You are given a goal: Take rock there.
Pick up rock. Move. Drop. Good.
Same goal but now you are in a shallow pool. Ok. Pick up rock. Struggle-stride. Drop. Fine.
Now you are on a conveyer belt. It’s moving the opposite direction. You pick up the rock. You RUN. You outpace the negative travel and drop rock. WTF.
Conveyer belt now in shallow water. Whatever. You pick up the rock. Water buoyancy actually maybe helps? No. Fuck this shit. Stupid. No one even needs the rock.
No more conveyer belt. Now the whole pool is the conveyer. Like an artificial stream. You swim swim swim but go nowhere. Fuck this rock.
<Note to designers: Listen, you overshot with the complicated setup. I know you get better heat transfer via liquid but subjects are just quitting if they don’t make any progress. You’ve gotta simplify and provide illusion of control.>
No more moving water. Just a pool a couple feet deeper than you are tall. Task: get rock out of pool. Pool isn’t filled with water though. Not sure what it is. Less viscous. Less weighty. You don’t float as well. Can’t get rock and you out at the same time. Can barely keep your head out of the “water”. Walls too slippery for purchase. You’re just churning the water trying to stay alive. Not sure how long you can keep it up. Eventually something pulls you out.
<Note to designers: Fine. Point made. I guess we don’t need to bother with the rocks anymore either.>