What Makes A Video Game Fun?

[Warwithin]

Hey all,

After being an avid gamer for the past decade, myself (3d artist) and a buddy of mine (programmer) are taking a stab at creating a game of our own (venturing into the world of RTS games).

I can speak a lot from my experiences of what I think is "fun" (i.e. replay value, multiple ways to solve a challenge, variety of creative game mechanics, freedom, etc.), but I want to get some thoughts from you all as well.

What makes the games you play "fun"? What keeps you playing a game for a long time; or, rather, what makes you put down a game without giving it a chance?

Any input is really appreciated

[Deleted]

I concluded that Level/Map-Design is very important. But that might more for FPS.
What makes a good RTS is balance as we could see on Starcraft. Though there has to be something else that makes SC great.
Maybe it's the so very different factions and they still managed to balance them.

[Djuntas]

If you make an RTS it would be nice to have the old school feel like SC or Age of empires. I love AOE2 myself for the balance, combat and building up eco.

[JLKrombacher]

A greater goal to reach. That being either levels (getting to level 100 or beyond), upgrading weapons/troops, or unlocking new abilities and weapons. That is what always keeps me coming back for more. This needs to be sustained throughout the games. I don't want to play for an hour and unlock everything and then have to play for another 50 hours just to finish the game. It will get boring and feel like a chore.

[Ciddy]

It depends on the type of game, but I'd say a good story is my overall choice. If you're just sending me to kill a bunch of nameless NPCs without any real understanding of why (and I want more than just "BECAUSE THEY'RE THE BAD GUYS LOL"), I have a hard time really getting into the game. I want to know all about the game world, the characters, what led us to the point we are now, why the bad guys are bad / why the good guys are good, and so on. I keep playing because I want to see what happens next in the story.

Beyond that, replay value. Because unless it's an MMO or something, you're eventually going to reach the end and be done with the story. Easter eggs, different paths you can take to the end (think StarFox), different decisions you can make that affect the story in different ways, multiple difficulty levels (try it again on hard), and multiple endings are good for that.

[Yunru]

Unique sound from each unit.
Nowdays all strategy units i see are pure boredom.

[May90]

Depends on the game.

Single-player games:
1. Immersion/Atmosphere; the main reason why I love Bioware games more than anything else.
2. Amazing plot; games with 5/5 plot I can replay countless times, every time experiencing it as if I was playing the first time. Plot is what makes me go on even when I am bored with combat system of the game.
3. Sound composition, such as music, voice acting and ambient sound; music in Guild Wars 2 (not really a single player game, but I mostly play it as such) is so good that I often notice myself more listening to it than actually paying attention to what's going on on the screen, and voice acting in Mass Effect often made me replay the same dialogue multiple times.

Multi-player games:
1. Variety; it is 99% of the game's enjoyment for me. One of the reasons I have been playing Starcraft 2 every day for 2 years by now and still haven't gotten bored a single time is hundreds of fun Arcade maps that are totally different from each other.
2. "Easy to learn, hard to master"; I like games which I can start playing right away without any additional knowledge, but which let me learn as I go, reaching master level in theory.
3. Community; one of the reasons I've never really gotten into MOBAs is that they are, pretty much, the worst in terms of people's friendliness and mutual support. If I play a game with other people, I want to play with people who are pleasant to talk, not with a bunch of assholes.

[Radio]

Going to be really general here and try to cover most if not all genres:

1. Some kind of gauge of performance. High scores, achievements, levels completed, etc fall under this. It inspires the competitive nature in people as they can compare themselves to their friends.

2. Some form of challenge, while still being fair. As an example, I made a tower defense game out of pacman sprites back in high school. At first, it was fairly easy and you could reach a point where you could pretty much never lose. People liked the game but interest was short-lived. I went back, added a few new enemy units and overhauled the tuning. The game was still essentially the same but it had ramping difficulty, required strategy and would eventually overwhelm you. After the change, it ended up going viral in my school and the .exe was banned by the network admins because it was interefering with classes.

3. Satisfying sound/visual effects. Goes a surprisingly long way. It can be achieved at any level of technical quality too.

4. Natural controls, a game that feels frustrating to simply operate is not fun.

[Deleted]

Steady rewards seem to hold most people

[May90]

2. Some form of challenge, while still being fair. As an example, I made a tower defense game out of pacman sprites back in high school. At first, it was fairly easy and you could reach a point where you could pretty much never lose. People liked the game but interest was short-lived. I went back, added a few new enemy units and overhauled the tuning. The game was still essentially the same but it had ramping difficulty, required strategy and would eventually overwhelm you. After the change, it ended up going viral in my school and the .exe was banned by the network admins because it was interefering with classes.

He-h, reminds me of my days in high school when I was crazy about programming and made all kinds of simple games... My favorite was "Tank battle" where two players had a tank each that every move can either rotate its tower, move in the selected direction by 1 unit or shoot (the missile also passes 1 unit every turn); every 3 turns there was a building phase in which a player could place a small block to "tank" the damage on a given distance around a tank. Number of missiles and blocks was limited and recovered every few moving actions.
The game was crazily popular on our programming classes: it would last for about 1 hours, exactly the length of the class, and was surprisingly competitive.

Actually, now that I think of it, it would make a great KickStarter project. A little more refining, more options every turn, support of 3+ players, graphics - and, I think, this game could have some success. If only I had more time for it...

[Kathandira]

For me, a great game needs to award the player with a constant sense of accomplishment.

Whether it be by leveling and allocating skill points. Or being awarded items. Or unlocking new characters and levels via game play (not DLC)

Now i'm not saying I need to have these things thrown in my face every minute or two. But a goal to work towards that doesn't take days upon days to gain the slightest accomplishment.

[Deleted]

Friggin gameplay! When game focuse on fun gameplay than purely on graphics. Depends on genre. Sandbox games require a lot of freedom. RTS require good control, game balance and good overview of battlefield. FPS/TPS/Action games require good story because gameplay mostly boils down to take cover and shoot the bad guys. Good game balance without anything overpowered/underpowered maked game feel really good. If game feel that everything is where it should be then it's golden.

[smackyslap]

Easily game play and story well for me. a long term goal that takes time and effort is also a huge factor.

[kyoloco]

a good career/story mode

essentially just numbers going up

[rayvio]

story - a good story can save even a bad game, but a bad story can (usually) kill even the best of games
replay value - what's better than playing a great game? being able to play it again and again and again and still have a new experience. choices are a big part of that whether it's different characters (Maniac Mansion), different paths (the real Indy 4: Fate of Atlantis), lots and lots of choices (Dragon Age: Origins), good or evil (Knights of the Old Republic), romances (almost every BioWare game ever) or even finding all the funny ways to fail (some of the old Sierra games, others were just annoying with silly ways to die)
originality - doing something better than anyone else has done it is a great way to stand out, but doing something well that nobody else has done at all is even better. more and more difficult to do as time goes on but every now and then something really different comes along
emotional - whether it's making us laugh, cry, smile or scream, it's usually good to have something touch our feelings. laughter and smiles are never a bad thing and if events in a game can make us sad then it shows how well the game has made us connect to the story. as for scares, well, there's a reason horror movies (and not just the so bad and/or dated that they're funny) and thrillers are so popular. a nice safe scare (ie: fictional rather than something bad happening in real life) can really get the adrenaline going

[-aiko-]

I think the biggest things to me are a sense of engagement and reward. If I'm not engaged in a game it can really make it a chore to play. Games need depth and atmosphere imo. Even simple games. As for rewards, well, I think that speaks for itself.

[Afrospinach]

Engagement. What that means is going to depend on the individual. Yep I am helpful I know

I feel like busting out the Malcolm Gladwell spaghetti sauce video to discourage you from thinking about a "magic formula".

Let me try and put what I mean in perspective. Mount and blade:Warband. It has shit for a plot, graphics that look like morrowind, some pretty daft at times AI and yet it has a combat system that appeals to a lot of people. You can do just fine beating through it, but if you want to be REALLY effective, you are going to have to have some personal skill and make some smart choices about what weapon to bring to what fight.