Happy Monday, folks, and welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread!

One of my best gaming experiences of the year so far has been the excellent Baba Is You. This Sokaban puzzle game is all about changing the rules. BABA IS YOU, except for when BABA IS ROCK and ROCK IS YOU. LAVA IS HOT and will MELT or DEFEAT YOU, unless LAVA IS WIN. Things can TELE or STOP or PUSH or PULL. Any of those things can be a STAR or LEAF or WATER or WALL. They can relate through modifiers like NOT or AND or MAKES. And because this is a Sokaban game, you physically move these rules (as blocky tiles) around until they form the rules you need to win. It’s very hard; I’ve taken to using two separate guides because the game does not screw around at all. But it’s also really tickling my brain in a way only a great puzzler can.

And it leads right into today’s prompt: what are your favorite instances of changing the rules in a game? Maybe that’s a feature that alters the gameplay wildly, or an instance where the game sets up an ironclad law that gets broken dramatically. That could be narrative or architectural, but the most exciting kinds—at least to me—are mechanical. Note that I am very specifically excluding fan made mods from this. Those are great, and they probably deserve a prompt of their own, but what I’m interested in right now are the times where the game’s intended experience provides this. When it sets you up for an incredible revelation.

Whether or not you’ve got an example, though, what did you play this weekend? And remember to check out Lily-Bones’ first “Game News Roundup” of 2026!