what separates games that linger from ones you forget immediately

Games that linger usually have some kind of pushback built in. Like, they don't just hand you everything, they make you listen and react. The ones that stick around are often the ones where you can't fully predict what comes next, where the world has its own logic that doesn't bend to what you expect. That uncertainty pulls you back in. It's similar to how a delay pedal with slight unpredictability becomes something you're in conversation with instead of just using. The constraint forces you to pay attention to what's actually happening.