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Usually people will take inspiration from some earlier game from the same genre that has already worked well in the past (don't fix what ain't broken, they say!). Certain changes in these genres can be meaningful and make an impact on the person that's playing the game, who may want to replicate it, improve upon it, adapt it with something else already on their mind, or at the very least imitate it for a quick buck.

Games that follow the general rules of Metroid can be described as Metroid-like. And when Castlevania adapted some of the elements that were in Metroid games, then it became Metroidvania, a new classification for many recent games. On another note, there's recent games like Baba Is You which I personally believe to be a revolution on the scope of puzzle games.

But then there's stuff like The Stanley Parable, Thomas was Alone and The Beginner's Guide which even though they all belong to a certain "genre" they follow mostly nothing about it. They're just, their own thing.

I guess what I mean to say is, I like it more when a derivative work builds upon or uses a source as its base, rather than when a derivative work is limited by the boundaries that the source gives it. I like stuff that open's peoples eyes to something new and that lets them continue going forward, not something that opens their eyes only to close them again.

Our imagination is full of incredible amounts of possibilities and sometimes it's difficult for us all to make grab something that was imagined and turn it into something concrete that can be placed in a game, something that makes sense. Looking at references is really helpful with that.

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I really like the idea of games where you'd want to just explore. I always wanted to go beyond the barriers of N64 games like Paper Mario, Banjo-Kazooie, Ocarina of Time, and see just what is out there. Unfortunately, that's not how games work...

A problem I've had with some open-world games is that they're largely empty. I guess that's necessary for a person not to get completely overwhelmed by everything around them, but I feel like it misses a bit of what makes exploration fun. The world is full of interesting things and sometimes it's fun to travel just to see what there is to see. It's about the journey, not the destination. So the journey must also be interesting, not just bland filler. And the lack of enemies in this stage of the game just makes exploration that much easier.

It could be boring, but I think it has the potential to be quite peaceful and relaxing. Some things can be enjoyable just because of the atmosphere they bring. For example: Playdead's INSIDE (CW: this game can be gruesome at times), even if it's not as exploration heavy as it could be, its atmosphere and scenery is absolutely amazing.

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"The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear." --Ram Dass