a stronger landing for Pinkie Pie. The goal in the game design wasn't "How can we return a player to the game?" but "How can we have a mechanic where friendship is important?"

You know that Riddler was kind of an asshat though.


(For those that aren't aware. I was that Riddler)

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Though I will say that if it's done right I believe that a returnee twist can happen. Also I do think that just moving forward we should probably publicly announce if a game will or will not have a returnee twist, because I do know that some players also just check out at the TC that they are getting eliminated at especially if there is no chance that they can fight back their elimination, they can look at the possibility at getting back into the game, and sometimes returnees with a vendetta make games much more interesting.