Games about chain reactions

[J1M]

There's a sweet spot when it comes to effects that chain into each other. Predictable enough that you can anticipate and plan the results to feel accomplished when things react, but sophisticated enough that the outcome is partially unknown at the time it is triggered. (Maybe you can perfectly predict the first two interactions, but the chain continues to four steps, creating an interesting world state.)

It doesn't seem like many games are aimed at creating these moments. (Though immersive sims can sometimes provide them due to system design philosophy.) Most games with chained effects either have something tightly constrained, like a character applying a debuff makes another character do extra damage, or the intent of the designer is easily subverted by 'infinite' combos that overshadow the rest of the interactions (tech priest action point generation in Mechanicus, or exploding barrels in Baldur's Gate 3).

There's also a tension introduced when chain reactions are present in a real-time game. There's an action economy cost to the time spent thinking about how to set up a chain reaction not present in a turn-based game, which discourages their use.

TLDR: List games that do chain reactions well, any genre. Especially those where it is core gameplay and not just an obscure advanced mode of play.

[Tadeusz]

Do you have some games in mind? It's a pretty specific mechanic.
What about Divinity: Original Sin with its environmental reactions (exploding barrels, changing environmental effects)? Or Morrowind with an ability to make overpowered potions via stat increases through alchemy (creating INT potions, drinking int then creating more of them in a chain)?

[nullSector]

Tetris

[Oyster Sauce]

Radiant Historia is a cool JRPG where you have to constantly switch between timelines to solve problems. Has turn based combat where you try to stack your party's turns by delaying attacks so you can build combos using moves that get bonuses based on enemy positioning (pull a rear line enemy forward into another enemy which allows your next party member to attack them both at once and knock them to the side where someone else can now use an AOE to hit 4 ****** at once). Has a mature adult protagonist. Never finished it but I should.

Oh here's a .gif