Exactly what I was layin down, I think you get me. For context as to the sort of gamer I am, as much fun as doom and goldeneye/perfect dark and other iterations of shootuminnahead were, for a first-person experience I really prefer things like the modern end of the fallout series, portal, metroid prime, or superliminal where mechanical skill in rapidly aiming well isn't exactly the point. I also played the hell out of warcraft/starcraft back in the day, but lately I've been 1000x more stoked on this game called Timberborn which is basically a top-down real time strategy game, except there are no enemies to fight and the entire goal is just keeping your beavers fed and healthy and happy when the river stops running each dry season. Oh, and it you've never played the Stanley Parable, words cannot describe the delightful absurdity of that experience, had me in stitches for like a week. I really liked the older resident evil games where the hard part was managing resources/inventory space and remembering that thing you saw a while ago that might solve this puzzle, but when I tried out Village, I was super disappointed to find that it was more or less a linear series of keys to open the next door with an obnoxious unkillable monster following you around for half the game.
That last example is probably most what I was thinking of when I said grey areas. Clearly I'm the minority, but I think it's a crying shame how much gravitational attraction the poop your pants horror genre has...cry me a river I know but it would be nice if we could let just a few more of the silly little exploration/puzzley-type games actually be less stressful than regular life, instead of more. I can't tell you how many times I've been browsing itch, seen something that looks like it might have some depth, and then discover that it's just a series of jumpscares with a key or a switch here and there, or maybe a 'cutscene' where you die if you weren't super ready to push a button. I know that last mechanic was used a bit in those old RE games I said I liked, but they made it just forgiving enough that it wasn't too much of a headache. From my perspective, sure a spooky game can be good, but it has to actually have rich and strategic gameplay. If a game is basically just walking around looking at stuff, well I like doing that a lot better when nothing goes out of its way to startle me. If spooky/suspenseful elements are at play, I want being surprised to actually mean I wasn't paying enough attention. When the game is actively trying to startle you, I think that's just mean. I understand why it happens, after all gameplay is hard but loud noises suddenly blasting into your headphones is easy, and people seem to actually like that for some reason, but man! Wah, wah, wah, little baby doesn't like loud noises. So I guess I'm not trying to say this game is exactly 'good' in its present state, but simply that if it was this trite but also startling, I would find it much much worse.