Luftrausers

Luftrausers makes releasing the fire button the only way to heal. You hold the button to fire, and the only way to repair the ship is to let go. That forces a choice between offence and defence, and it removes the need for a separate heal button or pickups.

Mark Brown describes players as terrified while shooting and anxious to get back in while healing, which gives a feisty back-and-forth rhythm. Releasing the throttle also allows sharp turns. He cites it as an example of a versatile verb: "versatile verbs let you do more, with less."

Luftrausers leads the camera only while the throttle is held. The camera pushes ahead of the ship only when the player holds the throttle. When the player stalls and swings around, the prey stays in view.

Mark Brown calls this "a very natural way of responding to the player's intention and framing what they obviously want to see." The lesson is to tie lookahead to something the player controls, such as speed, held input or an aiming cursor. He gives Sonic Generations (lookahead grows with speed) and Nuclear Throne (camera centers between the character and the cursor) as other examples.

Luftrausers changes its song's instrumentation to match the parts on your ship. The instrumentation of the song shifts with the elements the player has chosen for the ship. The music confirms that those choices matter and reinforces the sense of customisation.

Mark Brown covers it in a talk on adaptive soundtracks. His point is that the score tells the player they have built something personal.