Now, both out of curiosity and asking for help, often I think of ideas for games to make, but end up discarding them due to them being a one and done sort of deal. Has anyone else had this problem, and how have you dealt with it?
Overall, what do you think is the best general method to make players return to the game?
Also, uh, sidenote, this is my first time actually making a topic on the forum, so please feel free to tell me if I’m breaking a rule or something.
Customization. Games like ROBLOX (in that you can make your own stuff), Bloxburg, etc. Players like freedom and having a game with unlimited outcomes would all but guarantee replayability.
I see! I actually completely neglected just giving the player freedom, while it could be hard to implement, or just hard to make a idea that revolves around it, it does sound like a solid way to make it replayable.
Whenever I think of replayability ideas, I look at other games I love to play.
For example, I love EarthBound, so I would look at the things in the game includes that keeps me coming back. One good example would be the entertaining dialog, I would get some inspiration from it and then attempt to implement something similar in my game.
I would make a daily reward system, so players will come back to claim their daily coins, currency, pets, etc. While restarting the player’s progress once they are done is an entirely different question. My answer would be to make it so they could save their builds and load a start building a new build (like the Piggy build mode system.) Or if it is an obby, it will restart the player once they reach the end. I hope I hope this helped you!
Have a reason for the player to come back, obviously has something to do with data.
In fighting game have a ton of level ups that keep the player busy.
In a building game have more materials to higher prices.
Games that also give true feel of the topic are also good, i,e horror atmosphere…
Design the game so you can’t “beat” it. (For example there isn’t a campaign to complete, or a limited amount of items to unlock etc.). Make it so that players are encouraged to become the “best”. If this won’t work for game (for example: a story based game) then you’ll have to make up for it with lot’s of good content and frequent updates.
Be careful not to make it too difficult, like requiring endless hours of grinding just to get anywhere, allow the player to gain accomplishments without completing the whole game.
In the end though, if it’s fun to play people will come back no matter what, I’ve seen lots of great games that have very few or none of what I mentioned above. 
Something to come back to have
In general, the most thing that will make a player return is ownership.
It’s best done when it’s something physical - houses, pets, weapons - though it doesn’t have to be this way.
Something to come back to do
Another thing is milestones. Timed missions, challenges and quests will make a player want to complete them (Fortnite). Alternatively, you could have timed rewards (Clash Royale).
Someone to play with
A final note: encourage social gameplay as much as you can! You’ll profit from large attractions of social hubs wanting to play together. This doesn’t only include mingling and partying: it could be VIP servers in a combat-oriented game.
The game needs replayability. And when it needs replayability it means IT DOESN’T HAVE A REPLAY.
let me rephrase that
The game needs replayability. And when it needs replayability it means IT DOESN’T HAVE A REPLAY.
let me rephrase that
The game needs replayability. And when it needs replayability it means IT DOESN’T HAVE A REPLAY.
let me rephrase that, but in the sense of replayability for games
When you make a game and you want to achieve replayability, first off forget about trying to say to the player “PLEASE COME BACK! I DON’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE”, which is usually translated to daily rewards and free coins.
If you want your game to have replayability you want it to have flexible results, not a rigid outcome. A story game like uncharted has a rigid outcome, is one intro, one argument, one conclusion, there’s no decisions, no changes in the narrative, just one rigid outcome that has to be the best for it to be played to the end, and once it’s played to the end, the game ends, the money was spent and there’s not much to do after that, you can replay the game but it doesn’t have replayability because you know the story, you know the outcome and you can’t change it.
You can apply this same logic to simulators and tycoons. A simulator has one rigid outcome whose ending cannot be changed based on your actions, you have to click to make points and when you make enough points you get to make more points, either this is something some people are willing to do or they don’t know better games. But not every simulator is the same. A simulator where you have to click all the time can be just about that, clicking, but the clicking can be mutated to have different outcomes. You can mutate it to click on a car and, when you click, you shoot and hurt someone, you incentivize combat in a map, which most of the time has different outcomes. You can mutate the click to mine in a cave, yes, you’re clicking, but you are put into the aspect of not knowing what you will find, mysteries everywhere, what happens if I click here? what happens if I click there? WILL I GET DIAMONDS??? there’s clicking, yes, but the clicking can give different results, flexible outcomes, either by clicking itself or by something else.
A tycoon usually falls flat in outcomes, and tycoons tend to have zero replayability when they’re done terribly. Done terribly is when the building you have to build is established by the dev and there’s no powerful impact on the gameplay when you decide to do something else on the place. Like, if I decided to build this instead of what others do, will I get rewarded a lot more? if the answer is yes, GOOOOD JOOOB DEV, you motivated them to experiment, in your game, that’s a keyword.
Allow them to experiment in your game, don’t make it have a solid outcome where you can’t change what will happen, allow the players to improve if they do something different
A tycoon usually falls flat because they put platforms to build the place, touch a platform and you make money, touch another platform and make more money, touch another platform and put a wall the dev has set for you so you dont have to do it. That’s a rigid outcome, and will only be benevolent the first time the players play it, they do it once again and there’s nothing new, so they get bored and leave.
A game with huge replayability tends to have flexible outcomes inside the game, and those flexible outcomes are not similar to previous outcomes, they have to be in the range of the traditional, the known to the player, and the innovative, what changes in everything and what they will appreciate. That formula, a Venn diagram where your project is right in the middle of the traditional and the innovative, is the pixar formula, (a lot of pixar movies have the human aspect of it, what people know by heart, and the innovation of it, what people are interested to know. toy story has andy as the relatable part of people’s childhood, and the innovation is the fact toys are alive. Monsters inc has people working as the traditional aspect, and the innovation is that the people that work are monsters. Try it, check pixar movies and see for yourself how they mix the innovation with the tradition, it’s fun and it doesn’t get stale).
Let me give you an example of a game with flexible outcomes: Team Fortress 2. If you’ve ever played that game you will notice that a lot of the players there have more than 400 hours in game, some even managed to make 10 thousand hours in game, it’s crazy, but how do they achieve this? The game has replayability, yes, but why?
Easy to learn, hard to master
That’s one. The tools of the classes can be seen once and you learn them to heart, but not only is it hard to master the skills needed to use each class effectively, every time you play the game you get a different outcome.
Scout has around 6 primary weapons for himself, 6 more for the secondary and around 12 for the melee. These weapons are NOT RESKINS, but weapons with different attributes set to it, that don’t make one weapon more powerful than the other but that makes the combinations with each different. To learn one single weapon you need 200 hours total, you can somewhat translate those weapons skills to another weapon, which is a good thing, but to learn the new weapon, the innovation of what’s traditional to you, you need another 50 hours for it, there’s 9 primary weapons, there will be around 600 hours to master all of the weapons. Then there’s the secondaries, which have different attributes that make each better in some cases but worse in others, and you have to learn to use them for 200 hours, too, maybe more, maybe 1000 hours. And then there’s melees, which make for about 20 hours because they’re usually not used often in game (or 1000 hours if focused on melee only). Once you’ve learned to master that class you can use it all you want, you will still have fun because:
You can change the weapons and have different outcomes, you can have 1200 different combinations of weapons, making things never be the same twice, which in turn makes replayabilty.
You can play around weapons you feel strong because once you master them you will have to adapt to the enemies, who will also have different weapons every time. One day you meet a scout with a scattergun and you deal with it as you usually do, you meet someone with the Force-A-Nature? you now play differently in the game, you adapt, your outcome is different and you have replayability to a certain situation.
2.1. And you can just flow with your skills and have fun with them.
All of this in just one class, one of the nine classes, each with different playstyles and sub-playstyles
Give people the tools to change their playstyle, not make straight upgrades. You don’t want to just make a weapon that gives 100 more health every time you level up, you want to make a weapon where you have to play the same class a different way, a different outcome. It takes creativity to know what the weapon will do.
Lastly, the game has to be fun a huge amount of the time. You can’t make a game with no philosophy put into it and also try to motivate players to keep playing. The philosophy for a tycoon is usually bad, but every once in a while comes a game like lumber tycoon 2 that basically blows up the way people can make tycoons, and when they see their success they learn nothing. Lumber Tycoon 2 is fun, engaging and replayable because:
It’s fun because there’s a sense of exploration around the map, and exploration is a primitive instinct, meaning whoever has it will have fun with it.
Engaging because you are shown that there are mysteries around the island that you have to know, and that your house will not stay incomplete
And Replayable because not every tree you chop will be the same, not every tool you have will be the same, and you are driven to upgrade your things, which will give you a lot of time. Thats a keyword.
Give the players a feeling to come back. Don’t make it daily rewards cheap, give them a mystery they want to solve, a mystery you yourself want to know. Make them have a long goal they feel they have to complete, and once they complete it they feel satisfied,
but not before spending 300 hours on it, average I’d say, these are roblox games, they’re usually made to play sometime and then leave, not stay.
My opinion:
Endless games like Minecraft