Real talk: Struggling to make a game fun

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fxokz

Guest
When i first started using gm back a few years ago i thought to myself EVERY GAME I MAKE WILL BE FUN because my ideas are better than what Ive seen. I know its sort of a narcissistic way of thinking but ill just say i didn't know any better at the time (like 2 years ago). The problem now is i spend way too much time thinking about how to make a game fun. I don't know if anybody else has the same exact problem but for me, the more i work on my game and expand it the worse it gets. I can have a 640x360 room with a few things going on and it will be kinda cool, but the moment i decide to expand the room add new features new colors enemies etc etc for some reason i always end up feeling demotivated. the question is WHY WHYYYYYYYY.... Is it because i compare my skill level to top level developers/teams that make high quality stuff or is it because of some other unknown reason.
 
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Deleted member 467

Guest
Well, it sounds like you are kind of taking a right turn, but at an approach that may not work out so well.

Fun games aren't just games that have a ton of enemies from every color of the rainbow. Fun games aren't just games with so many features you lose track of them.

Fun games are what you make of them. Go back and think of your top 3 favorite games (or game series) and think about why you like them, what makes them fun.

Is it the art? The story? The gameplay mechanics? The AI? Bosses? The OST? The NPCs? These are some things to take into consideration when trying to make a game fun. Of course it's best not to rip off the elements of what made one game fun (*cough* Almost every game on Gamejolt *cough*)
To me it sounds like you might be struggling within the design perspective. Designing a game is easy to an extent: You have a character who moves and kills a bad guy. That's the basis of most games. To to design a fun (or semi fun) game, that can take even longer. In my case my game has been designed for three years, and is still sometimes being designed as I change ideas on things.

Also, don't compare your game to someone elses, or yourself to someone else. There is always going to be someone better than you, and a game better than yours. Not knowing much about your game other than your text, I would say design some things that could spice up the game a bit and go from there, maybe add a story.
 
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fxokz

Guest
Well, it sounds like you are kind of taking a right turn, but at an approach that may not work out so well.

Fun games aren't just games that have a ton of enemies from every color of the rainbow. Fun games aren't just games with so many features you lose track of them.

Fun games are what you make of them. Go back and think of your top 3 favorite games (or game series) and think about why you like them, what makes them fun.

Is it the art? The story? The gameplay mechanics? The AI? Bosses? The OST? The NPCs? These are some things to take into consideration when trying to make a game fun. Of course it's best not to rip off the elements of what made one game fun (*cough* Almost every game on Gamejolt *cough*)
To me it sounds like you might be struggling within the design perspective. Designing a game is easy to an extent: You have a character who moves and kills a bad guy. That's the basis of most games. To to design a fun (or semi fun) game, that can take even longer. In my case my game has been designed for three years, and is still sometimes being designed as I change ideas on things.

Also, don't compare your game to someone elses, or yourself to someone else. There is always going to be someone better than you, and a game better than yours. Not knowing much about your game other than your text, I would say design some things that could spice up the game a bit and go from there, maybe add a story.
Yes i do struggle with the design perspective.. but only when i make it more complicated. I tried to make a platformer game with 30 different levels and 3 bosses but my problem was that each level felt extremely repetitive so i kept on telling my self that im going to add new things to each level for the first 20 out of the 30 levels and guess what. Made the game even worse, things got way too complicated, hard to understand, too much variety in enemies, collectables etc etc and there was no real color pallette for the game so there was probably 50 different colours all together which just made the whole situation much worse. But the worst part is I did exactly what you said, i examined my top 2 platformer games made by the same team called Playdead studios, INSIDE and LIMBO, both of the games have 1 button to interact with certain objects, other than that you move around. The game is mainly greyscale. black and white with maybe a odd color here and there. And that game was rated so high. But once again im comparing a game made by a single person compared to a company which spent 3 years perfecting a game. So yah. (Sorry for rambling for so long)
 
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Deleted member 467

Guest
Complexity doesn't make everything fun, in fact it can do the opposite. Try to simplify things, as that it is easier on the programmer and player.

In my game I have a boss who can seem complex at first: He fires three waves at the player, shields himself in a bubble when he loses enough health, if you don't freeze the bubble in time he regenerates the health you worked so hard to wear off, and he randomly teleports through whirlpools.

When fighting it seems complex, but really its rather simple because of state machines. It's complex enough to be a challenge, but simple enough to make. So with those 30 different levels think of some things you can do to spice up the game play but keep it simple.

One thing you could do is introduce a new item to the player, or mechanic, and basically teach them how to use that for 5 or ten levels, and then they use it to fight a boss. This way, you can focus the design of levels around one concept while also having the player engaged in the game so they can learn to use the item.
 

JasonTomLee

Member
Complexity doesn't make everything fun, in fact it can do the opposite. Try to simplify things, as that it is easier on the programmer and player.

In my game I have a boss who can seem complex at first: He fires three waves at the player, shields himself in a bubble when he loses enough health, if you don't freeze the bubble in time he regenerates the health you worked so hard to wear off, and he randomly teleports through whirlpools.

When fighting it seems complex, but really its rather simple because of state machines. It's complex enough to be a challenge, but simple enough to make. So with those 30 different levels think of some things you can do to spice up the game play but keep it simple.

One thing you could do is introduce a new item to the player, or mechanic, and basically teach them how to use that for 5 or ten levels, and then they use it to fight a boss. This way, you can focus the design of levels around one concept while also having the player engaged in the game so they can learn to use the item.
Ooh I totally agree with what you said on introducing a new mechanic & slowly implementing those mechanics into the game as you progress. I think progression of difficulty is very important for the play to stay engaged, but not bored / raged enough to stop playing.
 

Jezla

Member
One of the things I tried to do in Cave Lander is to make the levels progress in difficulty and range of obstacles. The first few levels focus on allowing the player to learn to fly the lander. The obstacles serve to make the flying more challenging without changing the basic mechanics or controls. So I introduced falling rocks, then gas jets that push you off course, lava, different types of falling rocks, moving landing pads, and spinning worlds. Each is introduced so that it's not an immediate hazard to the player, yet they're aware it's there, so in the next level they're looking for it.

The basic mechanics didn't change, the player just encounters increasing challenge in executing them.
 
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shadyx8

Guest
I think what your doing is you develop so rapidly that you haven't figured out the core mechanics that makes your game fun, when you first start a game develop the core gameplay. For example think of what makes super Mario fun, fun from the first second you play it. The core game play is the tight running and jumping mechanics as well as the responsive and satisfying feeling the play gets from jumping on goombas. If those two mechanics didn't work then it wouldn't matter how good the graphics are or how many enemy's they are. So start out your game as small as possible and figure out how to make the most basic and ubiquitous actions feel right then build your game around that.
 

Jabbers

Member
What I've learned in the last couple of years is that sometimes ideas that seem fun in our heads actually turn out to be pretty boring games in reality. Executing these ideas in the appropriate way is also very important; even something as simple as a well made interface or a comfortable control scheme can have a big impact on how enjoyable a game is. Finding the right idea and executing it well is the challenge of game development.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
IMO the best way to make a fun game is to test play it and tweak iteratively - when you end up running around in the test room 10 minutes just trying out your movement skills over and over, you've made it fun enough. Even if you've got an idea that's fun in theory, you probably don't know exactly how to set up all physics constants and stuff to make movement feel snappy enough and such, and you can often get completely new random ideas in the spur of the moment as you see things interact.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
I think @Barvix and @Jabbers said it well. "Fun" is a combination of factors, but there's certainly no recipe. It's arguably the most elusive aspect of game design.

Sometimes simple games that seemingly lack much design, can be unexpectedly fun. At the same time, some (mostly) well-designed games that should be fun, aren't... due to simple mistakes such as poorly designed controls.

I suppose anything that depends on people's preference will be complicated. Hard to define, and different for each person. I've played beautiful story-based RPGs... and quit after 5 minutes from boredom. Other players are captivated and play for days. Go figure.
 
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Galladhan

Guest
IMO the best way to make a fun game is to test play it and tweak iteratively - when you end up running around in the test room 10 minutes just trying out your movement skills over and over, you've made it fun enough. Even if you've got an idea that's fun in theory, you probably don't know exactly how to set up all physics constants and stuff to make movement feel snappy enough and such, and you can often get completely new random ideas in the spur of the moment as you see things interact.
I totally agree with you. And, i bet, Miyamoto would agree too.
He said, about Mario 64:
"Well, in the beginningā€¦ we were working on something really simple - deceptively simple, even, from the perspective of the team that would go on to finish the huge, final game. (laughs) There was a room made of simple lego-like blocks, and Mario and Luigi could run around in there, climb slopes, jump around, etc. We were trying to get the controls right with an analogue 3D stick, and once that felt smooth, we knew we were halfway there. And so, along the way, we realized we wanted to create a slightly larger area for them to move around inā€¦"
 
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