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What makes games fun?
h3ndu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, over the last little while I've been increasingly dissatisfied with video games in general.
Things that I used to find fun aren't bringing me the same feelings they used to. Like most of you, I've played a fair amount of games in my life, I can remember being a kid playing Super Mario Brothers, Bayou Billy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I can remember being in middle school with the N64 - how Goldeneye was the biggest thing since sliced bread, and how Super Mario 64 was just plain awesome. I can remember the twists and turns of FFVII, the awesomeness of Vagrant story, and the stealth in Metal gear solid.
I can think of hours and hours spent on Halo, and Super Smash brothers. Most of the memories of my formative years are actually of video games and the people I played them with.
But latley I just haven't been getting any fun out of them. I'm not sure if a part of my childhood finaly died within me, if I've just changed, or the far more unlikely - video games aren't as fun anymore.
My question to all of you, and the discussion point, is what makes a person like video games (escape from reality, relaxation [if so, how?], fulfillment, ect.)? What do they do for you personally? What do they do for the community? How do they make you experiance fun?
Things that I used to find fun aren't bringing me the same feelings they used to. Like most of you, I've played a fair amount of games in my life, I can remember being a kid playing Super Mario Brothers, Bayou Billy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I can remember being in middle school with the N64 - how Goldeneye was the biggest thing since sliced bread, and how Super Mario 64 was just plain awesome. I can remember the twists and turns of FFVII, the awesomeness of Vagrant story, and the stealth in Metal gear solid.
I can think of hours and hours spent on Halo, and Super Smash brothers. Most of the memories of my formative years are actually of video games and the people I played them with.
But latley I just haven't been getting any fun out of them. I'm not sure if a part of my childhood finaly died within me, if I've just changed, or the far more unlikely - video games aren't as fun anymore.
My question to all of you, and the discussion point, is what makes a person like video games (escape from reality, relaxation [if so, how?], fulfillment, ect.)? What do they do for you personally? What do they do for the community? How do they make you experiance fun?
Lo Que Sea, Cuando Sea, Donde Sea.
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but they're listening to every word I say
The feeling of accomplishment was, I think, what did it for me too. But now I can't really seem to think I'm actually accomplishing anything.
Sure, it might make us out to be shallow douchebags but we have fun and that's all that matters.
but they're listening to every word I say
A) Challenge/reward systems. The game designers have to create an engaging challenge followed by a sufficient reward. Engaging here can mean either difficulty-wise or contextually. Tetris is fun but there's very little aesthetic design sense there; it's fun because it's a mental and dexterity challenge. God of War on normal difficulty isn't very challenging most of the time, but the aesthetics make up for it to get you engaged in the gameplay. The amount of challenge has to be scaled such that you either will succeed or, if you fail, will see that success is achievable. If you don't even have to try then it's going to lose engagement fast and if you try and try but can't succeed or even see success then you're going to get frustrated and lose interest. What constitutes an adequate reward varies from person to person. It used to be abstract bar-filling; now it's frequently unlocking of additional gameplay elements or exploration-reward-style new things to see.
I think games used to be more difficult, on average, than they are today simply because the only means of engagement was challenge difficulty. You could make the graphics a little better, maybe, but Atari-era or even, to an extent, NES era games had to get by on gameplay and pulling the user in with difficult puzzles/gamplay elements rather than relying on people's interest in the visual presentation to carry the player through. I'm not saying that was a better strategy or anything; just I think that's why old-school games tend to be categorized as harder than modern ones (also game designers hadn't learned quite how quickly gamers lost immersion from frustration at trying to finish a jumping puzzle for the 10th time).
Same reason that makes books fun. Except if your imagination is a piece of shit books aren't very fun at all. But games still are.
Oh I agree. That's the reward part of the challenge/reward system. I think it would still be fun if removed the score and had only B Type games which ended once you'd succeeded in clearing all of the initially-placed tetris bits, but you certainly have to have a reward for the challenge. Sudoku is fun because eventually you have the reward of satisfaction at having completed the puzzle. An endless Sudoku game where the puzzle never reached completion would suck.
It's tangential, but I've heard this argument against books before and I'm curious. Are there really people who are so lacking in imagination that they can't get the same escapist pleasure from a book as they do from a movie or a game? All the cases I've heard of or encountered with people who just dismissed reading for pleasure did so either out of some kind of grudge against reading in general or due to a learning/development problem that made the actual act of reading difficult. I've never met someone who was perfectly capable of reading and enjoyed escapist entertainment but found books uninteresting.
that's why i can't enjoy music "games" at all. they are skill demonstrations, but they aren't games.
i pretty much only play fighters and rts' as i feel they are the epitome of skillful decision making.
I'm betting Hacksaw is a fan of 'boy games'...
I have to agree wtih this, I recently learned that many things can be broken in the new Banjo & Kazooie game when I promptly crashed into Mumbo's house in the first level.
I spent the next 10 minutes crashing into everything in the surrounding area, the aftermath was glorious.
I can see RTS games, but aren't fighters eventually similar to chess or other solvable games? Someone makes an opening move; there's an optimal counter and an optimal time to perform that counter. The initial mover has an optimal response and so forth. I've heard of guys who can play fighting games without even looking at the screen; just watching the other player's hand movements and responding appropriately. For chess the decision space is pretty vast, but for fighters it seems like you'd eventually run into a situation where you know all the moves, all the moves' counters, and then you're basically left with a skill demonstration. Who can enter the sequence of buttons fastest without messing up?
One of the first things I did after getting frustrated with some version of Nascar Racing was re-started the race, turned off damage to my car, turned around on the track, and tried to take out as many cars as I could in one go.
Oh and for sports games, I'm a bit of a stat whore/build-a-player guy. NHL 10 and Fifa 10 are huge to me.
I only play games for the competitive element these days. When I don't have internet access I catch up on all the 1 player games I've missed and while I enjoy them I'd much rather be wrecking shit with a party full of my close real life friends on Live.
edit: also, I don't know why but I enjoy getting pissed off and yelling at the screen. It lets you vent your frustrations and relieve the stresses of the day with no real harm done to anybody around you or your property.
It doesn't take much of a lack in imagination to not find books enjoyable.
Not everyone can picture things in their minds well. If you can't, then the only thing interesting about books is gaining insight into what characters are thinking and trying to determine the plot and stuff like that.
it's not as bad as it used to be, but it's probably just been dulled by repetition and the fact that the nerve has been overstimulated. when i look back at the games where i really put serious time into, most of that time was grinding ahead in order to level up.
so stupid. it's the feeling of accomplishment and advancement without any real accomplishment and advancement. It's like porn: relationship :: levelling up:life
I put in I think 6 or 7 months of playtime into Asheron's Call from 1999-2006 or 2007. Most of which was either standing around using it as a 3D chat room or grinding. No regrets.
I did play WoW for six months oh my god
if there weren't a modest level cap at the time and if the endgame progression weren't idiotic back then i probably never would have escaped.
Other than that, though, it's fun to take shit out in Mount and Blade.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
Wow. That's a lot of C's. Sorry.
And then setting the rubble on fire.
And then nuking the fire from orbit.
this is astronomically incorrect, and i'll tell you why!
yes, there are optimal counters for every move, and of course it's more complicated than just move vs move - there's timing, spacing, etc.
but fighting games are not about seeing the opponent do something and then subsequently countering it. they're too fast, and they're not built that way. fighting games, once you get past the level of execution, are about psychology. they are about predicting your opponent, controlling his actions, controlling his perception of space, and denying his attempts to control, predict, or deceive you.
for example, let's look at a typical situation: you've been knocked down by your opponent, and he's standing over you, and your character is going to get back up in about a second. you have to make a decision about what you're going to do, and he has to decide what he's going to do. Let's say you're playing Street Fighter IV, and your opponent is playing a grappling character, Abel, while you're playing Ryu.
Your options are: block high, block low, throw, jump, use a quick light attack, or use a Shoryuken.
Abel's options are: block (probably low), use his command throw, use his anti-air throw, use his heavy punch, use his heavy kick, or use his EX command throw.
All of these options have various interrelationships and various chances of working. For example, a Shoryuken when you get up will beat any of his throws or attacks, which makes it seem like the best option - all he could do is block. But if he does block, you will be vulnerable to the biggest combo he can throw out when you come back down, and constantly Shoryukening when you get up is the mark of a poor player.
Of course, both players know that, so when you get up, Abel might use his command throw. This will beat your throw, if you try it, and it will get you if you block, and it will beat light attacks if it's a "meaty" (timed so that it hits you as soon as you are standing). But if you jump when getting up, you'll avoid the throw, and he'll be vulnerable to your jumping attack as you come back down; it's a gamble, and the throw does lots of damage when it hits, as well as knocking you down.
But Abel knows you're afraid of the throw, and he knows that he might have to block a Shoryuken, and if you jump and he does his anti-air throw, he'll grab you and throw you back down. This does solid damage and starts the whole thing over again. If he misguesses, though, it leaves him vulnerable. If he uses his heavy punch instead, it will bring you back down to the ground, but not knock you down - safer for him, but with less reward. Of course, if you think he's going to use his heavy punch, you can block, but then you might get thrown!
This might sound like a game of random chance, but it's very much not. It's about understanding your opponent's predilections, forcing them into guessing games that are unfavourable for them, and making them panic or make poor decisions. I have played matches as Abel where I'll throw a guy, and then throw him again, and then - him thinking I surely won't do it a third time - I'll throw him again, and he'll panic at the sight of so much health gone, so he'll jump - but I predicted that, and I air throw before he even jumps, slamming him back down. This is incredibly demoralizing and usually the match is already lost for him at this point, even if he's still got health left.
fighting games are all about decision making, especially once you've got the execution down solid. they're about assessing your options quickly in your current context, and cross-referencing them with your knowledge of your opponent - and you can really read a person's tendencies even if they're across the continent from you, represented only by their chosen character.
I came by to say almost exactly this.
Have you played Bayou Billy or the original TMNT games recently?
I have. They are frustrating and annoying and not as good as you remember. Man, I was in awe at the first Sonic the Hedgehog. Like literally blown away. I couldn't grasp how fast the screen was moving, the colors, the animations. I was also in elementary school when it came out. Now don't get me wrong, I can definately still play Sonic, but I'm also 27 now, and I am no longer blown away by games.
That said, I like a few things about my games nowadays.
I like the management portion of GM mode in the NHL series (like if it didn't have the GM mode, I wouldn't play it at all.)
I like good stories, like Planescape or Mass Effect.
I like fun, witty writing and pulp action, like my favorite game of all time, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
I mean goddamn who could ever get those damn underwater bombs defused and I've already lost the stick guy so you know what's the point.
I've gotten a gore erection once. I was shooting baddies in Max Payne 2 and I was on a roll. I was in the zone. Every bullet I fired hit an enemy squarely in the head. The rag doll physics made bodies fly in all directions ... and then I noticed I had popped a chubby.
this is unfortunate, because almost every game works this way.
however, games that are inherently fun to play in themselves, even before the outcome, i still enjoy - the challenge rooms in Batman Arkham Asylum, for instance. Every counter and every leg-snap is very satisfying to execute, even if you have to play them over and over and over to get the full three stars.
this is as opposed to games like N+ or Splosion Man or VVVVVVV which, excellent as they are, I find unplayable because there is little kinetic, aesthetic pleasure in the execution of the actions you must carry out. the holistic experience of running through a level perfectly is where the fun is, but getting there is something i find torturous these days.
this is why i really enjoyed Spider-Man games as well, even though the combat is usually turdsome. the kinetic pleasure of swinging around is enough to merit a rental.
is that really a game? i think it's more than a game, or at least different than typical games. chess is a game in the classic sense. swinging around new york with your webshooters is enjoyable, too, but in a wholly different way.
not really.
i only really play virtua fighter so that's what i can speak of but let me give you a simple example (that is going to sound horribly complicated):
if i throw out an opener (10 frame standing punch) and you block, you are at -2 frames.
that means that my 10 frame standing punch can defeat any non-low attack of yours because there are no non-low attacks that come out faster than 10 frames (sort of).
at +2 frames, my 14 frame elbow will also defeat your fastest low attack (12 frame low punch).
in other words, i have 1 tool that will defeat any standing attack of yours and 1 tool that will defeat any low attack of yours. but how do i know if you will go low or not? if i throw out my standing attack defeater, you can defeat it with a low. if i throw out my low attack defeater, you can defeat it with a standing attack.
this doesnt even take into account blocking, throwing, counters, reversals, stepping and all the other possible options we both have open to us at any time during the encounter.
so there isnt really an optimal route, there are many and none of them can defeat all of your opponent's options. some defeat more but grant less damage. some defeat less, but grant more damage. some defeat only 1 single option of your opponent's but grant really high damage.
every second in virtua fighter is broken down into 60 frames and every frame counts. there is a decision made every moment and they all matter.
that's why i love fighting games (and virtua fighter in particular).