Just five more minutes...

[Fuzzy]

What qualities should a game have to make you say that?

[Game A Gogo]

addictive game play, awesome music, great graphics and an intense game play (not exaggerated)
thats what i would think of

[Fuzzy]

yes, but what does addictive mean in this case? what is addictive? what constitutes intense?

[Game A Gogo]

Addictive, like, you just cant stop playing, and intense, like it goes fast, but at some point, and its hard, but still at some point

[Kodo]

People are basically pattern recognising machines. Throughout our lives we recognise and try to understand patterns in everything. We find games fun because they present us with a series of challenging and often new patterns defined within a controlled medium. To make a game fun for five minutes is easy, the problem is that once we recognise a new patter it’s only fun for a while, then we get bored.

To maintain player interest you need to introduce new patters at regular intervals, some examples of how this can be done would be doing something a bit different in your levels as the player progresses, such as introducing new enemies, new weapons, new strategies, behaviours or environments that present new navigational challenges.

Some good ways to vary the patterns encountered within a game may be to:

1) Allow the player to choose their equipment, either at the start of a level or during a level (via upgrades/pickups). Allowing the player to prepare in different ways with some of the possible outcomes providing a better chance of success can help, especially if the items that really help have to be earned in some way.

2) Making environments an integral part of the gameplay can allow you to introduce new spatial puzzles and/or interactive elements that can greatly enhance the experience and allow you to introduce new interesting elements to your levels as the player progresses through the game.

3) Ensure that the player makes use of multiple abilities as they progress. As an example, Tomb Raider requires mouse/controller/aim accuracy, precision movement (jumping), breath management (swimming under water), and an understanding of enemy behaviours to the extent that you can work out how to defeat them. You won’t encounter them all at once as pacing is important when trying to maintain interest, giving the player everything at the start of the game will result in them getting bored quickly and probably not bothering to finish it.

4) Of course having a number of different ways to complete a level will always make things more interesting. Making your games rule-set flexible enough to provide the player with a certain amount of freedom when solving puzzles so there are multiple solutions can greatly improve the experience for the player.

5) Rewarding the player is important. This can be done in many different ways, such as rewarding the player for completing tricky tasks (especially satisfying if they are not compulsory), providing added bonuses for completing certain tasks, giving upgrades, points boosts, achievements, extra lives etc. etc. All help to maintain interest and give the player something more than the core game mechanics to try and achieve. A good rewards system can add a lot to your game.

There are many more things that can go towards making games fun, these are just a few and TBH I wouldn’t place ‘amazing art’ and ‘fantastic sound’ anywhere near as important as the gameplay, sure they help get the initial interest and draw attention to your game but that’s all they do, if the game isn’t fun you wont play it no matter how great it looks. Bottom line is… repetitive patterns get dull very quickly, remember how bored YOU get doing the same things over and over, in games as well as in real life; as soon as a game gets repetitive you’ll most likely stop playing it soon!

‘What makes games fun’ is a huge subject that’s well worth discussing and continuing to discuss, I hope what I’ve written is a help to some of you

[Fuzzy]

Indeed that was helpful Kodo. Thank you.

My intent is to spur discussion of this; it is a little discussed topic!

Kodo, you get a +1 rating from me, and I will rate the the next person to add something meaningful as well. I hope others will too.

[Sgt. Sparky]

I know this is not useful but I agree with addictive game play.
I think if I cleaned up my stickmanjumper game it could be a great game.
(very fast pased, big level, and not easy.)

[catacomber]

Am just beginning to read a lot about using fuzzy logic to increase the unpredictability of artificial intelligence in game programming---didn't know a washing machine could use fuzzy logic too. : )

This is a simple introduction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic

There are probably better out there. For me, right now, it means I could diagram complexity into functions for a game including randomness and other complications, to make things more interesting. Thanks to Fuzzy for fuzzifying things. : )

[DST]

I agree Kodo made a very complete description of what makes a game good. I would like to add a few, from an artistic standpoint.

One thing all good games have in common is that they take us to another world, which allows us to overcome all our weaknesses in this world. Its a simple example with Zelda or GTA, but it's also true all games, even sports and puzzle games.

In Gta I am nearly immortal, i'm free from all the rules. In Zelda I get to live in a world without taxes, concrete, jobs, school, and wars in the middle east. Nothing there is 'ugly'. In a football game I'm strong and fast and all my team and fans trust in me to make the right plays because I'm the best. It doesn't matter if i'm short or slow in the real world.

Even when I play solitaire i'm smart(er); i'm the master of the cards, as slick as a vegas dealer!

Its something I have a hard time understanding when it comes to the multitude of flash games, that there are so many games where you are simply performing a realworld job! That's not much of a departure from real life. In the past, most of those kinds of games didn't do very well....I remember a game on the sega genesis where you moved pallets around a warehouse....needless to say, not many people bought that game....

Good games give the real world struggle a twist that makes it fantastical; From GYROMITE to DOOM there is a fantasy splash to the game that makes it engrossing; In DOOM, you were a marine, doing your job...But you were doing it in the FUTURE! That made it fun! In Call of Duty, you are doing it in the PAST....which is just as imaginary...

Good games allow you to redefine yourself, or at least forget about your real world limitations....when i play Castlevania, i go from being a regular american citizen....to a professor of classical music and fine art at the royal academy!

In my favorite game of all....Game Editor....The twist for me is that I can program an intelligence...an AI....and when I do that, i feel like dr. Frankenstein....I am breaking the conventional rules of morality and i'm playing god!

[feral]

addiction = physical response = rewards

in other words an addictive game must create a physical response in the human body by producing Endorphins or adrenaline

put simply we get a "rush" from game playing and if the 'rush' or "high" is good enough then we want to continue playing.

adrenaline is produced more by hectic, battle type games and endorphines more by puzzle type games. ( we feel good about ourselves by solving puzzles so produce more feel good endorphines.)

this is why women tend to prefer puzzle games ( tetris was famous for being played by more women then any other game)
and most men prefer adrenaline style games... this is true in real life games as well ie: horseriding vs football

in a computer game the idea is to continue feeding that "rush" by constantly increasing the challenges. and or varying the challenges so that the player does not get "use to" the style of play, once the human body gets use to a certain level of fear/excitement etc the body stops producing the chemicals/hormones.

great graphics and a good story help, but think of space invaders, the constant increasing challenge of the enemie moving closer and closer then the mad "sped up" final run on each level is designed to scare you silly, therefore releasing adrenaline, then the game returns to a slower pace and speeds up again giving you a new rush on each level. The background music is designed to enhance this.

games that slowly increase do not always work as the body slowly prepares itself, although these games often appeal as they aim at endorphines ( feel good) and often have "eye candy" which also helps the player immerse themselves.

As someone pointed out, simply immersing yourself in another world, one that makes you forget your current worries,is also a way to increase the body "feel good" sense of well being, as it "reduces" stress making hormones and chemicals..

in summary ( and all of the above is my thinking only )

But, I seriously believe it does not matter ( in the most part) whether a game is great in graphics/fx/music etc as long as it is designed specifically to give the user/player the "rush" that suits them..

That said...even the most scientifically designed game made specifically to give users the best rush ever... will have to also have to "look good" and "sound good" if only to stand out from the thousands and thousands of other games out there..

IMHO
feral

[stevenp]

that could be true for action games, or games that are in "real time" ( starcraft )

but games like "civilization 4" are turn based, and there is little or no adrenaline gain at all,

instead this is psycological

[catacomber]

I think the fun we get out of games is very complicated and very individual. Some people like to follow a story. Some people like the adrenalin. Some people like puzzles. Some people like challenging fights. Some people like quests. Some people unfortunately like to be able to be really evil.

That's why I think the "fuzzification" principle is important. There's a lot on that if you google it (fuzzy states). It's important to make whatever style of game you're making include enough random or fuzzy (which is not exactly random but random in a calculated way) artificial intelligence (read whatever---puzzles, dialogue, quests, stories, dungeons, graphics, evil opportunities (ugh) etc.) so that's it's interesting.