We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

Maybe it's mysterious to grandma. It is not mysterious to an 8 year old.

Hey now, I chose my words very carefully here. I never said it is or isn’t, only that it can be. I’ve personally witnessed people of all sorts of ages trying these things out (sometimes I do volunteer work); there are both people who catch on to it right away and people who need loads of guidance to get started (naturally, we are all better at some things than others). And the Internet is full of anecdotes of kids not intuitively understanding controllers in this day and age.

Heck, the peculiar combination of ideas that you have a limited number of things you can do, and that you should exhaust these as if they’re options, and that you should look beyond for another one if none of them works... isn’t particularly natural—that’s the kind of X-factor that sets Sherlock Holmes apart from Scotland Yard. I’m sure that to the designers, the Barrel of Doom seemed quite scrutable at the time. “You just have to use abilities they won’t discuss and techniques they haven’t entirely taught you via controls they never quite explain,” as one sarcastic ass put it once.