Disclaimer
I am by no means an expert on this topic, but hey if I can help somebody out there then thats enough for me
Introduction
Everytime I go on #help-and-feedback:game-design-support , there is always a post along the lines of “how do i get players to stay and come back for more”, or "tips to make players return to my game", and not to mention those posts asking for feedback on their game ideas that are mediocre at best. yeah you know who you are
But anyway, What makes a game fun? Well that must be just the millionaire dollar question because every player has different perspectives of what is fun in a particular game and what isn’t, all we can do as game developers is interpret what we think the player would see as fun, and implement different gameplay aspects around that idea. This is why games need constant feedback and heavy testing in the early development phase because if you dont get the foundation that makes your game “fun” correct, how the hell do you expect to build upon a broken foundation? Yeah you may be able to build on-top of it, but how long until the clutter that you have created to hide the fact that you have a lacking foundation finally catches up with your game? Trust me players can see when you have a lacking foundation.
In order to fulfill a player they need to have something missing that only your game can offer/provide, this is exactly why two games of the same genre can look the same at face value but when you actually take a look at the guts of the games, they both are completely different and both fulfill the player differently. What sets apart games of the same genre isn’t what you do in them, it’s how you do it. Let’s look at an example scenario, let’s just say they are both fighting games and both have the same fundamental mechanics but do them differently
Game #1: You walk up to a test dummy, you press MB1, a good animation plays, the test dummy takes damage, and everyones happy
Well that was boring, onto game #2!
Game #2 : You walk up to a test dummy, you press MB1, a good animation plays, you hear a punch sound effect, the camera shakes, the test dummy gets pushed back, the test dummy plays an animation of being hit , an effect appears, a hit marker appears telling you how much damage youve dealt
Whoa…, you see how doing the fundamentally same thing which in this case is combat can be executed differently and therefore gives us a different and much better experience? This ties greatly with the last thing I want to talk about which is having players come back for more, you have to offer something that either other games in your genre dont offer or other games in general dont offer, whether that’d be well thought out, creative and out of the box, never done mechanics, too more visual and auditory tells that you’re player hasnt has much experience with before. This isn’t too say you have to come up with brand new mechanics but adding a little pizzazz and uniquity too overused mechanics can really put your game just that much above others, obviously respecting the genre.
Well that’s all I have for now, I hope someone finds this useful
