Developing interactivity is effort and an investment. Most developers put up a simple loading screen, maybe some text like rotating tips, and a loading indicator. Until 2015 a patent on interactive loading screens may have made developers and publishers cautious and decide against developing interactivity.
High Hell, released in 2017, features fast gameplay, short levels, and interactive loading screens. (Linked Clip) (High Hell Steam page)
What’s the best kind of loading screen? Do you have examples of good or bad interactive loading screens?
There was an old Spectrum Game that actually loaded up Pacman first before the main game.
What’s a Spectrum game? Is that a game series?
The ZX Spectrum was a home computer popular in the UK back in the 1980s.
Games loaded from audio tapes, and would frequently take 5-10 minutes to get into a state where you could actually play them.
Now get off my lawn!
One of them had Space Invaders. I can’t remember for the life of me which one. It was apparently used on the C64 quite a lot, under the name Invade-a-Load.