What if I told you that Pokemon Snap and Hitman have a lot in common.
To the point where if I was ever tasked with making a mobile Hitman game, I think I’d model it on Pokemon Snap.
A useful (albeit not entirely accurate) shorthand for analyzing games is to think of them as comprised of a combination of authored (bespoke/handcrafted) content vs systemic (generated/emergent/simulated) content.
But not all games really fit into that dichotomy. Pokemon Snap and Hitman are both games that present like systemic games: they have densely simulated environments with lots of stuff you can interact with.
BUT they are actually built with a lot of small authored pieces densely packed together.
This creates an effective illusion of simulation and cause + effect. You end up replaying the same mission many times, figuring out the boundaries of how all the elements of a given mission interact with each other.
You can bring in existing knowledge and learn rules, but there’s trial and error.
Both involve authored scenarios you can create if you line up the right conditions. Get Pikachu to pose on a surfboard or Charmeleon to fall into lava and evolve. Trick the mob boss to call his subordinates to a specific scripted location when he notices X or Y thing out of place.
Both involve tightly scheduled and choreographed elements moving in the level independent of player action—but player action can set those elements into new courses or in new directions.
Both are really enjoyable to replay and explore the possibilities. It’s satisfying to find all the special scenarios or secret objectives and achievements [Pokemon poses/Hitman kills].
Both let you come back to old missions with new tools so you can mess with the choreographed scenario in new ways.
One cool thing that you can get from these kind of highly authored systemic-seeming sandboxes is authored storytelling and surprise.
Hitman, of course, ALSO dips into actual simulation and systemic content; they combine the two. Pokemon Snap much less so.
This is one of my favorite examples of a deep structural similarity between games that seem utterly unlike one another. I am serious when I say that I think Pokemon Snap would be a good model for a scoped-down Hitman game, and vice versa.