Don't even have to press start.
The game before the game.
Painting the Medium in the form of an Unexpected Gameplay Change that actually appears before main gameplay is even introduced, an Interactive Start-Up is any form of interaction other than simply navigating a menu. This can appear on the Start Screen, main menu, or during loading. It may be as simple as clicking on the title text or characters and triggering short animations, or it can be an entire Mini-Game unto itself. Usually this gameplay has no bearing on the main game, though sometimes, most often in Wide-Open Sandbox or edutainment titles, developers will use it as a way of dropping hints to inspire new players — things for them to try and replicate in the main game.
If playing through the Interactive Start-Up using normal gameplay mechanics is how you start the main game, it's a Playable Menu. Sometimes added as a form of Easter Egg, but just as often there's no attempt to hide it. Compare Attract Mode, a non-interactive demo of main gameplay.
Examples:
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Fighting Games
- For a long time, Namco held the patent for playing a minigame while a game loads. Most famously this was used for the Playstation port of Tekken which let you play a game of Galaga while you wait for the game to load. Similarly, the PS2 port of Tekken 5 opened with a brief playable portion of Namco's old 3D space shooter Starblade while the game booted up (and the full version of Starblade could be unlocked later on.) The patent finally expired in 2015.
MMOS
- During the first loading screen on Moshi Monsters, Iggy chases after your cursor and tries to eat it.
Platformers
- The opening screen of Drawn to Life allows you to doodle on the image of Jowee that appears.
- Kenny's Adventure: On the main menu, you can click on the bubbles to pop them or the crabs to make them shake.
- Nebs 'n Debs: Debs can be moved around on the title screen. She can evel collect the floating diamonds on it.
- Super Mario 64:
- On the start menu of the original version, the player can stretch Mario's face around. This was done to help those new to the Nintendo 64 get used to the new controller.
- Tapping Mario or Yoshi's head on the start screen of Super Mario 64 DS draws an outlined version of the character that you can grab, squish and spin around. You can even draw your own doodle to mess with.
- Super Mario Maker and its sequel have a playable level on the title screen.
Puzzle Games
- Angry Birds: In the original game and Seasons, the title screen is filled with the birds launching from left to right. You can click on the nearest bird to you, causing them to play their battle cry.
- In Bad Piggies, you can click on some of the contraptions' parts (like balloons, umbrellas, and TNT), affecting them in a way.
- Linx: The pattern in the title screen's background moves in the opposite direction to the cursor's placement (it's also in the level select screen's background, but not as visible due to the buttons covering it up).
- Pixelo: You can slide the game's logo to the left on the title screen, revealing an easter egg behind it.
- In Scribblenauts, the player is taken to a sandbox area before officially starting the game; in this area, they can play around with item creation, and can't be killed by things that would kill them in the game proper.
Racing Games
- Pokémon Dash has a Pikachu on the single player or multiplayer select screen that you can interact with using the Nintendo DS stylus to move his ears and face.
- The title screen of Duck Life features a duck who's face will follow the cursor.
Role Playing Games
- Epic Battle Fantasy series: From the third game on you can "pop" low-level Mascot Mooks and make a new Palette Swap appear on a Loading Screen for a reward in each game's Achievement System after a certain number of mooks have been "popped". From the fourth game onward, the commercial Steam versions replace the loading progress bar, with a language selection menu.
- Epic Battle Fantasy 3: The mooks are slimes of various elements and environments, some more typical than others: snow, sand, sludge, and lava, but also the green plant-type veggie slimes — which have vegetables, flowers, and fruits growing out of them — and Furry Slimes, with tails and fox, cat, and bunny ears.
- Epic Battle Fantasy 4: The mooks are the game's various idol enemies: wooden, obsidian, ice, clay, and gem.
- Epic Battle Fantasy 5: The various Underground Monkey types of Slimes are the mooks, such as chocolate, ice cream, and mud flavors, as well as the slime mouse, which parodies various Pokémon (specifically Pikachu, Pichu, and Dedenne).
- Monster Arena has an eye in the game's logo in the title screen. Moving your mouse around makes the eye spin in its direction.
Shooter Games
- A subversion is present in Star Wars Battlefront (2015) and Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) where while the game is installed or updated, each provide full access to a single solo game scenario (Darth Vader vs Hoth Base Rebels and the First Order defending Starkiller Base respectively) while waiting for the game to fully install/update.
Stealth Games
- In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the left and right PS2 analog sticks can be used to change aspects of the opening credits, such as what language the credits are displayed in, what symbols scroll across the screen, and how fast and in which direction they do so.
Tower Defense
- Infinitode 2: You can spin the hexagonal grid with trophies on the title screen around or change the angle from which you're looking at it.
Miscellaneous
- Mario Paint opens on Mario running across a Blank White Void with the title in a simple black font, an unusual lack of colour for the franchise. Clicking on each letter activates various gags, from shrinking Mario and powering him back up, dropping the letter A on his head, inverting the colours and sending the music into Uncommon Time, and briefly summoning Yoshi, to the letter P drawing out a whole clickable scene using the in-game stamps (clicking the icons makes sounds, though not the same as the instruments for the game's music tool), playing the in-game credits, and letting you paint the screen with a rainbow-checkerboard fill.
- A few of the WarioWare games have interactive title screens. WarioWare: Touched! has several Wario noses jumping around that can be poked, a green marble that can be flicked across, a star that leaves a rainbow trail, garlic, etc.
