In college, I played “Hexxen” on my friends’ computers (“Hexxen” was technologically between “Doom” and “Duke Nukem 3D”). But, instead of playing the game to win, I would end up wandering around the world and following the various environmental elements, such as the random autumn leaf blowing around, until that graphical sprite no longer existed.
It gave me a stronger sense of space, and in so doing I managed to keep a virtual leaf alive and blowing around much longer than its programmed lifespan allowed. This was somehow more interesting to me than the actual goal of the level.
In essence, my intervention meant that much more to that leaf than it did to my own gameplay. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.