let’s say theoretically I designed and successfully made a spell-crafter bullet-hell fusion (players get to take turns playing the boss and can design their own patterns, basically). However, I’m wondering if such a game would even appeal to more than just a handful of roblox players? I know for a fact that majority are around the age of 9 to 13 and I’m not sure if such a potentially complex game (if it was even possible) would have any level appeal to majority of the roblox players out there.
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Yes. It is definitely possible to create a game with a storyline/mechanics that are too difficult to understand/master, and thus impact the overall quality of play of a game.
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The best ideas are simple ones that are built upon. Having a mess of a game is not only hard to release but is ultimately unappealing to most people. On Roblox specifically, you need to present the idea in full within a good first impression, for somebody to hopefully stumble upon and get pulled into; complex games fail hard at this.
What I’d suggest is coming up with a simple game loop and build off of it. Games that quickly pull a player in as opposed to forcing them to figure out how things work from the immediate start.
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I definitely think you can make a complex game and have it appeal to more than just a handful of players. An example of this, in my opinion, is Rogue Lineage. The game throws you into a game with little to no help and forced me to to look up the wiki and learn how to play. Even after this though I still had little to no success(Maybe it is just me being trash). From my time playing, I saw how strong the community was though and I think these very hard, complex games build much stronger communities than others. But, Rogue Lineage was very well made even for being super difficult. I agree with @MetaProx though that simple ideas are often the best ideas. Maybe Rogue was created with a small, simple idea but grew into what it is now. That’s just my personal take on complex games though.
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Rogue Lineage definitely started with a simple idea and/or game loop. That being a Rogue-like type of fantasy game with inherited items. From there it built up.
Edit: To clarify the basic gameloop is to keep replaying the game to get further in the game than you did before. A simple addictive type of game loop that provides a great reward of accomplishment by progressing further than you did before. It is also a very thrilling game loop due to the consequence of failing.
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Both too complicated and too simple do exist. You may not want to start out with either of those but rather have a balance in the scale between each that tips more towards the simple side. Simple is easy to base concepts off of and work up from. You need a foundation to have a structure.
If your target audience is young ages, then you will definitely want something that is simple but mixes in an appropriate amount of complexity for the sake of activity, engagement and retention for the majority of their play time. Simple game mechanics are easy to grasp and fun to enjoy, while difficult game mechanics spice up your game but consequently make the first-time experience more of a hell to bear.
If you’re set on having a high level of complexity to your game, ease players into it at a snail’s pace. Be sure they understand the simple stuff you’ve given them and build up off of that until they’re capable of understanding and being able to stay engaged once you’ve reached the maximum level of complexity for your game mechanics.
Be mindful of your actual game though, as all elements should work in harmony to form the concept that will eventually become your game. Complexity is expected and called for in some types of games, while in others not so much. Complexity is definitely a noticeable weight to a game’s appeal with certain audiences, but so are other elements.
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It’s pretty common in game design (and other areas) to distinguish between complexity and depth. In my opinion, elegant game design results in high depth with low complexity.
Tetris is low complexity, (somewhat) high depth. Pretty simple rules result in pretty deep, complex strategies that aren’t immediately obvious, and allows for player exploration and expression. There’s no button to perform the different tricks, or to execute the different strategies. They emerge from the simply, underlying systems and the way the game state evolves throughout the game. Adding another building to a game like Civilization adds complexity, in the form of yet another choice that should be weighed against all other possibilities. But if it’s just a simple bonus to growth, then the ratio of added depth to complexity is lower.
Some amount of complexity is necessary for there to be depth, but it’s harmful because it’s difficult to understand. If players keep being punished because they don’t understand a system, that’s going to turn them off pretty quickly. This can be overcome by introducing the complexity gradually instead of all at once. Let the player learn the ropes before throwing them into the deep end.
You should also distinguish between how complex a game is to play, and how complex it is to make. It might take a long time and lots of careful consideration and tweaking to make all the possible crafted spells work out in fun and interesting ways, but if you set it up in a way that it’s easy to try out lots of different spells without too much consequence, then it will be a joy for the player to explore. If you force the player to make long-term, important decisions without giving them the necessary information to do so, it will be make them anxious instead. You can get the best of both worlds by not thinking too much about each resulting spell, but instead focus on the crafting system and the components that go into it. If you come up with a system for letting every component interact with every other component in some way, then the players might come up with crazy ideas that you never even thought of.
If you want to read more, then some common buzzwords are complexity vs depth, emergent gameplay and systemic game design.
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